creepy and hatboy – someone’s killing pizza delivery drivers

creepy and hatboy - heroes for a couching world.

“guess what?”
“what?”
“they won’t deliver any more.”
“won’t deliver? what the hell?”
“apparently, the drivers are all on strike.”
“how can pizza drivers be on strike? they don’t even have a union!”
“they do now. it seems several drivers have gone missing.”
“nonsense. they’re just after better wages.”
“well, wage issues aside, apparently some drivers have left their relevent pizza shops to deliver pizzas and have never returned. like they were sucked into some random-forming bermuda triangle thing gone wrong. so, now the union’s demanding protection.”
“can’t they at least deliver here?”
“they’re not delivering anywhere, that’s the point of their strike.”
“so what do we do? starve? how can we survive without pizza?”
“i don’t know yet. i’m trying to think of a clever plan.”
“yeah? does it involve you getting up and handing me the remote control?”
“it might. if you pass me those salty treats.”
“deal.”
“we might have to -”
“don’t say it! dear god, don’t say it!”
“- drive down to the shop and get the pizzas on pick-up.”
“oh, the horror! the skanky horror of it all!”
“i know. still, we could always continue the search for the triple-flavour slushy.”
“a worthy search, but such a bitter end to an otherwise uneventful night.”
“true.”
“i don’t see why they don’t deliver to us, anyway. we’re valued customers. they said so in the pamphlets they handed out last fortnight!”
“they did. send a few drivers, i mean. apparently one went missing last night, which was why we didn’t get our vegetarian with triple pineapple.”
“i wondered about that.”
“and today, they sent one to find out what happened to the last, but he didn’t come back either.”
“oh the skanky horror.”
“yes. the horror. the bloody melodramatic horror.”
“can we stop at the station to get one of those ice-cream things with the chocolate and the bubblegum nose?”
“i think so. only if you let me get olives this time.”
“just this once?”
“yep.”
“deal.”
“deal.”
“then why are we still here?”
“buffy’s not finished yet.”
“oh. right. buffy. yes.”
“yes, buffy. do you have something against my finishing of this episode?”
“not if you don’t have a problem with me bringing up my lunch.”
“no, i don’t have a problem with that. you didn’t eat lunch.”

return of the pizza delivery drivers

i wonder what was going through her mind as he tied the thin cord around her neck, then around the large metal drum.
was she screaming inside? she made no noise. her mouth was taped shut. her hands couldn’t struggle free of the tape around her wrists.
maybe she was flashing back to her childhood. all the warnings her mother gave her which she didn’t listen to. maybe if she’d eaten that slice of pumpkin pie, she’d not have delivered that last pizza of the night. maybe if she’d only cleaned her bedroom more often, she wouldn’t have been so stupid as to turn her back on him.
her eyes were bulging mirrors. he could see himself in them. it might have made him feel powerful, to see himself reflected on the cinema inside her skull. there was no blood. he hadn’t cut her, but her neck was fast turning red. he told her not to fight the rope.
she didn’t listen, and he sighed to himself. they never did listen.
i wonder what she was thinking as he lifted the heavy drum, filled with unseen wonders and the stink of stone, and placed it on the edge of the trembling boat.
could she see black shapes shifting beneath the tangled surface of the sea as he picked her up from her place on the deck, gently cradling her against his chest? did she see monsters prowling the depths? did she understand what he was doing? did she believe he’d do it? was she terrified beyond comprehension?
as she split the waves, sinking fast toward the black filth floor, did she see the light above and think it was heaven, if only she could reach it? did she thrash violent against the intrusion of water into her lungs?
i’ve heard it told of all the ways to die, that drowning is best.
and, when her final bubble of breath broke the water’s crisp skin, did she see angels?

