The Monster's Bakery

I open the door to a little restaurant, styled to look like an old 50s diner but with more strawberries, more hearts, and a lot more pink. Some would call this kind of place old-fashioned, but not me – old to me is a lot older than that.

The bells strung to the top of the door jingle, and I glance at a clock on the wall, above the kitchen window and behind the counter. 6 o' clock sharp – right on time. My own bakery doesn’t open until after the sun’s already set, so I have a little bit of time to go hang out with a friend first.

A girl wearing an apron walks out of the kitchen, alerted to my presence by the bells. She’s short, with a pair of horns on her forehead and periwinkle skin that’s dotted with violet freckles. The front of her long, sapphire hair is up in a bun, revealing her pointed ears and leaving the back to drape over her neck. Under her apron she dons a shoulderless indigo sweater over a skirt whose pattern features mushrooms on grass.

“Claire! What’s new?” she blushes a light fuchsia as she greets me. She knows that I can’t be in the sunlight for too long, so she leads me to a booth in the back, away from the sunlight of the front windows, and hops up to sit on the table.

I sit down in the red seat next to her and pull down the hood of my cloak, revealing my hair, long and black with light orange bangs. “Hey, Nessie!” I begin, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. “I’m pretty groovy, but I am kind of tired. I didn’t go to sleep until ten this morning!”

Nessie pauses for a moment before asking, “...Is that late for you? I’m not very familiar with nocturnal time.”

“Yeah, I usually climb into my coffin a couple hours earlier than that, but last night I was super busy,” I elaborate, and for a second I forgot that some people are asleep while I’m busy selling skull-shaped cake pops and petting my cat.

“Oh,” Nessie replies. “Well, what were you working on?”

“Just some new recipes! My favorite is the bat-shaped chocolate chip cookies,” I explain. They are pretty good.

Nessie’s face lights up, “That sounds delicious! I’ll have to try them sometime later.”

“Yeah,” I glance back up at the clock. 6:30. I’d better go prepare to open my bakery. “Nessie, I think it’s time for me to go. Gotta go see if anyone wants to buy my new cookies,” I smile excitedly. I made some just before sunrise at the bakery after I finalized the recipe, so there’s a batch waiting for me in the kitchen’s fridge.

“Alright, good luck! And have fun,” she waves at me as I walk to the door, and I put my hood back up to protect me from the light.

“Catch you on the flip side, Nessie!” I wave back and walk out.

After a couple minutes’ stroll to the end of the street, I turn towards a door not unlike the one I just left through, mostly glass with a metal frame. I turn my gaze upwards to see my sign, which is just a vinyl banner for now – Claire’s Eclaires – Halloween Bakery, and I enter the place.

Floors? Mopped. Windows? Wiped. Sweets? Out on display in the coffin-shaped case next to the bar, ready to be ordered and eaten. So except for my longtime friend who I refuse to evict, the spider in the corner, everything’s cleaned up and ready for my first customers of the night.

As if on cue, in walks a lady with short, almost black hair, a floral-patterned sweater, tan skin, and her two sons, one a little older than the other. I know her, she’s been coming in here almost every day for a few weeks now. She glances around the bakery, admiring my Halloween decorations that are mounted on the light orange walls year-round. The lady steps across the floor’s brown, rectangular tiles up to a red stool at the bar.

“What’s up, Taylor?” I ask her. We’ve been becoming better friends recently, sharing stories about the day before. “The usual?”

She always gets a pair of skull-shaped cake pops for the kids, but nothing for herself.

One of her sons is staring into the display case, eyeing my new bat-shaped chocolate chip cookies. Taylor decides to order something different for a change, “Actually we’ll try these! The bat cookies on the right.”

"Alright!” I reach into the back of the case and grab two cookies with wax paper, then hand them to her. She picks up each of her sons to seat them on stools next to her, then hands them their cookies.

I tell Taylor about how those cookies are one of my new recipes, and that I have more that aren’t available yet. She expresses interest, asking what the others are, and I tell her, then we talk about how her day was, then how my night’s been so far. In between me helping customers, we continue talking long after her sons have finished snacking, until it’s time for her to go back home and relax with her husband, maybe watch a horror movie together after the kids are in bed.

She leaves, and for the rest of the night, business is slow. Only a few more hours, then I can go say good morning to Nessie, go home and take a nap.

The next night, Taylor doesn’t come in. That’s kind of weird, since she’s been coming in pretty much every day since she first discovered my place. I half-jokingly think that maybe she saw me smile and my fangs scared her off, but she’s probably just busy, so I soon forget my worries.

By the next day, she still hasn’t come in. But on the bright side, as of yesterday, it’s a full moon now, and everyone knows that werewolves crave sugar when the moon is full. Some say that it’s because the round moon reminds them of cookies... I don’t know if that’s true, but hey, it brings in the business.

I’ve seen a number of werewolves just today, and it’s only the second day of the full moon. I’ve met John, Elizabeth, Roxanne, and another who I didn’t quite catch the name of. She reminded me a bit of Taylor, with the same pretty print sweaters and dark hair, but I figure it must be wishful thinking, since I kind of miss seeing her already.

