The Tips Are All Right

© 2004 Jonathan Daniel
All rights reserved.

"No, please God, don't." The words oozed out of Chris' mouth over heavy lips. Above him there was only light, fuzzy and shimmering through a thick curtain of anesthesia. Beneath him was the hard surface of an operating table, the steel cold against his bare flesh. His thick eyelids blinked, trying to clear the gauze of near unconsciousness from his vision. Shapes adjusted to either side, but Chris couldn't move his head to see them more clearly. He felt a hand, rough skin and a tickle of something like hair, on his stomach. The fingers, fat and leathery, probed his flesh, feeling for a good entry point.

One of the figures leaned directly over his face. Chris' eyes focused. His scream died in his throat, emitted only as a squeak. The doctor, the man who was preparing to work on him, was....

He squeezed his eyes shut against the horror bending over him. Struggling to twist his head away from the sight, away from the reality of what was happening to him, he managed to move his head to the right slightly. The fingers began to press hard on his upper abdomen, seeming to find the spot they had been searching for. Chris felt the pain, cold and thin, of the scalpel as it pressed against his skin. As it slipped inside, a hard thump of cold, he opened his eyes and saw himself standing in the doorway of the operating room, one hand held forward in protest, a slice of pizza in his other hand. The cold, thin line moved down to his crotch and Chris finally found the scream that had buried itself in his lungs—

He opened his eyes. The white walls of his bedroom stood around him, silent and indifferent. His mouth was open, the last sounds of the scream having faded. Chris closed his mouth, rubbed his face. The dreams were coming more and more frequently. His eyes drifted to the nightstand to his left. A photograph of his brother on the beach smiled back at him. Chris felt the sharp pang of sadness in his chest. It was quickly replaced by fear as his vision fell on the digital clock next to the picture. Ten after seven p.m. He was late for work.

Chris Hanlan guided his car to a smooth stop at a red light. He rubbed his face with both hands and let out a long breath. When he inhaled again, the air brought the thick, greasy smell of pizzas. He looked over at the passenger seat where the bright purple thermal bag was positioned. A faded logo of a squat Italian chef holding a large pizza in one hand adorned the cover of the bag. A small clear window on the front flap held the order slips, and he pulled them out with two fingers.

Chris had taken the job as a pizza delivery man three weeks earlier, after a two-month stint of unemployment. His last job, balancing daily statistics at a bank, had ended with a terse letter from the human resources department citing an increase in his unprofessional use of company email. He didn't mind. The pizza job was more liberating than anything the bank ever could have offered, and the tips were all right.

From a small cubby hole in the dashboard console a shrill chirping sounded. Chris put the order slips in his lap and reached for his cell phone. He looked briefly at the display window and pressed the talk button.

"Hey."

"That doesn't sound good." The voice of his girlfriend, Lauren filtered through the small earpiece. "What's wrong?"

Chris was quiet for a moment, debating whether or not to tell her about the dream. Lauren spoke first.

"Did you have another one?"

Chris felt his stomach lurch as she said the words. "Yes. I was on the table this time." He heard her sigh.

"Honey, we really need to get you to see someone about this."

"I am not going to go see a doctor about a dream I had," Chris said. His voice was clipped, snapping the words out as he said them. He exhaled, pressed the gas as the light in front of him turned green and directed the car down the street. "I'm fine. It's just a recurring dream."

"Yes, it is," Lauren countered, her voice heavy with reason. "Chris, you're having recurring nightmares about this. It's not healthy. You know you had nothing to do with his death. There was no way you could have helped save him, even if you hadn't been in Germany."

"You don't know that. I could have done something, I should have done something. I ... I was just too late."

Chris thought Lauren sounded on the verge of tears as she spoke. "I know you feel guilty about it. I hate it too. I loved your brother, but what happened to him in the operating room was an accident. Even the doctors couldn't have saved him. Nobody could." An image flashed across Chris' mind, large hulking beasts in doctor's uniforms working on his brother.

"I'm not going to see a doctor," he repeated firmly. He shook his head and turned a corner. "Look, honey, I have to go. I'm about to stop at a delivery. I'll call you later tonight, okay?" He hung up and tossed the phone back into the console. He sped through a yellow light and in an attempt to clear his mind of the dream, he thought about how he got the job delivering pizzas.