world in crisis

the pizza delivery drivers union is still restricting their movements. the strike has lasted two more days, and now i’m beginning to panic. across the world, eyes are turned toward our small corner of the globe, anxious to see these usually so dependent drivers back in action.
i’m beginning to worry. yesterday, we had to cook our own pizza. it was a disaster. cheese didn’t seem like cheese, and the vegetables had too much taste. we would have picked one up, but red dwarf was on at eight, and we didn’t have time to make it there and back in time.
hatboy suggested we take matters into our own hands. he believes that a complete and total lack of action in response to their strike might make them think about returning to work.
i don’t know about that. i think they’re serious this time. they might not deliver any more. the pizza could become a thing of the past. worse, we may have to begin ordering thai from the shop down the road. it’s that or chinese, and i don’t like their rice.
i’m going to give them one more day and then that’s it, we’re calling the union and making our demands; either they go back to work, or we quit from the super-sidekick business. how are we expected to save the world on empty cheeseless-tummies?

it’s friday and i’m in latex

the pizza drivers are still on strike. the doughy goodness is kept from our mouths by the senseless inaction of these once-humble public servants. hatboy is going batshit. he keeps muttering about his garage. i’ve left him to his own devices, and decided i should track down our remote by myself. i thought joaquina might help, but she’s just been put back into the hospital. i’m going to miss her.
i decided to calm my raging need for home-delivered cheesy goodness, by dressing in latex. the mask is tighter than last time i wore it, but the jeans still fit snugger than a bug in a rug. i thought of shocking hatboy with the sight, but decided he had enough stress to cope with.
the latex is black, and shiny. i strap a leather belt around my waist. it is studded, and gleams in the mirror. i spread my arms like delicious wings. they are wrapped in bandages, dyed black, and i feel like a demented egyptian god, rising in the heat of my room. the rain outside drums heavy against my window, but i know it will ease, and the humidity will return to bless the world with its sweet breath.
i will go out into that breath, and search the oil-slick saliva on the streets for a trace of our kidnapped soldier. he will be found. he will be rescued, and returned to the holy coffee table.
i clench my gloved hands, and the latex crinkles. i hold my fingers to my nostrils. they smell nice.
like ancient soil and new blood.
i smile.

machinations of the undead

the sound, like a thousand fans turning. a million hammers pounding nails into metal walls.
the machine, turning round and round, crushing, grinding, chewing up and spitting out a horrid river of putrid red and black. the pipeline arcs away, sucking the leavings into its wet mouth. the grill is stained. it weeps green weeds.
he stands there, nobody’s fool. no one will mess with him. no one will touch his chest with cold fingers.
he chews bubblegum and grins down at her.
the moment, buried in the throbbing of disruption, passes slowly. blue light and acid-streaks filter into the pipeline’s vein. she has a cut under her breast. it reveals something less than human, something more than female. something sinister in its inherent weakness. she gleams. he whispers into her ears, telling her what to dream.
a blade. a severed hand. sucking on a popsicle as a child. torn skirt and ripped anklet stockings. brittle bones and wet breath licking.
“you can’t distract me.”
and nothing will.
the machine, flooding the pipeline with a stream of fresh body-parts, roars its approval. with the chorus, swelling in his ears, he lowers himself down over her mouth. she barely moves. his fingers grace her cheek. his lips caress her throat.
“you can’t distract me.”
the world ripples and distorts.
something terrible screeches across the pipeline’s inner flesh. her skin torn, her muscles pulled forcefully from bone, her eyes wrenched back, mouth wired open, turned-back arms and slitted abdomen, she weeps a final testimony to disobeying the social rules.
“you can’t distract me.”

the pizza delivery guy sleeps

today is the day when he awakens to the sound of glass raining to the carpet at the foot of the stairs. his fallen monuments gather with a roar of outrage, little plastic bodies crunching hard against each other as they fumble desperate for escape. he imagines their squeals, scraping against his ears like beetles digging into his skull.
he wakes swift, and his cry is muffled by the thick blankets. he grips his fists, and squeezes blood from cold fingers. knuckles crack, eyes widen.
he is the possum, caught too long in the headlight gaze. he is the dog, feasting on poisoned meat. he is the antelope, dragged to its death in the thirsting mud. he is the beast, taken by predators in the shivering night. he is the butterfly, siezed from air and impaled on sharp pins to the wall.
wings gather, twitch.
bedclothes stick too wet to skin, like remnants of coccoon.
“who’s there?”
but the only reply is a footstep closer.

