Pizza Delivery

by Robert Kent

  It would not do to have Mr. and Mrs. Pizza Lover looking out their window and seeing their pizza deliveryman crashing into their lawn; it did not inspire consumer confidence.

  Brock twisted the key. The engine turned over, but didn't start.

  He took a deep breath, tried again.

  And again.

  The engine sputtered to something like life. He shifted to reverse, but the car didn't move.

  He gave it some gas, but the car still didn't back up. He gave it a lot of gas and heard the distinct sound of his back tire spinning freely without purchase.

  He killed the engine, threw open the door, and got out.

  Brock felt like crying or screaming or both when he saw the state the old Celebrity was in.

  Its right side was firmly planted on the driveway while its left side hung over into the yard. The back left tire hung suspended over the miniature grass valley and Brock knew he'd have to push it back to solid ground, not that it would do much good.

  The back tire on the left side was flat. So was the front tire.

  “What the—” Brock stared at the tires in disbelief. “Oh shit. Just... FUCK!”

  Behind the suspended rear tire, a drainage pipe protruded from beneath the driveway. The drainage pipe was narrow and ribbed and its side was sharp and jagged—the sort of edge that might cut a child’s bare foot should he step on it.

  Or slash the tires of a car should some dumbass pizza delivery driver go cruising over it and crashing into the lawn.

  He screamed and kicked the side of the car. He pounded its hood with his fist until his hands hurt and his knuckles were raw.

  8

  HE SHUT OFF THE CELEBRITY'S headlights and grabbed the oven-bag containing 2675 200 W’s pizzas. Making his way up the driveway toward the dark house, he mentally rehearsed what he might say:

  Hi, I’m Brock Clouser, your delivery guy. Here’s your pizza. No, don’t worry about a tip, but do you suppose I could use your phone? I seem to have crashed my piece-of-shit car into your driveway. I know. Weird, right? But these driveways, they’re trickier than you might think.

  From somewhere in the house, music came drifting across the yard. It was country gospel, something about Noah's ark or some such shit.

  He stepped onto the porch of 2675 200 W and noted two plastic chairs to the right of the door, both overturned. One of the chairs was split down its center as though someone had stomped it.

  He rang the doorbell, waited, rang it again and listened closely, but he didn't hear a ring. He opened the screen and knocked on the wooden door inside.

  He waited.

  He knocked again. He could make out the music now. It was a kids choir shout-singing "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world."

  He pounded his fist against the door. “Come on.”

  God, please don’t let this be a crank order.

  He looked again at the darkened windows. “Shit.”

  He went around to try the back door. To the side of the house, there was an open window, and that was a good sign. People who weren’t home shut their windows.

  People who were home left them open and played their lame-ass Jesus music so loud they couldn’t hear their friendly-neighborhood-pizza-delivery-guy crashing his car into their lawn and banging the hell out of their front door.

  The music coming through the open window switched to a crooning voice singing “All Together Now” and Brock cringed. That song always gave him the creeps.

  As Brock came into the backyard of 2675 200 W, he didn't see a back door, but there were four open windows, two of which were brightly lit. The yard was on the edge of a country woods and it was very dark back here, save for the full moon and the pools of light streaming out the back windows.

  He made his way toward the lit windows, careful to hold the oven-bag high so that when whoever was inside saw him tromping around their backyard, they'd see he was a pizza guy and not a peeping Tom.

  He heard the sharp, shrill sound of a child crying out, just above the racket of the crooner singing "The shepherd called, lost lamb, come join the heard." He peered into the dining room of 2675 200 W.

  Directly in front of the window was a large wooden table around which was gathered a family. A woman and a little girl in a nightgown sat directly across from one another, their eyes opened too wide.

  Between them, a man stood at the head of the table. He was dressed in a green and blue flannel shirt and he had a thick beard. He looked like a half-assed lumberjack.

  His arms were raised above his head and he was holding something long and silver that glinted in the light.

  “Oh God.”

  Again, came the shrill sound of a child’s cry.

  The crooner sang: “All together now, we're all together now."

  “Oh-Jesus-oh-God-oh-Christ.”

  Brock knew he should be running, should in fact be getting the fuck out of there, but he couldn't move. The details of the scene came to him in fragments, like pieces of a puzzle. The whole picture hadn't yet registered, the download was incomplete.

  He stood there only seconds, but they felt like hours. He watched, the way people slow on the highway to see an accident.

  The woman. The little girl—five years old, maybe? Their eyes were huge. Staring.

  Their throats were opened. Long black and red crescent-shaped openings just beneath their chins where throats should've been were trickling thin streams and soaking their clothing crimson.

  “...yea, though we perish...”

  A child cried out, sounding distant, like a train whistle from a mile away.

  “...yea though we die...”

  The man who was standing at the center of the table—his front was also covered in blood and visceral matter, though his throat appeared to be intact, and his eyes were also too wide—brought his raised arms down swiftly.

  The sound of a child crying out. Louder.

  “...we'll all be together in the sweet bye and bye.”

  The man brought his arms up. Then down again, a swift blur of motion.

