by Zack Murphy
“Well--?” said the doctor, scratching his head searching for the right words, “The baby is doing well? It’s just that you might want to prepare yourself for a few mild anomalies.”
Satan’s jaw dropped with the realization that the soon-to-be master of the world wouldn’t be as cute as he had envisioned. Would he need to return all those darling little outfits printed with googly-eyed bears and chicks to the store and replace them with tiny paper bags? He gulped and directed a wary question to the doctor. “Like what?”
“Horns!?”
“Oh, good I thought something was wrong with him.”
Dr. Arneau thought about this reaction for a second and concluded that if the parents were okay with horns, who was he to argue? As long as they didn’t want to sue, they could have the horniest kid on the planet. He quickly dove back under the sheet and after a minute of uncomfortable silence he poked his head out again. “How do you feel about hooves?”
“Good with me,” said Satan.
“Cool. Then you’ve got yourselves a healthy baby boy.” He brought the little bundle of joy out from behind its curtain and held it up for all the room to see.
*****
There was an unmistakable scream of the final push that rattled the halls of The Richard M. Nixon Memorial Medical Center and Cocktail Lounge’s The Maestro John Phillip Sousa International Marching Band Memorial Maternity Ward and Barnaby sighed. He tossed the copy of Highlights he had been reading and rose from his seat. He picked up the wicker basket that hadn’t been there a second before and headed toward the gasps and the fleeing Nurse Whitman.
Barnaby stopped and asked himself the age old question that had plagued many a scholar and philosopher since the dawn of time, “How in the hell am I going to walk into a room and steal a baby from the devil himself? I really need some sort of distraction.”
In the center of the illuminated hallway a small man wearing a bowler and dressed in a dapper tweed suit with bulky coke bottle glasses stood holding a vial of swashing liquid high above his head. “I’ve got a bottle of The Jamaican Whooping Fever Pox and I’m not afraid to use it!”
Barnaby paused and mused to himself as the hospital floor patrons and workers began to flee in a desperate attempt not to be the lead story on the six o’clock news, “Yeah, that’ll do.”
*****
Dana Plough held her new baby boy in her arms and caressed his cheeks with her forefinger. Satan sat beside her, gazing at the new life that would in mere hours be the death of all. The room had cleared quite rapidly after the presentation of the off spring; no one really wanted to be in its presence for fear of being kicked in the teeth by its itty bitty hooves.
Juliet took the newborn from his mother and placed him in his crib a few feet away. Dana Plough smiled peacefully as she drifted off to sleep after the exhausting ritual of pushing a nine pound bowling ball with limbs through a space that she had come to believe wasn’t made for such a thing.
Satan left the room to pull the van around front. It was going to be used to take the new king of the earth to his coronation. Juliet stared at the baby boy who cooed and grasped at the air with its tiny hands. It was indeed a miracle, and Juliet couldn’t have been more proud of her boss for bringing into the world such a handsome destroyer of man.
*****
Insurance Agent Number Seven traded heated blows of steel with Demeter as they harmonized on the Elton John/Kiki Dee classic Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. It brought a lightened air to the battle that had been sorely needed after the brutal deaths of their fallen friends.
Loman March, who had begged for the chance to join Ketty in her crusade, was now cowering in a corner, pouting as he watched the object of his unwanted advances tongue-wrestle with Jeremiah in a swirl of sweaty contortions. A large hand patted him on the back and he turned around to see the eyes of Agent Number Eight consoling him.
It was comforting to know that his pain was shared by others. It was not comforting when the man who had given him support stabbed him through the belly, leaving him to collapse in a heap on the floor.
DANZ & C>500TP, who had been watching the festivities advance from a safe distance stopped the rising spirit of the fallen Loman and remarked, “Just wait here. I can’t keep going back and forth while you dainty idiots succumb to blades through the chest.”
Longis sat at her feet next to Michael Ryan eating popcorn Michael had gotten from the cafeteria. “I still don’t understand why he can eat and I can’t. Aren’t we both dead?”
