Hello everyone! As part of Short Story Saturday, I have posted another short story, this one entitled Pizza Guys. It is inspired by this prompt: https://www.writersdigest.com/prompts/pizza-delivery-driver. Please enjoy. Also, if you haven’t already checked out my FAQ on my upcoming book, Magic Once Removed, please check that out as well. Thanks again!
The haze fades as my eyes blink themselves awake. It must have been a wild night. I’m sure I was at a party or something though I don’t even remember going to bed.
Wait a second, there wasn’t a party and this isn’t my bed. I’m sitting on a chair bolted to the floor. My ankles are attached to its legs with some sort of adhesive. I’m guessing duct tape. Both arms are behind me. I struggle frantically to move my limbs. No dice. It seems my hands are literally tied, probably duct tape again as well but I’m not sure.
My head clears and I’m able to get a better look at my surroundings. It is a deplorable sight. The floors are covered by layers of dirt and grime. Perhaps once the walls may have been white but they are now mostly beige with dark black in spots I assume is mold. A thin strip of light from what I assume is a nearby window is at my feet. It is the only illumination in an otherwise black room.
Cockroaches scurry under my feet. A couple scurry up my legs almost literally making my skin crawl. I panic again but my restraints prevent me from really doing much and certainly do not allow me to escape their hairy appendages. Eventually, they leave me alone.
The smell though, oh my God, the smell. Think of the foulest things in the world, stagnant water, rotten food, fish cooked in the microwave, a locker room full of football players after a game in the mud, my Aunt Mabel’s underwear (don’t ask), and multiply them all by a hundred and perhaps that’d be adequate to describe a tenth of how this room smells. I’d vomit but I don’t think I have anything in my stomach right now. It loudly growls as if to confirm these thoughts.
There is no furniture, furnishings, or decorations of any kind. I take a quick look slightly to my left and get a glimpse into the room in front of me. It contains a tiny bed stained almost black with thin strips of baby blue peeking through. On top of it rests a stained yellow pillow.
A quick peek to the right reveals a bathroom. Besides the deep brown stains and empty space where a mirror should be, the sink, toilet, and even the bathtub contain bile that I would rather not describe. The hunger I had but a moment ago instantly disappears. Int its place, nausea and an even greater anxiety to escape.
How did I get here? That’s right. My memory slowly returns as my head continues to clear. I was delivering a pizza. The house I went to had a dilapidated rooftop, rotted wooden fence with hardly a single fencepost remaining upright, a brown dirt-filled yard, and its walls were decaying brick. I know after seeing that most people would have just turned around. But my boss isn’t happy with me. My last two deliveries were over an hour late.
What can I say? Each time, I had to make a quick stop. Band emergencies I had to take care of. I’m sure you understand. Oh, by the way. We have a pretty sweet gig this Saturday. We’re playing at the Kohn’s Bar Mitzvah. Assuming I get out of this alive, of course.
The point is I already had two strikes on me. Yes, my boss calls them strikes. He’s a big baseball nut. Anyway, if I get a third strike, I’m out. And getting fired wasn’t and isn’t an option. I’m saving up for one fine Gibson that I’ve had my eye on for quite a while. Though by now my boss is probably pissed that I’m late coming back. I bet I’m going to be fired anyway. Great.
I suddenly hear a grinding noise. What the hell could it be? My head veers to my direct left. There is a tiny room whose contents are obscured by a thin wooden brown door. As if the room itself is answering I see sparks fly. I’m no expert but it sounds like someone is grinding something sharp like a knife or a sword.
A shiver goes down my spine. Goosebumps emerge all over. A cold sweat forms. My body trembles and my lips quake. It is as though my blood has been completely drained. I struggle once more with greater intensity than before. My arms and legs flail. They don’t move very far but they move as rapidly as humanly possible within those restraints.
It’s completely ineffective. Fatigue sets in, both mental and physical. I give up. No use trying the same thing over and over again if it’s not working. Maybe I should have taken weight training more seriously.
