Sweet Little Birdie

She hummed along to an old tune playing on the tattered radio, her hands working on the cookie dough she had been kneading for almost ten minutes now. She quickly wiped the sweat on her brow with the dirty cloth she had on the counter and went back to her work, this time choosing to look out of the window and at the decorated streets, brightly lit up by the glowing jack-o-lanterns hung on the porch of every visible house in the area. Soon the lanes would be filled with children in costumes, scramming around for tricks and treats. 

Ding! The sudden sound of the microwave startled her into reality, and she practically scrambled to move the baked brownies out of the oven before the sounds could get any louder. 

“Ah”, she muttered to herself out of habit, “Time for the cookies to go into the oven!” 

She was lonely in the dull apartment, but she was content. She had already set the brownies ready for the kids, and she would be done with the cookies soon. When she had realised that evening that she was out of candies for the kids who would come rapping on her door, giggling and sometimes yelling, she decided she would bake for them instead. After all, she had nothing else to do on Halloween night. When she had set the cookies inside the oven, she glanced a peek at the clock. 6:30 pm, she thought, perhaps I should start preparing my dinner too. She decided to wait for the cookies to bake, choosing to sit somewhere between the kitchen and the unveiled curtains for a better look. 

There were little vampires and ghouls outside her house now and she chuckled. They held little pumpkin baskets that already seemed half full of candies. Perhaps they were contemplating on whether to knock on the dull door of the only dark house on the street or perhaps they were calculating their gains, she couldn’t tell. All she could see and hear was the glow-in-the-dark sticks that poked out of their robes and the occasional screams of yet another victim of a terrifying prank. Such a bother.

She sat there until her oven made another sound, after which she swiftly got up to inspect the cookies she had worked so hard on. The radio played no music now, the static drifting down the dingy halls of her house. With a click, it died out itself. Yet she continued to thrum, occasionally throwing in the lyrics when she felt like it. 

Sweet little birdie

In the dawn of the night

When the world goes to sleep...

Shaking her head at the uncanny words, she nibbled at one of the cookies. It’s a little too sweet, but it should be able to work for the kids. She’s never had a sweet tooth anyway. 

A loud tap at the door and a short giggle. She walked towards the door merrily, holding out her tray to offer the little Captain Jack Sparrow standing in front of her. “Happy Halloween!” She greeted the sprout, bowing down a little enthusiastically. A little after an hour of the same business over and over again, she sat down on the kitchen counter, resting for a while. Chicken for dinner! She remembered the thawed meat in the oven and clapped to herself, beginning to cook the butchered meat on the stove.

“This doesn’t look enough”, she frowned. The meat seemed far too little for her appetite. She walked to the locked room, the one that she called storage and entered the unlit room full of a metallic smell she despised. She took a deep breath anyway, thinking about all the fresh meat she would get to eat. An absolute treat on this special occasion! The walls were painted a soft pink suited for a child, a bright red splattered in patterns. The freshly washed toys sat on the shelves in a particular order. The room was exceptionally neat, except for the mess the few chickens that lay strung along the wall had made. 

“Sweet little birdie,” she sang as she hopped towards her dinner and caressed them for a bit, before thrusting the knife into one of her withering chickens, muffled gasps and screams drowned out by the running radio tunes filling the lonely house. “I’ve come to life!”