My First Pizza Delivery

It was in the early afternoon of June 21st when my cellphone rang. I was in the middle of checking out a lineup of customers at my minimum-wage job at Colonel Dollar. I was trying to pick up the pace, ringing up items with increasing speed, when I glanced down at the screen. I was getting a call from Amy. I blinked twice and did a double take. Instead of letting the call go to voicemail like a responsible person, I tucked the phone between my shoulder and cheek as I continued my duties.
"Hey, Amy," I began, the customer in front of the counter rolling her eyes in her impatience. "What's up?"
"Hello, Keystone Pizza? I'd like to order two large pizzas."
I must have been temporarily physically stunned, because my attempt at multitasking had completely broken down. I inadvertently scanned the same item twice. "Amy? what are you--"
Amy's voice interrupted me quickly. "Oh, and do you have a special deal for today?"
My fingers fumbled at the cash register's buttons as my mind changed gears. "Um, we... have a special discount on two large pizzas..."
"Great! I'll have two extra-cheese pizzas. Do you deliver?"
I somehow finished the transaction in front of me and wished the customer a nice day. I stood in silence for a bit as I debated how to respond to Amy. "I, uh, it's going to take about ten hours at least... I'm still at work..."
"You deliver? Great!"
She gave me her address, which I quickly jotted down on a piece of receipt paper. We exchanged our goodbyes and hung up.
I took a moment to compose myself after that bizarre phone call, then called up the next customer, apologizing for the delay.
A few minutes later, just as the queue was dwindling to its last, my friend Pete strolled in through the automatic sliding door. He was tall and skinny, his normally pale skin on his face, arms and legs burnt a shade of red under his summer shirt and shorts, a pair of oversized sunglasses covering his eyes, sipping a large blue raspberry slush.
I called Pete over and he came and stood behind the counter with me, leaning on the cigarette cabinet and slurping his drink. The customers looked at him funny, but didn't say anything.
"Man, I just got the weirdest phone call," I told Pete, ringing up and bagging items at a personal record pace. "It was from Amy."
Pete pushed up his shoulders and shook his head. "Who's Amy?"
"She was one of my friends a while back. But I haven't heard from her in like two years. She called me up all of a sudden to try to order a pizza."
Pete's right eyebrow raised and he peeled off his sunglasses. "And you're not friends anymore?"
"Well, I guess so. A couple years back, she met this guy from Tennessee. And when he went back, she went with him."
Pete's eyes widened. "Tennessee?! Oh my God!"
I was caught a little off-guard by his reaction. "What's wrong with Tennessee?"
Pete put one hand on his head and his tone became sharper and more concerned. "Dude, don't you see what's happening here?!"
I looked up at him and grimaced.
"We gotta go! Right now! Right now!" Pete slapped the counter for emphasis. The old lady in front of the counter jumped.
"Pete, stop! I still have four hours left in my shift! Chill out!"
Pete wasn't about to settle down. He grabbed the plastic ruler that was attached to the men's room key and rapped it loudly on the counter.
"Attention!" He shouted, loudly enough for everyone in the small store to hear. I punched him in the arm, but he didn't seem fazed. "Attention please. An emergency has just come up and we have to close down the store!"
"For God's sake, Pete, you're going to get me fired!"
Pete picked up the store telephone and hit the intercom button. His distorted voice blared from the speakers, "Attention customers. Please evacuate the store. There's, like, a gas leak that's filling your lungs with poison."
I bagged up the rest of my customer's order and wished her a nice day, my face undoubtedly bright red as my hysterical friend seemed to be trying to embarrass me to death. The evacuation was quick and mostly polite, with only a bit of grumbling from one old guy who ultimately made the decision to check out first before leaving.
I closed and locked up the sliding glass door and sighed heavily. "Welp," I said, throwing up my hands and staring at Pete. "Now that I'm fired, what are we gonna do next?"
Pete just looked at me incredulously. "Haven't you put two and two together by now?" He searched for a hint of dawning revelation on my face and found none. "We're going to deliver a pizza."
"Oh, so we're just going to drive 500 miles?"
"I would drive 500 miles. I would drive 500 more!"