Fantastic. Rocco got to play Twister with a bunch of sorority girls during his last delivery. Marty got to spend some time with Mrs. Ambrose who found a very creative way to pay for her pizza. Me? I get tied to a chair and in a few minutes, I’ll probably be skinned alive and eaten. My mentor tried to warn me. I was only half paying attention. And my boss interrupted him before he could fully explain. But he tried to tell me something like this might happen.
“It’s criminal what they do to you lads,” old Hoss Chavez said with his oddly Irish accent. His large unlit stogie moved across his gritted teeth and thick lips as he scratched his thick, black beard with his wizened, brown hand. “They fill your minds with propaganda. They tell you how glamorous the pizza industry is. They start when you’re young with all those advertisements for Chuck E. Cheese. And I don’t have to tell you about the kind of propaganda they spread in the porn industry. They don’t warn you of the dangers.”
“A conspiracy from Big Pizza, I suppose,” I snickered.
“You’re laughing now but you’ll soon learn what I mean.”
“Chavez!” our boss yelled when he overheard our conversation from behind the counter. “Don’t scare him like that! Odds are he’ll never have to face the same kind of trouble we’ve had to encounter! Seriously, what are the odds?” He scratched his head. “Right now, just focus on the job. Show Jon how to make pizza and nothing else! And take that cigar out of your mouth! This is a non-smoking facility!”
“Yeah, man, just show me how to make a pizza,” I said. His ensuing stare made me regret those words. I wanted to curl into the fetal position.
He turned his attention back toward our boss. “Aye, Mr. Callahan,” Hoss said with a mock salute. The old man proceeded to show me how to do the job without further commentary. But, uh, he still never removed the cigar.
Now all I can do is await my fate.
I hear a knock at the door. It is the most angelic sound my ears have ever heard.
“I’m tied to a chair!” I shriek. I turn as much as I can toward the sound’s source, the burgundy front door. Only a part of it can be seen from my periphery. The knob is outside my line of sight. “He’s going to kill me!” I have to yell especially loud to avoid being drowned by the grinding noises.
A rollercoaster of emotions overwhelm me as I hear the tumblers move only to return to their original position. Those noises were then followed by a series of expletives. On one or two occasions, a sound similar to metallic snapping fills the air which also results in a great deal of cursing. After what feels like hours but in actuality is probably only a minute or two, the door suddenly flings open and slams against the wall with a gigantic thud. Daylight floods the room and sears my eyes. A shadowy figure emerges. He stands at the door chest thrust forward, tools in hand, looking like a Norse hero.
“Hoss! It’s so good to see you!”
“You as well, Lad, but we have to get you out of here!” Hoss dashes to the chair. Each step is loud and heavy and makes the ground shake. He kneels next to my chair and proceeds to free me from my duct tape shackles.
“Not so sound ungrateful, but how did you get in here?”
“I picked the lock.”
“You picked the lock?”
“Aye, lad, when you’ve been in this business as long I have, you come prepared.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I got to work and noticed you weren’t there. I asked Callahan about it and he told me you hadn’t returned from your last delivery several hours ago. That got me very worried especially because of the nature of our business. Callahan wasn’t worried, though. After all, ‘you’ve pulled these stunts before’. He also said ‘This home wasn’t marked’ and assured me it was safe. Obviously, he was wrong about that one.”
I scowl. “What? Because of the nature of our business? And this home wasn’t marked? What does all that mean?”
“There’s a lot we haven’t told you. But I’m not sure if I can explain or whether it’d even be appropriate. We’re obtuse for a reason, lad. Anyway, I looked through the computer to see the address of your last delivery. And since my next stop was nearby, I thought I’d swing by and make sure everything went all right. When I saw your car was still here, I knew something was wrong.”
Eventually, Hoss manages to remove the tape. I rub my wrists and ankles to return circulation. It takes a moment before I get used to my legs again. I slip a bit as I rise but I can catch myself on the chair that had been my confines before I fall. Hoss lifts me with his right hand and helps me stand upright. I feel something hard against his waist.
“What’s that?” I ask pointing at it.
He patted it. “My .45.”
I raise an eyebrow. “A .45? Isn’t that a gun?”
“Last I checked.”
“Why are you carrying a gun?”
