Pizza Delivery

by Robert Kent

  WARNING

  This novelette is mean and nasty and intended for a mature audience. It is absolutely not appropriate for younger readers.

  In no way is this warning an apology. I believe a horror story should aim to shock and disturb. But since much of my writing is targeted at younger readers and I run the blog Middle Grade Ninja, I feel it's only fair to warn parents and sensitive readers up front:

  In the pages that follow is a gruesome, repugnant tale featuring horrific acts of violence sure to warp young minds.

  Also, these particular characters speak in EXTREMELY COARSE language.

  Esteemed Reader, if all that sounds like as much fun to you as it does to me, we'll get along fine.

  PIZZA DELIVERY

  by Robert Kent

  www.middlegradeninja.com

  1

  THE CALL WAS TAKEN AT the Harrington, Indiana location for Tony Sty's Pizza Pies at approximately 8:15 pm, Friday, August 4th.

  Rhonda Houck took the call. Houck had been working for Tony Sty’s since February and was about to be a senior at Harrington High School.

  There was little out of the ordinary about the call itself, though Houck would be questioned about it at length by various law enforcement officials and would later repeat the story to friends and acquaintances with increasing embellishment.

  At 8:15 pm, five of Tony Sty’s six phone lines were on hold and Houck later admitted even if there had been something out of the ordinary about the call, she probably wouldn't have had time to notice.

  Even so, when questioned, she insisted she did remember taking the call. According to Houck, a little girl placed the order. She couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old, but of course, it was difficult to be sure over the phone.

  She ordered five pizzas: two pepperoni, two supreme's, and one Hawaiian special, for delivery to 2675 200 W. The background noise Houck claimed to have heard while the girl was ordering was what most interested the officials who questioned her.

  A man and woman could be heard arguing from somewhere near the phone. Houck hadn't been able to discern what the argument had been about, nor had she cared to at the time, but she did recall that at one point she heard the man clearly state, “You wicked cunt. I’m going to fucking kill you.”

  However, Rhonda Houck insisted, apart from the threat, the call was not that far out of the ordinary. It was not uncommon for a child to place an order for their parents and it was not uncommon to hear arguing in the background of a call.

  The pizzas were made, five pizzas out of an estimated 800 pizzas made that night.

  At approximately 8:45 pm, about the same time officials estimate George Kaidan was committing his first murder of the evening, delivery driver Brock Clouser returned from a previous run and helped to cut and box the pizzas.

  According to assistant manager David Fairchild, Clouser was speaking on a cellular phone the entire time he was in the store. None of the other employees spoke to him before he left and he didn't speak to them.

  At approximately 8:51 pm, Brock Clouser left Tony Sty’s Pizza Pies with three deliveries. It was the last delivery run he'd ever make.

  2

  THE FADED BLUE PAINT WAS chipped and peeling, and the trailer’s former coat of gray was clearly visible. Cheap plastic toys lay scattered across the overgrown lawn that was mostly brown with a few patches of green.

  An overturned big wheel lay on the dirt path leading up to the porch and Brock Clouser stepped around it, balancing the oven bag in his right hand, careful to avoid the many toys at his feet.

  At the foot of the trailer's dented metal porch were three lawn gnomes, all of which were cracked and chipped and only one of which was standing upright.

  Jesus, does anyone actually mean to end up like this, or does it just sort of happen? Like cancer.

  He searched the aluminum paneling beside the front door and found only a cracked plastic square with a hollow circle in its center from which an exposed wire protruded, the remains of a doorbell. Brock reached through the screen-less screen door and knocked on the imitation wood behind it. It shook with each fist pound like the door to a port-a-potty.

  The blaring of the television inside was clearly audible outside. Someone was watching federation wrestling. Just above it, he heard several children cry, “Pizza! Pizza!”

  The entire trailer creaked as someone inside got up and stomped to the front. The imitation wood door swung inward and revealed a massive hunk of woman.

  Brock swallowed hard and struggled not to allow his disgust to register on his face.

  The woman was easily three-hundred-plus pounds and dressed in a hideous purple housecoat that strained at its buttons and was covered with stains, the ghosts of pizza past. She stared at him, her expression blank, her eyes dull and her features bland and fleshy.

  “How much?"

  “Thirty-eight-eleven.”

  Four small children crowded in at the sides of the woman’s doughy calves and stared up at the pizzas with wide, greedy eyes. None of them wore shirts and the smallest wore only Batman underwear. Brock thought he could hear the sounds of a baby crying from inside the trailer, but it was difficult to be sure with the wrestling.

  The woman held out a check and pulled the pizzas from him.

  “Have a good night,” he said.

  The door shut.

  The check was made out for thirty-eight dollars and eleven cents exactly. Probably it would bounce. "Enjoy your pizzas and fuck you very much."

  Brock slid into the front seat of his 1991 Chevy Celebrity and threw the empty oven-bag in the back. He twisted the key and heard the engine turning, but it didn't start.

  He gave it a moment and tried again, pumping the accelerator to give it a boost.

