This particularly uninteresting Friday, with the outside temperature reaching up to 90 degrees (32 Celsius for my European friends) I decided to avoid cooking, and instead order something.
“How about Chinese?” My new roommate, Nick suggests. He moved in with me last week after my old roommate moved out due to some bad blood between us, but it’s in the past now, I hope.
“Nah, they take too long to deliver, by the time it gets here it’s already cold,” I said as I scrolled on Reddit, not really looking for anything in particular. I glance up at Nick, who was looking at me.
“Mcdonalds then?”
I shake my head in response. “They always get my orders wrong.” Nick sighs. “You’re hard to please.”
I chuckle. “I guess so.”
“What do you suggest we eat then?” He crosses his arms. I shrug in response.
He sighs again, this time deeper than before.
Something catches my eye on my phone, an ad for a new restaurant. Hell’s Kitchen. It’s actually in our small town. “That’s creepy” I mutter under my breath.
“What’s that?” Nick calls out from the kitchen.
“Nothing!” I call back. He walks back into the room, wiping his hands with a towel.
“It’s just this conspiracy theory, how the government listens in on our conversations and then gives us appropriate ads.” Nick raises an eyebrow.
“We were talking about ordering food, and I got an ad for this new food place in our town, Hell’s Kitchen.”
He plops down on the couch next to me and leans in to look at my screen. “Looks fancy.”
I click on the ad, which takes me to their homepage. “Let’s see what they have got.”
I navigate to their menu page and we begin scrolling through each item.
“Hell wings..” Nick gulps down on his saliva. “I wonder how spicy those are.” He absolutely loves spicy.
“Evil fries, what kind of name is that? They just look like regular fries.” I comment, each item has a unique name related to Hell.
“Pizza of darkness, that sounds good.” Nick points out with his finger. I shake my head in disgust. “It has pineapples dude.” He chuckles.
“Then how about Inferno Pizza? It’s just spicy pepperoni.” I shrug, “Maybe, definitely sounds better than pineapple.”
“We could also get some tortured hamburgers.” I point out to him.
“I don’t feel like eating a burger..” Nick replies. “And you say I’m hard to please.” He laughs at that, I laugh too.
After discussing a couple more options we finally settle on Pizza of Wrath. It’s put together with pepperoni, bacon strips, and mushrooms, + a mild ghost pepper sauce.
“Is there a number we’re supposed to call, or do we order online?” Nick questions as I begin looking for the phone number.
“Don’t see an order online option, there must be a phone number listed somewhere on the website.”
“Ah there! Found it!” I exclaim in excitement, my stomach rumbles. Nick chuckles. “Me too, me too.”
After confirming what we’re ordering with Nick, I dial the number. It only rings once before someone picks up. I wait for a moment, to let them introduce themselves, as all fast food places do, but there’s only silence, so I speak first.
“Uh Hello, is this Hell’s Kitchen? We’d like to order some food.”
A deep raspy voice responds. “Yes, what would you like to have?”
“Okay, we’d like two Pizzas of Wrath, small Evil Fries, and two large cokes of Doom.” I cringe internally having actually said all that out loud.
The voice waits a moment before speaking again, “Is that all?” I look at Nick for confirmation that I didn’t forget anything, but he’s preoccupied with giggling like a little girl. I’m not sure which one of us is more cringe.
“Yes, that will be all.”
“Okay, it’ll be delivered to you in a minute.”
“Wait, I didn’t give you my address!” I shout into the receiver, but it’s already too late, they hung up.
I sigh, and then redial. “The recipient you are trying to reach is currently not available, please try again at another time.”
“What’s up?” Nick questions, having finally stopped laughing. “They don’t have the address, and now the number is disconnected? not available? What does that mean? I just talked to them a moment ago.” I’m beginning to get irritated.
Both of our heads jolt to the front door as someone rings the bell. Then we both look at each other. “There’s no way, right?” Nick asks. I stand up and begin walking toward the front door.
Looking through the peephole, I see a man dressed in a business suit, with dark short hair, holding a couple of pizza boxes and a small paper bag on top. His eyes are a deep red, I didn’t even know such an eye color existed.
I take a deep breath, suddenly feeling nervous, and open the door. The man towers over me. He smiles, “Is this Jonah’s and Nick’s residence?” I gulp down a bunch of salivae, how does he know my name? Much less Nick’s? I never mentioned it on the phone.
I nod in response. He smiles. “I have your food delivery here, my name is Lucifer.”