“After what happened to you, do you really need to ask?”
I pause for a moment. “Good point.”
Hoss gestures toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
He leads the way forward but before we can reach it, I feel a hot wind blowing against my neck moving some of my thick brown hair over my eyes. It’s followed by a hideous, inhuman shriek that fills the air.
I turn slowly and Hoss does the same.
Standing before us is an emaciated man with ribs sticking out through his pale skin. His eyes are sunk deep into their sockets. There is not a single hair on his body. It looks as if he died of starvation and has risen after a week in the grave. In his right hand, he brandishes a large, glistening butcher’s knife. A long gray tongue slowly swings from side to side from his gaped mouth as a viscous liquid drips from it.
“What the hell is that?” I ask emphasizing every syllable.
Hoss sighs. “A wendigo. I was hoping to get you out of here before we’d have to confront it.”
“What the hell is a wendigo?”
“An evil spirit that turns men into cannibals. It’s funny. I’ve never seen one that seems concerned with food preparation. You’re lucky.”
“How the hell am I lucky?”
“Most of the time a Wendigo devours its victim like a feral beast. This one wanted to cut you into bite-sized pieces. Because of that, I had time to come to your rescue.”
I shrug. “Okay, great. So, uh, what’s the plan?”
Without saying a word, Hoss draws his firearm, aims it at the creature, and fires forcing me to scream and cover my ears. I look in time to notice the impact has knocked it off its feet onto its back. His legs have curled under him and his arms have fallen limply to his sides.
My eyes are like saucers and my jaw drops. The ringing in my ears has just cleared. “You killed him!”
“No, I didn’t. He’s unconscious. See, he’s still breathing.”
“No, he’s not… Wait, oh my God, what’s happening?” Before my eyes, the gaunt wendigo transforms into a pudgy, middle-aged man with short black hair and thick eyebrows. His nude body twitches slightly but it appears more due to his apparent slumber than being in pain. All things considered, he seems happy.
“The bullet transformed him back to his original self,” Hoss explains.
I breathe a sigh of relief. “That’s good. I’m glad you didn’t kill him.”
“Trust me, lad, there is no need to worry. It was all part of my plan.”
I glower. “What plan? You just shot the damn thing.”
“What you saw just now was the end product of many years of preparation. It’s like the old joke with the engineer where he marks an ‘X’ and charges a large amount of money because he knows where to put the thing. What you’re seeing is the ‘X’, the result of years of hard work.”
“So it took you years to realize a .45 is a Wendigo’s weakness?”
“My bullets are enchanted. They’re able to harm the spirit while leaving the human host completely intact. It took many years of study to learn the spell to cast, to gather the ingredients, and to discover how long to marinate everything. Besides, the job is only half done.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve freed the body but the spirit hasn’t been destroyed. That can only happen if I recite a very specific incantation from this book.” Hoss reaches into his back pocket. His expression suddenly turns perplexed. He pats around but cannot find what he is looking for. My friend turns pale. His eyes are wide. “Oh, crap. I must have dropped it outside.”
“Dropped what?”
Before he can answer, sparks ignite above us, and a haze forms. It’s unbelievable. I literally do not believe what I am seeing. I’m in a fog as surreal specters form in front of me. I am too shocked to shout and too awestruck to flee. My hands move to cover my eyes and my ears but that does little to hinder the audio and visual cacophony taking place in front of us. A vortex is now formed. My hair rustles as a powerful and sudden swirling wind manifests just above us. Whistling and crackling noises similar to lightning and thunder echo loudly causing the house to shake. Appearing before us is a murky ashen and cobalt demon head within a pentagram. He wears a broad, sinister smile. A red substance drips from his fangs.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Hoss shouts as he runs out the door. He doesn’t have to tell me twice. I follow close behind. We return to the outside world but have no time to dally. Our pursuer is quickly gaining ground. We dash toward the driveway to our left. My car is closer than Hoss’s because I parked on the inside lane of the driveway. I admit that half of it is in the dirt yard while he is parked perfectly perpendicularly.
