I Ate the Milk and Cookies

"The transformation is almost complete, my sweet little morsel...all you have to do is eat this one last cookie...it's all yours..." Cindy giggled at the literal meaning of what she just said.

Somewhere in Denise's mind something was desperately trying to tell her this was wrong, all wrong, horribly wrong, that she had to stop before it was too late...

...But it was too late. The allure of the cookie was far too much as Denise leaned forward, of her own free will for the last time, and inhaled the cookie. Her breathing slowed and became regular as her eyes slowly closed. Cindy smiled quietly and triumphantly as she whispered, "It's done...you're mine forever now."

Cindy left Denise's side, taking a glance out the front window to make sure there was still no one around. She knew there wouldn't be...after all she had just opened her bakery and no one else knew about it. Not yet.

She danced quietly back behind the counter, putting away her magical shirt as she tapped a hidden button underneath the counter. The glass on the wall behind her hummed a bit as it slowly began to lower...

If Denise hadn't been in her entranced state, and her eyes had been open and alert, she would have been in total shock at what she would be seeing now. Behind the glass were four identical pedestals. The bodies of three other women, each in the exact same pose as Denise, occupied three of them. There was a placard below each one with a name and a date engraved on it. Denise would have recognized the names and the faces, as each woman was another teacher Cindy had had in high school.

There was Kelly, her pretty blonde English teacher; Ximena, her dark haired Spanish instructor; and Lisa, her red-haired Home Ec teacher, who had been the inspiration for Cindy, as she had been teaching Cindy how to bake cookies one day in class. Cindy had always had a fascination with magic, and a craving for research that if her teachers had known about they would have envied. As she lifted Denise on her tray, placing her on the fourth pedestal to complete her magical collection, Cindy glanced across at the letter she would be sending to the school, identical to the others she had sent before, indicating that Denise would be transferring, far away from the school. She eased Denise down on her pedestal slowly, the plaque below already engraved:

Denise Miller

11/23/07

Cindy sighed contentedly, admiring her four 'milk and cookie dispensers' as she walked back to the counter and pressed the button. The glass rose once again, concealing the girls as they kneeled on their cookie trays. She walked over and put up the 'Open' sign for the first time. She thought about how the students would be flocking here in droves after school, enjoying the delicious milk and cookies, never knowing the source. She had one final thing to do: she picked up the phone and called the local radio station.

"Hi, this is Cindy, we spoke last week...Milk and Cookies...you can start running those ads now!"

"We're open for business!"

THE END