Killer Pizza

by Greg Taylor

  “Don’t be stupid, man. Get outta here,” Strobe ordered.

  “No way.”

  “Go! I mean it!”

  “No way I’m leavin’ you!”

  Glancing over his shoulder, Toby knew he would not be able to make it to the water. He grabbed the rod of rebar that had been knocked from Strobe’s hand, came around, and stood in front of Strobe to shield him from the creature. When the monstrous guttata was close enough, Toby lunged with the metal shaft.

  The Alpha slapped Toby onto his back as though he were a mere toy. Knocked practically senseless by the Alpha’s casual smackdown, Toby could hardly move, let alone get away from the thing. Still, he desperately tried to inch away from the beast as it took another menacing step toward him.

  Long strings of saliva dripped from the Alpha’s mouth. Its finger talons snapped together, as though sharpening themselves for a bit of flesh carving. Huge black-veined wings curved up and over Toby, like a death shroud.

  This was it! The final, decisive attack! Toby knew he couldn’t dream his way out of this one. The creature rose up and prepared to rip into him, when suddenly—

  ZZZZZZAP!

  The beast’s one good eye shot wide open in shock. The thing looked like it had been hit with a sudden jolt of electricity. Toby stared at the creature, not quite believing what he was seeing. But what was he seeing? What just happened?

  Toby watched, fascinated, as the Alpha guttata’s surprised expression was suddenly replaced by …

  Nothing.

  The spark of life in the mighty beast’s hideous frame had vanished. The creature stood upright for a moment, then slowly toppled forward. Toby had to roll away to avoid getting flattened by the monster’s tonnage.

  The thing slammed to the ground with incredible force. Sure enough, protruding from the back of its neck, was an arrow.

  Annabel stood thirty or so yards away, still sighting along the shaft of her crossbow. She stood like that for a moment, then slowly brought the weapon down and held it at her side.

  Dazed disbelief all around. Just like that, it was over! The creature was dead! It didn’t seem possible!

  Toby and Strobe were too exhausted to get to their feet, let alone celebrate, so they both stayed right where they were as Annabel walked toward them. Strobe let out a relieved laugh. “Oh, man,” was all he could think of to say.

  Toby smiled. But Annabel wasn’t smiling. She was way too concerned for her boys. “I’ve never seen anyone actually fly through the air like that, Strobe.”

  “You should have seen it from my perspective.” Strobe tried to move, but quickly stopped with a wince. Something was definitely wrong with his leg as well as his arm.

  “Just … take it easy,” Annabel instructed as she knelt next to him.

  Strobe watched Annabel closely as she inspected his leg. “I didn’t think you’d be so quick about it.” Annabel wasn’t sure what Strobe meant by that. “You already saved us back,” he explained.

  Annabel smiled. “I guess that makes us even.”

  “For now, anyway.”

  As Annabel found a piece of wood and pulled a bandage from her backpack to fashion a splint for Strobe’s injured leg, Toby heaved a sigh of relief and exhaustion and lay back on the grass. He closed his eyes and soaked in the wonderful feeling of just being alive.

  His hyper mind whirled, grabbing and discarding one electric image of the battle with the Alpha after another, then something started to muscle its way into the series of action snapshots in Toby’s mind, something indistinct at first, but then there it was in bold letters and it was the only thing Toby was thinking of.

  Evil cannot see good, but good can always see evil.

  G vs E. The never-ending battle.

  Tonight, Toby knew, good had definitely seen evil. It had looked the beast right in the eye … and had triumphed.

  EPILOGUE:

  GRADUATION

  “ … in recognition of your completion of the KP Training Program, I declare you, Annabel Oshiro, Gordon Tibbles, and Toby Magill official Killer Pizza MCOs.”

  The three new graduates stood with Harvey and Steve at the front of the Killer Pizza classroom. Strobe shifted uncomfortably on his crutches. He wished he could get at that itch under his cast.

  “Seeing as this is a secret organization,” Harvey continued, “you will not receive any kind of badge or certificate. But know that you are a member of an elite force. It is something to be proud of. There is much more to learn, of course, and I hope that you will continue to study, continue to protect and serve your community from the dark forces that exist in this world for many years to come.”

