I sat behind Lisa's steering wheel, screaming down the freeway to my next delivery, alone with my thoughts. Did that really just happen?

Bob was waiting for me by the timesheets when I came back in. I greeted him, and tried to excuse myself around him so that I could clock out.

"Sorry Maria, I need you for another delivery. Ice called, and he's going to be really late," he said, blocking my path.

"He isn't really late already? It's eight!" I protested, rather stupidly as it turns out.

"Whatever. The point is, that you're here, and you can do the next delivery as soon as it comes out of the oven instead of waiting for Ice."

"Bob, it's eight o' clock- my shift ended at seven. I want to go home!"

"Why? You don't have kids or even pets!" Bob said. "The only reason you wouldn't stick around is if you didn't want money!"

I started to explain that there were other things that I could be taking care of, including myself. "But Bob, I-"

"No buts! I gave you a job to do!" Bob roared, "So do it, or kiss it goodbye!"

That really hurt me; I had done everything he asked me to do tonight, going above and beyond what I'd really signed up for. Ice hadn't even shown up yet- I mean, I know that's who he was really mad at, and I just represented a convenient target, but I'd never even seen this side of Bob before. I had never given him a problem with being late, or slacking, and tonight was the first time I really ever complained. Would he really have fired me? I didn't know, and I didn't want to find out because my survival really depended on this job.

Did it? "Uncle" said that the museum was hiring, and I had his nephew's number securely in my pocket...

I shook my head as I took the exit; I was being silly. I couldn't trade a sure thing for something that wasn't. Besides, this job paid the bills, and that was worth the stress, right?

Somehow, that last thought took the ring of veracity and threw it into the Marianas trench. I decided to continue this train of thought after I dropped off what I really hoped would be the last delivery of the night.

Lisa rolled to a stop on the access road between the warehouses and the docks; in front of me was a bend in the road, going around a building with direct access to the docks for fishing boats. This was the place. I looked around at the dark docks; the few lights did little to help visibility, but the crates and warehouses provided plenty of hiding places in any case. I found myself drumming my fingers nervously on the steering wheel as I considered the fact that no tip is worth my life. I pulled my cell phone out and dialed the shop's number. He answered on the third ring. "N1NJ4 Pizza!"

Again, I have no idea why he named the shop that.

"Hey Bob, it's Maria. This delivery you have me out on? I really don't feel safe on it."

"Ah, Maria, it'll be fine! I've been out there a hundred times after dark!" he said as if nothing had just happened between us.

I could hear the little white lie in his voice. The closest he's probably come to being out here was fishing at the pier on a bright Saturday afternoon. I cleared my throat. "Look, I can't see anything, and there's no one around to deliver to. I think we're going to have to eat this one."

"It's already been paid for, they'll be expecting it!" Bob protested. "Make a good faith effort! Look- they told me the office door was right there where you're parked. Just knock on it and see if anyone answers. If you do this, then you can come right back, and I'll treat you to a pie myself."

The last thing I wanted was a pie, especially one from Bob, but I was hungry, and it would go with the previous customers' beer in the trunk which at this point I'm planning to drink in one sitting. "All right," I said, "but if you don't hear back from me within fifteen minutes, call the cops because I'm probably dead." I hung up before he finished his "Thank you!" I really didn't want to hear it.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, my left hand gripping the pepper spray in my jacket pocket. Taking the fact that I've gotten this far without being shot as a good sign, I grabbed the pizza and walked up to the office door, lit only by a yellow flickering emergency light. I knocked. "Hello? N1NJ4 Pizza delivery!" I listened for a second that felt like a year, but heard nothing. "Well, good faith effort made!" I shrugged my nervousness off and started walking a little more briskly than necessary back to my car.

I made it about halfway when a rapidly moving reflection in Lisa's rear window caught my eye. All the alarm bells going off, I nearly dropped the pizza as I pulled out the pepper spray and turned to face...

