The Day of Reckoning

Papa John promised a day of reckoning. Here it is.

            “I would just say stay tuned,” said a greasy-faced man in a red polo, with a menacing glare in his black eyes. “The day of reckoning will come; the record will be straight.”

            An interviewer in a black suit with brown skin sat across from the greasy-faced man. “Why not just set the record straight now?” he asked with a sincere tone. “I mean, what is it about the record that’s not straight?”

            The greasy-faced man chuckled malevolently, with barely a smile on his lips. “Stay tuned…”

            Rob Lynch turned off the massive television set in his office and looked down at the newspaper that his secretary left on his desk. It was a report on the death of Mandy Shaw, which should have been good news since a competing pizza chain, Blaze Pizza, had just lost its head. The nature of the death is what frightened him: She had been cooked into her own pizza and served to unwitting customers.

            This… well, this wasn’t the first death like this, though. It started with the death of Artie Starrs, the CEO of Pizza Hut. Reports said that he had gone missing for several weeks before they found evidence of his DNA in one of the kitchens of a Pizza Hut restaurant. The authorities could only assume what had happened, but it was such a PR nightmare for Pizza Hut that their stocks tanked, and their restaurants became wastelands. That was only the beginning of 2020.

            The next death reported had been Richard E. Allison, Jr. Like the first, nobody knew what had happened, but a homeless man reported to the police that he’d found a human toe in his Domino’s Pizza. They matched it to the DNA of Allison, who had gone missing just the day before. At that point, people saw that there was a connection.

            Rob looked at the newspaper. There was a statement issued by Blaze Pizza investor and NBA superstar LeBron James. In the picture, he was surrounded by bodyguards, but Rob knew that was pointless. The killer had only been targeting CEOs so far. Pizza Hut, Domino’s, Little Caesar’s, Blaze Pizza, and even Chuck E. Cheese’s had all lost their CEOs. In fact, it wasn’t just the major chains, but local smaller chains had reported similar cases all around the country. In all, thirty-nine victims had met their ends in just one month.

            Everybody seemed to know who it was, but nobody had the courage to make an accusation: Papa John. Filled with hatred, he promised that the day of reckoning would be upon them. Rob shuddered to think about it.

            He threw the newspaper into the small trash bin by his desk, which toppled over at the force of his throw. He stood up and walked the great distance to reach the double wooden doors to his office. He pulled them open and greeted the eight bodyguards who stood at his door. They had all cost him a fortune, each one carrying the latest firearms and surveillance gear. He’d purchased special suits for them as well, which were bulletproof, knife-proof, and even fireproof. Three million dollars he’d spent on their equipment, with each of them raking in $200,000 a year to protect him. He’d had to funnel funds from Papa John’s Pizza and Arby’s to pay for them, but he figured it would be worth the prison time if it kept him alive.

            Other heads of the pizza companies had done this as well after the first few deaths had been reported. It didn’t seem to protect them from Papa John’s rage. “Any word, gentlemen?” he asked the guards, who all stood over 6 feet tall. The head of them, a man with black hair tied in a ponytail, looked down at him.

            “Negative, sir,” he said, monotone.

            “Good, good.” He shook his head absentmindedly. Of course, he would be the primary target. He wondered why the purge hadn’t started with him in the first place. John had all but threatened to do this in the interview, why would he be made to suffer for so long without knowing where he was? Or what he was doing?

            It was time for him to go home, but he always dreaded the long drive. The Tesla outside could get him home quickly and outrun practically any other car on the road, but he couldn’t just live in it. He reached the elevator, his guards funneling in behind him. Nobody else would be permitted to ride with them all the way down, as was their current protocol.

Rob felt like he was in a prison as he rode down with his guards. None of them spoke to each other, and he had no freedom to do anything he wanted. Not until John was caught and brought to justice.

The elevator stopped.

Rob stopped breathing, his heart accelerated, and he prayed to whatever god would listen. Was this it? Doomed to die in an elevator? No, no, his guards could certainly handle a beefy man like Papa John. The doors to the elevator opened, and a tiny old woman stood at the entrance. She was bent over with age, and rather chubby. Her face was wrinkled and sweaty, as if she had just run three miles.

“Mind if I ride along with you, dear?” she squeaked, her voice cracking and breaking like her bones probably were by her standing.

An old woman? “Hurry up,” Rob said impatiently, gesturing for her to stand in front of one his guards.

“Oh!” she yelped, shuffling into the elevator. “Well, aren’t you just the sweetest thing. I tell you, more men ought to be like all you gentlemen.” Rob took a deep breath as the elevator doors closed and it lurched into progress again. How had she overridden the codes to the elevator? Nobody could access the elevator without senior executive approval while he was in it.