“It’s magic. Now shut up I’m trying to watch this.” DANZ & C>500TP patted the ground in front of her to summon Loman over to sit.
Loman shook his head in despair as he watched Ketty and Jeremiah. “It just makes you want to crawl in a hole and die.”
*****
Barnaby knocked softly on the archway of Dana Plough’s room and stepped inside. “Hi,” he said hesitantly to the suspicious Juliet who was tending watch over the baby. “I’m a friend of the father.” He walked over to the crib, the antichrist lay sleeping peacefully, void of his impending destiny.
“My, what a --,” he let out a pinched screech as he laid eyes the newborn. He did an awkward double take at the thing in the crib and smacked his lips, “beautiful little boy?”
“Isn’t he the most precious little thing you’ve ever seen?” Juliet had become accustomed to the sight of the boy and had grown an affinity to the beauty of the horns.
“Would you mind if I held it?” Barnaby said softly as most people do when asking permission to take a small life into their arms.
“I don’t know?” Juliet was hesitant to trust the stranger, but he was the only person so far not to run in horror of the boy, so he was probably a friend of Satan. “Oh all right, just be careful.”
“Oh I wouldn’t dream of being anything but.” Barnaby gently hoisted the boy into his arms and held the baby close to his chest. “He really is his father’s son, isn’t he?” He winked brightly at Juliet and placed the baby into the basket he had put down beside him.
“Oh no, he goes in this one.” She reached for the baby to put him back in its bed but Barnaby swung the basket around and out of her reach.
“Sorry,” he grimaced, shooting her his best expression of apologetic guilt.
Barnaby turned and walked out the door at a brisk pace, leaving Juliet in a dazed state. She stood staring at the doorway for a moment, unable to grasp the realization that she had just let someone come in and steal the only son of the devil right from under her nose. A wave of horror-struck awareness washed over her. The mindfulness that Satan would return soon and most definitely notice his son wasn’t in the same safe crib where he’d left him, was going to be something of a poser.
She stared up to the heavens and cried out under her breath, “Hi God, it’s me Juliet. I know it may be a little late for this; but I think I may your help.”
*****
The elevator descended slowly, the illuminated numbers counting down to their inevitable end. Barnaby clutched the basket carrying the sleeping conqueror of man and whistled along with the elevators rendition of The Girl from Ipanema.
It stopped on the fourth floor and a grizzled old man towing an IV scuttled onto the elevator. His rasps gurgled and echoed in the metal cage. His trembling finger bounced through the air as he tried to hit a button to take him to his destination.
Barnaby cracked his knuckles and he balled his fist trying fecklessly in telepathic desperation to wield the man’s finger to his chosen button. He put the basket down and took a step toward the panel. He pointed to the fifth floor and nodded hopefully of acceptance by the man.
The old man looked at Barnaby with confused refutation and Barnaby tried another number, the man shook his head again. Barnaby huffed impatiently as he endeavored a stab at the second floor, the man stared thoughtfully for a moment and nodded yes.
The doors closed and they were back on their way. Barnaby glanced at the man who seemed to be in his own world and wo
ndered if he was doing the right thing by saving people like this from their doom. He blew a soft puff of apathetic air and went back to whistling the tunes the elevator DJ spun.
The man waddled out of the elevator when it reached his disputable destination, jonnie flapping in the breeze giving Barnaby a quick peek that would haunt him for years to come. Before anyone else could get on to slow him up, Barnaby hit the door close button with a flurry of lightening prods and rode the rest of the way alone. The doors opened in the basement and he stepped off, only to turn around and hurriedly grab his cargo before the doors closed on him.
*****
Juliet had, in a panic, shielded the empty crib from view with her sprawled body when Satan returned. She smiled nervously as her hips shimmied to block the view of the eyes that were transfixed on her concealed failure. “Did you want to bring Dana down to the van first?” her voice quivered as she searched for anything to stall his bothersome stare from morphing into unmitigated rage.
