FATAL DELIVERY

Here's a fun story for the beginning of the holiday season!

Christmas time is always the best time to be a delivery driver, despite the snow. Houses are decorated with colorful lights, front lawns host a variety of winter scenes, and Christmas music plays on the radio. Christmas time can also be a little depressing when delivering home medical equipment to those that are fighting to stay Death’s hand until the holidays are over.

I pulled my van up to a gray, dreary house to make my delivery of medical supplies. No lights or ornaments were on display, the lawn was dead, and the landscaping was barren. I rang the doorbell and waited. Silence followed. No one came to the door. I rang the doorbell again and started looking around for an alternative entry, but didn’t see any.

As I started walking back to my van, the door opened with a large man filling the doorway from top to bottom. He was dressed in scrubs, so I figured he must be the nurse attending to his patient. I explained that I had some medical supplies that Mr. Stone had ordered. The giant nurse smiled at me kindly, took the package and paperwork, instructed me to wait on the front step, and he would get a signature from the patient.

The nurse left the door slightly open as if to say you can’t come in, but please don’t leave. I looked around outside to make sure I was alone in the gray evening hours. As I turned back to the door, something caught my attention inside the house. I peeked through the small crack of the open door. I couldn’t see any furniture which intrigued me enough to push the door open a little further.

What I saw baffled me. The living room was filled with cardboard boxes and plastic bins of every shape and size. I thought maybe the man was in the process of moving, but the boxes were covered in a thick layer of dust. If he was planning on moving he wasn’t in a very big hurry.

“That’s odd,.” I said to myself.

Before I realized it, my head was halfway inside the doorway to get a better view. The wider the door swung, the more my wonderment grew. Besides all the dust covered boxes, I could see piles of electronic equipment stacked in the den. Some where wired together and large computer screens displayed some kind of data that was constantly changing. Glass jars filled with unrecognizable objects in different colored fluids crowded the kitchen table and floor. A strange odor filled my nose as I stood there in the doorway. What did that smell remind me of, I tried to think. Oh yeah! The smell from my Zoology class I took in high school. The smell of the preserving agents used to preserve all the animal specimens the teacher showed us in class.

By now, my weight had shifted so far forward I had to lean heavily on the door knob to keep my balance. The house was eerily quiet. A chill went up my spine as if to alert me of some unseen danger.

Without warning the door swung away from me. I lost my balance and fell face down landing on my knees and elbows. Before I could recover something had grabbed the collar on my company issued polo shirt and pulled me inside. The door slammed shut followed by two quick clicks that told me it was now locked. I tried to roll over to face my attacker, but he was too quick. A sharp knee between my shoulder blades pinned me to the floor, and before I could scream for help a chemically treated rag was shoved into my face. My arms flailed as my body writhed to break free, and then it all faded to black...