  Harvey shook each of their hands, then Steve did the same.

  “When do we get those raises?” Strobe asked.

  Annabel rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe that was the first thing Strobe thought to ask after being officially declared an MCO.

  Harvey didn’t seem to mind the question. “As promised, today,” he replied. Then he gave the trio his version of a smile and left the classroom.

  “That’s it?” Strobe asked in surprise.

  “That’s it,” Steve echoed.

  “We don’t get a cake or anything like that?”

  “No. However …” Steve pulled three envelopes from his pocket and gave one each to Strobe, Annabel, and Toby. “I’m more than happy to hand out your bonuses for extracurricular activities taken on during your training program.”

  Strobe ripped open his envelope and pulled out a small stack of crisp twenties. “Hey, this isn’t bad. I’ll take it.”

  “Once again, congratulations,” Steve said as he gave everyone a warm smile. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some packing to do.”

  Anxious to get back to New York, Harvey and Steve were leaving that night. Which meant that the new MCOs would be in charge of the Hidden Hills branch of Killer Pizza’s underground organization of monster hunters.

  After Steve left, Strobe looked around the classroom. “Still feels kind of anticlimactic, don’t you think?”

  “What’d you expect?” Annabel asked. “A marching band? Cheerleaders?”

  “That would’ve been nice. After all, it’s not like we’re gonna be shipped off to some monster hot spot halfway around the world. We’re gonna be right here, waiting for the next fiend infestation. Whatever it might be.”

  “Poor baby,” Annabel said. “Would you feel better if we had some kind of celebration? Say, Prospect Park? Sunset?”

  “That’s a great idea,” Strobe said, immediately perking up. “I’ll bring the drinks.”

  “I’ll bring the snacks,” Toby offered.

  “What you can bring,” Strobe said, looking at Annabel, “is me. On the back of your bike. Otherwise, I won’t get there till midnight.”

  “You got it,” Annabel said. She hung back as Strobe and Toby headed for the door.

  “Comin’?” Strobe asked. Annabel didn’t move. Just looked at Strobe with a mischievous grin. “What’s that look for?”

  No reply.

  “What’s with you? What is it?”

  “Your name is Gordon Tibbles?”

  “Yeah? So?”

  Annabel’s smile grew wider as she walked past Strobe on her way to the door.

  “Hold on!” Strobe ordered. “What’s wrong with Gordon Tibbles?”

  “It ain’t Strobe, that’s for sure,” Annabel said over her shoulder as she left the room.

  Strobe glared at Toby, as though daring him to make fun of his name, as well, then lurched after Annabel on his crutches.

  It was a beautiful evening. Perfect temperature. No humidity. Toby was already at the park when Strobe and Annabel arrived. He was sitting on the bench, looking at the neighborhood below. There were more kids than usual playing in the streets. More adults sitting on their white plastic chairs, arranged in semicircles on their lush lawns, talking to the neighbors.

  The people weren’t out because they now felt safer, knowing that a pack of g
uttata had exited their city after the death of their leader. Nobody down below had a clue about that, of course. No, they were groovin’ on the evening because they all shared the same instinctive feeling.

  Summer’s almost over. Time to enjoy it while it’s still here!

  “Hey, guys,” Toby said when he saw Strobe and Annabel approach, his heart skipping a beat at the sight of Annabel. For most of the summer, Annabel had been wearing the same black Killer Pizza T-shirt as Toby and Strobe. But tonight she had discarded the T-shirt and jeans and was wearing a very colorful tank top and miniskirt, accented by pink flip-flops. She looked absolutely gorgeous.

  “Been here long?” Annabel asked as she sat next to Toby. She placed the plastic cooler she had been carrying at her feet.

  “A little while,” Toby replied. “Just enjoying the evening. Sittin’ … thinkin’.”

  “What about?” Annabel asked.

  Strobe sat heavily and tossed his crutches to the grass.

  “Well, for one thing …” Toby pointed out an expanse of neatly trimmed grass to the right of where they were sitting. “That’s Hidden Hills Cemetery over there, Strobe.”