"Why are you like this?" I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as I leaned on the counter.
"I heard about a story just like this. A woman was in a bad situation. Like a hostage situation. So she called 911, but someone was listening in on her. So she pretended that she was calling to order a pizza."
"Okay," I started, shaking my head, furrowing my brow. "So why didn't Amy call 911 in that case?"
Pete's eyes darted around as if wild in thought. "Maybe someone's keeping track of her calls." His eyes widened further. "Maybe it's something the cops can't handle! Think about it, why would she call specifically you of all people?"
"Maybe she realized she made a mistake and finally wants to be with me?"
Pete laughed unusually loud and long. "I swear, Rob. You should really become a comedian."
I folded my arms and pressed my lips tightly, refusing to comment.
After some back and forth, we finally agreed to go, exiting out the back door. I drove my car home and Pete picked me up in his car. I hopped in the passenger seat and showed him that I had picked up a few snacks and drinks, and he showed me what he had brought.
"A gun?!" I said incredulously, as a wide grin spread across his face while patting the holstered weapon sitting between us.
He explained, "Yes, of course! This is a rescue mission, after all!"
"I don't think that's going to be necessary."
He shook his head dismissively. "My brother in Christ, when things hit the fan, you are going to want a tool to even the odds."
"Whatever, let's just get going. We've got a long day ahead of us."
Cruising down the road at 80 miles per hour, I looked down at my phone for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was my boss calling me again. He had been blowing up my phone for so long, I had to turn the ringer to silent.
"Is it Amy?" Pete asked, his tongue sticking out as if exerting a lot of energy into his task. He seemed to be concentrating very hard on driving.
"No, she still hasn't called again." I checked my call logs for the time of her last call. "It's been over an hour, should I call her back?"
Pete clumsily slapped my phone. "Absolutely not. It might arouse suspicion. Whoever is holding her hostage will figure us out."
"I think I should call her back," I started, tapping my phone's screen. "After all, wouldn't they be more suspicious if she ordered a pizza and nothing came?"
Pete pointed to the vehicle in front of us. "Look, we've started a convoy."
I made up my mind and called Amy back. It only rang one time before she answered. "Hello?"
I disguised my voice by holding my nose, quickly realizing that disguising my voice didn't make any sense, but kept my nose held anyway. "Uh hello there, this is Keystone Pizza. I've called to tell you that unfortunately, we are all out... of... pizza."
Amy was silent for several seconds, finally responding with, "Oh."
Pete spoke up into my phone with a fake Italian accent. "But hey, if you wanna wait another 4 hours, we'll have a nice-a fresh-a pizza ready for you! Mamma mia!"
I stared at him wide-eyed and mouthed the words, "Oh my god."
Amy spoke up. "So you're still coming, right?"
"Absolutely," I said, "So be ready for us when we arrive."
I could hear the smile in Amy's voice. "Alright, sounds good! Thank you!"
As I hung up, Pete backhanded me in the humerus. "What did I tell you! I called it! This is a rescue mission!"
I stared out the window, watching the scenery flying by. "I hope she'll be ok by the time we get there..."
"Our convoy will get us there. No stopping us now." Pete honked his horn and some of the other cars on the road honked back at him.
A couple of hours into our journey, I found myself staring at my phone with no new calls or messages and a full bladder. The sun was beginning to go down, flashing intermittently through the trees of the heavily wooded area we were driving through.
Pete jumped when I suddenly announced, "Pee break."
He pressed his lips together and nodded. "I agree."
Pete mashed on the gas, changing lanes and passing several cars. He swung in front of the lead car and hit the right turn signal, watching his rear-view mirror intently to see if he was able to influence his makeshift convoy into making an exit at the rest stop. His eyes lit up as the car behind him also signaled. "That's how you do it, Rob. Time to make friends."
I sighed heavily. "The last thing we need right now is to talk to a bunch of strangers. What if one of them is a serial killer?"
Pete chuckled as he pulled onto the highway exit. "That kind of stuff never happens in real life."
While I was doing my business in the restroom stall, Pete was busy having a grand old time with the other people in his convoy. As a lifelong introvert, I just shook my head slowly and walked back to the car.
