PepperOni

by Matthew J. Barbeler

  PepperOni

  Matthew J. Barbeler

  Copyright © Matthew J. Barbeler 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance it bears to any individual is entirely coincidental. Any resemblance this work bears to any situation or event is entirely coincidental. The views of the characters do not represent the views of the author.

  Produced by Matthew J. Barbeler

  matthew.barbeler@gmail.com

  www.matthewjbarbeler.com

  It was Friday night, otherwise known as date night, and Elliott Stone was hatching a devious plan to cause some trouble. His Mom and Dad were at the movies, no doubt being completely gross. With all his friends' parents either hating each other or getting divorced, it was utterly disgusting to see his own parents still in love. Elliott's older brother Chadwick was just as gross, but for a whole glut of other reasons.

  It was as though his parents had handed him his destiny the moment they decided to name him Chadwick. Chad. His parents were insane. They had looked at a cute little baby, freshly evicted from its womb with a view, and thought 'yeah, he definitely looks like a Chadwick.'

  Utter insanity.

  But, it had set his blonde-haired, blue-eyed older brother on a collision course with cliché from which there was no return. He was a quarterback in his high school football team, and he was dating the head of the cheer squad. And yes, her name was Brittany. As an insulting cherry on top of that sundae, Chadwick was handsome, and not as dumb as he should have been. He was only a set of head shots away from a career as an actor, and there was every chance that when he went away to College, he would be at the top of his class.

  He was everything that Mom and Dad could be proud of.

  Everything that Elliott wasn't.

  Elliott caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the stainless-steel oven door as he leaned down to see how the pizzas were coming along.

  His long black hair, dyed not natural, hung over his shoulders, and part of his face. The white and black corpse make-up he painted his face with gave him the look of a Norwegian Black Metaller ready to take the stage. This effect was compounded by the black denim vest covered in band patches, the Citizen Sin shirt underneath with sleeves removed, the black leather vambraces, the matching leather belt with steel spikes jutting out, the tight black jeans that were tastefully torn at the knees, and the black leather boots with stainless steel buckles.

  Elliott was awfully dressed up for a Friday night where he did not intend to leave the house. There was no gig to go to, no party, and no Dungeons & Dragons game. Just his Playstation up in his room, and the inevitable, impending sounds of his brother and his girlfriend fucking. Sometimes Elliott's headphones couldn't even drown the moans and grunts out properly. So tonight, Elliott was going to give them both a bit of a scare.

  The pizzas smelled delicious, and it looked like the pepperoni pizza was pretty much done. He grabbed an oven mitt as he opened the oven door, then lifted the pepperoni pizza onto the stove top. Heat rose, so it was ready a little earlier than the home-made Supremo on the middle rack. Elliott moved his brother's version of a Supremo pizza to the top tray. His mouth watered as the smell of spicy pepperoni, cheese and oregano spread throughout the kitchen. The classic taste of pepperoni was his favorite, whereas Chadwick was one of those philistines who argued that pineapple belonged on pizza when it most certainly did not.

  The Supremo pizza was loaded with mushrooms, red peppers, pineapple, pepperoni, ground hamburger mince, Canadian bacon, chicken breast, red onion, mozzarella, monterey jack and topped with oregano. It would have been perfect if it wasn't for those cursed yellow chunks.

  It might have been okay to pick them off, but these chunks were juicy bastards. Their sweetness had already corrupted the other pizza all the way down to the base. When he thought about it, Elliott almost convinced himself that he was doing a good thing stopping them from eating this pizza. Some might argue it was a public service.

  Their parents had left them with some cash to get delivery, but Chadwick decided that he was going to buy the ingredients for pizza himself and pocket the change. Plus, Chadwick had said, it showed initiative when you cooked your girlfriend dinner. It showed that you were husband material, apparently.

  Elliott had to construct his own pizza like some kind of savage, and when it was done he'd have to cut it himself. Chadwick didn't realize it, but he'd given his little brother the perfect opportunity for a prank. He hadn't even picked up on it when Elliott had offered to look after the pizzas while they cooked. Chadwick had been too focused on just how short Brittany’s skirt was.