“Perhaps we should wait a few hours until everyone is well- rested enough to go on a long trip. Childbirth can take a lot out of people, you know. Plus, I don’t think the baby is quite ready to take on the whole mantle of evil thing.” She nervously chuckled herself into a whimper as a river of desperation streamed down her face.
He knew something was wrong, and the more she smiled the more he grew unsettled in the idea that that the wrong he knew was much worse. “Juliet?”
She sidled her shielded body to reveal the empty bed where his child had been cozily sleeping just a few minutes before.
“He just, I mean, I tried--” the words of horror couldn’t escape from the grasp of her mind’s grave.
Satan grew pale as he stared at the empty bed. “Who?”
“I don’t know.” The tears raced down her face as her imagined future of regaled prosperity at the feet of kings became a life of agonizing non-stop torture, of red hot pokers shoved in virginal orifices. “He said he was a friend.”
“That son of a --,” he said through clenched teeth. The realization of Juliet’s crying confession poured over him. The crystal blue sea that had once rippled through his eyes had been overtaken by an ocean of virulent red. “He’s got some balls on him that one.”
*****
The once pristinely sterile Morgue floor was at present, saturated with the billowing blood pools of war. Barnaby waded over the freshly fabricated corpses that lined the room and made his way over to Saint Nicholas, who was propped up against a wall taking a well deserved five. “How’s it going?”
The Norwegian Santa Clause caught his breath, surveying the grim carnage that surrounded him. “Well?” he scratched his head as he searched for the right words to describe the brutality he had witnessed over the past hour. “It was more humane than the gay pride parade I attended in Peoria. At least these people know the real meaning of drag.”
Barnaby caught sight of something disturbing out of the side of his left eye. “I didn’t see that coming,” gesturing to the tangled embrace of the still lip-locked Ketty and Jeremiah.
“Count yourself one of the lucky ones. I swear I’ll never be same again after seeing that bit of horror. Give me a good disemboweled carcass any day.”
A roar that echoed the name of Barnaby rushed through the building. Barnaby and St. Nick exchanged knowing glances of the seed of the creeping bellow. “Yeah, I better get going. I’m never going to be invited to Christmas dinner again.”
“Good luck.”
“Yeah, you too,” Barnaby said as Santa stabbed a pouncing Number Nine through the heart.
He left silently, trying to stay out of the way of the flying daggers that raced around the room. The baby started to fuss from inside his nestled blankets.
Barnaby knew he had to get out of the hospital fast; the baby was becoming a bread crumb path for Satan to follow and he needed to find a candy house to hole himself up in for a few millennia.
He exited out to the setting sun-lit dusk. He stood on the curb and searched for a car to get as far and as fast away from his passionately perturbed pursuer as possible.
*****
Satan rushed up and down every floor of the hospital in a hurried, panicked hunt for the kidnapper of his only son. He mumbled things under his breath that would have made Genghis Khan blush with their murderous implications.
His face had progressed from a horrid pink flush to livid candescent red as he kicked open door after door searching for Barnaby. Small drops of blood trickled from his palm as his nails dug deep into his fisted flesh. He didn’t know who he was more furious with; Barnaby, or himself for not seeing it coming. It was definitely Barnaby. And when Satan finally found him Barnaby was going to wish he could die.
*****
A car pulled up to the entrance and a man with a blood soaked bandaged hand stepped out. “Where can I park so I can get inside to have this looked at?” he said to Barnaby, who had grown a sizable grin across his face.
“You’re in luck; this is a full service valet hospital.”
“Oh thank god!” he tossed the keys to Barnaby and went inside.
Barnaby placed the basket on the passenger’s seat and shut the door. He glanced back at the man as he disappeared into the building. He looked down at the keys that dangled from his fingers, “I must remember to send the big guy a card.”
*****
DANZ & C>500TP chuckled as she watched the fighting continue from her perch. She had been impressed by Santa’s helpers and their extrinsic flexibility in dodging oncoming steel. It was like watching a bunch of really amazing Chinese acrobats, if the acrobats had a penchant for overly exposing garments. Michael Ryan sat in a funk as he licked his lips, watching his fellow deceased chomp away on assorted candies and munchies.