Before long, Pete jumped into the driver's seat excitedly. "Well I didn't recruit any backup, but I did score some weed."
"Perfect," I said flatly as I looked out the window and pressed my fingers to my forehead.
"By the way, while we're here, do we need any more guns?"
I did a double take. "What?!" I took a breath. "Let's just get on the road. We've still got a ways to go. And I don't think you're taking this situation very seriously."
As Pete pulled out of the parking spot, he rebutted, "Seriousness means preparation. I'm coming in armed. If anything, I think you're not taking this situation seriously enough."
"I guess it's your mission, then. I'm just along for the ride."
We were both silent for a long time. The only break in the silence was when I had to take the wheel for a few moments while Pete took his shirt off. The sun was nearly set; all that was left were the red and orange clouds on the horizon. 
Pete finally spoke up after a few minutes seemingly lost in thought. "But really, why would she call you?"
I had been pondering the same question for a while. "Yeah," I responded, "Of all the people in the world she could have called, why did she call me? She didn't call the police, any of her other friends, her neighbors, anyone within a thousand miles. She called me."
"Do you have anything in common? Is there some kind of shared interest? Maybe there's something she thought you would understand better than anyone else?"
I frowned. I didn't want to have to admit that every attempt I had made to connect with Amy had failed. None of our interests ever lined up. She would feign interest in something I would tell her once in a while and it usually took me a few minutes to figure out she was just humoring me to be polite. 
"I thought she might have been interested in cryptozoology at one point. I got her to watch a bunch of videos about it. But in the end, she outright told me she was never into it."
"Cryptozoology? What is that, like Dogecoin?" Pete chuckled.
I grimaced. "What?" I shook my head and continued, "No, it's the study of creatures that haven't been officially discovered yet, you know, like Bigfoot, or Nessie?"
Pete punched me in the arm. "Nerd."
I rubbed my arm muscle. "Maybe this has something to do with it. If she thinks I know more about cryptids than anyone she knows, she would call me."
"Quick," Pete shouted suddenly, making me jump. "What kind of cryptocurrency monsters do they have in Tennessee?"
I searched my memory for an answer. Soon, one occurred to me. "The Tennessee Gargoyle. It's a hideous winged creature that comes out at night and flies around looking for prey. It mostly takes farm animals, but it's been known to swoop down and abduct humans to bring them back to its nest. Then it sucks their blood. It takes several days to suck its victims dry."
Pete stared at me incredulously. "Are you serious? Do you think Amy has been abducted by a vampire gargoyle?"
I shrugged and looked down at my feet. "I don't know, just saying we shouldn't rule it out," I said, my voice low and mumbling. "But if it does turn out to be a gargoyle, its weakness is light. Keep a flashlight handy."
It was shaping up to be a slow night on the highway. We seemed to be the only car on the road for miles. The only headlights came from the opposite side of the divided road.
"Just a little while longer," Pete said, waking me from my half-asleep trance. I glanced at my phone. No texts or calls. I looked up our location on GPS. We had made pretty good time. I started dialing and made a phone call.
Pete saw me making a call and asked, "Who are you calling now?"
I put my hand over the phone's microphone. "I'm ordering a pizza."
"Great idea! I'm starving!"
I shook my head. "It's not for us."
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled into the pizza place. Pete got out of the car and groaned loudly as he stretched. I cautiously exited the vehicle, looking up into the sky and watching for any dark figure that might be gargoyle-shaped.
We retrieved the pizza and sat back down in the car, the heat from the box on my lap already scorching my legs.
"Alright, here is the plan," Pete began, making exaggerated hand gestures as he spoke. "I'll go to the front door and distract whoever answers the door with the pizza. You go around the back and get Amy. By the time anybody realizes anything, we will be halfway out of town."
"Okay," I started, "But what if it really is the Gargoyle?"
"Don't be silly, now." said Pete. "If I need to, I'll hold the hostage-taker at gunpoint while you do the rescuing."
"Let's not use the gun, alright? The last thing we need is for you to get arrested."
"I will make no promises."
