The Pizza Delivery Guy and the Dragon

The terrified screams stopped when the doorbell rang. In the gaping silence that remained, a reedy voice called out, “Pizza!”

The wind rustled in the trees. Slowly, with an agonizing creak, the door to the house gaped open. Emptiness. Blackness. It was a sight to put a chill down anybody’s spine.

Anybody, apparently, but the twenty-something standing on the doorstep. He was wearing a red ballcap that read “Galahad’s Pizza Place”. A limp man bun stuck out the back of the hat and he wore a polo that hung off his shoulders so loosely it might still have been on the coat hanger. His nametag read: George.

George the pizza guy heaved a sigh. “Are you kidding me? Again?”

He sat down the pizza box. He was also carrying a battered messenger bag over his shoulder, and this he stuck a hand into, pulled out a massive shotgun, raised it casually, and fired into the door. Even as the entrance to the house was covered in a splattering of butter and garlic, he was bending down into his bag, rummaging around, muttering to himself. “Silver…stake…salt…holly berry…Spam…that ought to do it…”

He stood up and with an expression of irritated boredom began lobbing little parcels into the house. One exploded and scattered salt powder everywhere. One scattered a dusting of silver into the air. The can of Spam clattered to the floor and lay there with its neat block letters facing up where anybody could read it. As these small parcels scattered their contents into the house, a rumbling began, a squeaking, a supernatural howling.

You could almost imagine the entire house bunching up on itself like a cartoon and then belching forth all manner of blackness and foul creatures. Things with too many limbs went screaming out the door and past the pizza guy. A dark shape leapt from the roof and huge wings coasted it away into the nighttime.

George glanced at his phone, sighed the sigh of a man incredibly inconvenienced by trivialities, and then turned around to pick up the pizza box again.

As he turned, a final form leapt from the darkness. The only warning George had was a guttural growl just before it slammed into him. He went skidding across the yard, flailing frantically as the huge, hairy form growled and snapped at him. His fingers closed around a small bottle, and he shoved it towards the creature, screaming, and depressed the button. Silver spray coated the hairy form on top of him. It shrieked and leapt away.

George sat up, white faced. Trembling like an old man he climbed to his feet and made his shaky way back to the pizza bag, swearing under his breath with every step. As he reached it, dabbing the blood on his arms and panting, the house disgorged its final, less threatening inhabitants.

A very human, very frightened teenaged couple came staggering down the stairs. The girl had tears streaking down her face, and the guy was nursing a gash in one arm. They stumbled towards the pizza guy with cries of joy. “You saved us!”

George stood upright, a look of rage on his face, and inserted the pizza box between him and them. “Large pepperoni with onions.” He snarled.

“Um,” the boy said, “Can that wait? Will you take us to the hospital? I mean—"

“Not my problem.”

The boy pulled his wallet out and paid. George took the money and stalked back to his car, leaving the couple staring after him, wide eyed.

Driving back in the dark, barely illuminated by his headlights and the dim glow of the light-up pizza shape on the roof of the car, he answered his phone and didn’t bother with a greeting.

“I told you I’m not interested in being part of your charity mission today! If you want to be some crazy honorable knight errant, whatever, but don’t make me—”

The voice on the other end remonstrated. The patient tone was clearly audible even if the words weren’t.

“If they’re stupid enough to make out in the only haunted house in—”

An interruption.

“No! They can find somewhere else to get their freak on! I’m not risking my life for hormonal—”

More patience, but with an irritated edge.

“No!” George thumped the wheel. “Fifteen percent! And they wanted me to play taxi service on top of that—”

The voice was kind, conciliatory, reasonable. Things were said about being understaffed and getting overtime. There was clearly a lot of placating going on and finally, George succumbed and deflated.

“Whatever. This next one is my last run and I’m telling you, man, it had better be normal this time! Nor-mal!

The voice on the phone raised its volume loud enough to be heard in the car: “I promise, George! Just deliver the pizza!”

--

It looked normal enough.

It was a plain, split level ranch; imminently non-threatening. He passed two other cars leaving their driveways as he pulled into his customer’s driveway. As he got out of the car and walked up the drive, eight more cars pulled out of their driveways and also left.

George squinted at them suspiciously, always alert to unusual behavior. Still, Mr. Galahad was good as his word. If he said normal, it would be normal. The cars passed by, their headlights vanishing into the darkness.

George hmphed to himself and continued up the sidewalk. He rang the doorbell and slouched there, looking bored—boredom which vanished the moment the door opened.

A girl with long curly brown hair stood in the doorway. A perfect girl. Curves, pretty mouth, bright eyes. She smiled at him. And maybe if he had been less impressed, he might have noticed that her eyes were bright with tears and her smile was a little wobbly. But he didn’t notice.

George murmured a dazed, “Medium Vegetarian.”

“Oh, that’s me alright.” She gave an awkward little laugh and handed him cash. He counted it, and paused, clearly reconsidering his opinion of this woman, and finally managed a neutral, “No tip?”

“Oh, oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes filled up with tears, and she put her hand to her mouth. “That’s so rude of me. I’m just so distracted and stressed right now… Is there any chance I could just skip the—no? Oh. Okay, give me a minute.”