pizza cravings at 11pm

in some countries, when the droughts last too long, medicine men do a special dance which is designed to bring watery goodness to the land. we thought this was such a slippy idea, that me and hatboy are attempting to save the world again, by bringing the pizza delivery drivers back from their self-imposed exile.
we’re going to do a pizza dance.
we’ve gathered some cheese from the local italian deli, and we’ve been sewing it into some sack cloth, which we’re making into kilts. we will then stomp on some tomato to make sauce, wave some garlic and oregano around at midnight, and complete the sacred pizza dance with a charring of capsicum and onion in a small fire. we hope the smell will attract the pizza gods, and they’ll then use their godly powers to force the drivers back to work.
we’ve made a ceremonial pizza ring, by placing balls of dough in a circle, and we’ll flatten them with our feet during the dance.
our first real problem came when deciding the megic medicine music.
hatboy thought that,considering we’ll be wearing kilts, we should play the bagpipes, but i didn’t think our neighbours would appreciate our efforts at midnight, which is when the sacred pizza dance will begin.
besides, i don’t know how to play the bagpipes.
i suggested recorders, because they sound rather pagan.
hatboy countered with bongo drums.
we’ve compromised, and will use an ancient keyboard. we’ve chosen a discreet little samba from the rhythm selection, and have planned the dance tonight. if all goes well, we should be able to order a pizza for opening time tomorrow.
now all we’ve got to decide on is whether the pizza gods would appreciate vegetarian, otherwise we’ll be forced to sacrifice the only live animal in the immediate area, and i’m afraid the only living substitute for pizza-beef, is old mrs goodman’s little terrier, spanky.

the one that got away

everyone knows one such story, but this is unique to him.
she struggled in the dark, scratching his face, and tearing his shirt. he yanked her head back so hard that when she pulled free, he still gripped a fistful of her damp hair.
her scream bounced off the walls, crumbling into the cracks in the pavement to lie bloody and discarded as she scrambled down the alley toward the mouth, and the promise of life.
he cursed himself for not hitting her harder on the back of her scrawny skull, and slipped on the steaming pizza-box as he made to give chase. the smell of melted cheese and tomato sauce mingled with the scent of basil to quell the perfume of fear she left behind.
he slammed his fist down hard onto the ground as he forced himself to his feet, and began the hunt again. eyes like wired slits. mouth like a razor blade, and fingers curled into claws. he slid through the shadows, so smooth, like a rushing river of molten metal and charred remains. he whispered across his lips, tasting the echo of her perfume, and his stomach crawled at the breath of dough and thoughts of italian bread.
he burst from the alley’s mouth and into the unlit street to see her already almost to the window which glowed with welcome hope.
the best hunter in the world knows when to lower his sights and seek new prey.
she almost broke the glass pounding on the window to gain the startled attention of the cooks within.
he almost split the world in half with patient rage and the bridled need to follow.
but, tomorrow, when he wakes from sleep, he glances in the mirror and shakes his head. smiling to himself, he knows he’ll now have a story to tell the devil on his second night in hell.
i wonder if the pizza-delivery girl now lives at home, her eyes wide at every sound, her teeth chattering at every slip of wind which kisses her throat, or if she’s still out there every night, breaking her union rules to bring that pizza goodness to the needy.
hatboy says he hopes she’ll join our local pizza-shop, so at least we poor souls might partake of that long-lost italian slice of happiness.

