By David Himmel

HE TOOK AIM FROM HIS ROOFTOP PERCH. The tripod steady on the rake, he breathed in measured breaths. A gentle gust of wind. He delicately adjusted his scope to account for the shift. Not that it was a hard shot. Andy was only ninety-five yards out. The morning sun was at his back, which was a double bonus. No glare for him and a blind for those looking to see where the shot may have come from. Andy couldn’t have asked for a better mark at a better location.

Maria’s shift at Turnip, Atlanta’s hottest new vegetarian restaurant, started at ten o’clock. She preferred the lunch shift. The hour of prep work before opening was her own little therapy session. Polishing the silverware, rolling the napkins, setting up the soup and salad stations, brewing the coffee… it gave her time to think without having to think about it. Nothing specific, just a chance to be alone and quiet with whatever thoughts were in her head that day. Working the lunch shift meant she could be home in the evenings for her kids, Miguel and Rosa. The money wasn’t bad. A lot of business meetings occurred on her shift. It turned out that vegetarians prefer their tofu, kale, and sprouts with alcohol.

The Planned Parenthood Andy had lined up in his sight was just a few blocks from Turnip. It was a convenient way to take care of an inconvenience. Her appointment was at nine sharp. Fifteen to twenty minutes in and out then off to work. Andy checked his Luminex Evo Navy Seal Blackout watch. 8:56 a.m. He looked at the building through his binoculars to see Maria rounding the corner. He followed her into the building with the scope’s crosshairs covering her head. He adjusted his position and scope once more. Then he waited, breathing those measured breaths just like he’d been taught.

As Maria exited, she looked upwards, perhaps toward God, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. Andy clicked the safety off with his thumb and took one last slow breath as he wrapped his finger around the trigger. He squeezed. Maria opened her eyes. Andy thought she looked sad as the rifle’s muzzle flashed in his scope. Maria’s head jerked back as the bullet pierced through her shattering the glass doors of the Planned Parenthood behind her with blood, gray matter, skull fragments, and a twisted, hot piece of lead. She dropped to her knees then slumped over with her bleeding head resting peacefully on the curb.

Andy disassembled his weapon with lighting speed. He packed it away in the black backpack made specifically for a weapon of this sort. He bolted to the roof access door as fast as his little, chubby legs would carry him. He made his way through the condo/office building stairwell without being noticed just as he had done on his way up. Andy was good at his job. And for a nine-month-old baby, he was really good at it.

✶ 

THERE’S A PLACE FOR THE UNBORN DEAD. One that exists in the heavens complete with the best parts of a Black Ops training facility and a McDonald’s indoor play area. It’s where the babies—fetuses—aborted by their mothers might find themselves. Unaware of who they are or where they came from, these fetuses are collected and turned into weapons of revenge. They were born into an afterlife of service to a vengeful being operating in the darkest shadows far off the radars of Heaven and Hell. Black Ops for Babies with one mission: Provide balance to life on Earth. A life for a life. One moment the fetus is alive, warm and unaware, in its mother’s womb and the next it is standing in the presence of a magnificent dark lord literally on new legs that would have grown had Mommy Dearest not terminated that opportunity. The baby is taught to hunt, kill, and hide in plain site while on Earth executing its mark. And when vengeance is served, the young, undead assassin returns to the void the magnificent dark lord calls home.

✶

 ANDY WOKE FROM HIS NAP in his Pack ’n Play filled with pacifiers and Baby Einstein gadgets against siding made of flaming mesh. He reached for the bottle in the corner by his head and took a long drink. It was time for another mission. That was Andy’s existence: Mission —> nap —> snack —> mission.

He was sent by the shadow-cloaked demon who collected the souls of the aborted babies to Peoria, Illinois. It was a beautiful day in Detweiller Park. Larissa was enjoying an iced coffee from Starbucks and a book in the sun. She had finally gotten around to reading The Da Vinci Code. She felt self-conscious reading it in public like that. But she was a distracted college student when the book was all the rage a decade-and-a-half ago. These were her early thirties. These were her best days.