  As soon Chadwick and Brittany went upstairs, the door slammed behind them. Elliott ran into his room and donned his outfit, painted his face, and rushed back downstairs to watch the dough rise as the pizzas cooked.

  The symbol was simple. It was five straight lines, and it rendered the pizza almost inedible. The inverted pentagram was the universally recognizable symbol for the devil himself, and just so happened to be ringed in a circle, just like the crust around the edge of the pizza. Elliott was looking forward to seeing their faces. He decided to practice on his own pepperoni pizza first.

  Even though it would make it difficult to eat his own pizza, he was okay with it. He didn't mind eating with a knife and fork for the sake of a joke. He knew that if he cut his own pizza normally while ruining Chadwick and Brittany's pizza, they'd just steal his, leaving him with the pineapple-soaked nightmare.

  That was not something that Elliott could abide.

  He retrieved the pizza cutter from the second drawer. It was caught under a pair of open tongs and an assortment of measuring cups that looked like kids in detention. None of the measuring cups fit properly, but they had been forced together because they didn't fit anywhere else.

  Chadwick's voice carried along the upstairs hallway and down the stairs. He sounded like a smarmy piece of shit even when Elliott couldn't make out the words. Brittany tittered a ridiculously fake laugh in response. It meant one thing and one thing only. I'm only laughing at your stupid joke so you'll fuck me. Tee hee!

  Elliott got started on the task at hand. Five straight lines, cut into the shape of a star were all that he needed. He transferred the pie from the hot metal tray onto a big flat dinner plate that dipped a little in the middle. His parents always ordered pizza for delivery, and yet they still needed to make sure it was served on some fancy shmancy purpose-built crockery. Pizza boxes were good enough for others, but not his parents.

  Oh no.

  The first cut was the easiest. The crisp base crunched as the blade sliced through it. Grease oozed out of the fresh cut and soaked into the risen dough. Elliott spun the plate around and cut the pizza again. The second cut went a bit wide this time, but that was okay. That's why he was practicing. He needed to make sure the Supremo pizza looked perfect. The last three cuts came, and he looked down at his creation with wide-eyed wonder. It was perfect! He separated the pieces ever so slightly. The cheese began to run towards the gaps and fill them in, but it was obvious what the symbol was meant to be.

  "All hail," Elliott said with a grin.

  He turned back to the oven to find that the Supremo pizza was ready too.

  Just like the pepperoni pizza, Elliott transferred it from the scorching hot metal pizza tray onto another pizza serving dish, then set about completing his mission. Five straight lines was all it took to turn this delicious Italian meal into the symbol of Satan himself.

  The first cut was good. The second
was better. Third. Fourth. He spun the dish and concentrated on the last cut. He went slowly, concentrating on the way the pizza cutter slowly crunched through the base. He was paying such close attention to his right hand, that he had almost forgotten his left. As Elliott sliced through the crust, he felt a blinding pain explode in the index finger of his left hand.

  "Motherfucker!" he yelped, ripping his hand away like he'd just put it in a fire.

  He dropped the pizza cutter onto the surface of the pizza as he stared down at the flip-top he'd just given his left index finger.

  He lifted the piece of skin experimentally. It didn't hurt all that much, but it was bleeding pretty badly. He dropped the pizza cutter onto the surface of the Supremo. A smear of blood clung to the cutter's wheel, which oozed down the side of a pineapple chunk sitting on a piece of pepperoni. The blood trickled down the side of the pineapple as Elliott raided the first aid kit his Mom kept above the fridge.

  As the blood hit the surface of the pepperoni, a tremor passed through the house. Plates and bowls were shaken from shelves. Photo frames fell from the walls. A door opened upstairs, and Elliott heard Chadwick's scared voice.

  "It's an earthquake!"