  Through the windshield, he saw two sets of eyes peering out at him from the window of the trailer. He gave them a half smile and a wave. “Yes, hello children.”

  Say, hadn’t you better go keep an eye on your mom with those pizzas? Might not be any left for you.

  “Come on you piece of shit!” He turned the key hard, held it, and the engine sputtered to life.

  The children in the window watched him pull away. They looked as though they wished they were going with him.

  3

  IN THREE WEEKS, BROCK WOULD return to Indiana State University, where he had one year left to complete his undergraduate degree, not that it mattered much. Everyone knew your first four years of school were just an audition for graduate school and he was auditioning for law school.

  As Detective Alex Cross narrated his latest adventure on audio book, Brock sipped his Java Jive coffee and looked out the driver's-side window at the Kirkman Soda plant and the other factories and shipping centers as they passed. He was cruising through the industrial park, and the buildings surrounding him were the grim futures that awaited most of the kids he'd gone to school with.

  That was the way Harrington, Indiana worked:

  You went to school like they told you, you got a job like they told you, and you drank at the bar with your buddies; you got married and did the procreation bit, then you got old and they shipped you off to the seniors home or the morgue; and that was that, thanks for living, we hope you enjoyed your stay.

  Thankfully, Brock was only passing through in his protective bubble of glass and steel on his way to something better.

  Coming up on the left was his favorite sight in town, an image so striking and so fitting it summed up Harrington in a glance.

  In front of the Happy Cow Burger was a small playground, and from daytime to early evening, children could be seen playing there. Directly to the right of the playground was Johnny’s, the most popular bar in town.

  There was a playground for children and directly beside
it was the playground they'd frequent as adults. If only there were a nursing home or funeral home to the right of Johnny’s, it would've been perfect.

  His phone rang. Brock reached into the visor of the passenger side and unclipped it, reading the caller I.D.

  Olivia. Again.

  4

  BROCK STOPPED THE CAR IN front of 425 Braudigan Avenue, a huge honking house in the middle of a street of huge honking houses. He was in rich folk country—the richest 1% of this town, anyway.

  If he were going to stay in Harrington, this is where'd he live. But he was never going to live in Harrington.

  “Skip says we could move in mid September, so that’s not bad."

  “Sure. Hey, Olivia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can you hang on a second?”

  “Okay.”

  He slid his cell phone in his pocket without hanging up and rang the doorbell.

  Beside him on the porch was a mock-up of a Greek statuette: some maiden looking off in the distance, her gaze forever captured in white plaster. It was a full body cast, but the girl’s arms had been cut off just past the biceps for that extra touch of authenticity.

  Brock rolled his eyes. The job creators' version of a garden gnome.

  He rang the doorbell again.

  The huge mahogany door opened. “Hello!” Rich Bitch said as though she were greeting an old friend of the family. Her hair was done up nice, her make-up was done up nice, and she was all jewelry and fake smile.

  Brock grunted.

  “How you doing tonight?” Brock wondered how she could talk with her mouth stretched so wide.

  “I’m doing real good,” he said, speaking in a dialect he knew she was expecting. When Rich Bitch gave an eager nod to show her enthusiasm, he decided to elaborate. “It’s been a real good night, lots of great customers and the weather's been real good and I guess I’m just in a real good mood.”

  Another big, enthusiastic nod. “Well good!” Her voice was all warm and bubbly, sympathetic to the 99% outside, but everything on the other side of that door was better and she knew he knew it.

  “Last night wasn’t so good, though,” Brock said, shaking his head in a way he was sure was over-the-top with sadness in the same way Rich Bitch's nod was over-the-top with enthusiasm. “I wasn’t in a good mood last night.”

  “Oh?”

  “My dog Franklin’s been sick all summer and the vet had to put him down yesterday.” In truth, he'd petted Franklin on his way out the door this afternoon. “So that made me sad.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was really sad,” he agreed. “But I feel much better tonight! Tonight I’m in a real good mood!”

  Brock flashed his best shit-eating grin to show just how goddamned happy he was.

  “Well, super!” Rich Bitch took the pizzas from him before he could say more.

  Apparently a buck fifty was the going tip for grieving pet owners. Figures. Being rich in Harrington is like being the healthiest patient in a hospice.

  5

  IT'S A TIRED, BUT TRUE cliché: the friends, if there were any, and neighbors of serial killers, mass murderers, people who just up and went fucking nuts, never seem to suspect that said bat-shit-crazy person was actually bat-shit crazy.

  Without fail, neighbors of psychos relate: “He was very quiet and unassuming and kept mostly to himself.”

  No one ever says: “He was obviously criminally insane. He was always killing people and doing criminally insane things.”

  In the information age, no one paid enough attention to their neighbors to know either way until a neighbor either tried to kill them or was caught killing some other quiet and unassuming neighbor.

  George Kaidan was, by all accounts, quiet and unassuming.