  Railroad tracks cut a straight line between the residential area of Hidden Hills and the grassy area of the cemetery, which was symmetrically dotted with flat granite gravestones.

  “I’m familiar with the cemetery, Tobe. I do live here, after all.”

  “Right. Anyway, this friend of mine? The guy with the Echo Lake house? When we were kids we would sneak across those tracks at night and tell ghost stories among the gravestones. It was a pretty scary thing to do when you’re ten years old.”

  “Is the point of this story that you’ve grown up a little since then? Or now you have some real stories to tell?”

  “Both, I guess,” Toby said. Then he smiled. He was caught up in a nostalgic moment and feeling pretty good. Actually, it wasn’t just nostalgia that had Toby in a good mood. Thanks to a delivery of the perfect replacement for the shredded living room sofa a few short hours before Mr. and Mrs. Magill returned from their vacation, everything was cool on the home front. The Subaru was back in the garage, as well, which meant there were no telltale signs of Toby’s misadventures to indicate that anything had gone awry during the past few days.

  More important though, as far as Toby’s good mood went, was the fact that Chelsea was on the mend from her guttata bite. Toby had gone to the hospital earlier in the day and was thrilled to find Chelsea wide awake and sitting up in bed.

  The breakthrough, the thing that had turned things around for Chelsea, was an antidote Harvey had been able to concoct from Chris Child’s blood. So, if Toby hadn’t been able to win his battle with Child …

  Chelsea would never know that Toby had played an integral part in her recovery. For one thing, he would never tell her. For another, Chelsea didn’t appear to have any memory of the first time Toby had come to see her in the hospital.

  That was okay with Toby. He knew what he’d done for Chelsea. That was all the reward he needed. It was the main reason he had signed up for the academy in the first place, after all. To protect the unsuspecting public from the unknown evil that lived in their midst.

  “Hey, what do you have there?” Strobe asked. He was looking at an insulated Killer Pizza delivery sleeve under the bench.

  “Our snack,” Toby replied, picking up the sleeve and sliding out a large pizza.

  “You brought a pizza for a snack?” Strobe looked disappointed. “C’mon, Tobe.”

  Toby distributed a couple of slices to Strobe and Annabel.

  “Try it,” he said.

  Annabel studied the pizza slice, then took a bite. After savoring the taste and wiping some cheese from her lip, she nodded appreciatively. “This is excellent. What is it? I don’t recognize it from the menu.”

  “Hey, this has a kick to it,” Strobe said after taking a nibble. “What’s in this? Some kind of curry?”

  “A chef never reveals his secrets.”

  “Wait,” Annabel said. “Are you saying this is yours? Your own creation?”

  Toby nodded.

  “That’s fantastic!”

  Toby shrugged, trying not to look too pleased with himself.

  “So what’s in it?” Strobe pressed. “Is this curry, or what? What kind of cheese is this?”

  “I’m not telling, Strobe.”

  “Have Harvey and Steve tasted this?” Annabel asked.

  “Just yesterday they did.”

  “And?”

  Toby didn’t answer right away. He was building the moment. And thinking about the past week. After going in early to Killer Pizza—before it opened—every day to experiment with his new recipes, he’d finally cracked Dragon Breath, had finally hit on just the right combination of ingredients.

  “They said I could give it a test run at the Hidden Hills branch of Killer Pizza,” Toby said with a smile.

  “Chef Toby!” Annabel said, giving Toby a big hug. “I’m so proud of you!” Toby smiled, basking in the moment.

  “Congrats, man,” Strobe said. He reached for the cooler and pulled out three soda bottles. Each one was a different, sparkling color. “I have just the thing to go with your new creation.”

  “Italian soda?” Toby asked.

  Strobe nodded. “Direct from Italy. Compliments of my mom. I have Raspberry. Cinnamon. Almond Rock.”

  “Ladies first,” Toby said.

  Annabel chose Raspberry. Toby took the Almond Rock. The trio fell into a comfortable silence as they ate their pizza and drank their Italian sodas and looked out across the quickly darkening landscape. They were almost done with their evening celebration when Annabel’s cell phone rang.