Before long, we had arrived in the small suburban town of Snyder, Tennessee. Pete pulled up into a parking space right in front of the house. It was a small, unassuming-looking, cream-colored suburban home. There were no lights on except for a flashing glow coming from the window. It looked like the television was on.
"This is the address," I said with trepidation.
"Alright," Pete said as he unbuckled his seatbelt and grabbed the pizza box. "It's showtime. Ready?"
I inhaled deeply and exhaled. I nodded. While Pete confidently marched up the path to the front porch, I darted off to the side of the building. Diving behind some bushes, I peered inside the window to see two bored-looking figures sitting on the couch, staring at the TV. One of them was Amy, and the other was a man I had never seen before, but I assumed was her boyfriend, Henry. I heard the doorbell ring, and the two looked at each other. I watched their mouths move. I couldn't read their lips, but Henry looked visibly annoyed as he stood up and walked to the front door, motioning for Amy to stay seated.
I clumsily jumped the backyard fence and made my way quickly to the rear of the house. I turned the knob on the backdoor only to find it locked. I quietly rapped on the door's window with a single knuckle, loudly enough for Amy to hear, but hopefully not loudly enough for Henry to hear.
Amy opened the door wide and gave a relieved smile as she saw me. 
"Amy?" I whispered. "What's going on? I thought you were being held prisoner or something."
"I'll explain when we get on the road," Amy started, motioning for me to come inside quickly.
I stepped through the doorway, confused. "This wasn't really part of the plan," I whispered.
Suddenly, I heard raised voices at the front door. It seemed Pete had gotten himself into another heated verbal dispute. The shouting was punctuated by a bloodcurdling scream, definitely not Pete's voice, and seemingly too high-pitched to come from a grown man like Henry. It had a stringy quality to it, as if it was inhuman.
I silently moved through the room, peering at the situation at the front door. Pete's eyes bulged even more than usual as he stared at Henry. There was a greasy cardboard box and random slices of pizza littering the floor, and Henry's head, face and hands dripped with steaming-hot sauce and cheese. I wondered what on Earth had possessed Pete to throw a scalding-hot pizza at Henry like that.
Then I looked more closely at Henry's face. It looked off. Like the skin didn't quite fit his skull. The skin around his chin and eyes looked like it was drooping, and his irises looked reflective in the low light.
"Oh, Jesus," Pete exclaimed, recoiling in horror as he drew his handgun.
Henry's flesh began to rapidly slough off. Underneath was a black mass with short, spiny hairs. A pair of long, dripping fangs jutted out from his oral cavity, which jittered back and forth independently of each other. The skin on his beck began to tear away, long, black, hairy tendrils erupting from the lesions. First two, then four, then six... it didn't take long to realize what they were: spider legs.
Pete didn't wait to see the creature's final form before he started popping off shots into it. The 9mm bullets didn't seem to affect it all that much, aside from making it angry. The creature roared at Pete as it lunged, its fleshy disguise still hanging limply from its coarse-haired thorax as it chased him out of the house.
I grabbed Amy tightly by the wrist. "We need to get out of here. Right now."
She was seemingly stupefied into a silent shock as I dragged her outside and around the side of the house.
All of a sudden, she dropped out of autopilot mode and looked at me with wide-eyed intensity. "No, wait. We have to go back."
I squeezed her wrist more tightly and pulled her along. "Forget about your stuff for now. We have to really concentrate on getting out of here and finding Pete..."
She yanked her arm away. "No." She firmly planted her feet and turned around. "We have to go back in and get Henry."
I threw my hands up and stammered in confusion. "Wh-what do you mean? You saw that... thing, r-right? I-I-I don't think Henry is alright."
"No!" Amy exclaimed, throwing open the back door. "That was not Henry!"
I clamped a firm hand down on her shoulder. The distress was clear on her face as she whirled around to stare at me. "There's no time for that now," I explained in as firm a tone as I could muster. "We need to get out of here and help Pete before we do anything." My face was stern even as my breaths wavered. I had to look away from Amy as her face contorted into a grimace and her eyes began welling up.
I took a deep breath and sighed. "Alright, let's go in. In and out, less than a minute." Amy was already off like a shot before I had finished my sentence. I rushed after her, following her through the rooms of the small house.
