HI!...I'm a maniac!

Humming along with the jukebox, Michelle went to open the oven door and remove the first of three pizzas she had made earlier that morning. The pizzas always took longer in the morning before the oven was heated up. The lunchtime crowd from the high school would arrive soon, and all three of the just baking pizzas would be gone in a matter of minutes. Michelle was making pizzas today because Jan, the store’s jovial owner and cook, was late again.

"Hurry up, Michelle," called out Diane, co-owner of the Pizza Stop, emerging from the back room.

"I’m hurrying, I’m hurrying; how fast do you expect me to go for $4.35 an hour?" Diane burst out laughing, a little to hard. Almost as if she had been looking for an excuse to release a burst of laughter. It wasn’t that funny, Michelle thought as she reached for the metal flatboard used to remove the steaming pizzas from the oven.

Michelle pulled the cast iron door open and froze. Her body refused to respond to her brain's frantic signals. There in the oven resting on still baking pizza was Jan’s head, the blood from his apparently severed head blending smoothly with the solidifying pizza sauce. Michelle’s mouth opened as faint, primal grunts formed in the depths of her throat.

The head moved as Jan’s eyes blinked open. Michelle’s own attempts at speech were silenced as the oracle-like head began to speak. "Michelle I’ve been in the pizza business for a long time now."

That did it. Michelle snapped. Reflex took over. Michelle brought the gleaming, steel flatboard back with the determination of Ahab. Then in a combination of girth and adrenaline she rammed the flatboard’s razor like edge at Jan’s now screaming head.

Resembling the strangled Jabba the Hut, Jan’s eyes bulged as his tongue flopped wildly about. The scream died in a gurgle of escaping air and blood. A second push from Michelle brought Jan’s mouth closed, his jaw clamping down, severing the tongue in a crimson spray before falling forward onto the pizza, the Stephen King special topping. Finally the flatboard completed its journey, reaching the rear of the oven, causing a spark as metal met metal. Jan’s head settled into the gooey mozzarella as his spasming body, slid out of the back of the oven and hit the floor with a wet thud. Michelle’s eyes rolled into the back of her head as she too slumped to the sticky, clotting floor. With Diane’s shrieks ringing in her ears, Michelle’s cholesterol laden heart shut down.

The police arrived half an hour later to find Diane with the two stiffening bodies, huddled in the fetal position at the base of the ice-cream cooler muttering:’ It was supposed to be a joke. It was supposed to be a joke. Ha Ha very funny Just a little Joke, Ha Ha just a joke…."