  Two sets of feet came bounding down the stairs and Elliott was not ready for the punchline of his prank to come just yet. So, he turned back towards the staircase and threw his hands in the air, raising his index and pinkie fingers into the air, forming two sets of heavy metal devil horns. He glowered out from his corpse paint face and the lank hair that fell over his shoulders. The blood dripping from his wounded finger would only enhance the effect.

  Chadwick and Brittany reached the bottom of the stairs. Chadwick stopped so suddenly that he almost toppled over. Brittany screamed. But Chadwick wasn't looking at Elliott. It felt like he was looking past Elliott, just over his shoulder.

  Something enormous and hot grabbed Elliott by the arm, lifting him off the ground. The pain was explosive. Elliott's arm was almost wrenched out of its socket, and as the thing turned him around, it wasn't the pain that made Elliott scream.

  He was in the clutches of a hulking, russet-skinned demon. The kitchen wall was gone, replaced with a landscape that looked like the depths of hell. Enormous firemounts spewed ash and flame into the air, which was alive with the cries of millions of tortured souls.

  The demon looked down at Elliott's hand and the blood that flowed from his finger. The demon grinned, showing its fangs. The horns that grew from the sides of its head rose in curved grandeur like some kind of natural crown. A great tail rose behind it, and that tail was tipped with a wicked curved blade. A forked tongue snaked out of the demon's terrible maw and flicked out to taste the blood that flowed from Elliott's wound. The demon's eyes closed in exquisite pleasure.

  "Thank you," the demon said. Its voice sounded like crackling flames and thunder. "I have waited millennia to be called back to Earth. Now, finally, we can begin."

  Mom's favorite vase flew through the air and smashed into the demon's head.

  "Let go of my brother!" Chadwick yelled.

  He was even a God-damned hero when facing off against a demon.

  Figures.

  As quick as lightning, the demon threw Elliott across the room. He landed on the dining room table and bounced off. He landed on a couple of chairs, which broke apart under the weight of him. When he rose back to his feet, the demon had his brother and Brittany by the neck, one in each hand, its bladed tail held ready to strike.

  Another rumbling filled the house. The remaining plates and bowls on the kitchen shelves were shaken from their perches and smashed on the kitchen tiles.

  An impossible chasm opened in the floor of the house. Something that looked like a giant empty fish tank rose out of the floor, filling most of the living room.

  "Is she the woman you love?" the demon asked. A puff of smoke escaped the demon's lips as it spoke. Chadwick's face was turning purple, but he refused to answer. Elliott watched with morbid fascination.

  The demon grinned. "Of course she is. Terror makes the harvest all the sweeter. I'll take her first."

  "No!" Chadwick screamed. "If you need to take someone, take me! Let her go!" Then, to Brittany. "I love you baby!"

  "I love you too!" came her choked reply.

  The demon lowered Brittany back onto the ground and released her from his grip. The skin on her neck was angry and red.

  "What are you waiting for? Run!" Chadwick shouted.

  Brittany obeyed. She ran. But she didn't get far. The demon's tail lashed out faster that Elliott's eyes could follow. She fell. Her leg was severed at the knee.

  She screamed, and so did Chadwick. Elliott didn't think his brother was capable of making the noise that had come out of his mouth. Fury passed over Chadwick's face that he was entirely impotent to act upon. A snake-like tendril emerged from the bottom of the hellbound chasm beneath the empty tank and slithered across the floor towards Brittany. The tendril ended in a wicked point, but it was not alone. An army of smaller tendrils emerged from the pit opened in the lounge room, and they all slithered towards Brittany. She tried to scramble away, but she didn't get far.

  The demon looked down as the expanding pool of crimson at Brittany's knee and made a disappointed sound.

  "Such a waste," the demon said.

  He nudged Brittany onto her back. Her face was white with shock and blood loss, and as the unholy mess of tendrils snaked their way up her legs towards her chest she barely reacted. The tendrils lifted Brittany from the floor. One had tied itself as some kind of demonic tourniquet around the stump of her ruined leg. The rest held her in place as the big tendril, the one with the wicked point on the end, pulled away from the pack. It reared back like a snake ready to strike. It pointed towards her face, swaying back and forth. Brittany screamed herself hoarse.