One evening after a day of throwing a dart at ads in an open phone book to decide which company to apply for next, Chris wrote a check that he knew would bounce like a beach ball at a concert for a pizza that was delivered by a man who looked to be ten years past retirement age. As the man took the check, Chris asked, "You get paid pretty good working there?"

"No. But the tips are all right."

"Yeah? You get good money?"

The man's shoulders lurched up, and then fell quickly. "Sometimes. Most I ever got on a money tip was twenty bucks. Some drunk woman."

"You get other things for tips?"

A chuckle escaped the man's mouth. "Heh. Yeah. I've gotten beer, weed, a lamp, and a blow job." Chris' mouth fell slack.

"No shit?" The man nodded. "You guys hiring?" The man's head bobbed again. Chris had filled out the application the next day and had started that same evening.

Smiling at the memory, Chris pulled up to the curb of an apartment complex. He looked at it, a series of dual-level, tan-colored buildings with staircases at even intervals and a black iron railing running along the street side of the upper landing. After he found the correct apartment he went up the stairs, adjusting the uniform that was still too large for him, and followed the landing down to the left. His destination apartment was second to last. Every residence had a single light fixture mounted to the wall to the right of each door, with silver numbers marking each apartment in sequential order. He knocked loudly on the metal door and stepped back, a caution that the other drivers had told him to take. "Stand too close to the door and you'll scare the shit out of them, may make them forgo the tip."

A lean man with sandy brown hair and a moustache answered. Behind the man, Chris could see a woman sitting in a recliner, grey sweat shorts pulled up high on her tan thighs. He caught himself before his eyes could roam any farther up her body, smiled at the man, and handed him the food. The guy grunted something about waiting a minute, then shut the door. Chris stared at the closed door for a second and decided he had gone to retrieve the money.

A loud thump and clatter sounded from the apartment to the left of his delivery. Chris looked toward it but didn't see anything. The light beside the door was burnt out and shadows painted the doorframe a dark grey. He heard another sound, something else falling as if from a high shelf onto a table.

The sensation that something wasn't safe began to tingle at his extremities. His fingertips began to buzz as if they had been asleep. A loud creak next to him caused him to jump. Looking toward the source of the sound, he saw the mustached man holding out a wad of bills. Chris relaxed, surprised at how tense he had become. He thanked the man and stuffed the money into his left front pocket.

As he turned to leave, he looked at the other apartment. He stopped, one foot poised in mid-air as his eyes registered what they were seeing. The door was in the process of swinging open slowly, as if nearing the end of its journey.

His heart was a jackhammer in his chest. He began to force himself to leave but couldn't move. What if someone was hurt, he wondered, remembering the sounds. What if it had been a child trying to get something from a shelf and lost its balance? He let the thermal delivery bag fall to his side and, despite his brain's protests, he approached the dark open doorway.

He knocked once and waited. Inside the apartment all the lights were out. He could make out shapes of furniture: a couch, a bar that divided the kitchen from the living room.

"Hello?" he called. His voice fell flat in the still air. He hesitantly put one toe in the room. One hand slid along a wall until it found the light switch. He flipped it on and squinted in the sudden light. The apartment was empty, but the horror that assaulted his eyes more than made up for the absence of people. Blood coated the walls. Splatters of red, as if a blood-filled balloon had exploded inside the room. Chris recoiled against the doorframe, one hand flying to his mouth. His eyes took it all in, searching the apartment for anything he could focus on.

Then on the floor he saw piles of rags. His eyes focused and he realized they weren't rags, but green surgical scrubs. The blood was thicker on them, it seemed. Chris thought he was going to faint when a soft thump, coupled with a sucking sound from the recesses of the apartment, ripped his gaze away from the scrubs. Trembling, he withdrew fully from the door and ran back to his car.

He sped out of the parking lot, scraping the undercarriage of his car on the street as he accelerated into traffic. He steered around two cars, but all he could see were the bloody scrubs in the apartment. His fingers adjusted their grip on the steering wheel to combat the shaking of his hands. His knuckles turned white from the exertion. Two miles later he began to slow down. He was still panicked and reached for his cell phone as he pulled into the parking lot of a McDonald's. He dialed Lauren's number and waited for the connection as he stared through the window at a family sitting at a table shoving fries into each other's mouths. She answered on the third ring.