Loman had gotten up and was pacing around the room fuming over his lost love. Longis and Sebastian were busy tossing popcorn at the participants of the skirmish, who were confused about where the rain of salty snacks was coming from.
The fallen Insurance Agents had joined the group and were amusing themselves singing along with the CD of eighties one hit wonders they had popped into a CD player. If any war had ever become a party it was this one [Except that for the ones who were still alive and participating. It was more like an unnecessary office bonding excursion]. The newly minted dead were more content to sit back as spectators than their previous incarnations of targeted contributors.
Darren was the next to meet his fate and after a brief yet confusing welcome to the group, found himself enjoying the spectacle. He had moments before been having a gay old time butchering the minions of evil with the pizzazz of a flamingo on roller skates. . He situated himself at DANZ & C>500TP’s feet and joined in with the fun of bonding with the fallen comrades. His shorts crept up slightly, as he slid next to Number One and started up a conversation. Much to the dismay of St. Nick, who couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
*****
Satan fumed as he stood flustered in the lobby, attempting to think like a rational man who irrational thought had taken up residency and nailed the doors shut. Rational thinking was not his momentary forte; little puffs of smoke floated from his ears [Or at least they would have if he had been a cartoon character].
He ran a shaky, panicky hand across his brow and over his head, pulling his hair back in steadfast determination to figure out which way to go. His ears perked up when he heard a deafening rumble from outside the hospital and rushed out the doors. His eyes ran upward to the sky as he watched The Four Horsemen descend rapidly toward him.
Three horses and one—‘yeah’, he thought to himself, ‘that’s a purple dinosaur came to a standstill feet away from him. Famine leapt off her beast and stretched her legs; riding Princess Lollipop was fun, but it did a number on the ol’ thighs. She patted its wrinkled head, pulled out a sugar cube and fed it to the beast. It happily chomped down on the sugary confection and gave her a big wet lick in exchange. The others followed suit, dismounting from their steeds while
paying no attention to the frantically screaming hordes of people trampling one another in a desperate attempt to flee the flying horses, and ‘yeah’ they thought to themselves, ‘that’s a purple dinosaur’.
The Death pushed the cowl from of his skull and glared when one of the stampeding throngs ran into him. The man looked up at the white, glistening, skinless noggin and fainted, leaving what some would call a grin on the jaw of The Death.
“What’s wrong, you look glum,” said Famine as she walked closer to the frazzled Satan.
“He took my boy,” he sneered in a cold and calculated voice.
“Who did?”
“Barnaby.” The name coiled off his tongue like a cobra stalking toward its prey.
“That slick bastard!” announced The Death doing his best to avoid any awkwardly guilty intonation. If he had been blessed with eyes they would have been circling back in his head in an attempt not to make eye contact with anyone.
“So? What does this mean for us?” War rubbed his jaw in deep thought about the meaning of a too many times stalled attempt at an apocalypse. He felt a tad bit guilty because he was also relieved, as the long trip had been doing a feverish tap dance on his manhood.
It may have been a fun trip for Famine, but War had been born with dangly things down in the nether regions area and horseback riding gets old after thirty straight hours.
Satan stared a seething hole through the usually confident War, who cowered a little in the icy blue eyes of the devil.
“I’m sure he’ll be back, probably just took the little guy out for ice cream,” said a trying-to-look-on-the-bright-side Conquest, who didn’t believe what she was saying.
“This is your fault!” Satan pointing a shaky finger at The Death screamed, “He’s your charge, he’s your responsibility. I blame you for this.”
“Hey!” said War, stepping in between the two, “I’ve been with him for the past few days. It’s impossible for him to have anything to do with this.”
“Yeah!” The Death was starting to think that perhaps his gasps of aggrandizing innocence were becoming a little too transparent.
Dana Plough came through the door, wheeled out by Juliet, in a fit of hysteria. She had squeezed her swollen body into a slinky red Vera Wang dress, the amulet dangling from her swollen bosoms. An orderly was following close behind, pushing the bed that held the comatose Henry.
