I don’t remember much about that little town in the Oklahoma panhandle. The tumor had just taken Emma, leaving our newborn child, Ollie, as the one thing I had left of her. Quickly, I found out that I couldn’t handle the hustle and bustle of Houston without her, so I left for up north, for somewhere quieter, a little cooler, and where Ollie could grow up safe and sound. Of course, there were a few hiccups in the move, a few older folks who were angry about the city slicker coming to spoil their idyllic hamlet, but for the most part, the townspeople were helpful and upstanding.
About a month into my residency, word went ‘round the town that someone was building a casino a few miles south, on the Texas border. Within a few weeks, the town had boomed from about two hundred to over a thousand, mostly construction workers and their families. Though I was still religious at the time, I had nothing against gambling; live and let live was my general philosophy, even if I wouldn’t bet myself. However, as the news reached me, an odd, almost ill feeling overtook me, one which I couldn’t really explain. As the weeks passed, it didn’t subside, but rather filled my days with anxiety. I tried to rationalize it, saying to myself that I was just nervous about the cost of baby food, trying to find a good preschool, that promotion I was trying to secure at work. At the same time, Ollie, normally such a well-behaved boy, wailed his lungs out day in and day out, depriving me of badly-needed rest.
One day, however, it subsided, seemingly without cause. I woke up free of the creeping dread which defined my life for the last month and a half. At the same time, I noted to my great happiness that Ollie had remained mostly quiet for the night. Checking on him quickly, I saw him sleeping peacefully in his crib, a mobile spinning slowly over his head. He shifted quietly, filling me with fatherly pride. Gently, I lifted up my infant son and carried him into the kitchen to prepare breakfast for us both.
I hadn’t even finished mixing the formula when I heard someone tap out “shave-and-a-haircut” on the front door. Hurrying to answer, I picked up Ollie and set him back in his cradle before going into the foyer to answer the door. Looking through the peephole into the porch, I saw nobody. Assuming it to be some prankster, I opened the door, intending to give a stern talking-to to the perpetrator.
It was like the man had just appeared before my door. He couldn’t have come all the way up from the driveway in that time. However, he was there all the same. A tall, pale-skinned man clutched his hands in front of his chest nervously, a little too thin for his height. However, he was immaculately groomed, with perfectly-combed brown hair and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles on his warm hazelnut eyes. The strangest thing about him was his outfit, a tailored black tuxedo with coattails not unlike what the conductor of an orchestra would wear.
“H-hello, sir,” the man stammered, his voice high-pitched and with a distinct British accent, “My, erm… my car’s broken down just down the block. Do you happen to have anything I can use to fix it? I’ll pay you to let me.”
“Uhm… sure. Let me go get my tools.” I said, unsure of this new arrival.
“Thank you, thank you!” the man nodded in gratitude. I quickly went over to the garage and started looking for my toolbox. Ollie began to cry from the other room, filling me with parental dread. Eager to feed him, I found my toolbox and rushed back to give it to the man, who, to my mild annoyance, was now standing in the foyer, rocking back and forth on his heels as he looked around the room.
“Here ‘ya go.” I nodded, handing him the tools. The man nodded, then turned on his heel and skipped out of my house like some sort of Mary Poppins character. Unsure of what to make of him, I took Ollie with me to look out of my doorway at him while I fed him. The man had made his way down the street to his car, a stunningly archaic vehicle.
“Hey, is that a Bentley?” I called over to him.
“Yes, sir! A Mark VI, to be precise.” he proclaimed proudly.
“I didn’t know they made them for right-hand-drive markets.”
“They did! Costs me a fortune to maintain, but I keep the old girl fresh as the day I got her back in ‘48.” he bragged, popping up the hood and getting to work, somehow managing to keep his suit totally clean as he did so. I set Ollie down on the floor to crawl about as he pleased while I watched. Briefly, I was struck with confusion at him mentioning the year; he didn’t seem nearly that old. However, I quickly dismissed it as him having misspoken.
A few minutes later, the man finished whatever he was doing with the car and it started with a beautiful purr. Before coming back, the man grabbed something from the backseat of the Mark VI and tossed both the tools and it to me. Upon further inspection, it was a box for a baby monitor.
“I heard your child in the house and thought perhaps this would be adequate?” the man proposed, pointing at Ollie. The infant giggled at the attention.
“Hey, I’ve been needing one of these for a while! Thanks, man.” I said, smiling.
“Say, what’s the little one’s name?” the man asked.
“Oliver. Ollie. My wife…” my throat briefly seized at the mention of her, “my wife loved that name.”
The man casted down his eyes. “Sorry for your loss, sir. Though, that’s actually quite interesting. My name’s quite similar.”
“Oh?” I cocked my head to the side. “What might your name be?”
“Azzie.”
“Well, nice meeting you, Azzie. You seem nice; I hope we’ll meet again.” I said, beginning to shut the door. However, Azzie stopped me.
“Aren’t you going to open the box?” he asked. It was an odd request, but not a troublesome one, so I took the baby monitor from its container. It was just as it was depicted on the outside, save for a few red splotches scattered around it.
“Yup, it’s pretty normal. Did you spill paint on it?”
“Lamb’s blood.” Azzie mentioned offhand.
I was taken aback. “What?”
Azzie leaned in, his voice dropping an octave. “Lamb’s,” he began, “blood.”