“Look!” I suddenly shout. Something caught the corner of my eye as we ran. I point to it. Next to my car’s driver’s side tire is the book. It is partially obscured by my vehicle’s undercarriage but its red and blue cover clashes with the brown making it easy to see.
“I must have dropped when I looked inside your car to make sure you hadn’t fallen asleep again,” Hoss remarks snidely. He shuffles past me to pick up the book.
Just as he does this, the Wendigo spirit rushes past me. “Look out!” I scream. It’s too late.
“Aaarrggh!” Hoss’s anguished shrieks fill the air as the spirit enters him with extreme force, so much so that he’s thrown against my car. Both then soar several feet above the ground and through the air. The vehicle, shortly afterward, lands with a cacophonous crash. All of its glass shatters. I cover my eyes and face and narrowly avoid being hit by any of the shards.
Moments later, I gradually uncover my eyes and through the cracks of my fingers as I’m no longer hearing any noises. I look over to Hoss and hope beyond hope that the man has not been reduced to a mangled corpse. I cannot tell for I no longer see the man I knew.
He is replaced with a creature whose body is bony and skeletal devoid of a single hair. His expression is vacuous and his gaped mouth reveals a long, floppy tongue. Large claw-like nails emerge from his fingertips. His skin is ashen gray. He rises to his feet. His pants and underwear fall from his thin frame.
Upon noticing my gaze, the possessed man rips his shirt off and throws it aside like a feral beast. His shoes and socks are kicked off his feet. He pounds his chest and screeches toward the heavens. Then he looks directly into my eyes.
A primordial fear forms in my chest. My body shivers. A cold sweat forms on my back, stomach, and chest. For a moment I feel like I’m about to lose control of my bowels and bladder. I back away as he approaches and I am so frantic in my efforts to escape that I neglect caution. It is as if I am using my feet for the first time in my life. The slightest thing could trip me. My right foot then makes contact with a solid object and I fall and hit the ground with a huge thud.
My vision blurs as the creature continues to gradually approach. It is as though I am being stalked by a hazy gray mass. I shuffle on the ground on my elbows and the back of my feet. My feet thrash sending dirt and dust wildly into the air. One of my feet hits something small causing it to skirt along the ground. It stops near my right hand. I glance over. It’s the book Hoss had dropped earlier.
The possessed man now hovers over me. He raises his hand. His nails glisten in the sun. It suddenly moves downward and rapidly strikes the ground with a massive force, causing an auditory crash. He is incredibly strong despite his scrawny frame.
I am able to roll out of the way in the nick of time. As I do, I pick up the book in one hand and crawl along the ground toward my companion’s dropped pants. My actions cause cuts and bruises to my hands and knees but I cannot be bothered with that right now. The possessed man is in pursuit but he is not quite as agile as I am. It takes a few moments for him to turn around. This provides me enough time to get a little bit ahead.
I reach for the belt and move my fingers along until I find what I need. Hoss showed me what I must do. With the holster unhooked, I draw and point the firearm at my would-be assailant. The creature jumps several feet into the air with both hands raised high above his head. I aim and fire.
Bang!
My hands fly backward and the gun squirts out of my hand forming Blisters on my palm. I’ve never fired a gun before and even though I knew that they can have quite a kick, I still wasn’t expecting that kind of force. In a panic, I pat both hands on the ground and search for the weapon until I realize I no longer hear the creature’s sordid grunts. He now lies on the ground in a crumpled mass. I rub my neck with the unblistered part of my palm and laugh. Talk about an unbelievably lucky shot. Suddenly, the monster transforms before my eyes. In place of the wendigo is the familiar muscular frame and bearded head of Hoss Chavez lying unconscious on the ground.
“I’m only halfway done,” I mutter to myself. I open the book. Every single page is blank.
Sure, I didn’t quite know what to expect but even this defied all expectations. I stare in consternation. Why is this book so important if there’s nothing in it? What kind of game is Hoss playing? I flip through the manuscript rapidly. I refuse to believe there is nothing in here that can help. With each turn, I become increasingly desperate. I almost want to cry. The sky begins to change. A familiar wind blows. Sparks once again ignite. Once again a vortex is formed.