  The sound of a child not crying.

  The table was all set for dinner: plates, cups, silverware, but no food. Just blood.

  Everywhere.

  You wouldn’t think a woman and two children could bleed so much, but you’d be wrong. The table shone with reflective pools of blood.

  The man standing in the center was the worst. His shirt was drenched and his thick beard had little beads of blood dangling from its mussed black hairs.

  He brought his arms down for the last time. He left the knife where it was, its handle sticking up out of the toddler’s chest, putting it to rest like an axe in a stump.

  He looked up then and his eyes met Brock’s through the open window’s screen.

  He sighed and wiped his forehead with the sleeve, resulting in more blood being applied to his brow than sweat being removed. He reached for a bottle of Budweiser and grinned at Brock.

  “Thirsty work,” he said, and tipped it to his mouth.

  “Hey mister!”

  Brock was vaguely aware of someone calling to him; someone small. But he didn't turn to look.

  “Mister! Over here!”

  The bearded man stared at Brock and his face changed. “I don’t think we ordered any pizza.”

  Brock opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. He felt the oven-bag slip from his fingers. Pizza boxes spilled to the lawn.

  Inside the house, the bearded man grinned. “Well, now I definitely don’t want ‘em.”

  “Of course not,” Brock said. “My mistake.”

  “Hang on. I’ll come outside.”

  9

  BROCK'S FEET TOOK OFF ALL by themselves. They didn't bother to get the okay from upstairs, they just got to moving.

  In seconds, he was approaching his ruined wreck of a Chevy, half on the driveway and half on the grass. He'd been in the backyard and then he was in the front and it was good his feet knew what they were doing bec
ause Brock sure didn’t.

  He heard the front door open, so his feet decided the front yard was no longer the place to be and they turned around.

  He caught a glimpse of the bearded man in the bloody flannel shirt stepping out the front door and now looking exactly like a lumber jack because he was carrying an axe.

  Brock’s heart beat fast and his legs pounded. He had an image of himself as a rabbit: a frightened little bunny scurrying through the forest, being chased by the biggest, meanest fox you ever saw. And then he was in the backyard again.

  “Hey mister!” A little girl in a nightgown was standing beside the house. In her hands she was holding one of the pizza boxes he'd dropped. “Mister, in here!”

  Behind the little girl were two large wooden doors protruding from the lawn, but still attached to the house and the little girl was pointing to them.

  They were the doors to a storm cellar and if Brock had been in charge it might've occurred to him that the cellar was a bad idea because probably there was only the one door in and out and when Mr. Fox came bounding around the corner with his axe, he'd be one fucked little bunny.

  But Brock wasn't in charge right now. His feet were still calling the shots and the feet must've thought the cellar was a good idea because they were already running towards it.

  He managed to scoop up the little girl, pizza clutched tightly in her hands, and open the cellar doors all in one continuous movement. Then his feet were descending the cellar stairs.

  He reached back to shut the doors and then he and the little girl were in darkness.

  10

  HE'D BEEN FIVE, MAYBE SIX. It was before his parents’ divorce, of that he was sure because they'd been fighting and so his mother had taken him to stay with his Aunt Jane and Uncle Ryan. Aunt Jane and Uncle Ryan were older and their house was no fun. A month later, Brock was glad to leave.

  They were getting ready to go home to Daddy. His mother was in the bedroom talking to Aunt Jane and she'd asked Brock to carry his sleeping bag to the car by himself like a big boy.

  The sleeping bag was rolled and heavy and carrying it was too hard, so he dragged it through the front of the house. He struggled to open the door and drag the sleeping bag at the same time.

  He got the inside door open, but the outside door was harder because it wouldn’t stay open. He had to pick the sleeping bag up, which required both arms and all his strength, and so he didn't have a free hand with which to open the door. He had to push it open with his sleeping bag.

  It was a big metal door with black bars up and down the front of it, protecting a single pane of glass, which made up the center of the door. There were no bars on the inside of the door, only the slick sheet of exposed glass.

  What happened next happened so fast, Brock had never been sure exactly how it happened. He'd pushed the door with his sleeping bag and it swung open wide, but then it had swung back as he was walking though, hit the sleeping bag, and shattered.

  Later, Brock would suppose that the glass of the door might've hit the bag's metal zipper in just the right way, causing it to shatter. When Uncle Ryan called the manufacturer, they'd termed it a "freak accident," and replaced the door with a newer model at no cost.

  In the moment, Brock was aware only that it was suddenly raining glass. He'd fallen to his butt and at first all he could think was how mad Aunt Jane was going to be at him for breaking her door.

  Then he saw the blood.

  There was blood on his aunt’s carpet—she was going to be so mad—and blood on the front porch near the door. Though he didn't know where it had come from, he knew instinctively it was his. There was blood on his shorts, but it was funny, because he didn’t feel any hurt.

  Aunt Jane and Mommy told him he was so brave. He'd been brave almost the whole way to the emergency room. Then it had started to hurt. Then he'd cried because he couldn’t be brave anymore.

