On The 7th Day

by Zack Murphy

  Juliet sat beside his bed, her hand resting in his as she waited for news of a blessed event. In her other hand she held tight in her grip the small box she had been given the task to fetch for the couple.

  She still wasn’t sure the significance of the pendant but she was sure of its importance. It was the only thing Satan had forgotten after he loaded the van with the trinkets he had nervously picked up. It was the only thing a pained and frustrated Dana Plough remembered.

  The Thirteen Insurance Agents were relegated to the waiting area after Dana Plough ordered them to stop serenading her with their toned-deaf rendition of Walk Like An Egyptian over and over again. The hospital was white and sterile and it made the Agents long for the grassy green of her backyard where they had been cast out to earlier.

  They all watched with lapsed boredom as gaggles of sickly elders shuffled their ways back and forth along the corridor. A large thin black box lay in front of each of the Agents, their metal hinges gleaming in the fluorescent lights from overhead.

  *****

  Dana Plough had recently returned to her private room in the maternity ward and settled in to watch a little television. She raced through the channels with abandon as she searched for something to take her mind off the nuisance of pre-childbirth.

  Satan came in knocking, carrying a dozen roses and a smile. He placed the flowers on the nightstand next to the woman who was burrowing a crisp hole straight through the bouquet of red forgiveness.

  “Why hasn’t this thing come out of me? We’ve been here for hours.”

  “It takes time, these things. You know.”

  “You told me it would be quick and painless,” she turned her head to ignore his sight. “’You won’t even know you’ve given birth,’ you said.”

  “It should have been. I don’t know what’s wrong. As soon as they get here, we’ll--.” Satan’s eyes immediately reflected in him a man who had just divulged too much to an angry woman.

  “What people? We’ve got a freaking army standing guard over this room. How many more people do we need to get one child out of me?”

  “They’re not exactly people who are coming.”

  “And what non people are we expecting now? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Because that would be nice, they could sing the thing out of me.”

  “Don’t be silly. We’re just waiting for the bringers of the Apocalypse.”

  “I thought the baby was the bringer of the Apocalypse?”

  “Technically, no. The baby just ushers in the beginning of the end. The Horsemen actually bring the Apocalypse with them.” He said checking his watch. “And they really should have been here by now.”

  *****

  “Did anyone bring a map!?” screamed War.

  “When have we ever needed a map?” answered Famine.

  “Now, I guess,” chimed in The Death.

  “I think if we go south we should be going in the right direction,” said Conquest, a tinge of uncertainty tweaked in her voice. “Or south-west?”

  *****

  Barnaby stood in the center of the room, watchful and contemplative. With clipboard in hand, he perused what had now been, after much debate and in-fighting relegated to troops. He paced the grounds like a drill sergeant with the attention of his grunts firmly in his grasp.

  He cleared his throat and gave each one of them a look, dead in the eye. He tapped his fingers on the clipboard rhythmically as he maneuvered the tip of the pen he had been chewing on to the side of his mouth. He took the pen between the crook of his forefingers and dangled it in the air as he stared off into space. “Okay, listen up everyone, roll call time.”

  “I think we all we’re here,” said Ketty, who was by far the most impatient of the group. She had put up with a lot of his foibles but she was damned if she was going to sit around while Barnaby played out some sort of sadomasochistic role-playing game.

  “Do we?” he said skeptically.

  “Yes. None of us has left the room, we’re all still here.”

  “I think Longis went to bathroom,” said Jeremiah raising his hand, though he wasn’t sure why he needed to.

  “No, he’s here,” The Norwegian St. Nicholas said pointing to Longis, “Demeter went to bathroom. Extremely small bladder, that one.”

  “All right,” Barnaby was getting flustered by the lack of stoicism from his army, “Let’s just do the roll call, shall we? We’ll pencil Demeter in as present.”

  Demeter entered the room, his hips flaring as he strolled down the carpet. “Demeter’s back,” Actor Jonathan Frakes stated the obvious but wanted to feel like he was contributing to the madness.

