Chapter 7: The Final Delivery

Chapter 7: The Final Delivery

The call with his mother ended not with a goodbye, but with the phone slipping from Leo’s nerveless fingers and clattering onto the floor. He didn't bend to pick it up. He stood frozen in the center of his living room, a ghost in his own life, haunted by the memory of a four-year-old boy he no longer knew.

He needs more.

The words echoed in the silent apartment, no longer a fragment of a nightmare but a verbatim quote from his own past. A deep, guttural demand that had clawed its way out of his throat. He could almost feel it, a phantom sensation of a small body overwhelmed by a monstrous, unnatural appetite. Sal hadn't just made good pizza; he had engineered a craving. He had planted a seed of ravenous hunger in a child, a seed that had lain dormant for two decades, waiting for the right conditions to sprout. And the "unidentified organic matter" was the poisoned fertilizer that made it grow.

Leo’s sterile apartment, once his sanctuary of order, now felt like a cage, a holding cell where he was waiting for a sentence to be carried out. The phantom smell of old pepperoni and dust was stronger than ever, a suffocating blanket of decay. He could almost see Sal in the corner of his eye—the large, greasy man in his stained uniform, his smile fixed, his dark eyes hollow and patient. Waiting for him to come back to the table.

He had to fight. He couldn't just stand here and wait for the end. But how do you fight a memory? How do you exorcise a ghost that lives inside your own appetite?

His gaze fell to his phone, lying face-up on the floor where it had fallen. The screen was dark. A clean slate. A useless gesture. His digital exorcism had been like throwing a cup of water on a house fire. He had erased the app, but he couldn't erase the connection. He was the app.

As he watched, a flicker of light emanated from the center of the dark screen. It wasn't a notification. It was a pinprick of green and white light that coalesced, blooming like a digital flower. Pixels arranged themselves, solidifying into a shape he knew with sickening familiarity.

The Uber Eats icon faded into existence on his home screen.

It didn't download. It didn't install. It simply appeared, a supernatural violation of every law of code he understood. He let out a choked, incredulous sob. The phone was a clean slate, but the ghost was the one holding the chalk.

Before he could even react, the screen lit up fully, the newly manifested app launching itself. It opened directly to a checkout page. There was only one item in the cart, a single line of text under the grinning cartoon logo of Uncle Sal.

1x The Usual Slice

The order was already placed. And below the total, which read simply "$0.00," was a timer. A five-minute timer, already counting down.

4:59

4:58

A wave of pure, unadulterated panic seized him. He lunged for the phone, his fingers skidding across the screen as he tried to close the app. It wouldn't respond. He tried to power the phone down, holding the side button, but the screen remained locked on the order, the numbers ticking down with relentless precision. He jabbed at the "Cancel Order" button, a grayed-out, useless tease. The ghost wasn't asking anymore. It was delivering.

3:42

3:41

He threw the phone across the room. It hit the far wall with a sharp crack and slid to the floor, but the screen remained lit, the timer's glow a malevolent green eye staring back at him. He backed away, his breath coming in ragged, useless gasps. He was a prisoner. The delivery was coming. The final delivery.

2:15

2:14

He scrambled to the front door, his hands shaking so violently he could barely work the locks. He checked the deadbolt, the chain, the knob lock. Secure. It was a flimsy defense against a force that could rewrite the code on his phone from beyond the grave, but it was all he had.

1:03

1:02

The silence in the apartment stretched, becoming thin and taut, ready to snap. He stood with his back pressed against the wall next to the door, listening, his entire world narrowed to the sound of his own frantic heartbeat and the soft ticking of the seconds in his mind.

0:07

0:06

The timer on the phone across the room must be nearing zero. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for—what? He didn't know. A spectral wind? A ghostly scream?

0:01

0:00

The timer reached zero. The apartment remained silent. Nothing happened. For a single, beautiful, foolish second, he allowed himself to feel a sliver of relief. Maybe it was just a final scare. A last, terrifying glitch before the ghost finally faded.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

The sound was not spectral. It was loud, solid, and real. Three thunderous impacts against his front door that rattled the frame and vibrated through the floorboards into the soles of his feet. It was an insistent, impatient sound. A sound that knew he was home.

Leo didn't breathe. He didn't move. He prayed it would go away. The delivery driver would get no answer and leave. But there was no delivery driver. He knew that with chilling certainty.

Silence returned. He waited, counting the seconds. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Nothing.

Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself off the wall and crept toward the door. Every instinct screamed at him to stay put, to hide in his bedroom and call the police, though what he would tell them, he had no idea. But the need to know, the same morbid curiosity that had driven him to the strip mall, was stronger.

He leaned forward, his eye pressing against the cold, brass ring of the peephole. The fisheye lens distorted the hallway outside, curving the walls into a long, empty tunnel. There was no one there. No delivery driver in a uniform, no shadowy figure, no greasy ghost of Sal Moretti.

Just a pizza box on his doormat.

But this one was different. This wasn't the faded, greasy, twenty-year-old relic that had started this nightmare. This box was pristine white, the cartoon chef logo a vibrant, cheerful red. A wisp of steam curled from the seams, visible even through the distorted lens.

And then the smell hit him, seeping under the door, a fragrant, irresistible tide.

It wasn't the phantom scent of dust and decay. This was real. It was the intoxicating, mouth-watering perfume of a pizza fresh from the oven. A symphony of baked dough, sweet and tangy tomato sauce, sizzling pepperoni, and melted, bubbling cheese. It was the most delicious thing he had ever smelled in his life. It was the smell from his dreams, from a forgotten childhood memory, amplified a thousand times.

The smell bypassed his brain, his logic, his terror. It spoke directly to a deeper, more primitive part of him. It spoke to the hungry four-year-old boy. The "unidentified organic matter" didn't matter. The suicide, the haunting, the terror—it all began to fade, washed away by a monstrous, all-consuming wave of pure, physical craving.

His fear was still there, a small, screaming voice in the back of his skull, but it was being drowned out. Drowned out by a hunger so profound it was a physical pain, an ache in his bones. The gnawing emptiness in his stomach was a black hole demanding to be filled. His mouth flooded with saliva.

The small, rational part of him knew this was the end. This was the trap, the final, irresistible temptation. To open the door was to let Sal in forever. To eat the pizza was to be consumed.

But the little boy inside him, the one who had been starved for two decades, was screaming. It was the only thing that mattered.

He needs more.

His fear was gone, burned away by the fire of his supernatural hunger. His hand, no longer trembling, rose with a slow, deliberate certainty. His fingers brushed against the cool, brass of the doorknob.