The Delivery of Doom

The morning began at its usual hour of 10 AM; this left me enough time to guzzle down some life-giving elixir (coffee), get dressed and ready to get to Bosco’s Pizza. My room was a mess, as usual; however, the half-unpacked moving boxes were new. My sister Janet and I had just moved to the state of Maine to live in our dearly departed Dad’s hunting lodge. Yeah, if it sounds like the premise to a horror movie, it kind of is. I’m Mike, by the way. Mike McGee. I’m a pizza delivery driver.

After saying my morning prayers, I staggered, zombie-like to the bathroom, where I looked into the mirror and saw a ghastly face staring back. I nearly screamed in terror, before I blinked and realized it was just me. I could’ve sworn it was something much more sinister.

Down the stairs I went to pour some caffeine down my esophagus, where I found my sister Janet making a sandwich with my nephew Jacob.

“What are you still doing here?” I asked, groggily.

“Two hour delay,” she replied. “What are you doing up this early?”

I gazed at the clock; it was 10:15 AM, alright. Looking at my phone, however, I found that it was only 9:15. I was confused for a minute, until I remembered Daylight Savings had passed and I forgot to change all the clocks. I’m from the generation that doesn’t always look at their phone to tell time.

“I made some sausage if you want it,” Janet said.

“Uncle Mike! Look what I made!” said Jacob, showing me a crayon drawing. I stared at it; it was all purple and black with long, straight horns and red eyes, looking like something out of a nightmare.

“What is that?” I asked.

“I call him Franky,” said Jacob, before he returned to coloring.

“His imaginary friend,” said Janet. Given all the weird stuff I’d experienced since we moved to Maine, I wondered if “Franky” was not so imaginary as Janet insisted. I warmed up the sausage, poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down.

“Alright, Jacob, get your shoes on and say goodbye to Uncle Mike,” said Janet.

“Bye, Uncle Mike,” said Jacob, as he gave me a hug.

“See ya, slugger!” I said, hugging the boy back. “Bye, Janet,” I added as she went out the door.

“Bye!” said Janet.

I won’t bore you with the details of everything else that happened that day; it was pretty normal. Well, except for the crackhead that accosted me that afternoon.

Evening came. I was beat. I had just made the last run of the day and I was returning to Bosco’s Pizza to clock out– or so I thought.

“McGee,” said Margeret, my manager (and the owner’s daughter, coincidentally. A real pain in my posterior). I turned around to face her, eyes weary, ready to drop from exhaustion. “I need you to make one last run.”

I looked at the order and grimaced. “Okay,” I said. I put the address into my phone, took the hot bag and went back out to my car. I drove to the address. There was something very creepy about the neighborhood. Everything seemed darker, dimmer, stranger. I double-checked the address; I’m not familiar with this area yet. Like I said, we just moved up here. I’m actually from Vermont.

The place looked like a Halloween decoration: peeling paint, cobwebs everywhere, sagging front porch. I saw a faint light flickering in the window, like candles. I wondered if maybe they lost power, but something felt very, very wrong. I reached for the rosary I kept dangling from my rearview mirror, holding it like a weapon as I approached the door, the stairs creaking under my weight. I could feel the wood flexing; it was rotting, like the rest of the place. Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name… I whispered. I felt the hair stand up on the backs of my arms. I peered in the front window; that was definitely candle light. I thought I saw a shadow passing before it. I heard faint murmuring within, like some kind of chanting. The smell of mold and decay permeated the place, nauseating me. My mouth went dry.

I approached the doorbell, my clammy hand about to press the button. A sudden crash from around the side of the house nearly made me jump out of my skin. I cursed. Raccoons chattered. I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe this wasn’t some kind of weird haunted house after all.

I rang the doorbell. It was a hollow tone, like the sound of doom. There was a sudden scream from within, like a woman in labor, followed by shouting, expletives, the sounds of crashing, and then something that sounded halfway between a sheep bleating and a donkey braying. I backed away from the door, cell phone in my hand, and punched in 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Hi, I’m–” I began, but my words were cut off by what crashed through the front window of the house. It was hard to describe; it wasn’t human, nor was it like any animal I had ever seen, like a parody of biology, a satanic practical joke. Its gawky body was ink-black. Multiple eyes blazed out of its head. Its mouth, if you could call it a mouth, was a mass of dripping tentacles. I screamed. Holding my rosary aloft, I shouted, “In Christ’s name, get back!”

The thing recoiled from the rosary, hissing. I ran for my car, forgetting about 911. I barely made it inside before the thing was on me, making that awful screeching cry. I threw the car in gear, racing out of that neighborhood like it was the Indie 500. The thing followed. It kept pace with my car, despite the fact that I was going about seventy miles per hour. I was in a panic.