  “Fine, we’re all here. Now let’s do the count off.”

  “If we’re all here why do you need to take attendance?” Ketty had a smirk that would have sunk the Titanic if it hadn’t already been taken down by a large ice cube.

  “Jeremiah?” Barnaby tried hard to ignore Ketty’s determination to take his fun away from him.

  “Here.”

  “Norwegian Santa Clause?”

  “Is this necessary? I don’t know? I think he might not be here. He’s so hard to miss. What with the whole Reno showgirl by way of Masonic Grand Poobah outfit and all!” Ketty muttered to the crowd.

  “It’s traditional!” St. Nick shouted, raising a gloved hand in front of Ketty’s face. “Besides, look whose giving fashion advice, the thrift store Raggedy Anne over there.”

  “People! People! People!” Barnaby was becoming more and more despondent over the petty squabbles of those he had deemed the saviors of the Earth. “I think we can all agree that Mr. Clause is exuberant in his choice of garments and that Ms. Bauer looks as if she shops in a panhandler’s grocery cart.”

  No sooner had the last words come trickling from his lips than Ketty’s fist came roaring through the air. The balled up hand came in hard, landing a direct blow on his jaw.

  His head snapped back and his face contorted into a mass of beet red gelatin jiggling through the tremors of the hit. As he rubbed his aching jaw trying to shake some feeling back into his face, a black blur came hurdling towards him.

  A moment later Barnaby found himself staring up at the ceiling fan that was slowly turning overhead. Ketty’s punch may have hurt, but whatever had happened next may have killed him, if he had been alive to begin with.

  He felt the weight of whatever had steam-rolled him to the ground still on top of him. His eyes rolled around his head as the pain encompassed his entire body. “What happened?” A slow hinged moan was all he could muster as he struggled to breathe under the weight of his tackler.

  “I’ll tell you what happened,” said the blur as it lifted itself off him and rose to a standing position. Barnaby looked up at the figure that was towering menacing over him, its hands clenched and trembling. The blur pointed at Ketty and shrieked, “You were kissing that hussy!”

  “Excuse me?” Ketty was taken aback by the accusation and was feeling ready to lay the smack down on her next victim.

  Barnaby’s dizziness had subsided enough to see that the blur that had caused his insides to shift a few degrees laterally was DANZ & C>500TP. “What are you talking about?” He lifted himself up and stood face to face with her. “She hit me.”

  “Yeah right, I know kissing and you two were definitely in the act of pre-lovemaking.”

  “You apparently don’t know kissing. Or love making. You obviously don’t know what the horrifying punch of a deranged woman is.” Chimed in St. Nick knowing it probably wasn’t the time, but thought it best to add a little sass to the proceedings.

  DANZ & C>500TP balled up a fist and took her best shot at him. She hit him squarely in the jaw on the opposite side of where Ketty’s damage had been done. As she watched him crumble to floor she walked over to his slumped body. She slowly turned to Santa, “Obviously, I do.”

  She started to turn away but suddenly remembered an exclamation she wanted to put on top. And with a waving tilt of her head she exclaimed to her unawar
e of being rivals rival, “Oh it’s on now. Be-atch!”

  *****

  Earl slammed the door of the moving truck closed and wiped the sweat that was dripping into his eyes. Driving off down the road the clanging from the back was noticeable and comforting to him. With every bump and turn, the rattle of cultivated steel pierced the air with their metrical shifting.

  The cigar that rolled over his lips scattered its ashes on his pants, singeing a hole. He smiled. This was the greatest day of his life, the day where all his hard work and ingenuity would come to fruition. This was the day when the whole world would know what a skilled and inventive the scruff of a man he had been.

  The truck made its way through the bowels of the parking garage, tires screeching around every turn. He parked the truck in a secluded spot away from the Beamers and Jaguars that set up house, protected from the elements nature and sticky fingered gawkers.