It seems that the number of werewolf customers increases with every day of the full moon. Some come and go, only buying one donut or – if they return once or twice in the week - a few cake pops. But one customer keeps returning every day, her dark hair gradually fading to caramel as she repeatedly orders my new bat cookies. Unlike Taylor, she orders three; two for her kids and one for herself. In the whole month that Taylor’s been coming here, she’s never ordered sweets for herself, ensuring me that she’s on a diet.

Taylor hasn’t come in here in almost a week. What if she’s lost? She hasn’t gone that long without coming here in the entire time I’ve known her. I’m going to make some flyers in the morning after work and put them up around my bakery.

When I go to Nessie’s restaurant before work the next evening, I give her one of my flyers and ask her if she’s seen Taylor.

“I know you’ve talked about her before, but aside from the picture on this flyer, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen her,” Nessie replies sadly. “But I can put up one of your flyers around my place to see if anyone else has.”

This makes me ecstatic. Maybe we’ll be able to find Taylor! “Thank you so much, Nessie!” I exclaim.

“No problem, Claire! I’m glad I could help,” Nessie smiles gently.

Back at my bakery, I’ve put up a couple of the flyers inside, with a few more outside. I really hope that together, we can help locate Taylor and bring her back homer, wherever she is. I bet her family must be so worried! If only I had a way to contact them.

Later that night, I overhear some customers at a nearby table discussing the issue at hand, “I’ve seen that lady before.”

“Yeah, she comes in here a lot. But where is she now?”

“I don’t know... Hey, man, do you think she’s one of those werewolf things? Like, she could be terrorizing chickens in the forest right now, and nobody would know.”

What? They really think Taylor is a werewolf? That’s ridiculous, and besides, if that was true, she would’ve told me by now. I can’t believe they would think that. But either way, they really need to brush up on their werewolf facts; I thought people knew by now that werewolves don’t terrorize farm animals. That’s just a myth invented for cooler horror movies.

I decide to tune in again to see what other nonsensical theories they’ve come up with, but they must’ve changed the subject, because all I hear is, “Why don’t they serve anything with garlic here?”

Those fools. Why would a bakery serve garlic? Better yet, why would any person like garlic at all? I used to like it, but over the past century or so, my distate for it has just grown and grown. Ugh.

Anyways, back to the important things; I was so angry about that conversation that I didn’t even notice the growing line of customers in front of the bar Oh, great. I’m rushing to help them as fast as I can when I see someone approaching the bar to the right of the line.

It’s the werewolf girl with the floral sweater, with some kind of paper in her hands. “Claire-”

I should’ve been paying attention earlier. “I’m sorry, I’m really busy right now, could you wait until I’m done with these customers?” I suggest, hoping that she’ll forgive me.

Every minute spent going through the line of customers worries me more. What if that lady leaves before I’m done? This is all my fault, I should’ve been more responsible.

After what feels like ten hours, even though it was closer to ten minutes, I’m finally done with all those customers. I look up and ask proudly, “Alright, what can I-”

She’s not there. I was too busy worrying about her leaving that I didn’t even notice when she actually left. Did I really take that long?

Now that I think about it, didn’t her voice sound a little bit like Taylor’s? No, it couldn’t have; she would’ve told me before if she was a werewolf. So if that wasn’t her, then where on earth is she? It feels like it’s taking forever to solve this mystery.

And that paper in her hands, what was that? Was it one of my flyers? Does she know where Taylor is?

Now that I’ve realized this, I can’t believe that I really just passed up a chance to put an end to all this. What if that lady doesn’t come back? It could be days before someone else finds a clue.

That morning, when I go to sleep in my coffin, I can’t stop thinking about Taylor. I have no idea where she is, and I really just hope she’s okay. Maybe we’ll find her soon, but I don’t know. Hopefully.

The next night, the full moon is over. All of my werewolf customers are back in their human forms, and I recognize many of those who return, liking what they tasted during their week of coveting sugar. But I’m still worried about Taylor – what if she doesn’t show up soon? What will I do then? However, I stop myself, because with all of my friends working to help find her, I’m sure it won’t be long.

Then a familiar face walks in the door. Her hair’s now faded to a much lighter brown, and she’s donning a petunia-patterned sweater. Could it be...?

As she approaches the bar to talk to me, my face lights up and I almost scream, “Taylor! Is it really you?”

Taylor seems a little confused, and she doesn’t sound like she hasn’t seen me in a week when she remarks, “Of course it’s me! Did you really think I was gone?”

“...What? What do you mean?” I inquire. Has she been coming in every day as usual, but somehow evading my sight for all this time? I think I would’ve noticed if she was here.

“Claire... I’m a werewolf. Did you not recognize me all week?” She questions.

“That was you the whole time?” I exclaim.

Taylor gasps as she realizes that she never told me. “...I never told you, did I?”

“No, I’m afraid not. But it’s alright now, right?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course!” she replies. “And I do appreciate you looking so hard for me. It’s heart-warming to know that you care.”

Despite all the worries I’ve collected over the past week, I smile. It’s really nice to finally have my friend back.