A Story of Pepperoni (and Ham)

5:53 am, my shift hadn’t even started yet and I was already on the clock to solve problems. Being called in by the manager of the factory should have alarmed me, but I hadn’t had a cup of coffee yet and I had left my fight-or-flight response somewhere in my bedspread this morning. 

“Good morning Don,” my manager Jeff begins, “do you know why I’ve called you in today?”

I shake my head.

“Over the last few months, the inventory system has picked up on something strange…”

“Yes, I know that our production numbers have been down. Since Jen left, we’ve been falling behind…” 

“No, it’s not that.”

I continue, “… and now that freezer three is broken we have to shut the line down a few times a day so we don’t overload the other two.”

He takes a sip of his coffee; the bastard takes it black just like I do. When he sets it down he follows with, “I think there is someone in your department stealing pepperoni.”

Well, that’s not what I was expecting. 

“Stealing pepperoni?”

“Pepperoni and ham,” he slides several sheets of data over to me, “a few months ago it was one or two bags every other week, but these past three weeks we’ve been missing four bags of each, each week.”

I scan the numbers, one column being the number of bags brought in by stocking and the other the number my staff say they start with at the beginning of each shift. He has highlighted several numbers where there are discrepancies. 

“Maybe they are filling out inventory wrong?” 

“Possibly. But they are your staff Don, you are in charge of every person and product that goes on or comes off your lines,” he downs the rest of his enticing coffee, “I want you to find out where this product has been going, or find out who can’t fill out a damn spreadsheet.” 

---

I wait for my morning staff to shuffle in before I decide that the odds of one of them admitting they have stolen dozens of bags of pepperoni are low. I’m not convinced pepperoni and ham theft is going on anyway, so I give my regular morning spiel and send them to the lines. 

“Nicole, could you come and talk with me for a second?” I call out to the middle-aged woman. I can see that she’s nervous as she fiddles with her hairnet, even though it’s on perfectly. 

“Hi Don, what’s wrong?”

How is the best way to phrase this without attacking her ability to do her job? She’s skittish and somewhat neurotic, but she’s given me many years of good work. 

“Hey Nicole, nothing’s wrong. I was just hoping you could walk me through how you fill out inventory each week?”

“Okay, normally we fill it out on Mondays but I could show you what I do.” She’s quick to go to the wall and grab her clipboard. Nicole has done inventory for me for nearly four months now with no complaint, but now that it’s been brought to my attention, perhaps I didn’t spend enough time with her after Jen left. With three kids to feed and a townhouse to pay for when I offered her the extra pay and responsibilities, she took it readily. 

“Normally I start with the dough, then move down the list of ingredients,” she points to the bags of produce along the freezer wall, “using the stats from last week I decide how many bags to bring out to the lines.”

“Do you ever reference the inventory sheet that stocking brings us? Copy those numbers over?”

She goes so still you’d think the cold air had frozen her to the spot, “no! Am I supposed to?”

“No, no, it’s okay—“ 

“I can start doing that! I’m sorry, Don. I’m stupid, I don’t know why I never thought to look at the stocking inventory.”

I don’t think I could handle a crying woman so early in the morning so I put a hand on her shoulder and lead us out of the freezer, “you’re not in trouble Nicole, I just wanted to see what you do.”

“I’ll check the stocking inventory from now on!”

“You’ve been doing a very good job, you know that right?”

She turns to face me, “really?”

I nod, “considering how fast you had to take on this role you’re doing great. Thank you for showing me this Nicole, you can head back to the line.”

She hands me the clipboard and hurries back to her position in quality control. I take the clipboard and place it on the staff table along the far wall, pushing several water bottles, hats, shoes, and other clutter out of the way to make room. It seems I’ve let my staff have the run of the place. 

I pull out the folder with our inventory sheets from the past year and flip through it until I get to where Jen would have filled them out. The problem is quickly apparent when you put Jen’s and Nicole’s work side by side. From the looks of it, Jen had been copying our numbers directly from the invoices stocking gives us, making it appear like our inventory had been perfect. While Nicole, bless her, must count every single bag or ball of dough that goes in and out of that freezer. Naturally, it looks like we’re losing inventory if now we’re counting it, while for years we hadn’t been. 