  He put the truck in park and turned off the engine. He sat quietly, reflecting upon the grand schemes of the universe and his role in them. He climbed out of the cab of the truck after being thoroughly convinced he was the best, even if he had to say so himself.

  *****

  “All I’m saying is that I am info-taining.”

  “You are neither informative nor entertaining.” DANZ & C>500TP said as she rolled her eyes.

  “Is that what infotainment means?” said Barnaby as he tried in vain to reason with his at the moment unreasonable paramour. “Well, I guess you’re right. It still doesn’t give you the right to just barge into my room and start pummeling me in front of my friends.”

  They had been arguing with for the past half hour, something the others in the hotel room were becoming uncomfortable with. It wasn’t that their spat was violent; it was merely the fact that anytime a couple argues in the company of others, those people will naturally progress to feeling that they should probably leave and let the couple work things out on their own.

  It would have perhaps been less weird if they had decided to go into another room to air out their grievances instead of doing it in the middle of the living room.

  Conceivably the most uneasy one at the party was Michael Ryan, who didn’t know anyone to exchange questioning glances with. He had grown close with DANZ & C>500TP, well as close as she would allow him to get without an unkind word, furtive glare or slap upside the head. He had considered her somewhat of a friend and, if he was being at all honest with himself, he was developing a crush on her.

  “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Barnaby declared, “I don’t even find her all that attractive.”

  “You do know I’m right here?” huffed Ketty.

  “Stay out of this, hussy,” hissed her unwanted or unsolicited rival for Barnaby’s affection.

  “You know I love you.” Barnaby leaned over and put his arms around her, bringing her close to his body. Their heartbeats synced as one and they stood there in a passionate embrace. Their hostility had given way to loving affection, and if the others found their arguing an uncomfortable reason to be around them, their making up trumped it tenfold.

  They held each other close as DANZ & C>500TP dried her tears on his shirt. “I’m sorry I worried you.” Barnaby relaxed his hug and turned to the room where the awkward silence of 26 eyes tried to focus on anything but them.

  “Breeders, I’ll never understand you people as long as I live,” declared St. Nick as he put his arm on Michael Ryan and winked, “Am I right?” Michael Ryan tried to figure out how the man he had put himself a good ten feet from was suddenly on top of him like a cherry on a sundae.

  “Good, now that we’re all friend again, can we get down to the business at hand and save humanity.” Jeremiah decided to take charge of the situation, a position he wasn’t at ease with but knew had to be done.

  “We can’t. We don’t have enough people yet.” Barnaby quashed Jeremiah’s brief seizure of power.

  “How many could we possibly need? We’ve got the cast of Les Mis in this room.” Said Ketty, eyeing the throngs of misfits that encapsulated the room.

  “We need thirteen to battle with their thirteen. It’s a numbers thing.”

  Ketty looked around the room at all the faces that were gathered for the inevitable war between good and evil. “We’ve got, and this is just a rough estimate, what with me doing a head count and everything, fifteen.”

  “No we don’t,” corrected Barnaby.

  “He’s right,” agreed Jeremiah.

  “Me, Barnaby, Jeremiah, Santa, Hank, Longis, Julius, Darren, Demeter, Guy-Williams, Sebastian and Jordan, The woman who beat up Barnaby, that guy she brought with her and that actor guy who showed up yesterday.”

  “Jonathan Frakes,” the actor said, “People know me. Why don’t you people know me?”

  “Fine. We all know you Jimmy,” She said, “That’s fifteen.”

  “No, it’s twelve.” Barnaby was frustrated by her lack of knowledge of the rules and regulations of universal conflict. “Me and The Death of Australia, New Zealand and Countries with a Population less than 500 Total People can’t fight. She’s what we call a subjective observer, plus she’d have to put in a lot more work if we don’t win. The guy she brought with her? Well, we’ll talk about that when we get home.”

  He shot her a look that communicated; when all's said and done spelling out the rules of jealousy, rule number being: if you barge in and accuse your man of cheating on you, don’t bring along some other guy. “He’s obviously in no shape to fight, seeing he’s dead.”

