The Humdrum Lives of Cryptids, Monsters, and Villains Read online

fascination with strange ingredients stuffed into the outer rim of pizza crusts. It was just too gimmicky for him. But he could order a regular one, he reasoned.

  "So call now!" Pop McPizza continued. "We guarantee our hot, fresh, made to order pizzas will arrive at your doorstep in thirty minutes or less, or the cost is on us. That's the Pop McPizza Pizza Palace Incorporated guarantee. So until next time, this is Pop McPizza wishing you a good pizza."

  The phone was in Torrance's hands before the telephone number for Pop McPizza's Pizza Palace Incorporated was even on the screen. He poked his phone frantically as he dialed the numbers that were flashing on his television in front of the smiling old centaur's face. The phone had barely rung at all before a voice answered on the other end of the line.

  “Pop McPizza’s Pizza Palace Incorporated, where the pizzas arrive in thirty minutes or less, how may I help you?”

  “Hi, yes, I’d like to place an order,” Torrance said, his deep taurine voice giddy with excitement and his stomach rumbling so hard that it caused the television remote on the coffee table to vibrate.

  “Name, please?” the voice asked. It sounded like an elf. It seemed that elves often ended up doing jobs like this.

  “It’s Torrance,” he replied.

  “Alright Terrence, what can I get for you?” the elf said quickly.

  “No, my name is Torrance, not Terrence,” the minotaur said. This was a common mistake, but a bothersome one regardless. No matter how clearly he annunciated his name, it was more than likely interpreted as Terrence. It had caused him to be quite self-conscious about his speech when he was younger, turning into many shy years spent at the Cryptid Academy, afraid to speak up or progress in his verbal abilities in public. He had moved past that now, but even though he knew it was not his fault it still irked him when cryptids got his name wrong.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line for a moment. “… Do you mean Terrence? Is your name Terrence?”

   “No…” he said, grinding his teeth and restraining himself from losing his temper. “My name is pronounced Torrance.”

  “…. I’m sorry, sir. I think our phones must be malfunctioning. It sounds like you’re saying Torrance, but I know that that can’t be so, Terrence.”

  Torrance’s ears were ringing and he was trying to relax so as not to prompt a migraine. He decided to just let it go this time. He was too hungry to argue with this elf. “I’d like to order an extra-large pizza.”

  “Alright Terrence, what would you like on your large pizza?”

  His eyes bulged as he answered, “It’s an extra-large pizza. I’d like olives and sausage on half, and extra cheese on the other half, please.”

  “Mhmm mhmm. Let’s see if I have this right, Terrence. I’ve got an extra-large pizza with olives and sausage on half and extra cheese on half. Is that right?” the elf asked.

  Torrance was ready to forgive him of all past injustices if he could just get his pizza out immediately. “That is correct.”

  “Excellent, excellent. Alright, would you like any extras or upgrades?”

  When had ordering a pizza become so complicated? “What does that mean?” he asked.

  “Would you like the crust to be filled with cookie dough, or for us to use flour extracted from a haunted mummy tomb, or our newest and most exciting promotion of a whole snake stuffed into the crust on the perimeter of the pizza?”

  “No,” Torrance said, shaking his head solemnly and rubbing his closed eyes with his telephone free hand. “Just the pizza I ordered with regular crust please.”

  “Really? We could probably stuff an eel in there if you’re into that,” the elf said, sounding somewhat shocked and confused.

  “Please don’t stuff an eel or anything else into my pizza crust…”

  “…. Please let us stuff some gimmicky food into your crust…” the elf pleaded.

  “What is the deal with the crust?” Torrance roared, no longer able to contain his anger.

  The elf paused for a moment before replying in a barely audible whisper, saying, “I’m sorry, we’re required to ask if you want the Weirdly Stuffed Crust Upgrade. There’s a script we have to stick to…”

  “A script? Really? I didn’t realize that taking pizza orders was such a complex aspect of the pizza ordering transaction,” Torrance said pensively.