“Hail Mary full of grace!” I screamed. I swerved to avoid it. Then I made a sharp turn, slamming into it with the side of my vehicle. The creature grabbed onto my car and held on. I zig-zagged all over the road, trying to shake it, but it held. Its ugly, black claw smashed through my window, grasping at my face. Reaching into the passenger’s side, I grabbed the baseball bat I kept for emergencies like this, and thrust it in the thing’s face. It hissed. That bought me some time. I made a sharp turn onto a side-street in a last-ditch effort to shake the thing off. A white picket fence appeared in front of me, seemingly out of nowhere. I threw on the breaks just in time. The creature went flying. I threw the car in reverse, nearly hitting the tree behind me. The thing pounced into my car again. I felt its talons digging into my flesh. It stuck its terrible head into the window, its tentacles enveloping my whole face. I heard it whispering terrible blasphemies in my mind. My strength ebbed away. With what little strength I had left, I reached into my glove compartment, drew out a vial of holy water, and poured it over the creature’s head. The thing screamed, releasing my face from its awful grip. It backed away, hissing and murmuring like a scalded cat, rubbing its injured face. Its black skin blistered like I’d just poured acid on it. My adrenalin was high. Grabbing my bat again, I exited the vehicle. I don’t know what I was thinking; I should have just driven away as fast as I could, but something in me wanted a fight. I clobbered the thing with my bat.

“Let God arise, and let his enemies be scattered: and let them that hate him flee from before his face!” I screamed. “As smoke vanisheth, so let them vanish away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.”

I beat it again and again with the bat. A gunshot rang out. The monster let out one last, gurgling scream. It seemed to melt into a smoking black puddle on the ground like ice cream on a hot day. Maybe I’ll think twice about eating ice cream for a while. I was panting. Beads of cold sweat poured down my face. I looked to my right from where the gunshot came; there behind the picket fence stood a man holding a shotgun. He looked like he was about seventy, wearing one of those ear-flap hats that make you look like Elmer Fudd, and a military field jacket.

He lowered the weapon and said: “You alright, boy?”

I looked myself over. In the heat of battle, sometimes you don’t notice when you’re injured. I knew this from my experience in Karate. “I think I’m okay.”

The man opened the gate and stepped out to meet me. We looked down at the puddle of black goo on the pavement.

“Soul-sucker,” he said. “Looks like someone’s been doing a bit of conjuring. Probably those blasted teenage kids! They never learn.”

“You’ve run into this before?” I asked, surprised.

“Many a time,” the man replied. “You ain’t from around here, are you?”

“No, I’m from Vermont,” I responded.

He extended his hand toward me and said: “Jean-Paul Dupree. You can call me Paul. Everybody round here does.”

We shook hands. “Mike McGee.”

“Do you believe in witchcraft?” asked Paul.

“Maybe,” I responded.

“Well, you’re going to believe now,” said Paul. “This whole county is bewitched. That’s why I’m prepared.” He brandished his shotgun. “Blessed salt shells. Sure fire way to take out some of them critters. You own a gun?”

“Yeah, a few,” I said.

“And you can shoot it?” he inquired.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“You really are prepared,” I remarked.

“That’s my middle name! Actually, my middle name is Julius, but we’ll pretend it’s ‘Prepared’. You a Christian?”

“That I am,” I said, holding up my gold cross.

“Good,” he replied. “We’re at war, you know. It helps to be in the right army.”

He rested his shotgun on his shoulder and said: “Well, I’m missing Dirty Jobs. This is the one where Mike works on a pig farm!” Turning on his heel, he returned to his home.

I looked over my car. The window was broken, as I said. That wouldn’t be cheap. How would I explain that to my insurance? Clawmarks etched their way all over the sides and roof. How would I explain this to Janet? How would I explain this to Margaret?

I drove in a daze of shock back to Bosco’s to clock out. Only Margaret was there.

“Where have you been, McGee?” she questioned. “You look like hell. What happened to your shirt?”

“It was a prank. The customer didn’t pay, and they had this nasty cat.”

“Damn!” exclaimed Margaret. “That must’ve been some cat! You need to go to the hospital and get those scratches checked?”

I looked down. The beast had ripped part of my shirt open and left deep claw marks in my skin.

“Yikes, I didn’t even notice.”

“You better get to urgent care, pronto!” said Margaret.

I tried to rehearse what I was going to say when I got to the 24 hour clinic. Taking a deep breath, I entered the clinic and signed in with the receptionist. I told them some hogwash story about getting attacked by a stray cat. Pretty soon, I was in a room sitting on one of those tables while a triage nurse cleaned and irrigated the wound. She was a short, stocky Asian lady with glasses and a Navy tattoo on her upper arm.

“This don’t look like a cat scratch I’ve seen before,” she said. I remained silent. She peered up at me, adjusting her glasses. “This wasn’t caused by a cat at all, was it?”

I swallowed hard. I wasn’t sure how to respond. Reaching into the pocket of her scrubs, she drew out a bottle of holy water and poured it over the wound. It burned like fire. I inhaled hard.

“You don’t have to say out loud,” she said. “I can tell.”

“How are you just okay with this?” I asked.

“We learn to live with it,” she replied.

Reaching into her pocket again, she drew out some holy anointing oil and dripped some of it on the wound. “It should be healed in a few days, provided you stay away from evil. Make sure you get to church on Sunday.”

The doctor came in after that, checked me out, gave me some shots and sent me home. I don’t remember much of what he said; all I know is that the whole situation was weird. I went home and straight to bed, hoping tomorrow would be less weird.