"Lauren?" he asked, knowing his voice was shaky and high-pitched.

"Chris? What happened? Are you all right?" Her voice elevated with fear.

"I...." he broke down, the words falling apart before they could leave his mouth. He heard her telling him to calm down, to take a deep breath and tell her what happened. He did, and told her everything about the delivery he had just made.

"Chris, you have to call the police," Lauren said, her voice loud in his ear. She was near panic and Chris agreed to report what he saw. He hung up, dialed 911, and told the dispatcher what he had witnessed. Once his civic duty was fulfilled, he called Lauren back. As soon as she picked up she began speaking to him, her tone calm and composed.

"Okay baby, everything is fine. I want you to listen to me, okay? Are you listening? Good." Lauren's voice purred through the phone, smooth and silky, calming him slowly. She had such a good way of doing that. "I'm sure that you saw a murder scene. It has happened before. Remember that news story about the delivery guy in Bangor?" Chris did, but didn't want to think of the details. Those children.... "You must have found one, that's all. Just like that guy in Maine."

"But what about the—?"

"Honey, there couldn't have been any scrubs. Remember the dream you had? You got yourself all worked up over that. We both know how you feel about Greg, and I think that when you stumbled into that room after having such a horrible nightmare, your mind took over and made you see something that wasn't really there." She continued to talk to him, and as she did, he felt his breathing slow and his mind stop racing.

After several minutes, he cleared his throat. "You're right," he said. "I know what I saw, the murder scene, the blood and all of that, but you're right. There's no way I saw the other things." He could hear her smile, a warm breath in his ear. She told him she loved him and would see him later when he got home. He hung up, feeling warm and thick, the way he always did after talking to her. He sat in the parking lot, watching people come and go from the restaurant and mulling over what had just happened. He decided that Lauren was right and put the car in gear.

His next several deliveries were to run-of-the-mill places. Most were houses in the small suburbs that ringed the city. The neighborhoods all looked alike, each with the same type of name. Trace Crossings, Summerbrook, Shady Pines. All the families looked the same as well, soccer moms and dads taking the boxes of pizza from him with a smile that to some people may seem genuine and sincere but that Chris knew was put on only long enough to tolerate the delivery guy. Once he was gone, the adults lost the joviality and turned to face their insane children who were demanding that they be fed while watching the latest Vin Diesel movie. He never got extraordinary tips from those places, unless he happened to luck out and deliver to a house full of teenagers whose parents were out for the night or weekend. As each delivery was completed, he felt a sense of normalcy return, the feathery tendrils of his fear leaving.

After the fifth house, Chris returned yet again to the parlor and grabbed another load while trying to ignore the manager's menacing stares. He piled the orders into his car, checked the slips, and sped off. The first order directed him to a tall apartment building located in an upscale section of downtown. Several police cars were parked in front of the building, their blue-and-white strobe lights flashing. He took off his cap, wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, and started into the building, trying to ignore the fear that was growing in his stomach.

An elevator carried him slowly up to the seventh floor. As the doors whispered open, he heard a burst of static and an electronic voice filter through the air. He turned right off of the elevator and then left down a long hallway lined with doors. Four uniformed police officers stood in a huddle outside of an open door at the far end of the hall, in the direction Chris was traveling. They all stopped talking and looked at him when he appeared. One rested his hand on the butt of his pistol, trying to make it appear as if he were stretching. Chris looked at the silver numbers on the beige doors but knew that the address he was after was the one occupied by policemen.

"Can we help you?" one of the officers asked as he approached.

"I had a delivery call to this address, sir," Chris said. He tried to keep the shaking from his voice.

"You sure about that?" another cop asked. Chris looked at his ticket and nodded his head.

"Yes, sir. Apartment 714. That's this one," he gestured with the back of his hand to the open door. The four officers half turned and looked back at the opening.

Chris thought he would scream. When they moved, he was able to see inside the apartment. Walls that normally would have been white were streaked with blood. He saw an officer walk past the doorway, stuffing what looked like blood-soaked green clothes into a clear plastic bag. A hot ball formed in Chris' stomach at the sight of them. The officer sealed the bag and said to someone inside the room that Chris couldn't see, "Like a goddamn dissection in there." As the speaker moved past the doorway, Chris stared straight into his brother's pale, cadaverous face.