  He was by no means a pillar of the community, but he'd never been considered a troublemaker either. He worked on a construction crew, had, in fact, been at work that Friday afternoon, and the worst his coworkers could say of him was that he preferred to eat his lunches alone with his Bible.

  His wife of nine years, Nancy Kaidan, used to cut hair at the Five Star Salon downtown, but she stopped after her children were born. Nancy Kaidan was also quiet and unassuming.

  So far as anyone could recall, she'd not been overly happy, nor overly sad. It may be that her husband had been rough with her at times, but this was not uncommon in Harrington and later, those who might've known for sure were reluctant to speak ill of the deceased.

  George and Nancy Kaidan had three children: the oldest, Maggie, was eight. Jill was five and the youngest, Tommy, was two. The family attended New Life Christian Church over in Brownsborough most Sundays.

  They were the average, all-American family. They were quiet and unassuming.

  They had a mortgage on their house at 2675 200 W for more than the property was worth. They made regular payments on an older model minivan. They went to see movies at the local theater, they showed up for the annual Fourth of July parade, they had picnics in the park, and they sometimes ordered pizza from Tony Sty’s Pizza Pies.

  6

  OLIVIA WAS STILL CHATTERING IN his ear as Brock turned off Braudigan Ave and headed toward the Kaiden house.

  Olivia Conner, soon to be Olivia Stevens, had been his girlfriend his sophomore year of high school and the first girl to let him go all the way. Their relationship hadn’t lasted—she left him for dorky Skip Stevens—but they'd stayed friends.

  At the beginning of the summer, Olivia had confided in Brock that she was two months pregnant and in the usual Harrington manner of things, she and Skip were now engaged.

  Christ, what a mess. But you couldn’t tell Olivia that. And what would be the point, anyway?

  “Skip says he’s still going to get the promotion,” she was saying, “it just might take a little longer than he thought.”

  Brock thought it might take a lot longer, but, of course, he couldn't say this. Skip Stevens was a fuck-up, end of story. That much, at least, had been obvious to Brock in high school, though it appeared to have escaped the attention of the future Mrs. Fuck-up.

  Skip worked at Huffman’s. He was on the line right now, but hoped to have a supervisor position before long. Brock didn’t know how much they were paying old Skip, but even as supervisor, he'd never live on Braudigan Avenue.

  Olivia was working at Three Blind Mice Video (in Harrington people still rented physical media instead of downloading it like everyone else in the modern world). Mr. and Mrs. Skip Stevens had future-trailer-trash written all over them.

  The phone beeped in Brock’s ear. He checked the indigo display. The battery was nearly dead.

  “Hey, Olivia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You ever think about going to school?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe someday, after the baby’s born.”

  “You ever think about uh... well, not having it?”

  “You mean like an abortion? You know I'm Christian. Besides, we’re getting married, so why would I?”

  The phone beeped.

  “Yeah, but—remember how you wanted to be a teacher in high school? Don’t you still want to do that?”

  “I don’t know. Right now I want to see if I can get through this wedding first.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Jesus, Brock. You and your fucking questions.”

  “I’m just trying to understand, that’s all.”

  “No, that’s not all. You think you’re so much better than me just cause—”

  “I don’t think that.”

  “Bullshit. You do think that. And you know what? Not everybody wants to go to law school.”

  “I never said—”

  The phone beeped.

  “I’m getting married because I want to. I’m going to be a mom because I want to. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing, I just—Look, I’m sorry if—”

  There was a loud jingle and the phone shut itself off. The word “goodbye” appeared on the display screen. Th
e battery was now officially dead. He chucked the phone into the backseat.

  “Well, that went well,” he said to the empty car.

  7

  BROCK STUCK HIS CIGARETTE OUT the window to tap away the excess ash.

  He was traveling on 200 W now and so far as he could see, there was nothing out here. It had been a full minute since he'd passed 925 200 W and he hadn't seen another house.

  To either side of the road were fields and trees and other shapes made indistinguishable by the dark. Out here, he could no longer see the lights from town. There were no streetlights either, only miles of power lines running parallel to the road.

  The pavement trailed off and the road became gravel as country roads always did. Though the tires slipped and skidded on the gravel, he kept the car at a steady fifty-five miles-per-hour, slowing as he passed mailboxes reading 2025 and 2284.

  Another long stretch of darkness and road, and then, there it was: a mailbox reading 2675, jumping out of the darkness like a spring-operated ghost in a spook house.

  Brock slammed the brakes and turned the wheel.

  The Chevy skidded on the gravel and charged onto 2675 200 W’s driveway at an angle. Its front left tire thudded down into a small grass valley to the side of the driveway and struck hard enough to jerk Brock against his seat belt.

  The car rolled forward a little farther, then the engine shut off.

  “Fuck me.”

  His cigarette had fallen into his lap and rested between his legs on the car seat, its smoldering business end pointed toward his crotch. He grabbed it before it could slide back and burn his balls, and chucked it out the window.

  He looked toward the enormous farmhouse set far back from the road. Even in the dark, he could see its white paint was peeling. The porch lights were off and none of the front windows were lit, which was good.