  “To be honest, I have no clue if it is or isn’t,” the elf said. “The orders are relayed through the third party customer service business I work for. Today is my last day here so I don’t mind telling you all of this,” the elf said with a hiccup. Was the elf drunk? Now that it was saying all of this and hiccupping, Torrance realized that the elf had been slurring its speech a bit too…

  “Why does Pop McPizza’s Pizza Palace Incorporated route their orders through a third party customer service business rather than taking the orders themselves?” Torrance asked.

  “I don’t know Terrence. A lot of cryptid businesses do it. I just answer the phones… Maybe it’s cheaper to outsource the calls to the North Pole? I don’t know. Anyway, my supervisor is coming over this way, I’ve got to act cool… He’s going to be my boss at my next job too…Alright then… Just a normal pizza with regular dough? And nothing in the crust? Seems kind of strange, but to each their own, right Terrence? Haha… Address please?”

  Torrance, thoroughly confused, gave the elf his address and hung up his phone promptly as he heard a barrage of ‘ho-ho-ho’s’ on the other end of the line after the elf took down his address and said goodbye. At least he would soon have a pizza to take his mind off that strange phone conversation. He looked around his home, trying to think of what to do until the pizza arrived.

  His living area was actually quite small. The labyrinth itself was enormous and intricate, but the space that he lived in was only comprised of four rooms in the very center of the labyrinth. He decided to light a torch outside of his front door so that the delivery cryptid could see the door and that he would be able to see the delivery cryptid. It was pitch black in the halls of the labyrinth without a lit torch.

  Lighting the torch occupied all of forty five seconds or so, and Torrance was once again faced with the task of what to do until his pizza arrived. He picked up the television remote and idly flipped through the channels. He saw several more advertisements for Pop McPizza’s Pizza Palace Incorporated. They were really trying to push that snake-filled crust pizza. Were cryptids really buying that? What was wrong with a good old fashioned pizza?

  Contemplating the pros and cons of weird pizzas and normal pizzas occupied a few minutes of Torrance’s time, but not a substantial amount. Besides, he could not come to any sort of consensus on the subject since he was so obviously biased against the odd pizza additions that had become so popular of late. It just did not make sense to him.

  Torrance picked up his cell phone and checked to see how much time had passed since he placed his order. It had been five minutes. He snorted a powerful exhalation from his wide bull nostrils and shook his horned head in frustration. His stomach rumbled again, causing his hooves to clatter against the stone floor of his living room. He had to do something to take his mind off of his hunger until the pizza arrived.

  Soon, he had flipped through every channel on his television without finding anything worthy of watching. He picked up his cell phone and opened Cryptogram, his favorite cryptid social media app. The front page was filled with photos of Pop McPizza’s Pizza Palace Incorporated snake-stuffed pizza photos, so he exited out of the app in a rage and took to pacing back and forth across his living room, gouging dents into the floor with each angry stomp.

  He checked his phone again. It had been seven minutes since he ordered his pizza. He had originally hoped that the pizza may arrive after the thirty minute time limit so that he would get it for free, but now he just hoped that it arrived as soon as possible. It was a small price to pay, literally, to get his pizza sooner rather than later as far as he was concerned at that moment.

  Torrance decided th
at a violent video game may be the best outlet for his frustration. He powered on his video game system and inserted his copy of Bigfoot Bandits into the disc slot. A sasquatch wearing sunglasses and holding an automatic pistol in each of its enormous furry hands graced the screen as the game loaded.

  The storyline of Bigfoot Bandits was severely lacking in substance, but it more than made up for itself in the size of its map and the amount of freedom the player had in the game. One could do pretty much anything that they wanted in the game, from stealing another cryptid’s car, to playing table tennis, to going on a full-out berserk rampage. Torrance was eager to get to the rampaging, but the game was taking much longer than usual to load. He glanced at his phone again. He had reached the ten minute mark since he had placed his order.

  He gripped the video game controller so tightly that it was in danger of cracking as he watched the progress bar slowly load. Even when the progress bar was completely full and read one hundred percent, it just lingered there blinking. For a moment he felt that it was mocking him, but then he realized that was just the hunger making him think like that. He was a real mess when his appetite got the best of him.

  The loading progress bar finally disappeared and the sasquatch on the screen lowered his sunglasses, pistol still in hand, and winked as the image faded away and the game began. His character's health