Dead Meat.

Midnight. Or, at least as close to midnight as it could be without actually being midnight.

So, like, 11:59.
...
Midnight.
Christmas Eve.

The inky blackness of festive the street was pierced by lights, casting red and green glares across the sidewalk. A recent storm left snow sprawled across the streets, like a drunk department store Santa who found a whole bottle of whisky in his stocking. The night was as cold as a Reverend's teat, but the promise of things to come warmed me and gave me the strength to push onwards. I'd been invited to a little get-together hosted by some old friends from the business. Fingers McGraw and Legs McGinty had run two rival pizza houses for years, maintaining a healthy competition mainly because they were both stubborn old men. Proud, honourable and saltier than 16-century horse meat...which was kept in barrels of salt on long sea voyages.

I approached the condominium they shared, it's monogrammed mailbox loudly trumpeted their presence to the neighborhood, like a tuba salesman would his wares. But then the proprietor of 'McGraw's Greasy Grubhole' had never been one for subtelty. As I walked towards the house I noticed the door was ajar. Instantly I was wary, my years as a delivery boy had taught me always to be wary of open doors. They signified bill-dodgers...or worse, dog people!

I gingerly nudged the door and it creaked open, revealing a yawning black maw like that left in the heart of a widow. My heart thudded against the pocket book of Sylvia Plath quotes in my coat pocket. A light in the dining room was a beacon to me at the end of the dark hallway inside. The cold, soft light banished the darkness weakly, like a depressed lighthouse. I wanted to call their names, but a kind of cold dread prevented me. I crept to the doorway, and was surprised by a fallen Christmas tree that lay on the floor. Pirouetting through the air like a trench coat-clad ballet dancer, I found myself prone at the foot of a table.

I could see rows of feet under the table, like...rows of feet...no time to check the book, I lept to my feet.

"Legs! Why'd you leave that thing lyin' around?"
No answer.

At first, I thought he was just being strong and silent, like an elm, but then I saw the reason for his silence. All the bodies at the table lay slumped into their food.

They were dead.

Dead as the turkey they had been eating.

I had barely begun to grieve when light erupted from the windows, illuminating the grisly (yet still oddly festive) scene. Arcs of that familiar red and blue light intermittently played across the dead men's features, like a schizoid rainbow. A louderspeaker spoke (it's kinda their thing):

"Johnny Thrimbletrimmer, employee of the Triple-Stack 3-for-1! This is the police. We have the building surrounded, come out with your hands up. You have one minute."

I'd been framed! The circumstantial evidence was too damning, and there's no way I'd survive prison with my firm, willowy, and pale frame. I had to escape. I couldn't fight; all I had on me was a pizza cutter and I had no intention of using that on the police.

In the end I chose the stealthy approach, and slipped out the back door, like an improperly inserted suppository. After I was a few blocks away from the police squad, I allowed myself to breathe easy and tried to compose my thoughts, which was like trying to play a symphony with a monkey orchestra. I swatted a mental gibbon away from an abstract bassoon, and began to think.

Why would this have happened? That question seemed obvious. Someone was out to get me, and those poor bastards had just gotten in the way. But who? Could be a rival firm, but the Chief and I had always competed peacefully with the other firms.

Saucy...?

No. Not after Paris. She would never do that to me.

I needed help, and I needed it fast. The Chief was too far, and I couldn't go back to the Triple Stack, or she'd be in danger. The only man who could help me now was Deep Crust.

---

The Deep Dish Pizza Place was a maginificent establishment, but it looked very different at night. The oppressive dark of the city drained the colour out it's red walls, leaving it looking like an arthouse photograph of a shrunken tomatoe...y'know, the square ones. I saw them on the internet once. It didn't look occupied, except for one solitary light in the top window.

The door was open, as if Deep Crust was expecting me. DP had always boasted of his powers of premonition, which he attributed to his Romany heritage. It was also what he attributed his string of failed marriages and bitter alcoholism to, but best not to mention that right now.

I Brianed open the back door (Jimmy was vacationing with the Chief), and crept inside like a cat made of shadows. The red light was reflected inside giving the dining area an eerie crimson hue, like a haemophiliac had held a sharp objects party in there. My old friend's living quarters were on the second floor; he had always liked to gaze out of the window at the people strolling by, like he was remembering a more simple time in his life. He also enjoyed dumping his rotten condiments onto customers who tried to leave without tipping. It was how he'd earned his nickname, 'The Sweet Chilli Avenger'. I ascended the stairs like a midnight...uh...um...ferret.

I found Deep Crust in his room, hunched over a desk and surrounded by mountains of frozen pizzas. He seemed not to notice me, and to the untrained eye would seem to have not reacted. However, to me his alertness and tension was obvious, like a fireman living in a house made of wicker and candles.

"DP." I croaked, like a film noir bullfrog, "I need your help."

He shifted almost imperceptibly in his chair, focused on his work but listening.

"I'm in deep, Deep. Someone's trying to pin a lot of bodies on me, and I'm no-one's noticeboard! You're the only one I can turn to for help. Donald, man, I need you."

Deep Crust ceased his fevered scribbling and turned to look at me. His gaze was loaded, like a transvestite alchoholic at a ladies night. But his gaze was loaded with meaning rather than tequila and rohypnol.

"Johnny" he said, "I don't know what you've gotten yourself into, but you're still my friend. Of course I'll help you. I owe you that much."

For the first time in hours, I felt at ease, whereas before I'd felt like a balloon man talking a stroll down the pointiest street in town. However, a flicker in DP's face told me that he wasn't finished.

"Just...give me a hand with something first." he continued.

For the first time I really began to notice the room I was in. The boxes that towered high above our heads like grease-stained cardboard collusi didn't bear the familiar Deep Dish logo. Instead, indecipherable foreign glyphs decorated the boxes.

"DP...where did these come from?" I asked, voice full to the brim with apprehension like an anxious beer.

"I got a bunch of pizzas cheap from this Russian pastry baron. They weren't exactly his to sell, so I really need to get them out of here - fast."

I was speechless, all I could do was put one foot in front of the other, as an especially jagged terrier caught the hem of my rubber coat, and burst my metaphorical bubble. I took a step back, and a baton collided with the back of my head. My face hit the floorboards; I tasted blood...and pine. I heard Deep crust get tackled by two police officers, then it all went dark.

---

The next morning brought revelation after revelation, like a preacher with a bad case of deja vu. I had inadvertantly lead the police right to the Deep Dish. It looked like Deep crust would be spending Christmas behind bars. No matter, I'd make it up to him by delivering a very special pie, with a key hidden under the pepperoni.

I could right that wrong, but there are some things you just can't fix. The mortician managed to uncover the cause of death for Legs, Fingers and the others.

Undercooked turkey.

Simple food poisoning had managed to kill so many. Pulling my coat tight around me, I retreated inside myself from the cold and the horrors of the world. They were lowlife pizza men, and would be missed by none, and mourned by fewer. Except for me. I couldn't dwell on it, it was just the way this open wound of a city worked.

They were human flotsam, and a great tide had come to wash them out to sea.

...

Hey, that one was kinda good.