the attack of the pizza delivery strike

“they’re still at it?”
“yep.”
“that’s not right! it shouldn’t be happening! the world is doomed! doomed, i tell you. doomed!”
“yep.”
“what are we going to do? oh, the horror. the skanky horror of it all.”
“yep.”
“i need cheese!”
“yep.”
“cheese, dammit! must have cheese! fetta! mozzarella! cheese!”
“yep.”
“and sauce. and oregano. and basil. but most of all, i must have cheese!”
“yep.”
“my god, do you know what this means?”
“yep.”
“it means the end of civilisation as we know it!”
“yep.”
“it means we’ll never again taste of the holy pizza goodness. we’ll be pizzaless, made to wander alone ‘til the end of time, never knowing the taste of cheese! the taste of sauce! the taste of slim sleek doughy goodness! no more basil! no more onion, capsicum, or pineapple combination! no more! alas, i cannot live this life no more.”
“yep.”
“wake me when tank girl comes on.”
“yep.”

waiting for pizza

with nothing to do now that we’re lacking the excitement of ordering pizza, we’ve had to invent fancy new ways to amuse ourselves.
we tried tying up those strangers who came knocking on our front door before midday, and teaching them the australian national anthem. all six verses. tiring of this amusement, we’ve given up all hope of finding that unique person, other than hatboy, who can get beyond the first line.
we played ‘throw the jaffa at the television screen and hit the weatherman for twenty points’, but that took up only 15 minutes per day, leaving us with an incredible 23 hours and 45 minutes left to find something else to do.
i suggested flipping coins in order to test the factual realities of probability.
hatboy came up with the marvellous suggestion of travel scrabble.
neither of us knew enough words which began with the letter ‘c’, so we gave up.
we walked to the shops and bought a packet of cheesy crispy corn chip goodness. we walked home again.
we cooked two-minute noodles, and i watched with my usual horrified expression as hatboy did skanky things to the noodles.
then, in a moment of total desperation, we found something to do. we’re going to see who can couch the longest.
we’ve brought a massive pile of food and dragged the bar-fridge to its new home beside the television, so coke is easily grabbed.
we’ve got the remotes working.
we’re watching a mix of hatboy’s buffy episodes, designed to make me move, and last season’s rugby league, designed to make hatboy move.
it’s now been five days, and my clothes smell funky.

one vegetarian, with extra tomato

the delivery driver waited until the light came on at the front of the motel. it was his second delivery since he had been talked into returning to his pizza-car to carry that cheesy pizza goodness to those who needed it most.
he pulled the black pizza-cover from the back seat, and slowly climbed from the car. still shaken by recent disappearances, the driver crept to the motel door, eyes squirming in their sockets. his gaze, back and forth, to the bushes, to the dark shadow-infested corridor, to the squirming black ink-spot further down the road.
he knocked, once.
nothing.
knocked twice.
a slight scuffle of booted feet on ancient carpet. “one second,” the muffled voice yelled through the door.
the driver waited. he toyed with the loose change in his pocket.
finally, when the door was opened, the driver was absolutely stunned to receive a very large metal object in the centre of his face. it was travelling very fast, thought the driver at point of impact.
very fast indeed.
and the red stuff pouring out across the doorway, that wasn’t tomato sauce.
as darkness slipped through the second thunderous impact to his head, the driver prayed silently, with an incredibly distinct thought-voice, to some god he’d never talked to before. he told the god that if only he could survive this night, he’d never again spit in the pizza sauce.