When she reached the hallway, she stopped short and looked toward the ceiling. She leaped straight up and tried to grab the handle of a trapdoor that presumably led to the attic. Her flailing arm fell just short of the handle. She turned to me and stepped aside. "Could you try?"
I stepped under the trapdoor, having about a four-inch height advantage and a higher reach. I jumped and grabbed the handle with little difficulty, pulling the door almost down onto my head. a folding wooden stair spilled out, the bottom resting on the floor. Hot, dry air billowed from the doorway, pulled down with the motion of the stair. Tiny black spiders crawled all over the stair, falling to the floor. Everything was covered in thick cobwebs that stuck fast to every surface, including our skin.
"Oh my god," gasped Amy as she stared up into the attic, placing her foot on the first step of the stair.
"Henry's up there?" I asked, dreading the answer.
"I think that's where it's keeping him," Amy answered. She began to ascend the stair, violently knocking away spiderwebs with her hand.
I followed right behind her and shook my head in disbelief. "Exactly how long has this been going on, anyway?"
The attic was unrecognizable. Everything in it was covered in a sea of webbing. I imagined that what we saw there was what the inside of a silk cocoon looks like. Some lumps were visible in the web, probably some of the items in storage long since webbed over. We both got down on our hands and knees, brushing away sticky silk strands with both hands, pulling out various items from the mess. Tiny spiders crawled up our arms and all over our backs and heads. Before long, Amy's hand had brushed up against something different.
"Henry?" She frantically tugged at his clothing to try to free him from the web.
I lunged over to her and began to slip my hands under Henry's motionless body when we heard the front door slam shut.
Amy and I stared at each other wordlessly, sweat dripping down from our foreheads and stinging our wide eyes. We remained silent and motionless as we listened to footsteps rapidly approaching. I grabbed an armful of webbing and threw it over us like a blanket. The heat underneath was almost unbearable, but it was certainly better than being eaten alive by a monster.
Amy and I dared not breathe as the footsteps quickly ascended the foldable staircase to the attic and suddenly stopped. For a while, there was utter silence. Then I suddenly felt a crushing pain in my hand. I didn't yell out, but I did sharply inhale a lungful of dust and went into a loud coughing fit.
"Jesus Christ!" I heard Pete yell as he stumbled backward and fell on his butt.
I threw off the blanket of webbing and saw Pete sitting in an awkward position on the floor, clutching his chest, looking like he just saw a ghost. "What are you doing, trying to scare me to death?!"
"We thought that thing was coming back," Amy explained.
"You stepped on my hand." I said as I rubbed my aching digits. "Anyway, good thing you're here. We need to haul Henry out of here quick."
Pete quickly set to work, pulling Henry's legs free from the webbing.
Amy cleared Henry's head and face, cradling his head in her lap. He looked deathly pale, and his breathing was so shallow, it was almost imperceptible. She wept softly as she stroked his hair. "Don't worry, we're almost out of here," she whispered.
Amy suddenly looked up at Pete. "Wait, where did that monster go?"
Pete shrugged. "I was just bookin' it down the road at full speed, running away from that thing, and it suddenly stopped following me and wandered off."
"That's incredibly reassuring," I quipped as I slipped my arms under Henry's shoulders and scooped up his top half. Pete followed my lead and grabbed him by the legs. The only light in the room aside from the light coming up through the trapdoor was from the outside streetlamps, shining dimly through a small attic window and obscured through thick cobwebs. As we hurriedly and clumsily dragged Henry's heavy body toward the trapdoor, the room suddenly darkened. Something outside the window was obscuring the light. Amy looked down and saw the shadow cast on the floor and gasped. It was in the shape of a giant arachnid.
"It's back!" Amy shouted, nearly stumbling out the attic door as she recoiled.
There was a muffled sound of shattering glass, and a horrifying high-pitched scream as the spider monster lunged through the window and ripped through the webbing as if it was tissue paper.
Pete unceremoniously dropped Henry's legs immediately and pulled the handgun he had holstered in the waist of his pants. He fired three rounds in quick succession at the beast, which only seemed to anger it once again. With a quickness that seemed unnatural for a creature of that size, it leaped on top of Pete, knocking him to the floor. He screamed, throwing his arms up to protect his face.