  After a split-second eternity the tendril snapped forward with a sickening crunch. The point slammed into her chest. It had aimed for the heart. Brittany screamed. Her chest began to sink into itself as a horrid sucking noise came from deep inside her.

  Chadwick's face barely looked human anymore. Possessed by anger and fuelled by rage, he grabbed at the demon's fingers around his neck. Even using all his strength, he could not shift their iron grip. Chadwick kicked out, trying to score a cheap shot on the demon's naked upper body. The demon laughed. He didn't even attempt to thwart Chadwick's vain attempts.

  "I can assure you, this process is very painful," the demon growled in its otherworldly rumble. "The woman you love is feeling an agony the likes of which she has never felt before. That terror you feel in your own heart, is it from the pain you see on her face? Or is it the knowledge that once I have sucked her dry, I'll do the same to you?"

  Elliott watched the bottom of the tank. It wasn't empty anymore. A geyser of blood had erupted from the base. The crimson splattered the walls, leaving chunks of effluvia running down the glass. Elliott looked back over at Brittany and could barely hold his gaze. Her skin had sunken in against her bones. Once she had a healthy glow to her skin, but now it was as thin and opaque as wax paper. Her veins, arteries and muscles showed through the skin on her arms and neck.

  Her voice was almost gone now. The life had been all but sucked out of her, leaving her with nothing but the slack-jawed gape of an ossified corpse. As each moment passed, Elliott was sure that it was done. There was surely no more blood left in her body, but it continued. Her tongue shrivelled like a dried slug into her mouth. Her eyes became dried raisins in the pits of her eye sockets. By the time it was finished, she was nothing more than bones in a flimsy sack.

  The flow of gore stopped, and the piercing tendril pulled itself free from her dry bones. The mass of tendrils dropped her corpse and reached for Chadwick's feet. The blush that fury had flushed into Chadwick's cheeks fled in terror as the first of those tendrils touched the exposed skin of his legs.

  The demon looked on with satisfaction as the tendrils took Chadwick in their embrace. The demon let go of Chadwick
's neck entirely, and the tendrils kept him in place. He hovered in the center of the living room, held aloft by the unholy swarm. He looked the demon right in the face as Elliott watched the barbed tendril rise back to strike Chadwick from behind.

  Elliott grabbed a jagged shard of broken chair and ran towards the horrors holding his brother hostage. The surge of strength and courage came from somewhere deep inside. He swung at the tendrils, but the blows were ineffectual. He managed to draw a few spots of dark blood with the sharp end of the broken chair, but before he could do any real damage he felt the demon grab him from behind.

  Then, he was in the air, tumbling.

  Elliott hit the wall hard and crumpled into a heap. His head swam with motes of light as he struggled back to his feet. His eyes focused again just in time to see the barbed tendril flick forward and pierce Chadwick's back.

  The look of fear and sadness on Chadwick's face broke the dam of emotions that Elliott had been repressing his entire teenage life. He loved his brother, no matter how different they were. No how much they fought. He watched as his brother's face sunk in on itself. His body deflated like a balloon. The light disappeared from his eyes a moment before they collapsed in on themselves like dying stars. The demon's unholy animus slurped him dry like a God-damned milkshake.

  Chadwick's empty body was dropped unceremoniously to the ground, and the demon looked on in satisfaction at his work.

  Then, he turned towards Elliott.

  The demon strode across the room, flinging the couch and the table out of the way as he stalked towards Elliott. There was no stopping the demon. Soon, Elliott knew he would suffer a fate just the same as his brother.

  The demon's hand closed around Elliott's neck and lifted him into the air.

  His time had come.

  The demon turned Elliott around and met his gaze. It spoke.

  "You have formed a pact with me and are now bound to my will."

  "I formed no pact!" Elliott choked through his almost crushed windpipe. "I was just playing a joke on my brother, and now he's dead!"