"What the hell—?" Chris managed before the cops turned back and blocked his view. Chris moved to see around them, but his brother was gone, replaced by a blood smear on a closet door. One officer took the pizzas from his hand and another firmly led him away from the apartment. They had taken only two steps before Chris felt his knees give. His legs, which now felt like they were filled with water, failed to support him and he sank to the floor. A choking sensation cut off his breath and he felt his stomach lurch as if he were going to vomit.

"Who called in the order?" the cop asked as he helped him stand. Chris told him he didn't know, that someone else at the parlor took the phone orders. The officer called back to one of his companions, who nodded and went inside the apartment. Moments later he returned, followed by a thin black man in a brown suit. A gold badge hung from a long silver chain around his neck. He introduced himself as a detective and proceeded to ask Chris several questions about the delivery.

Chris answered dozens of questions before they allowed him to leave. He took the elevator down, breathing heavy, rapid gulps of air. His entire body felt light, as if filled with helium. For a moment he saw gold spots dancing before his eyes and held out a hand to the cool metal wall of the elevator to stabilize himself. The feeling passed with the chiming of the elevator, announcing its arrival in the lobby. The doors opened, and for a split second Chris saw his brother standing in the lobby, inches away from the elevator door. He let out a sharp cry, threw up a hand to block his vision, but instantly lowered it as the vision disappeared.

He managed to keep his nerves under control as he walked on unreliable legs through the lobby and out the door into the night. When he was back in his car with the greasy smell of pizza sauce and pepperoni, he punched in Lauren's number again. He had to dial the number four times because his fingers shook so badly and simply collapsed when he placed them on the keys. He got the number dialed, gripped the phone with both hands, and held it to his ear. The phone rang, a soft electric buzz in his ear. He knew that somewhere on the other end, Lauren's cell phone was chiming the theme song to "Sanford and Son."

He heard her voice and began speaking rapidly in sentences that ran together and made little sense. He had gotten to the officer saying the word dissection when he realized he was listening to her voice mail. She thanked him for calling and said she couldn't wait to talk soon, then a soft beep sounded and he was left with the open air hiss of the connection. He listened to it for a long moment, then asked her, in the calmest voice he could muster, to call him. He hung up and leaned back against the seat, closing his eyes and trying to ignore the flashing police lights that caused bursts of red through his lids.

Panic was fighting its way up his entire body, taking each limb with stunning force. Visions of his dream plagued him: the gossamer strands of anesthesia-induced sleep clouding his vision as thick beasts bent low over him, probing with leathery skin. The sharp cold of the knife going into his abdomen. Was that how it had been for Greg? Going in for a ruptured appendix and dying on the table? While Chris was half the world away, drinking bitter German beer with a blonde and hoping that she had a friend, deciding that what happens in Germany stays in Germany? If only he had known in time.

"Goddamn, I can't fucking take this!" he shouted to the ceiling of the car. Tearing his thoughts away from the horror, he turned the ignition and pulled away, tires squealing loudly on the pavement. He drove for a while, turning at random, ignoring the fact that he had a job to do, that there were people waiting on their food. Despite the thought, he reached into the bag, pulled out the next order, and opened the box. The steamy smells of cheese and meat assaulted his nose. He pulled a slice free and took a large bite from it. The cheese burnt the roof of his mouth but he ignored it, bit again and chewed. After his third slice he began to feel better.

He tried Lauren but again got her voice mail. His eyes brushed over the digital clock on his dashboard. Eleven twenty. Where the hell was she, he wondered. A small rational part of his mind told him that she could be asleep, that she had been known to knock off before midnight. The bloodsoaked walls of the two deliveries danced in his mind. She could be in the next one, his mind sang. You could be too late to save her, too. Chris let out a small sob and dialed her number again. He listened to her voice, letting her message calm him. There was no way she was going to be a victim, she wasn't even sick. Get a grip, he thought. She's either asleep or ran out to the store. Just get this night over with. Despair washed over him like hot water at the prospect of making another delivery, of possibly seeing something worse than what his mind had already made him see, or what reality had put before him. He steeled himself and resolved to finish the night, to be done with it all and go to Lauren's apartment where she would be waiting in a warm bed.