  “You’re dead?”

  “Yep.” Michael said. It was strange to hear himself say it. Even though after all he’d been through, he was actually getting pretty used to it.

  “You look good for a corpse.” Santa ran his fingers up Michael Ryan’s neck and through his newly curled head of hair.

  “Okay,” said a confused Ketty to Barnaby, “but you can’t be a subjective observer. Haven’t you been objectively putting your fingers in this pie for the past week?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why can’t you fight?”

  “Because I have more important things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, I have to walk into a crowded hospital, up to the Dark Lord Satan, take his new born baby right out of his arms, which he will be less than pleased with, then walk out of the hospital without being torn into million little pieces by a vengeful father who is one of the few people in the universe who I’m pretty sure can do it.”

  Ketty considered this for a moment and relinquished, “Well when you put it that way.”

  *****

  “And how are we doing today?” Dr. Arneau said from the doorway of Dana Plough’s room, scanning her chart. “About ready to get the little guy out of you, I bet?”

  “Is there a reason you’re so chipper when I’m in such agony?” Her upper lip was glued to her gums by the aridity of heavy breathing.

  “Yes, because I’m not in agony.” He gave a little chuckle in his deep raspy way, which kept most women swooning in his midst. After 20 years of being an obstetrician some would have thought he’d learnt the difference between a good audience of adoring women ready to take him home and one that would kill him if they hadn’t been saddled with thirty extra pounds of water baggage.

  “Come closer and you will be.” Dana Plough was a nasty drunk, a combatable host and a rotten employer, but those traits were saccharine in comparison to how she was after 13 hours of labor. Dr. Arneau knew when he wasn’t needed and slowly backed out of the room, keeping a firm eye on the raging mother who was showing her fangs in an act of indignation.

  *****

  “Well, if you hadn’t sent Loman home he could have been the thirteenth.” Ketty was still trying to grasp the idea of even numbered teams. She had lost most of the subsequent rounds to the men only because they’d said so.

  “Who?” asked Barnaby.

  “Loman. The guy who was here last night?”

  “You mean that guy
who claimed he was some sort of big shot actor.”

  “Still in the room you know.” Actor Jonathan Frakes had been called many derogatory things over the past few hours. Many things the others thought they were saying after he had left last night.

  It was one thing being forgotten when you were in the room, it was another when no one in the room acknowledged your existence.

  “Loman could be the thirteenth,” Ketty pleaded. It wasn’t as if she particularly wanted Loman to part of the team, but time was of the essence and no one but her seemed to concede to that fact.

  “Yeah.” Jeremiah paused as he pondered letting Loman back into the gang he had never been a part of, “I didn’t much care for the cut of his jib.”

  “What the hell does that mean!?”

  “His jib was askew.”

  “That makes absolutely no sense.”

  “Makes sense to me,” chimed in St. Nick. “He didn’t have the kind of jib you want to have your back.” He winked again at Michael Ryan who had been backed into a corner of the room with every passing come-on St. Nick had thrown his way.

  Ketty ran her fingers through her hair, pulling on the strayed ends in an attempt to understand these people. She was starting to worry that her last minutes on Earth would be filled with a never ending barrage of stupidity strapped to eleven points of futility.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Jeremiah said, “If we don’t find anyone else we’ll give your friend a call.”

  “If we don’t find anyone? The antichrist is on its way to destroy the world. Or had you forgotten?”

  “We’ve got plenty of time.” Barnaby scoffed at the feverishness of which Ketty was acting as if the sky was falling.

  “She’s giving birth as we speak!”

  “Oh yeah right,” he said sarcastically, “And how would you possibly know that?”

  Ketty pointed to The Death of Australia, New Zealand and Countries with a Population less than 500 Total People, who had been trying to explain that The Four Horsemen had, as they were busy arguing over all sorts of petty things, already taken flight and were on their way to L.A.

  She had known Barnaby for thousands of years and men in general for much longer and knew how stubborn they could be when they got to discussing whatever it was men talk about.