  What a terrible thing to happen to a little boy, to be trying to carry your sleeping bag for mommy like a big boy and to have a mean glass door reach down and hurt you for no reason.

  But things could do that. Brock learned at an early age.

  Mean glass doors could break on you and mommies and daddies could fight and daddies could leave you; you could be going along minding your own business, doing a job you were supposed to do, not doing anything wrong, and something could reach down and hurt you for no reason.

  11

  IT HAD BEEN A TERRIBLE feeling, knowing something bad had happened, but not what exactly, or why, or how, just knocked on your butt, numb and confused, but certain a bad thing had happened.

  “Hey mister?” There was no light down here. Brock couldn’t see the little girl, but he knew she was close by her voice.

  He'd carried her all the way down the cellar stairs, using a handrail he couldn’t see to guide his way. He'd put an arm out in front of him, feeling his way forward, and moved as far from the door as it was possible to go. When he felt the cold brick of the cellar wall, he stopped and set the little girl down.

  He turned back in the direction of the door, pressed his back against the wall, and slid down it to a sitting position.

  “Hey mister?”

  “What?”

  “Can I have some pizza?”

  He had a quick flash of the little girl standing beside the cellar door calling to him. She'd been holding one of the pizzas. She must've carried it down here as he was carrying her because Brock could detect the familiar smell of baked cheese and pepperoni amidst the dank odors of the cellar.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, whining.

  “Knock yourself out."

  “Thank you.”

  Brock’s heart was beating fast again. He took deep breaths to calm himself and was surprised to hear an involuntary gasp escape his lips.

  Could it be he'd simply misunderstood?

  At the beginning of the summer, he'd delivered a pizza to a house where a man and woman were shouting at each other on the front lawn. The man held a hammer and looked as though he were going to hit her with it.

  When they'd seen him, the couple stopped shouting and laughed at the look on his face. Then Brock had seen the guys on the other side of them with a video camera. Brock had walked up as they were shooting a scene for a video, and ha ha, wasn’t that funny?

  Could that be happening here? Maybe there was a film crew inside or—but the blood, the blood in pools on the kitchen table reflecting the overhead light, that had been real.

  And the blood that splattered the man’s beard when he drove the knife down into the little boy, that had been real.

  But the look the man had given Brock was what convinced him. That look that said the lights were on, but nobody was home, the engine was running, but nobody was driving. That look made it real. It was the look of a man capable of stabbing a two-year-old boy and then stopping for a beer because killing was "thirsty work."

  Brock raked his fingers back through his hair. Hard.

  “Hey mister, you want some pizza?”

  He shook his head, then realized that was stupid. It was so dark in here he couldn’t make out the cellar steps. It was so dark in here that Mr. Crazy Asshole with the axe could be right here in the cellar with them. Brock shuddered.

  “No,” he said aloud.

  “I’m Maggie. What’s your name?”

  “Brock.”

  She spoke with her mouth full and Brock could clearly hear her chewing. From the sound of it, she was going to eat that whole pizza by herself and Brock didn’t know why, but for some reason that struck him as funny. He smiled wide, but didn't laugh.

  From above, he heard the faint music that was still playing. He strained to hear the sounds of approaching footsteps or breathing, but all he could hear was some lady proclaiming, "Oh, how I love Jesus."

  “I have to stay outside,” Maggie said, still chewing loudly. “Mommy and Daddy are fighting. I’m not s’posed-ta go in ‘till they call me.

  “Sometimes I come down here. When
Daddy gets mad. Sometimes—sometimes Daddy gets real mad.”

  No fucking shit. “Maggie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Be quiet, okay? No talking. Just eat your pizza and be real, real quiet. Okay?”

  “Okay.” The sounds of chewing resumed.

  How long they sat there, huddled in the darkness, Maggie chewing and neither of them speaking, himself hardly daring to breath, Brock couldn’t say. All he knew was they were down there a long, long time.

  Above them, the faithful sang about old rugged crosses and the rough side of the mountain.

  After awhile, Brock began to wonder if maybe they were alone. Maybe the crazy asshole had left. Maybe he'd fallen asleep or maybe he was dead.

  Now there was a comforting thought. Maybe the crazy asshole had jammed a nice big shotgun up his crazy asshole mouth and bid the world a fond farewell. Brock imagined he would've heard the shot, but maybe not. Or maybe he hadn't used a gun. Maybe—

  And then, just over the sound of "Amazing Grace," Brock heard the creak of hinges. I once was lost, but now I'm found.

  A wide beam of moonlight flooded into the room as the cellar door jerked open.

  12

  LOOMING OVER THE DOOR WAS the dark outline of a man, a silhouette against the light of the full moon.

  From where he sat, Brock could make out the shape of the man’s beard and at the end of his arm, the long shape of his axe.

  The man shifted and moonlight spilled over the floor of the cellar. In the pale beam, Brock was able to distinguish a tall stack of shelves standing upright to his left. They stood out from the wall a good three feet.

  He didn’t think.

  His body overrode his mind. His arms surged forward and grabbed Maggie, and then they were scurrying along the cellar floor like mice, his hand clapped tightly over Maggie’s mouth.