Realization dawned on him as he looked down at the shriveled bent-over woman. How tall was she really? “Guards!” he shouted, before the elevator halted again and the lights blacked out. He heard gunshots, which nearly shattered his eardrums with how close they were in such a confined space. The lights flickered on and off, and he watched as the old woman, who clearly wasn’t an old woman at all, stood at average height for a man with a rather portly stomach.

The gunshots continued, but nothing touched the man who stood in the black. A bodyguard to his right fell, followed by one behind him. Grunts, gunshots, and cracks filled the tiny room. Rob fell to the ground and covered his head, trying to take himself to his happy place. He felt the elevator moving again as the grunts and gunshots continued, with a body falling every now and again. He prayed that one of those bodies would be John’s and that this nightmare would be over.

Minutes passed in silence as the elevator continued to go down. He laid there, pretending to be dead underneath the bodies. Would the man with the ponytail help him up if he realized he was alive?

“Better ingredients,” said a sinister voice. “Better pizza.” The elevator stopped. Rob slowly opened one of his eyes to peek through the bodies at the indicator on the elevator. Instead of a number, it read PJ.

“I always knew it was a good idea to install my own security key in here.” Rob opened his eyes completely to see the old woman removing his fake hair and wrinkles. They were covered in the blood of the guards whose bodies now littered the floor. He couldn’t tell if the polo shirt John was wearing was always red or if it had been stained.

“W-what do you w-want?” Rob stammered out. His pants felt warm and wet, and it wasn’t from any of the blood of the guards.

“My wife said I was crazy for installing this secret underground. Said I’d never need it, you know?” The doors opened and a smell of grease and metal filled Rob’s nostrils. “This hallway leads right to the kitchen of my very first restaurant. Pretty neat, huh?”

Rob remained silent. He didn’t want to die with what little dignity he had left. He had always wanted to die surrounded by fireworks. “Say something!” shouted John, kicking him hard in the face. It felt like a brick wall propelled by a train breaking his nose.

Rob clenched his nose, afraid that this was truly the end as he blacked out completely.

“Hey, man,” said a faintly familiar voice. Why did he know that voice? “Man, wake up.”

Rob opened his eyes, his vision was completely blurred. Across from him in the dark, stony room was one of the largest men he’d ever seen in person. Was that…? No, it couldn’t be.

“You okay?” said LeBron James, who was chained up against the wall. He had a swelling bruise on his eye and a few cuts on his arms.

“Where are we?”

“Man, I don’t know,” said LeBron, shrugging as best as he could in the chains. “I was on my way to the Staples Center for practice, and then some psycho in a red polo crashed right into my car. Next thing I know, I was in here, all chained up like this.” The chains rattled as he tried to move, but to no avail.

Rob tried to move, finding that he was successful where LeBron was not. Papa John hadn’t bothered to chain him up. Must not have felt threatened by him at all, and for good reason. His pants were still damp, and the smell of urine mixed with a definite scent of a pizza kitchen. “I think we’re at Papa John’s.”

“Papa�"what? Nah, man, you’re kidding me, right?” LeBron looked at him inquisitively, raising his eyebrows to his slightly receding hairline. Realization dawned on LeBron’s face as his eyebrows relaxed. “Oh. So, all those pizzas…”

“Yeah,” said Rob, standing up straight. His head was killing him, throbbing so fiercely that his ears were filled with the sound. “Better ingredients? Huh.”

“Sounds like we’re in trouble,” said LeBron. “Can you get me out of here?”

Rob nodded and tried to unhook the chains surrounding the massive man. He cursed as he tried to slide him out, but there was no hope. “This isn’t working!”

“Calm down, calm down.” LeBron looked at ease, as if this was just another game on the court. “Look, the bottom of my shoe can come off. Take off the bottom and give me what you find.”

Rob obeyed as he reached into LeBron’s shoe and withdrew a powerful looking blade. He handed it to LeBron’s open palm, which was tied behind his back. LeBron flipped a switch of some kind and the blade turned red hot. Within minutes, he had cut the chains and stood up, towering over Rob like a god.

“Thanks, man.”

“What is that?” Rob looked at the blade, which had gone back to it’s non-super-heated metallic shine.

“When you have half a billion dollars, you can buy some pretty cool stuff,” said LeBron, smiling. “Alright, let’s get ready for him to come back.”

Rob stared at him. Was he some kind of superhero? “We can’t.”

“Huh?”

“I saw him�"well, heard him kill eight of my ELITE bodyguards. And he got you past yours! How can we stand any chance at all?”

The door swung open suddenly, knocking LeBron to the floor. Rob froze in fear, staring into the black eyes of the greasy-faced menace. “I bet you’re wondering why I’m doing this.” Papa John stared at Rob with a craving in his black hole eyes.