i walk the line

i think about the driver. how she probably listened to those footsteps, unaware of what they meant, but sure of what they didn’t mean. they didn’t foretell the arrival of that knight in shining armour she’d always dreamed would be there when the dragon came to strip her bones of meat.
she stretches catlike amid the twisted remains of her car, pushed hard against the iron rail. She could hear the water, lapping at the legs of the bridge. bright lights gleam down to bathe the warzone, but it’s the sight of broken glass and neon stripes of red which keep her eyes unfocussed on the glittering merry-go-round of light and shadow.
the thin stench of cheap pizza is sickening, and she wants to struggle to her feet, wants to run, wants to escape the smell of grease and melting cheese. the sweet sauce drips down her arms, and she tries to move away from each piercing stab to her shoulders.
but it’s hard to move when her back is broken.
he is knelt beside her, and drags her from the ruins. he ties thin cord around her wrists, ties it to the edge railing which guards the bridge. lifts her, gently, in his arms, and whispers against her soft mewing. tells her it will all be fine in a moment.
cuts her throat.
holds her high above the railing, then lets her fly.
in the morning, when they find her dangling above the river’s skin, i wonder if they realise just how much she wanted her feet to touch that clear surface, to clean her flesh of that putrid stench, that thick oil which ran down her arms and made her lurch against the cord until the bleeding from her shoulders, arms, and neck, finally stole her life.
did she hear him laughing at the ridiculous sight she made? spinning on the end of that cord like some demented puppet at the hands of its empowered puppeteer?
she should have known she’d never break free.
as he sat down to nibble at the pizza, he groaned.
he didn’t like pepperoni.

pizza delivery wonderings

hatboy and i have built a shrine to the long lost heroes of pizza delivery.
pizza delivery drivers offer the promise of much pizza goodness. they drive through the night like righteous warriors, pure of heart, and strong of spirit. when they’re not out there, we’re the victims. we have no cheesey-happiness. no goodness to cling to.
we’ve decorated it with cheese and many toppings. we hope that when it gets mouldy, the growth will turn a nice shade of blue. it would go well with the wallpaper in the kitchen.
hatboy says it’s time we did something drastic. like make a plan.
i agree. i’m not going to eat frozen dinners forever, i say.
we sit down to create the perfect plan to combat the evil of no-pizza-delivery.
i tell hatboy of the time the pizza almost didn’t arrive. i tell him that, when the pizza finally did get delivered, hours late, the sauce had dried up and the oil had turned to dust. i tell hatboy that, even though we must do something to bring back the drivers, we must also ensure they are brought back how they were when we first started ordering pizzas for all our meals.
the pizzas must be freshly baked, the drivers friendly and smiley.
they must offer us much cheesey-goodness, i say.
hatboy remembers a time when the pizza delivery cars had over-large telephones on their tops.
i tell him that we should demand they put telephones back on their roofs. bright red ones, which glow in the night like beacons for the cheese-needy.
we sip coke into the small hours and talk about telephones and the relevence of mushrooms on a non-gourmet pizza.
“but if we don’t eat mushies, the smurfs will breed out of control.”

late for a very important date

i read the article, and wonder how she was taken.
was he standing in the middle of the road, waiting for her car? did he flag her down, mutter about a flat tyre, then stun her with a savage swing of the jack?
he pushed her down into the mud, flat on her back. raked her shirt aside, and called her names. she managed to get her hand to the pipe, and swing at him, but the blow landed weakly against his shoulder. gently he took the pipe from her fist, and pushed her further into the mud.
i wonder where she found the energy to weep.
how did he shift her body to the trunk of her car? did he struggle, or did years of lifting metal and plastic weights pay off? she tucked neatly into the trunk, an overgrown fetus in a broken jar. the comforting fluid leaked to the road, leaving a snail-trail of latent oil.
he dragged her by her bleached hair to the edge of the dam, leaned her hard against the rail, and showed her the craters of the moon. stabbed her many times in the softness of her stomach. watched her eyes roll back into her damp skull.
thought he was a hero when he tossed her over.
listened for the splash.
i wonder why he thinks he’s so clever. is it the fact that he’s never been caught, or the simple clarity which comes when your brain has twisted like a wet beach towel, and the powdered shells have infected the clean cloth, leaving colours to bleed into pale white sand.
i wonder if he could change.
if he could one day flick the switch and be someone else.
and, if he does, will they catch him in the end, or will they sing his song another hundred years?

find out just who’s been killing pizza delivery drivers in the next enthralling selection, where creepy and hatboy go to the super-villain convention!

Tags: creepy and hatboy, pizza delivery drivers