I had already set Henry's head down as gently as I could given the circumstances, but he still got a solid thump. I kicked the thing in the head as hard as I could, over and over, even as it sunk its fangs deeply into Pete's forearm, blood beginning to spatter and stain the formerly pristine white silk in the room.
Amy jumped on top of the beast's head, bashing at its multiple eyes with her fists. This seemed to deter the creature, as it screeched and reared up. Amy lost her balance and fell off, landing flat on her back.
The creature changed its focus to Amy, bringing one of its eight hairy legs down with all its weight into her chest, knocking the wind out of her. I rammed into it with all my might, plowing my shoulder into its hard carapace, causing it to stumble back slightly. Turns out, it is quite difficult to knock a creature with eight legs off balance for very long.
Pete had been searching the webbing on the floor frantically, feeling around for his gun. As soon as he found it, he brought it up and tried to steady his quivering arm. Finally, he squeezed off a single round. the bullet penetrated one of the creature's many eyes, a thick, light green pus starting to erupt from the ruined socket. It made the loudest shriek I had ever heard in my entire life before quickly retreating out the window, leaving a trail of a mixture of thick spider blood and dark eyeball goop.
Pete and I stood there, wide eyed, panting heavily, sweat gushing from every pore. Blood dripped from the punctures on Pete's arm. Amy laid on the floor, painfully gasping to refill her lungs with air. "We need to get out of here. Right now." I said as I surveyed the state of our party.
Pete and I carefully and painfully maneuvered Henry's still unconscious body down the stairs, out of the house, and situated him in the backseat of the car. Amy slowly recovered and stood up, but suddenly gasped and leaned forward, clutching the side of her chest.
"I think it broke a rib," Amy said weakly as she gingerly made her way into Pete's vehicle.
Pete climbed into the passenger seat and I took the driver's seat, as I seemed to be the least injured. I sighed heavily. "We made it, guys. Next stop, the hospital." We exchanged weak smiles as I fired up the engine.
The moment the car roared to life, a giant black figure leaped out of the bushes behind us and dashed toward the rear of the car with horrific speed, its fangs dripping with blood.
"You've got to be kidding me," I complained as I threw the vehicle into gear jammed on the gas. To my surprise, and probably everyone else's, the car sped backward, ramming the creature in the head with a sickening crunch. I then put the pedal to the metal, tires squealing and smoking as it fought against the size and weight of the creature.
The hideous scream of the beast overtook the squeal of the tires as it flailed all of its legs at once, its head seemingly stuck underneath the vehicle. Finally, the rear of the car bounced upward as if hitting a speedbump, and came down hard as the spider-thing's head was pulled underneath the rear wheel and exploded in a shower of green gore, splattering both lanes of the road. The limbs stopped flailing wildly, now only twitching occasionally.
We all looked at each other wordlessly. I put the car into drive. The journey to the hospital was uneventful.
Pete was treated for his wounds and spider venom. Amy was treated for two broken ribs. Henry received a spider venom antidote and fully recovered within a couple of weeks.
We soon became moderately famous in the area of Snyder, Tennessee for discovering a brand-new species of arachnid. Although it technically wasn't a cryptid, since we had scientific proof of its existence through its corpse and attic full of offspring, I liked to treat it as one. We were interviewed by a small local news station and asked what we would like to name the creature. I grinned, because I had been waiting for this moment. I had thought long and hard about a name for it.
"Well," I told the interviewer, unable to hide my smile. "Since the creature is a spider, and we found it in the town of Snyder, it was easy to come up with a name." I looked over to Pete, who was standing next to me, his forearm still bandaged. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was thinking.
Pete blurted out, "The Big Eight Legger."
I did a shocked double take and mouthed, "no."
The story was broadcast later that night and "The Big Eight Legger" became moderately popular afterward. It trended on cryptid forums and horror websites for at least two weeks.
Meanwhile, I got fired from my job and didn't get the girl. Oh well, maybe next time.
Category:Glisario
Category:Animals
Category:Cryptids
Category:Weird