“You’re insane,” Rob cried.

Papa John chuckled his curdled and threatening laugh. “I’ve been making these pizzas for over thirty years. I told you that the day of reckoning was coming, didn’t I? I told you that I ate forty pizzas in thirty days, and none of them ever lived up to my expectations.

“My, my. You have no clue how difficult it is to make a pizza out of a human body, and still make it taste delicious. I had to mix the blood into the tomato sauce with just enough seasoning that they would complement each other. I had to figure out how to grind human flesh into sausage, how to remove the organs that wouldn’t add as much flavor. And the cheese? Ugh, don’t get me started on the cheese.”

LeBron charged at Papa John, but he was too quick. Before he could even lay a finger on him, Papa John brought him down with a kick to the knee, an elbow to the chest, and a knee to his face. He held LeBron’s head in his sweaty hands. “I brought you in here because I need the people to care! And you�"you thought your crappy little pizzas were good? Hah! You’re just a meatheaded fool.”

His evil gaze fell back on Rob. “And you’re here because after thirty-nine human pizzas, I’ve finally perfected my recipe. A recipe that I will gift to all of mankind! And you will be the fortieth pizza that I consume in this thirtieth day before I serve you to the rest of my customers.”

Rob trembled, expelling what little amount of urine he had left. LeBron was down, his guards were dead, and this was the end. Papa John was an unstoppable force backed up by an immovable object. Which is why what happened next didn’t make any sense to Robb.

LeBron bit John’s hand, so hard that he began to bleed and stumbled back a few steps. LeBron then threw his knife at John, who parried it away from himself. He… he could bleed. Well, if he could bleed, he could be killed.

Rob ran to the knife on the ground and picked it up. Papa John seemed to forget that Rob was there, as he kept his eyes fixed on LeBron, who managed to lift himself back onto his feet. LeBron swung a massive, trunk-like arm at John, who dodged it easily, hitting his arm twice before Rob closed the gap between them. He stabbed at John, but he dodged it with a backflip, landing easily with the grace of a gymnast.

“You forget, I’ve eaten thirty-nine human pizzas in thirty days. One more and I’ll become a god!” Papa John reached a hand out and beckoned for his challengers to approach him. Had the pizzas really given him strength?

Papa John took a few steps forward, before LeBron reached into his other shoe, pulling out an identical knife. They had brought two superheating knives to a god-fight. John sprinted at them, and Rob and LeBron sprinted towards him. Whether or not John would really become a god wasn’t important. Rob would not become a pizza this day.

John knocked Rob to the floor by breaking his kneecap with an easy kick, but before he could strike a killing blow, LeBron was on his back, nearly stabbing him with the knife. Papa John dodged it quickly, but not before the adrenaline pushed Rob to stand on his other knee and take a swipe. Miraculously, this one cut him, searing his flesh and filling Rob’s nose with a putrid stench of melted skin.

Papa John howled in pain. “No, no!” He ran towards them again, this time calling on whatever ungodly powers he held to back him up as he pursued LeBron. LeBron tried to swipe at him again, but John parried the knife out of his hand and grabbed it. The knife went into LeBron’s torso, but from where Rob stood, he couldn’t tell if it was going to be fatal.

LeBron, acting quickly, wrapped his bear-like arms around John. “Come on!” shouted LeBron. Rob only had a split second to act, and he shoved the knife right into the back of John’s exposed skull, killing him instantly. A blackness leaked from Papa John’s eyes as LeBron let him drop to the floor, dead.

Following John, LeBron also fell, severely injured, but not bleeding. “I guess I won’t be able to make it to the next game,” he said, a smile on his lips.

“You’re not gonna die here LeBron!” said Rob, who was on the ground himself now, for the pain in his leg.

“Nah, man, I just need to relax a little,” chuckled LeBron, a smile still on his face. “You won’t be able to get us out of here at all.”

Rob laughed with him, but the pain winced in his knee.

 

A few months later, after the press conferences, the police reports, and the hospital beds, Rob sat courtside in Los Angeles, by personal invitation of LeBron James himself. His knee still hadn’t healed properly, and it probably never would. At night, his nightmares still kept him awake, thinking of John in every glaring moment.

He had resigned from Papa John’s Pizza and Arby’s, still trying to recover from the Reckoning, but he wasn’t sure if he would ever be the same again. Papa John’s corpse rotted in grave, his millions donated to separate charities all across the world. Funny how many people that money would help from a man who tried to become a god.

Rob sighed, watching LeBron score a game-winning shot in his first game back on the Lakers. Well, at least he’d made a friend.

Author's Note

I wrote this for my class. I don't really know why.