He checked the address for the next delivery. The order slip felt ethereal in his fingers. Tossing it to the floorboard of the car, he ran a yellow light, barely noticing that his dead brother stood on one corner of the intersection watching him pass with sad eyes.

The trip took him only ten minutes, and he was able to find the Guiding Star Motel easily thanks to its large green sign marked with an enormous golden star at the top. He pulled in between a Corolla and a pickup truck and flipped the cabin light on to check the room number on the ticket. 26A. Good, a ground-floor room. Before he got out of the car he tried Lauren again. When she didn't answer, he threw the phone down and got out of the car.

Down the sidewalk and around the corner he found the room. It was a plain green door in a row of green doors with brass numbers on each. He knocked sharply and took a step back to wait. There was no answer from the occupants, so he leaned closer and could hear a faint, rhythmic beeping from inside the room. He knocked again and announced that the pizza was here. Again, there was no answer. He knocked one more time and, despite his training, tried the doorknob. It turned and the door opened with slight effort.

The first thing he saw was the blood. Not much of it, but enough to know what it was. It covered the painting of a barn that hung on one wall. His head swam with a hot flash of fear. There were no beds in the room, and he could see a cluster of people in the center, standing tight against each other, bent slightly at the waists. They were wearing light green outfits that looked like - "Oh God no," he whispered. There was motion near him and he spun around. Someone came quickly to him, moving in jerky steps, as if it were an image on old motion picture film. It wore the same green uniform as the others and had a surgical mask over its face. Thick, coarse black hair covered the figure's body. Chris' only comprehensible thought was that it was a gorilla, but as it neared, he saw that it was more human in appearance. It took the pizza box and looked at him for a moment, cocking its head. Then it was gone back toward the bathroom, walking in the same shuddering movement.

The beeping continued, and Chris moved further into the room despite his numb mind's thoughts of running the other direction. He approached the others, all of which had the same black hair on their bodies. There were a few grunts from them, and he noticed their shoulders and arms moved slightly as they worked on something. One of them on his right leaned in far, and Chris was able to see mounted on a silver pole a flat screen monitor that displayed vital signs in electric colors.

"What?" his dry mouth let the words crumble from his lips. Never in his life had he felt such helpless panic. His legs lost every ounce of feeling and he was afraid that he would shit in his pants. His bowels didn't seem to want to hold everything in. Then one of the creatures on his left removed itself from the group. He saw thick, almost black blood on its hands. The hands were covered in hair that was matted down and slick with blood, and ended in long slender fingers. Chris' feet moved him around to the vacant spot and instantly he felt the warmth of his bowels releasing themselves into his pants.

Lauren lay on her back on a steel table. Her arms were by her sides and she was naked. She had been cut from her vagina all the way up her stomach and chest. The flaps had been flipped back and open, exposing her dark, wet insides. One breast dangled beside an arm. Two of the creatures had their hands immersed in her and were moving them around. Her face was turned up to the ceiling, and Chris saw her mouth move slightly. She was still alive.

Her head turned toward him, her large eyes now black boring through his own. Pale lips, drained of blood parted, and she whispered, "You're too late, Chris. Always too late. See what they're doing to me? Why couldn't you save me?"

He staggered backward and stopped only when he hit the back wall. His eyes didn't move from the scene. His mind reeled, desperate to grip anything solid.

There was motion to his right, in the direction of the bathroom. He turned his head and saw the creature that had approached him for the pizza gesturing silently to the one that had left the operating table. The surgeon looked at him and then started toward him.

Chris found his footing and ripped the door open. He stumbled a few steps along the sidewalk, and then tumbled headfirst onto the concrete. He heard the door shut behind him, and then open again. There was a sharp metallic jingle and he jerked instinctively.

Three coins lay on the sidewalk outside the door. Chris stared at them uncomprehending. What were they? What would he do with them? Then he looked around. How had he gotten here? What was—then he remembered the image of the woman flayed in the room near him.

He scrambled to his feet and started running. He passed his car and continued down the street. The longer he ran, the less he recognized places and things. They all blended into a bright, noisy nightmare where creatures with black fur lived, waiting to cut into his skin. On and on he ran, not knowing where he was, or where he was going.

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