I stand dejected and reticent, resigned to the inevitable. It wouldn’t hurt to take one more look in the book, I suppose. It’s better than just waiting here depressed. It’s still empty. I’m not sure what I expected. I let out a heavy sigh. A single manly tear falls down my cheek and lands against the page.
Then all of a sudden, a miracle happens.
Words emerge out of nowhere filling the page with a language I had never seen before yet could somehow understand. I stand for a moment completely perplexed but when the misty demon face forms, I decide this is not the time to think. It is time to take action.
I recite the incantation. Each syllable is spoken fluently as if it were my native language. With each phrase, with each sound I utter, the demon’s inhumane screams reverberate against my skull. Yet I remain resolute and continue reading. My voice grows with every phrase until it is a shout that resonates throughout the neighborhood.
A large flash fills the heavens above and the apparition fizzles into a miasma of rage. It lets out a monstrous, earth-shaking scream as it stretches apart. The sky collapses to a single circular point and the world turns black. It is darker than it is at night. Not only is it silent it is as if sound itself doesn’t exist.
An explosion knocks me to my feet. My vision is once again fuzzy. When it once again clears, I look up. The azure sky is filled with fluffy white clouds. Birds chirp pleasantly indicating that noise has returned. It is as if the last few hours of my life have all been a figment of my imagination. For a moment I think this is true until I see that my car remains toppled over.
I look over toward my fallen companion. He looks around seemingly bewildered as he rubs the side of his head. I ask if he is okay. Outside of a slight headache, he is fine. Not wanting to see my friend sans clothing any longer than I have to, I gather his pants and underwear, his socks and shoes, and even his shirt that he turned into rags. I hand them to my companion as well as the book, “Here you go. And don’t blame me for the ripped shirt. You did that yourself.”
“Thanks, laddie,” he says as he puts on his clothes except for the remnants of his shirt which he tosses aside. Hoss places the book in his back pocket and makes sure that it is tucked in firmly this time around. He then scans the yard. “What happened here?”
I explain what happened in the last few perilous minutes of my life.
His eyes grow wider than I’ve ever seen them as his jaw drops. “Are you telling me that you were actually able to read the words in the book?”
I shrug with a bemused smile. “Yes, I mean, eventually. The pages were blank but then I started crying, I mean, my eyes filled with dust so I shed a tear. Then, all of a sudden, words appeared out of nowhere.”
Hoss shakes his head several times. “Impossible. Nobody should be able to read from the Muzayaf Kitab unless…” His voice trailed.
I raise an eyebrow. “Unless what?”
He grabs both of my shoulders. “Unless you too have ‘the gift’!”
I shove his hands aside. “What gift? What the hell are you talking about?”
Instead of answering, his head darts around and his attention turns elsewhere. “I’d love to talk to you about this, lad, but I don’t think this is the best place to be telling secrets right now.”
I look around the neighborhood. It seems that the commotion has gathered quite the crowd. As I was oblivious to everything but the wendigo, I cannot say how long they’ve been out here. I would not be surprised if they witnessed the entire event.
Their faces display an expression that one could describe as beyond bewildered. They are all truly mystified. Some seem to have been able to retrieve their cell phones to record the proceedings. Most, though, just stand with their jaws metaphorically hitting the floor.
An unfamiliar voice emerges from the door of the Wendigo’s former home. Hoss and I look in that direction. “Where the hell am I?”
A pudgy nude man stands at the door. “And how the hell did I get here?” He is the Wendigo’s former victim.
The man then panics and starts running down the streets of the neighborhood. His antics draw the attention of the crowd. He seems strangely unaware that he currently isn’t wearing any clothes.
“That should provide us the diversion we need to escape,” Hoss remarks. “We can use my car. Let’s get out of here.”
I take one last forlorn glance at my vehicle before I join my companion in the passenger seat. I let out a heavy sigh. “I only had two payments left.” I shake my head sadly and then enter the car of my bearded companion.