Although, there’s still the issue of where are the bags Nicole can’t find are going. How long has this issue been going on? I’m about to confront the stocking manager and ask him if his numbers aren’t being put down right when I spot Nick gawking at me from the cheese machine. When I look at him, he quickly looks away and fumbles as he puts another bag into the dispenser which only confirms that he was staring at me.

Nick, the newest of my staff, has done well with the repetitive work of supplying our conveyor belts with cheese and toppings, so I often schedule him to be there throughout the day. It might be good to ask him if he’s noticed anything or if he’s throwing product out why that might be. 

But first I need my damn coffee. 

---

I come back from break and immediately notice something has changed. Several heads glance up at me in unison, then quickly back down to their work, their shoulders tense. Nick has left his station and is speaking with Maria from toppings and Adam, an employee from stocking who helps with cleaning and moving skids. It bothers me that Adam is here and taking my staff away from their work. Jeff has been on my case about our decreased productivity for weeks now. 

Nick spots me approaching and quickly breaks away to head back to his station. Instantaneously Maria focuses her attention back on the line and Adam gives me a quick glare before heading to the back room. Adam’s always had a piss poor attitude, and if he’s part of the reason our numbers have been down, I must set him straight. I leave for fifteen minutes and my staff goes right to socializing and slacking off. I try to keep myself and my work separate, but I can’t help but feel offended. The slacking, the anxiety my staff are giving off, the damn pepperoni. Am I doing something wrong? I summon Nick over to the staff table.

“Nick, do I treat you all fairly?”

His eyebrows shoot up, “you do!” 

“I know I do, so why when I go for my break did you leave your station and go over to talk to Maria and Adam?” 

“I’m sorry,” he shuffles his feet and looks down at his hands. He adds nothing else.

“Listen, I need everyone on board since we are short a person. You know that I don’t want to hire someone else.”

He nods, not looking up from his hands. Jen’s disappearance has hit everyone hard, but Jen trained Nick, and they had been close. He should understand more than anyone how much I want to keep the job for her.

I’m properly frustrated now, “I need to trust that you will do your job when I step away! Jen’s missing, Jeff’s been on my ass about productivity, and this morning he accused us of stealing pepperoni!”

“Pepperoni?” He looks like a deer caught in the headlights.

“Pepperoni and ham. You wouldn’t know where a few dozen bags of them might be hiding, would you?” 

“No sorry, I don’t,” his eyes are looking off into the distance, “maybe the numbers are wrong?”

I follow his gaze and land on the upper-level washroom. Another thing on my to-do list, I keep forgetting to send in a request to get the toilet fixed. The “OUT OF ORDER” sign mocks me. 

“Get back to work, Nick,” I dismiss him brusquely.

I wonder if I’ve let my staff get away with too much lately. Three months ago Jen stopped showing up to work and the next day her family reported her missing. There has been no progress on the case, and her disappearance was a massive shock to everyone. It’s hard for me to fathom that after nearly a decade of working with her, I don’t see her face every morning.  

But my talk with Jeff this morning showed to me I need to have a better handle on what goes on in this department. I’m getting angry at Nick for not doing his job while simultaneously ignoring my own. I decide that before lunch I will look into that bathroom and tackle that old problem before I focus on the new ones. 

I’m nearly at the steps of the stairs when Maria calls out to me, “Don! Don! Help please!” 

I whip around; it looks as if there’s been a jam of dough in the toppings machine. I head over, quickly unjam it, then go back to the base of the stairs. 

“Don!” I hear another voice call out, it’s Josh from quality control. I head over, and he explains that the pizzas aren’t coming out with enough cheese. So I head over to Nick and ask him to put another bag in. I go back to the base of the stairs and as my hand grips the railing...

“Don!” 

I sigh. I’ll have to figure it out at lunch.

---

I've dismissed my staff for lunch and the lines have fallen silent. Finally, I will have some peace to send in the repair request. My hand wraps around the doorknob and I begin to turn it...

"Don."

Will I ever be able to get into this washroom? I look back and Adam is standing at the bottom of the staircase. 

"Don't you have a job to do?" I snip back at him. 

He crosses his arm and scowls, "we need your help." 

