Page 30 of X Marks the Stalker
God help me, I think I’m in love.
I shake my head and unlock my secondary workstation—the one not connected to the internet—and pull up the Wendell file. The background check I ran on Dr. Malcolm Wendell fills my screen.
Chief of Neurosurgery at Boston Memorial. Harvard Medical School. Pioneer in experimental treatments for degenerative brain disorders.
Monster hiding behind credentials.
My fingers click across the keyboard, displaying the brain scans I’d hacked from hospital records. Patient #1: homeless veteran with early-onset dementia. Patient #4:undocumented immigrant with traumatic brain injury. Patient #9: elderly woman with no family, early Alzheimer’s.
All show identical surgical modifications, never documented in official records. All dead within six months, their bodies cremated at hospital expense.
I arrange the surveillance photos I’ve taken over the past week in chronological order. Wendell in the hospital parking garage, studying patient charts. Wendell at the free clinic in Dorchester, observing patients in the waiting room. Wendell making notes as he watches a homeless encampment from his BMW.
Shopping for subjects.
I label each photo, creating a perfect timeline of his movements. This is what I excel at. This is what makes sense.
“The key is establishing pattern recognition. Wendell visits the clinic every Tuesday, identifying potential subjects who match his experimental criteria.”
I stop, realizing I’m talking to myself again.
“And now I’m explaining surveillance methods to an imaginary version of the woman I’m surveilling,” I tell my reflection in the computer screen. “Definitive proof of mental stability right there.”
I push back from the desk, rubbing my eyes. What would she make of this case?
Would she understand why Wendell needs to die, or would she want him exposed, imprisoned? Would she see the efficiency in eliminating him or argue for systemic change?
“Focus on the actual operation,” I tell myself.
I return to the surveillance photos. In one, Wendellstands at a nursing station, charm personified as he laughs with the staff. In the next, taken seconds later as he turns away, his expression transforms to cold calculation. The mask slipping.
I note the tail placements for tomorrow, the optimal positions to monitor Wendell’s movements without detection. I’ll need to log his entire routine for at least another week before determining the best intervention point.
I type the simulation parameters into the predictive algorithm I’ve designed for this operation. The interface hums as it renders Wendell’s lab in perfect 3D detail, based on architectural plans I’ve obtained through questionably legal channels.
“Test scenario alpha,” I murmur, watching the simulation run. “Subject approaches from the southwest entry. Disables security cameras at junction points here and here.”
The avatar representing me moves through the space.
“Time to complete: four minutes, seventeen seconds. Acceptable margin.”
I adjust the parameters, accounting for human error and unexpected variables. The simulation runs again. Five minutes, thirty-two seconds. Still within operational parameters.
My gaze shifts to the modified surgical equipment diagrams spread across my second monitor. Wendell’s own design, ironically elegant in its simplicity. A neurosurgical probe designed to target specific areas of the brain while the patient remains conscious.
“Perfect poetry,” I whisper, fingertips tracing the schematic. “The instruments of your atrocities becoming the mechanisms of your judgment.”
I’ve modified the design, of course. Wendell’s version allowed for precise, minimal damage, extending the suffering of his subjects across months while he collected data. My version will be more concentrated.
“Subject remains conscious throughout procedure,” I note, entering parameters into my planning document. “Full cognitive awareness maintained. Subject comprehends what is happening but loses the ability to contextualize experience.”
Wendell will understand he’s being punished, even as his brain functions fade one by one.
I create a detailed timeline, working backward from the final moment. The simulation runs again. I’ve accounted for every variable, every point of failure. The plan is sound, fitting, and adheres to all club protocols.
I close my eyes, remembering the expression on Oakley’s face at Calloway’s crime scene. Not horror or disgust, but fascination. Appreciation. She’d studied the blood patterns like they were brushstrokes, the body position like sculpture.
“She called it ‘artistic’,” I murmur, reopening the Wendell simulation.
