Death Tastes Like A Chocolate Chip Cookie
They froze. They froze like ice, like ice cream, like "I scream!". They wanted to run. But they couldn't seem to get their muscles to move. Their muscles felt like stone.
The face disappeared. They sent messages down to their legs to get moving, but the legs weren't at home. They thought they could hear every bug that scurried along the floorboards, every piece of dust as it settled down. Mandy remembered her father saying one time how rabbits froze when you shined a flashlight on them. She suddenly felt as if she had floppy ears and a pink nose.
Nothing happened for what felt like a thousand years. Then the door opened. Their bodies went stiff as they imagined all sorts of nasty things about to happen. But what happened flabbergasted them both. A hand appeared holding a plate. A plate. Of chocolate chip cookies. The hand put the plate down on the porch floor, just like it was putting out food for the cat, and then the door closed.
They looked at the plate as if might, just might, jump up and bite them. It didn't. Gradually Katie noticed that she was still breathing. She noticed the sunlight, the trees, Mandy. Mandy noticed the same things. The plate was white, chipped on the rim, heavy. And sure enough, there was a dozen chocolate chip cookies laid in a neat circle. They had "Eat me" written all over them.
"What do you think?" Mandy said.
"I don't know."
They were both thinking the same thought - stories told by their parents and in the newspaper about Halloween candy filled with razor blades and strange chemicals. Maybe they were poisoned.
"They look okay to me," Katie said.
Mandy moved a piece of hair out of her face, and nodded.
Mandy took the first step. Katie followed. They stared at each other. Katie reached down to the plate, having a crazy thought that her fingers were going to burn. She picked up a cookie, smelled it, turned it over, broke it in half. No razor blades. And the chocolate chips got gooey over her fingers just like they were supposed to. She tasted it. Her eyes may lie but her mouth - never. It was a cookie.
They each ate two quickly. Then two more. Then another two. They were incredibly hungry. They picked up the remaining six and eased their way out the door. Katie looked back and saw the white plate sitting there, empty, a few crumbs on it, then glanced up at the door. She couldn't be sure, but she thought the face had been watching them. The window was empty right now.
The backyard seemed strange to them all of a sudden. If they didn't have the cookies in their hands, with the chocolate chips melting in their palms, they would have agreed that it was a very weird - what? It wasn't a dream because they were awake. It wasn't a kidnapping because they were going to walk back out to the friends on the street. It wasn't the devil - they both doubted the devil could bake cookies this good. There was definitely an old woman in the house and she could definitely bake. That was the weirdest thing of all.
They completed their circle of the house easily since there were no windows on the sides (a barn, falling down, was there) and they decided not to go up on the front porch. They almost burst out laughing as they saw their friends clustered on the street. Everyone's face looked scared and spooked, like they'd just finished watching Poltergeist and it was midnight and a thunderstorm was coming and everyone wanted to go to the bathroom but no one wanted to go alone. They looked even scareder when Mandy and Katie, like magic, passed around some of the best-tasting chocolate chip cookies.
"C'mon," everyone shouted, "tell us where you got 'em!" Mandy and Katie smiled, mouths shut tight for the moment. When you have a crowd begging for your attention, it doesn't hurt to keep them in suspense for a bit. They'd play out the story back at the house.
As the crowd walked away, both Mandy and Katie stared back at the house. They didn't say it to each other but each of them knew they wanted to go back. Even if she were the devil, those cookies were worth a second visit. And something else, something neither of them understood but felt in their brains and in their toes. This had been no ordinary day. And it felt good.
"Wanna go swimming?" Mandy asked, and Katie said, "Yeah."