Nothing. There wasn't even a hint that someone had been there. Truly creeped out, I took a few steps backwards before I turned around and started walking again. This time, I made it a little further before I heard a loud bang to my right. Out came the pepper spray as I turned again, this time to watch a five gallon bucket roll out of the shadows.

I'd had enough- I turned again to make a break for Lisa, which meant I had to stop short to avoid running smack into the three dark figures that had positioned themselves between me and my car. I yelped and took a step back; they moved as one unit into a sort of fighting crouch. I could barely make it out in this light, but they were all wearing black, and their feet were wrapped up in what looked like bandages. I could see red- yes, red- glowing eyes, but the rest of the faces were covered with black cloth.

Ninjas. I was being accosted by real ninjas.

Before I could move again, I felt hands gripping my arms from either side. I didn't have to look to know that two more had hold of me. One of the three that were in front snatched the pizza away. I screamed and tried to struggle, sure I was going to end up a grease spot on the dock there.

The next bit is hard to explain. I felt myself falling and saw the ground getting closer, but somehow managed to miss it completely. For the strangest sober moments of my life, it was very dark, and very cold. Then I blinked, and it was all over. I felt the press of wood planks under my feet, and the warm, musty, fishy smell of the building invaded my sinuses. The ninjas still had a tight grip on my arms, but they were paying attention to something that was in front of us, bowing their heads in respect. Almost reluctantly, I turned my eyes front to face a single tall figure standing in the shadows. I tried to say something, maybe ask what was going on or explain who I was and what I was doing here.

"Gleep."

I tried again to pull away from the ninjas, but the grip just tightened, with the implication that it could do so more or less infinitely in comparison to the finite strength of the bones in my arm. I wouldn't have made another attempt after that, even if the voice hadn't come out of the shadows. The voice... wow, that's hard to really describe. Think of what a snake would sound like if it attempted to speak English through a woofer, filtered through the sound system of the Oracle Arena, plus three days solid work in a good sound studio. You'd be close with that. "Why have you invaded my domain, mortal?"

I tried to answer, the words fighting for freedom against the terror that had bottlenecked in my throat.

"Pergle."

A pair of red eyes glowed out of the darkness, and the figure stalked forward. His long blonde hair was pulled back out of his face, but a few strands drifted onto the shoulder of his blue robe, which was covered in what vaguely looked like trigrams. For a second, I briefly wondered if this was something dreamed up by my overactive imagination after sitting through one too many classes on Chinese mythology. However, I realized while my Chinese mythology classes had discussed something like this, they certainly did not say anything about blue-skinned ninjas with red eyes. That, and my arms were really starting to hurt under the pressure- my imagination usually doesn't concoct phantom pains.

He came very close, moving calmly and peacefully like a lion approaching a gazelle with a broken leg. "Do you know who I am?" the voice hissed again. I very slowly and very honestly shook my head no. The man flashed a smile that I had only seen on sharks before now. "Then know this: I am Shendu, Demon Sorcerer of Fire, and Lord and Master of all I survey." He raised his hand inches away from my face. "And you, mortal, have trespassed against me. You will know my wrath!"

Something in what he said hot-wired my brain and drove it at full speed through the fog of utter panic and out the other side. Shendu. "Shendu- Shen Dude! They ordered pizza for you! I'm the delivery girl!" I blurted this out just in time to make the man stop and look confused, thereby at least temporarily postponing whatever unpleasantness he had in mind. "Look! He has it!" I pointed at the ninja carrying the pizza box, who bowed low as Shendu glanced over and lifted the lid. I could see the toppings; half of it was ham, bacon, sausage, pepperoni and hot peppers, half of it was mushrooms, artichokes and plum tomatoes, our most expensive toppings. The pressure on my arms suddenly abated as the ninjas let go.

"Ah, it can speak!" he said. He looked ready to say more, but his face screwed up for a second as though he had just come down with a massive headache. When he next opened his eyes, they were normal- human- and blue. He stared at me, confused, and spoke. It wasn't the voice this time, but a normal, human, voice, albeit with a British accent. "What are you doing here?"