She loved her job as a social worker helping the elderly and the poor find work, homes, solace in their lives built on disadvantage. She was house hunting with her boyfriend of six years, Freddy. They were finally having serious talks about marriage and kids. Larissa was enjoying every moment of every day. She was free. She was untethered. She was happy. And she knew she deserved it. Her childhood and teenage years and twenties were hard. A drunk mom, an absent dad, a GED she barely passed, a collegiate life that left her with debt and a short rap sheet for minor crimes like public drunkenness and shoplifting hair conditioner from a CVS. A sunny day in the park with a book that was good enough to keep her turning the pages but not good enough to warrant all the hype it received more than a decade ago.

She felt hungry and considered packing up and grabbing some Chipotle. But she and Freddy had big dinner plans. Today was their meet-iversary and Freddy was surprising her with a romantic dinner somewhere. Larissa was sure he was going to cook for her, which would be disappointing if she didn’t have an affinity for a handsome, overweight, and kind coder trying his damndest to be both Chef Gordon Ramsay and Adonis. So she sacrificed her hunger and focused on Dan Brown’s Illuminati conspiracy.

 Andy toddled through the woods. He found a fallen tree about one hundred and twenty yards away from the clearing where Larissa was enjoying her day. He unpacked his rifle, assembled it and, without realizing it, wet his diaper. But because Andy was a specter of sorts and a tool of an off-the-grid demon, the diaper remained dry. Diaper rash was the assassin’s greatest foe, which gave Andy and his cohorts an advantage. He used his binoculars to confirm his mark. Larissa. He set the binoculars down and took aim with his rifle. He breathed in measured breaths. He considered the wind and the humidity. He adjusted his scope. He aligned the sight hairs on Larissa’s face. This would be easy.

 As he clicked off the safety and wrapped his finger around the trigger, he paused. He recognized her.

 What was this? A feeling of… uncertainty? This was unfamiliar to him. He was a baby. A baby with a gun but a baby who for the first time felt remorse. He looked up from the scope. Setting the rifle down, he reached for the binoculars. He looked closer at Larissa. She was beautiful. Her jet black hair was curled naturally in the humidity and it bounced gracefully against the top of her shoulders with each turn of the page or sip of iced coffee. It reflected the sun at times blinding his view. Her bright green eyes were focused on the book but exuded a kindness and calm he’d never known since… since he was in utero.

“Fuck you, Mommy,” Andy said in the most adorable baby talk ever.

Andy was an aborted baby. His soul scooped up by a demon and taught to murder. He knew nothing else until this moment. The moment he made one hundred and twenty yard contact with his mother who had aborted him a little more than a decade ago. He took time watching Larissa through the binoculars. She read, he watched. She sipped iced coffee, he watched. She let the late spring sunshine toast her naturally golden skin to a gentle pink. He watched

After some time, Andy surveyed the rest of the park. Young women sunbathing; empty nesters walking; people jogging; an elderly European immigrant in a Speedo doing yoga; twentysomething guys throwing frisbees; a boy and his dad tossing a baseball back and forth; dogs chasing sticks and tennis balls. The park was rich with life. To Andy, it was beautiful. And he realized that he wanted to live. He wanted to get sunburned in May killing time in a park. He wanted to have a dog. He wanted to sit with his mother.

He picked the rifle up again, took aim and clicked off the safety. Because this was his life. A non-life. An unlife. The life of a slave. Larissa was enjoying her life because Andy didn’t have one. She, above all the others he had killed, needed to pay for her crime—her sin. He breathed in measured breaths and let his finger embrace the trigger

“Fuck you, Mommy,” Andy said in the most adorable baby talk ever.

But he couldn’t do it. She was his mommy. He couldn’t kill her. She had a life to live. Who was he to decide her mortality? And with that, his little baby brain was overwhelmed with knowledge of how Larissa agonized over the decision to abort Andy. How she got pregnant from a man she loved but never loved her. Was it rape? How her body struggled to keep Andy healthy as he struggled to grow inside of her. How she knew that she was too young and troubled and poor and irresponsible to raise him. How even if she wanted to, she couldn’t have done so because she and Andy were rejecting each other. If she hadn’t aborted him, nature would have.

Andy was done with letting outside forces determine his fate. And he’d be damned if he’d let those same forces determine Larissa’s fate. She was right to terminate the pregnancy. In those woods at Detweiller Park Andy understood everything. And with that knowledge he decided that he was going to give his mother the one thing that she never could give him: the chance to live.

The demon was not happy with this. But like his mother, Larissa, it was a choice with consequences Andy would have to face. And he was fine with that.

Story image used without permission from Christopher Haden Art.