"With what? Finding your way back to your department?" I mirror his stance and cross my arms, only then do I notice a cluster of my staff half-hiding around the corner. "What is going on here? Go have lunch."

"I knew we should have told him about this months ago!" Josh exclaims. 

Nick gives him a wack to the arm, "shut up!" 

"Told me about what!?" I raise my voice and before they can answer I burst through the bathroom door. It's obvious my staff have lost it. I hear someone thundering up the steps as I turn my head towards the toilet and see...

"What the fuck," I whisper. 

Adam grabs my shoulder and pulls me closer to him as I stumble backward and nearly out the door. A chorus of arguing erupts from behind us, but I can't make it out as my mind is wiped clean by shock.

The toilet's been tossed against the far wall, nestled in a pile of empty pepperoni bags, and in its place sits what looks like a metal pool. Inside the pool is a black...thing. It responds to the commotion as it twists and curls, unveiling a writhing mass of barbed limbs. From the center of the mass, a yellow eye oscillates open.

"What the fuck is that!" I screech, Adam's grip the only thing anchoring me from tumbling down the stairs in my haste to create distance between myself and the creature. 

  "We think that it ate Jen," Adam responds plainly, his grip turning from supporting to firm, holding me in place so that I can't run from what I see. The creature extends one barbed arm towards me and the smell of rot floods the room. 

"Ate Jen?" I ask incredulously. 

"Well, at first we thought it was Jen because it had her necklace," he explains with maddeningly calm, "but it almost got Nick too."

"Why haven't you called the police?" 

"Call the police? And tell them what?" He gestures to the creature, "that the thing from the toilet took her?" 

There's an itchy feeling building behind my forehead as its eye stays locked on me. It must have been so lonely, in this room all alone. So cold and hungry. It's still reaching for me and the buzzing inside my head is urging for me to reach out and touch it...Adam smacks my hand away.

"Don't look at it too closely. It gets into your head." He warns. 

I avert my gaze and shake my head to clear the static. This whole situation has turned into absolute madness. This thing must have been here for months without me even knowing. It's the reason Jen's gone, it's the reason our numbers are down, it's been eating the pepperoni and ham. How can something make no sense yet explain everything?

"Adam, we have to kill it."

He lets me go and smiles, "I've been saying that for months." 

I start down the stairs feeling like I'm in a dream. 

"Adam, come with me. Everyone else, don't let anyone go up there."  

In the corner by the exit sign hangs a fire safety case, I keep meaning to call and replace the glass but never got around to it. Today it seems my laziness will pay off because I can grab the ax out of it without tripping an alarm. 

"Alright everyone," I address my cluster of employees, "I will deal with this. Then we need to talk." 

Nick runs a hand through his hair stressfully and hands Adam some garbage bags. He won't meet my eyes. Maria looks like she's praying.

Back in the room, the creature is agitated. It's as if it can sense that we are here to hurt it. Once this is done things can go back to normal around here. I raise the ax above my head...

But I can't do it. My arm is frozen, unable to deliver the killing blow. 

The weight of the beast's gaze rests heavily on me. 

"Give me the bag Adam."

He throws it to me.

"Leave the room, I need to be alone."

He leaves.

I take a moment to observe the creature. It's darker than black and it doesn't seem to have a beginning or end to its body. Tentacles come out from its center every which way each topped with lethal-looking barbs. Now that I'm closer, the smell of decay is that much stronger. Every time it blinks there's a terrible squelching sound as the eye retracts into its body. It makes a gurgling sound at me. 

It's disgusting and I hate it. 

But there's another part of me that doesn't. It must be miserable up here. It can hardly fit in the pool that it's in and the fluorescent lights are harsh. Also, whatever this thing is I doubt its natural diet is pizza toppings. Pepperoni and people. It gurgles again. 

I open the garbage bag, "come with me." It gurgles some more.

"I can get you out of here." My head's buzzing so badly my vision blurs.

I'm at the bottom of the staircase with a heavy bag. Questions are flying around me and I respond, "I handled it." I don't let anyone follow me as I walk through the back room and towards an emergency exit.

I'm opening the bag and letting the inky creature slip out into the drainage pipe for the nearby creek. How did I get out here? A large yellow eye peers brightly through the shadows. My heart's racing but I feel so calm.

Something cold and hungry curls around my ankles.