A Little Slice of Hell

A Short Story

-DING DONG-

“Hello?” asked the intercom.

“I have a pizza delivery for Dr Alfredo Kleine?” Philip Jefferson the pizza delivery driver could hear another man’s voice in the background.

“You called yourself doctor on your pizza order? You’re such a pretentious twat Alfie.”

“Yes, can you bring it to the second floor?” Dr Alfredo Kleine asked, “I have a tip up here for you but I can’t come down at this minute. It’s the third door on the right.”

“Sure,” Philip replied. His shoulders sank in anticipation of the extra work that was being requested of him, no doubt for a fiver at most.

The buzzer sounded and the heavy outer door clicked open to allow Philip entry to the tall lonely building that sat on the extremities of the Brookfield University campus. He had been nervous walking up because the surrounding neighborhood seemed forlorn and abandoned when he had expected youthful living and parties to be more present at college.

Philip climbed the steep staircase up to the second floor and walked down the broad tiled corridor until he came upon the third door on the right. He turned the metal handle with his elbow and pushed the door open with his back to gain entry.

The room was unlike any he had seen before. It was like a large, dimly lit janitor’s closet in terms of design, with three sickly yellow walls each approximately six feet across. And yet the fourth wall was a five inch thick transparent window that provided a view into a much larger and brighter laboratory.

Against the farthest wall was a tiny table that had a $50 bill on one side and an empty paper plate on the other. Philip was instantly elated. Fifty dollars for carrying a pizza up two flights of stairs? Maybe his night was turning around.

“Hey, guy,” said Dr Alfredo Kleine’s voice over an intercom that sat high up in a corner of the room, “I have another small favor to ask, could you take out a piece of pizza and put it on the paper plate on the table please?”

“Uh…sure,” Philip said putting the box on the table so he could open it up. As he lifted the lid he was hit in the face with a waft of fresh steam and the scent of cheese and pepperoni. It smelled delicious and it made him hungry. He selected a large slice and placed it on the paper plate.

“That’s great,” Dr Kleine said through the intercom, “Can you take the box and put it on that chair behind you? That’s all I need thanks, the money is all yours.” Philip closed the lid of the box and turned to see that behind the door was a blue plastic chair that he hadn’t noticed. He put the box on the seat and then returned to the table to get the money.

Oddly enough, when he looked down to put the money in his wallet, he noticed that drawn crudely on the floor in red chalk was a circle, and he happened to be standing in the middle of it.

There was a sudden flash of bright light and Philip flinched, crying out in alarm.

But Philip didn’t hear the noise he himself had made.

His head suddenly ached and there was a burning sensation behind his vision, as if a migraine were growing. He tried to blink but found he couldn’t open his eyes, as if his eyelids had been stuck together with sleep. He went to rub them but he couldn’t move. He could feel his arms but they wouldn’t budge at his command. He was paralyzed within the darkness of his view, feeling far too hot to ever be comfortable. His skin itched and the ache behind his eyes grew worse and worse.

“Help!” Philip cried, but no sound was produced. Were his mouth and vocal chords also incapacitated?

“It worked!” Dr Kleine’s muffled but excited voice exclaimed. Philip guessed he was on the other side of the window.

“Hello? Can someone help me?” Philip called out, but again, he heard no noise. He began to feel very afraid. He couldn’t communicate. The pain behind his eyes was becoming unbearable.

“You don’t know that yet,” the second voice chided faintly.

“Oh please!” Dr Kleine rebuffed, “Where else could he have gone?”

Gone?

Philip was right where he had been a second ago, wasn’t he? Maybe they couldn’t see him because he had fallen down and was lying on the floor.

“Hello?” Philip tried to call out, “I’m right here! Please help me! It hurts so much!” Again, Philip’s request for aid was not translated into a sound that he could detect.

What was he going to do? He couldn’t move, the pain behind his eyes was getting worse with each second and his itchy skin was starting to distress him. He couldn’t scratch anywhere and the sensation kept building. Philip heard a door swing open and was relieved.

Thank goodness, they must have come in the room. Surely they’ll find me now.

And find him they did.

“Well go on, try it,” the mystery voice instructed with a sinister hint of curiosity. The voice was loud and clear, as if the speaker was positioned right next to his ear.