"Um... Pizza," I said, pointing at the box again. "It's paid for already."

He took the box from the ninja and stared at the pizza for a second, before slamming the lid shut and looking at me. "Who?"

I have never been good with names, and under stress like this, I was lucky I could remember my own. I scratched my head as I tried to recall the details. "Three guys. One was dressed straight out of Saturday Night Fever."

This was apparently all the identification that he needed, he grimaced and muttered something that, well, shouldn't be repeated in mixed company, under his breath. He looked back at me with a glare that suggested that I was the cause of all his problems tonight. "Get out."

I have never been so happy to be treated like crap and get no tip as I did right then. I turned around, and realized that because I had never actually seen the door that I had come in through- if I even came through a door in the first place- I couldn't actually leave through it either. I faced the man in the robe again, who was still glaring at me. "Well?" he said sharply.

I attempted to ask him where the exit was, but I only got as far as saying "Um..." and pointing vaguely to the only door that I could see.

The man's expression changed slightly, from annoyed to amused. He reached back to a phone on a desk or table that I had missed earlier and pressed a button. "Hak Foo?"

The door that I had been pointing at opened, and into the room came this walking mountain. I dropped my hand quickly so that I could keep it. The man stalked over to me- did I mention that he was huge? He was huge. He had to be at least six-foot-seven; his muscles had muscles. His bright red hair stuck up, giving just a little more emphasis to the fact that I was more than a foot shorter than him and only knew "kung fu" in the context of bad B-movies (and to be fair, he looked like the villain out of one- I mean, with the goatee and the fu-manchu thing going on, it was really a comparison that just begged to be made).

He stopped in front of me, but he didn't stand. He loomed. I stared up at him and tried to find something intelligent to say that wouldn't result in my immediate and painful demise.

"Ahh...hahha..ah..."

I took a few steps back, and nearly walked into the man in the blue robe. He gave me a gentle push forward, and said, "Show the lady out."

He clapped a giant hand on my shoulder, spun me around and started marching me toward the door. We stopped only when the man in the blue began to speak again. "Oh, And miss? I want to make it very clear that none of this ever happened, for the sake of your continued good health. Understand?"

I looked around, first at the man guiding me out, who looked ready, willing, and able to break me in half like a toothpick. I glanced back into the shadows as he narrowed his eyes; I could just barely make out the evenly-spaced little red points of light at about eye height. Then I craned my neck to look back at the man in the blue robe, who had this deadly-serious look on his face. "No problem."

As Hak Foo steered me toward the correct exit, I can hear the man talking to... himself? I'm not even sure anymore. I've never heard of someone talking to themselves with different voices.

"We could have had some fun..." the hissing voice said, a little reproachfully.

"Eat your pizza, Shendu," said the voice with the British accent sounding more than a little disgusted.

The man opened the door, and then gave me a shove on the shoulder that sent me stumbling out to the road. I was really getting tired of getting grabbed and pushed, but I wasn't going to say anything. I could see Lisa there, not twenty feet away, like a welcome harbor in a bad storm.

I don't know why I looked back; I knew what I was going to see. Hak Foo somehow contrived to look even more menacing, and gave this sort of low, guttural growl. I swallowed, tried to look friendly and harmless, and attempted the world speed record for Walking Calmly to my car. I got in; I fastened my seatbelt and even checked the mirrors.

Then I laid a quarter-inch of rubber on the road as I put the pedal down and peeled out of there like a bat out of Hell. I started breathing again at a red light three blocks away. "I don't get paid enough for this," I muttered as soon as I could form a coherent sentence.

And just then, it was like the little light went on. That phrase made more and more sense each time I said it. "I don't get paid enough for this..."

I had an epiphany then; my job was stressful, and, as I had just experienced, sometimes dangerous, and I didn't get paid enough to continue to do this. I felt this was a very important fact, and I wanted to tell the world. I rolled down my window and shouted to the sky.

"I DON'T GET PAID ENOUGH FOR THIS!"