  “Harvey,” Annabel said after a brief conversation. “He’s going on a final pass through the neighborhood in the Commando before taking off. Just to make sure everything’s clear. Wants to know if we’d like to go out on our first official patrol as MCOs.”

  “You bet,” Strobe said, instantly excited. “Who knows what the radar might turn up?” Strobe reached for his crutches, propped himself up, and careened toward the stairs.

  “The man likes his work,” Toby said.

  “Yes, he does,” Annabel said as she packed up the picnic basket.

  Toby retrieved his pizza sleeve from under the bench, made sure they hadn’t left anything behind, then took a final look around the park. Fireflies were starting to accent the quickly darkening hilltop area. Lights were coming on in the houses below. Magic hour.

  Toby took it all in, nodded thoughtfully, then walked across the park to join Strobe and Annabel. When he caught up with them at the top of the stairs, the three new Monster Combat Officers headed off to see if anything was going bump in the Hidden Hills night.

  RECIPE FOR FIERY DRAGON’S BREATH PIZZA

  (MAKES ONE TWELVE-INCH PIE/APPROX. 6 SLICES)

  *Note: always ask an adult for help when working in the kitchen

  INGREDIENTS:

  PIZZA BASE:

  You can buy one already-made pizza crust or (for the more adventurous chef) make it from scratch, using:

  2 cups of flour

  ½ tsp salt

  ½ tsp fresh yeast

  ¾ cup lukewarm water

  1 tbsp olive oil

  SAUCE:

  1 small onion, finely chopped

  ½ clove of garlic, crushed

  ½ tsp dried oregano

  7 oz can chopped tomatoes

  salt and pepper

  ½ tbsp olive oil

  TOPPINGS:

  ½ roast pepper (from jar or roasted in the oven, deskinned and deseeded)

  pinch of Cajun spice

  ½ small jalapeno pepper, deseeded and thinly sliced

  ½ small packet of pepperoni

  ½ oz freshly grated Parmesan

  3 oz mozzarella, roughly chopped

  a few basil or oregano leaves

  DIRECTIONS:

  1. In a large bowl, mix flour and salt together, dissolve yeast
in water and slowly add to the flour. Mix well until it forms a dough. If too sticky, add more flour.

  2. . Knead the dough for roughly 10 minutes. The dough should feel smooth and elastic. Shape the dough into a ball and place on a troy with a light sprinkling of flour and cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise somewhere worn for 30 minutes.

  3. Preheat the oven to 475 degrees.

  4. Place the onion, garlic, tomatoes, olive oil, and oregano in a food blender until smooth and add salt and pepper.

  5. Sprinkle a surface with flour; roll the dough ball into a circle until ¼ inch thick.

  6. Spread the tomato sauce thinly and evenly across the base.

  7. Sprinkle a layer of cheese and arrange your toppings. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden brown.

  FOR A REALLY FIERY TASTE, SIMPLY ADD MORE PEPPERONI, CAJUN SPICE, AND PEPPERS. ENJOY!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Killer Pizza is my first book, and I’m happy to be able to acknowledge some special people.

  Beth Polson heard this story first and helped bring it alive. Dan Vining was a constantly inspiring guide as I worked on draft after draft of the book.

  I’m fortunate that Scott Miller, my agent, not only decided to take on a new writer, but also, in Feiwel & Friends, found the perfect home for the KP manuscript. Killer Pizza is a better book because of Jean Feiwel’s instincts and input, and the very helpful and specific notes of my editor, Kathryn McKeon.

  Ben Pert provided the recipe that is included in the book. I tried out Ben’s recipe before submitting it to F&F and can attest to how tasty Fiery Dragon-Breath Pizza is. Bon appétit, Ben!

  A heartfelt thanks to my mom and dad. Among other things too long to list, my parents allowed me to become the person I needed to be, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.

  Finally, I’d like to thank my family. I doubt that I would have started writing stories for younger readers had it not been for my son and daughter. Jessica and Ian, you continue to be the bright lights in my life. As does my wife, Joanne, whose rock-solid support through our many years together has meant the world to me.