She was back shortly, handing out the cash, and offered him a teary smile. “I’m sorry. It’s just I’m waiting on a dragon to eat me and I’m kind of upset.” She sniffed.

George froze.

“I’m not kidding around,” she said, misunderstanding his expression. “I really am not. It’s just…they built this development on an old dragon hoard and then the dragon came back and for us to stay here it has to eat one woman every five years. To change things, they’d have to tear down all the houses, and well, the HOA is so great here and everybody has a basement and, so we all agreed…” Her lip trembled. “But I guess I figured it wouldn’t be my turn till I was old or something, you know?” She tried for a brave smile. “I don’t suppose you know any dragon killers?”

George shut his eyes. Had his boss lied to him? No, the man was as absurdly, fanatically honorable. If he said normal, he meant normal. Which meant that he didn’t know this one was strange. Which meant George could just walk away. He opened his eyes and looked at the pretty girl. She was still talking, nattering on about her impending death.

“I told them it was sexist to only pick women but apparently if you’re a dragon you can be sexist, which I think…”

She was attractive yes. But she didn’t have much in the way of brains. She’d agreed to this situation. Would the world be worse off without her? He could hand this girl her pizza and walk down the driveway and never be bothered again.

“My name’s Darla, by the way, I’m so sorry to just go on and on like this but I’m just terrified…”

Yesterday he would have walked away without a qualm. He could enjoy beauty without rescuing it. Let Mr. Galahad be the hero. George looked out for George.

“I thought for sure somebody would speak up for me, I mean, I was a good neighbor…”

But today, the gashes on his arms from the werewolf’s claws still burned. Those moments still trembled along his limbs; the utter helplessness, frantic scrabbling, knowing he was about to die. And for the first time in his twenty something years, George found in himself a sense of empathy. He didn’t want this girl to be eaten because he knew what that felt like (nearly) and it had been so awful, he didn’t want it to happen to anybody else.

Well, if it was going to be done, he’d just get it over with. He interrupted her stream of consciousness ramblings. “Exactly what direction is this dragon coming from, do you know?”

She opened wide blue eyes at him in surprise. “T-they all say he comes down the chimney. He’s very big, I don’t know how he fits.”

George brushed past her and walked into the house, scanning the walls and windows. “Did you try to block it up?”

He entered the living room and found most of the furniture piled up against the fireplace. He nodded, pleased. She followed behind him with her hands clasped together in front of her. “I don’t think it will work,” she admitted. “That’s why I ordered the pizza.”

George frowned. “What? Wait, you got…”

He unzipped the insulated bag and opened the pizza box. Darla hovered by his shoulder, knotting her fingers together. “See, I thought if I gave him a pizza, maybe he wouldn’t eat me.”

George’s professional sensibilities were outraged. “You got a medium vegetarian!”

She blinked. “Well…I don’t believe in eating meat.”

George flung out a hand towards the fireplace. “He obviously does believe in it! Why didn’t you get the Massive Mega Meat Deluxe? It’s got,” he held up his fingers and counted them off, “ham, bacon, two kinds of pepperoni, beef, sausage, shredded chicken AND venison!” He held up eight fingers in her face. “What kind of idiot are you?”

Big tears wobbled in her eyes and she sank down onto an ottoman pushed up against the fireplace. “I didn’t think. I was so worried. Now it’s hopeless!”

The house rattled. A crack formed in the ceiling. Darla squeaked in fear and shot upright.

“Ohmygosh, ohmygosh, it’s him! What are we going to do?”

George was rummaging in his bag. There had to be one left. There had to be just one…he hadn’t even needed it for the last house, it was just overkill, Galahad was always telling him to stop overdoing it…This is what you get for being sympathetic, George! Another life or death moment! You could have walked away! His thoughts sounded like they did most of the time he'd gotten on of Mr. Galahad's "special" pizza deliveries. But this time those thoughts didn’t matter so much. He had chosen to be here. It changed things somehow.

And then the furniture blew apart. Sticks and bits of stuffing shot to far ends of the room and went clattering down onto the floor. A massive, scaly head shoved its way out of the fireplace, and two golden eyes fixed a horribly intelligent gaze on them. The dragon spoke, smoke spooling out of its mouth as its deep voice made the floor vibrate. “I am here only for the woman. Stand aside, knight.”

George’s hand closed on what he wanted. For a moment he paused, trying to think of some zingy one liner that Mr. Galahad would have come up with—and then he gave it up. “Nah,” he said, and pitched a can of Spam into the dragon’s mouth.

--

As he and Darla stood in the wreckage of broken furniture and exploded dragon, she asked, “What on earth did you throw at it?”

“Spam.” He shrugged. “It’s the exact opposite of an ancient myth. Modern, processed, and bland.”

She gave him another teary, wobbly smile and sidled a step closer. “Well, whatever it was, you saved me. Is there any way I can thank you?”

George looked down at her. “Uh, yes there is one thing.”

She batted her eyes at him.

He pulled the wad of cash she’d given him out of his change pouch. “I want a decent tip, woman!”

This one's rather long. Would you be more likely to read through one long story or come back twice for a two part story? Leave a comment and let me know!