Philip suddenly felt large rounded objects pushing into him, taking hold of his head and lifting his whole body up horizontally. His stomach dropped with turbulence as if he were riding a plane through a storm. The weight of his body on his neck sent a roaring pain through his whole being as if he were being pulled apart. His spine bent backwards and Philip screamed noiselessly as he felt himself lifted up through the darkness.

Suddenly there was a searing pain in his legs right above the ankles. Something cold and hard was digging into the flesh, cutting it cruelly open and firmly crushing the bones beneath. The explosion of sensation was overwhelming and Philip could do nothing.

He howled soundlessly again. He felt like his entire skin was being dragged down toward his feet, tearing from his muscles as it did, opening up and allowing in the cold air like a loose fitting blanket. And yet the heat was still undeterred. The aching behind his eyes was destroying any hope he had of a concise thought. It felt as if his brain had swollen and was pressing on them from behind.

There was just heat, and pain and a hopelessness that kept him paralyzed.

He could hear loud chewing and then laughter.

“It worked!” Dr Kleine’s voice cheered, “It tastes just like human!”

“No way!” the other voice said in disbelief, “Let me try!”

Philip felt the world spin and his stomach somersaulted as he tried to think through the immense pain that was radiating through his anatomy. The squeezing objects changed position, some abandoning him while others began pressing on him anew at the same time.

Again, the cold crushing feeling came, but higher up in his thighs. He felt his bones splinter from the immense pressure, and could hear his muscles squelching. Philip tried to cry out once more, to unleash the painful energy that was tormenting his lower extremities, but no sound was made.

“Holy hell Alfie, you’re right. This pizza tastes like it’s a chunk of cooked human meat.”

Philip hung limply in the darkness, suspended by his head and neck, horrified by what he had heard. These two people not only knew what cooked human meat tasted like, but they were claiming that the pizza Philip had brought now bore the taste. Philip tried to think through the maddening pain that was burning at his legs and came to one horrifying conclusion.

He had been turned into the piece of pizza that he’d put on the plate.

The body paralysis, the incredible pain he was feeling, the burning behind his eyes and the itchiness of his skin. It all made sense. Philip had been transformed into a piece of pepperoni pizza and the two monsters who had done it were currently eating him as a taste test.

He felt his stomach heave, but with nowhere else to go, the taste of his own vomit flooded his imagination. He felt a combination of disgust and a holy terror well up inside of him. Was this it? Was he going to die?

Philip conceded despite his panic, that this was likely. And what an atrocious way to go! The paltry meal of a heartless set of human beings? He felt another bite, this time at his waist, and once again he tried to scream in the agony he was feeling as he sensed his pelvis crumble.

Once again there was no sound.

“That is actually so good,” the second voice with a mouthful of Philip, “It tastes so real! You’re insane for actually doing this.”

“I’m not insane,” Dr Keline replied, “I’m just the practical sort of cannibal.”

“Do you think he’s still in there?” the voice asked, “Like consciously? Do you think he can feel this?”

Another bite came and Philip felt the radius and ulna in his forearms snap in half. He could feel his insides slopping out, dribbling from whatever state remained of his corpse in its new form. Being eaten alive was a horrible demise, but to be a piece of pizza during the process was even more pathetic.

Tears would have been pouring out of his pepperoni eyes if Philip could open them and look at his tormentors, but his sight had been stolen. He hung in the darkness, unmoving, in a horrendous amount of pain and he saw no way out of his predicament. Even if he could somehow communicate to these scientists that he was there and present, it seemed to him that they didn’t care.

They might even prefer it.

This was no accident, this had been their plan all along. He had been baited up with the promise of a tip, to take part in an experiment that would end him. Philip was as furious as he was distraught. The cruelty of man knew no bounds, and here unfortunately, he had accidentally discovered a decidedly disgraceful pair.

They were enjoying eating him. They had eaten his feet and his legs and his waist and his hands. If Philip was still a human he would have been mercifully dead by this point due to a lack of blood, however as a slice of pepperoni pizza, his hell persisted.

“Well now that you know it works, we can do it again,” the other voice stated excitedly.

“Yep,” replied Dr Alfredo Kleine, “No more disposing of bodies for this professor. I can eat as much as I like without having to worry about getting in trouble.”

With that the tortured soul felt himself shifted for the final time, as Dr Alfredo ravenously finished the last few bites of crust from the slice of pepperoni pizza that was Philip Jefferson.

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© 2025 Sebastian Arends | Sincerely Seb. All Rights Reserved.

Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any part of this story or accompanying image is prohibited.

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