“Well, I don’t want butchery refuse on something my child could touch; it’s just not sanitary. I’m sorry, but–”
“No. You need to put this in your child’s room tonight and lock the door tight.” the look in Azzie’s eyes had changed; all nerves had disappeared and now they were tight with something far worse.
“Sir, I don’t think you should be giving me orders.” I said, a warning tone in my voice. My hand went back to the door, ready to slam it in Azzie’s face.
“Oh, I absolutely should.” Azzie growled, his hand shooting up and grabbing me by the throat. A gasp of shock and fear escaped my lips at the sudden strength he displayed. I wanted above all else to break free, to defend Ollie, but I couldn’t will myself to move.
“Look. My boss has mandated that a demonstration be made of this little Babylon of a town; to whom, I don’t know and it isn’t my place to ask. Tonight, I’m going to come through town again and the only way little Ollie will be safe is if lamb’s blood is in the room with him when I come. I’m risking my neck telling you this, and I can only do this once before eyebrows start raising, so you had better heed my words or we will both be very sorry. Do you understand?”
“Y-yes, sir.” I choked out. Just like that, Azzie let me go and I fell to the ground gasping and coughing.
“I hope your child has a long and prosperous life.” Azzie said, going back through the door.
“Wait!” I cried, “Who the hell are you?”
“‘Hell’ isn’t a very accurate word, just like Azzie isn’t my full name. Good-bye.” Azzie said cryptically, shutting the door behind himself. When I finally mustered the strength to stand, I rushed back to the entrance and threw it open, looking around frantically for my assailant, but he was nowhere to be found. Immediately, I called the police and filed a report, saying that a man in a tuxedo with an old car had come in, assaulted me, and threatened my baby, but they said that they hadn’t seen such a man. Still, they would remain on the lookout.
The rest of that day was spent in terrified activity, as I paced back and forth through the house waiting for the police to call and say they had apprehended the sicko. Lunchtime came and I fed Ollie, but had no appetite myself. Luckily, it was a Saturday, so I didn’t have to call in sick to work, but that only meant I spent more time alone with my thoughts. Dinner came and went the same way as lunch, but my heart jumped into my throat as I looked out my window and saw that the sun, in its inexorable march, was indeed going down. I looked at the baby monitor, its crimson stains glistening in the light. I heard that serial killers sometimes marked their victims in various ways, but I could see that Azzie was different. Would he, as part of a murderous rampage, spare Ollie if I conceded to his demands?
That was when I made the decision to do as he wished, setting the baby monitor down on a desk in Ollie’s room and switching it on. Still, I wouldn’t count on the word of a psychopath, so as I laid Ollie down in his crib to sleep, I laid down beside it. If Azzie came during the night, I might die, but Ollie might live. That was the duty of a parent.
My dreams that night were nonsensical and surreal, as I wandered over dunes and under the desert sun, through tangled jungles and busy streets, down into the deepest bowels of the earth and out into the farthest reaches of outer space. However, as I made my journey, a hand was always on my shoulder, never deterred by the speed of my travels or the harshness of the climes. As I looked over, I saw Emma standing behind me wearing a hospital gown and oxygen tube, her face pale and her eyes colorless and blank, just as I had last seen her before the doctors took her body away.
When I awoke, the world was screaming.
I sprang from my sleeping spot to check on Ollie, and he was still there, still sleeping, still alive. Laughing, I thanked God for his safety. Thus, my next priority was to see the source of the anguished, horrified cries coming from outside my house. Quietly, I creeped towards the foyer, then put my eye to the peephole. When I saw what was going on outside, all pretexts of stealth were abandoned and I burst out to help.
Dozens of limp forms littered the streets, attended to by hundreds of wailing and weeping parents. Some tried desperately, madly, to resuscitate their children to no avail, while many more had accepted the truth and collapsed into one another in a horrific cacophony of despair. Every first responder the town could muster was out on the streets, trying against reason to save the fallen, and when that failed, simply working to tally the bodies. Some of them, I could see, were concentrating all their effort not to fall down and succumb; they too had not gone unscathed.
I worked all through that Sunday, and the day after that, and the day after that trying to console the grieving and identify every corpse. All in all, a hundred and twenty children died on that day, all of whom had simply expired in their sleep for no reason whatsoever. The story was that there had been a gas leak of some sorts that briefly covered the hamlet in poisonous vapor, and while adults had the body mass to disperse the airborne toxin, children were overwhelmed and perished. Still, it didn’t explain how Ollie, so fragile and small, survived, alongside every child in the town who wasn’t the eldest in their household. It was then that I realized that Azzie was short for Azrael.
The media briefly covered the story and a congressional inquiry as to the safety of chemical conveyance systems was launched, but nothing came of either. A week later, my place of work was shut down after the owner was discovered with a belt wrapped around her neck, lips blue, her hand crushing a stuffed animal. By the end of the month, the town was abandoned and the casino project permanently shelved. I was one of the last to leave, alongside the old-timers. They were lucky; no one over sixteen had died, and all of their children had long since passed that age.
I left my faith behind in that moldering town so many years ago. I don’t know who Azzie’s boss wanted to impress, and neither do I know why he chose to spare me the heartbreak and not somebody else. Maybe he knew I’d have no one to turn to. I don’t think I should thank him; he’s still a murderer. All I can hope for is that the children he took went without pain, and all that I know is that maybe, just maybe, there isn’t a God.
At least, not one worth praying to.