“Callahan and I are part of a secret cabal that fights supernatural creatures most people foolishly believe are mythical,” Hoss explains as he drives us back to the pizza parlor. “These beings often use delivery services to attract young prey like yourself. It’s why Callahan and I bought the local branch of a popular pizza chain. Of course, we’d draw suspicion if we only had us two as employees and didn’t open things up to the public. We had to act, for the most part, like we were running a regular pizza place. It’s why we have so many of what I personally like to call ‘civilian drivers’. Callahan calls you guys ‘necessary evils’”.
“Wait!” I yell. “This whole thing is a front so you guys can fight monsters? What about us, the drivers? We’re the backbone of your company! Aren’t you worried that we’ll be killed? And you’re really sending us out there to die defenseless? That’s barbaric!”
Hoss rubs his eyes with a free hand. “Look, we don’t send you guys to places we know are dangerous. We thought we had marked where all the potential monsters lived. Even if there is a hint of suspicion, we mark it down. Er, most of the time. We missed this one and made a huge mistake. We apologize for that. I apologize for that, okay?”
“So you know supernatural creatures are running around in the wild yet Callahan didn’t want to send a rescue team to come and save me?”
“First, that’s Mr. Callahan to you. And second, you did that to yourself. You have a bad habit of disappearing whenever you feel like practicing with your band.”
I lean my head against the window. “Still think you should have been more proactive, all things considered.”
Hoss pats me on the shoulder. “You’re right, lad, you’re right. And I apologize. Still, and I almost hate to say it, everything worked out for the better.”
My head perks. “It did?”
“Yes, indeed. In fact, I think this calls for a celebration.”
He motions for me to move slightly as he opens his glove box. A sea of cigars flows out. He grabs one and places it in his mouth. His hand reaches for the vehicle’s cigarette lighter, I think the only one left in existence, and lights the stogie.
“You can grab one too if you like,” Hoss says as he opens the windows and lets out a puff of smoke.
“No, thanks. And how did everything work out? What exactly are we celebrating?”
He looks at me and grins widely. “We discovered that you have ‘the gift’.”
“Right, you said that before. What exactly does it mean?”
“You were able to read from the Muzayaf Kitab. Nobody can do that unless they have ‘the gift’”.
I growl. “All right, but what’s ‘the gift’?”
“It’s the ability to perform magic and cast spells. I can do it. Callahan can do it. And now it appears that you can do it too.”
“I can? I mean, how? The pages were blank. Er, at first.”
“As they are for all of us until our latent abilities manifest. Don’t worry, lad, I’ll train you. We’ll start immediately. I’ll teach you everything you’ll need to know.”
“I’m not sure I want to be part of this, though.”
Hoss stares for a moment and lets out a large puff of smoke, neglecting to blow it out the window this time. I wave my hand across my face and cough. “Look,” he says, “I understand. You’ve been through a lot and I’m sure that this job was only supposed to be something to get you through the summer.”
“I only wanted to earn enough money to buy a Gibson.”
“What’s that?”
“A really good guitar.”
“Oh. Anyway, lad, very few people have this ability. I know it’s not what you wanted. Very few of us want this. But since it was thrust upon us, we must fulfill this obligation.” He pauses once again. “Do you like superheroes?”
“I mean, I guess. I only really liked Spiderman.”
“Perfect! That’s great! And what is his famous catchphrase?”
I look at my feet and sulk and debate whether I should answer. “With great power comes great responsibility,” I finally mutter.
“What’s that?”
“With great power comes great responsibility!” I shout.
“Exactly! Your power is ‘the gift’. Your responsibility is to protect the world from the evil supernatural entities that plague it. It’s in your blood. It is your destiny.”
I look out the window and stare at the peaceful blue sky. It should ease my apprehension but somehow only fills my heart with dread. I let out an exasperated sigh. “I guess I’m going to miss the Kohn’s Bar Mitzvah after all.”
If you enjoyed this story, then perhaps you’d be interested in reading more by pressing the “short story” tag below or clicking this(short story) link or this(genre and tags) link or this(story list) link. I would also urge you to share this story with others and comment below. Please check out my books page as well by pressing here. Magic Once Removed will be available soon, so please check out the FAQ. Thank you for reading my story.
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This is a very good story and seems to be a good lead in to more adventures. I really enjoyed reading it.