A deep shiver goes down my spine, an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, it’s like my body is screaming at me to run back inside and slam the door shut, that whoever is standing in front of me is highly dangerous.
“Why don’t you come inside?” Nick suddenly appears beside me.
I shoot Nick a look, but he ignores me.
We both step aside to let Lucifer in.
The delivery guy takes a deep breath once inside and walks into the living room, placing the boxes and the paper bag on the small coffee table in front of the sofa.
I gulp and then speak, “How much do we owe you?”
He turns around and smiles at both of us. “Would you like to pay now, or after you die?”
“After I die?” I stammered back at him.
“Yes, you’ll sign a contract to pay after your death.”
“I’ll pay after I die,” Nick says beside me, grinning. “Sounds fun.”
“I’ll pay now..” I respond. How would I even pay after I die? This sounds too sketchy. Nothing makes sense about this situation.
Lucifer nods and claps his hands. Suddenly, two folders with documents appear on the small coffee table, beside the food. He motions for Nick to come over, and snaps his fingers, a pen appearing between his fingers, which he hands over to Nick.
Nick looks excited as he takes the pen. Lucifer flips open the folder on the left. “Read through this if you want, otherwise you can sign here, and here.” He points with his long finger to the bottom of the page.
“Jonah, want to come over to check your contract out?”
“My contract? I thought I’d be paying now.” He nods. “Yes, you will be.”
I walk over with shaky legs and look at the contract laid out in front of me.
Service Contract
This contract is between the following parties;
Contractor: Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness
Client: Jonah
Upon mutual agreement, the client will have 31 days to complete the following to pay for the services provided by the Contractor.
1. Consume the food that was delivered.
2. Introduce 3 friends to Hell’s Kitchen.
3. Sever ties with the closest person to the client.
4. Murder a single person.
Failure to comply with these terms will result in the client immediately relinquishing their rights to their soul.
What the fuck is this? A joke?
“Can’t I just pay with cash?” I look up at Lucifer, he smiles and shakes his head. “By ordering our food, you agreed to sign either one of the contracts provided.”
“What’s the other contract then? How do I pay after I die?”
He nods to himself, “You’ll work at Hell’s Kitchen for 7 years, after that your debt will be paid off.”
I swallow hard and take a deep breath. “I wish to pay after my death then.”
Lucifer claps his hands together. “Excellent choice!” He exclaims a little too loudly.
A new contract appears before me.
Service Contract
This contract is between the following parties;
Contractor: Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness
Client: Jonah
Upon mutual agreement, the client will work at Hell’s Kitchen for 7 years after they die.
Failure to comply with these terms will result in the client immediately relinquishing their rights to their soul.
How did I even get here? I just wanted to get some food…
“Done!” Nick exclaims excitedly, grinning from ear to ear, and hands the pen back to Lucifer.
He points the pen toward me, signaling for me to take it. “Ready to sign?”
“What if I don’t want to sign either contract?” I ask, not wanting to sign either contract.
Lucifer sighs and places a palm on his face. “Refusal to sign either contract will result in your immediate extraction to Hell, where you’ll stay till the end of time.” His voice suddenly turned demonic, sending a chill down my spine.
I take the pen from his hand, and he retracts his palm off of his face and fixes his collar.
I sign the contract with shaky hands.
“Excellent!” Lucifer exclaimed and then clasped his hands together, the contracts suddenly disappeared.
“I hope you enjoy your food.” He comments and begins walking back toward the front door.
“We will,” Nick responds.
Once the front door shuts behind him, I collapse on the couch, beginning to shake.
Meanwhile, Nick opens up the paper bag and takes out his Coke, taking a sip.
“What the fuck just happened?” I question him.
“What do you mean? They delivered our food, nothing else happened.”
I sigh. “Since I basically signed my soul away, I might as well eat what they brought.” Nick nodded profusely and opened the pizza box.
In contrast to the scary experience of having to deal with Satan, the food tasted better than anything I’d ever had before.
So all that was yesterday, me and Nick haven’t talked about it again. We did have a small fight this morning, he gave me a black eye, and I broke one of his legs, so he’s in the hospital right now. I don’t know what came over me, or him, but I was just so incredibly angry at everything, including him, and he seemed to be the same way.
I snapped out of it after I slammed a chair against his leg and heard a crack and then a loud scream.
The food was 100/10 in Hell’s Kitchen, would highly recommend it. The price however was outrageously high. I can however still safely say that it was worth it, and I’m thinking of ordering again.