Unhappy Birthday

When cakes come alive and eat you.

Your mom rushed into the room unexpectedly. Her long, red hair was down as she stood in her baggy orange party dress, a pale stain of red wine left on it from Aunt Lucy's wedding a few years ago. It was one of the few things she could still wear with her enormous belly bulging out. "Charlie, are you still on that computer?"

"I'm writing." You reply, barely looking up.

"Honestly, Charles, I'm worried about all the time you've been spending cooped up in this room of yours. It doesn't smell very nice in here, it's bad for your health and a boy your age should get out more. Socialize!" She ruffled your hair and you made a face, but it was nearly impossible to stay angry at a woman woman like your mother, especially when she was being extra nice because the whole family was jumping up and down about the baby as well as your birthday, which was just around the corner. She dragged you out of your office chair by the arms and waltzed you around the messy room while singing 'Oh Happy Day.' You tripped over your latest addition of Monster Magazine and stumbled. You both laughed. She clasped her hands and gave a tired but pleasant sigh, "Well, I'm off to go get your party things. Uncle Frank is here with the cake already. See you soon, my dear." And she pranced out of your bedroom, still humming. You shook your head and chuckled to yourself, wondering how a middle aged mom who was up to her eyeballs in work that had to get done could be so happy all the time. You were lucky to have a family as good as yours.

Uncle Frank lounged on the living room sofa watching a TV show about cats with a bottle of beer in one hand and a bag of potato chips in the other. He had gained even more weight since the last time he came to visit. "Hello, Uncle Frank." You said, sheepishly. He gave you a kind smile. "And how old are you going to be this year? 30?"

"Twelve."

"Oh 'course you are, son. Silly me." He suffocated you in a bone-breaking hug and then gave you a rumpled package. "Open it now, why don't you."

"It's the special edition Wolfman shirt from Monster Magazine! Just what I wanted, thank you!" The warm spring air came in through the open windows of the house, greeting you with a feeling of hopefulness. You couldn't wait until tomorrow. Everyone would be there. The part would be perfect. You wondered if your little sister would be a fan of old monster movies. You certainly hoped so. And then you opened the fridge to see the cake for the first time. That was when everything changed. The cake was in the shape of a monster's head. It had three red, beady eyes that stared back at you with a hungry look. A toothy grin was spread wide across it's face and two back and white striped horns poked out from the top of it's head. The monster licked it's lips. You jumped back, terrified it was going to eat you! But no, the cake hadn't licked it's lips, it was just an ordinary cake, but for the rest of the day you couldn't shake the slight feeling in the back of your mind that something was not quite right.

For dinner that night you had mashed potatoes with fresh garden salad and beef skewers. Everyone else seemed like they were having the time of their lives. "I felt the baby kick again this morning." Your mother said, happily. And your father who just got home from work put his arm around her and said their daughter was going to be great. They made the mistake of letting Uncle Frank open the bottle of champagne. The cap flew off and the pale golden liquid fizzed everywhere. "Charlie, are you alright?" said your mother, worriedly. "You've barely touched your dinner."

"Actually, I'm not feeling well. I'm going to lie down." You left, abruptly as everyone else watched in puzzled silence.

That night you tossed and turned. You couldn't get the image of that face out of your mind, even when you tried to think of happy things. What usually made you feel better in times of distress was reading and writing about monsters, but you didn't dare touch your favourite books and magazines. You looked around the room and saw monsters everywhere. Monster shirts, monster wallpaper, monster toys and books and stuffed animals. The room you usually found comforting had now turned into a nightmare scene. You swore all the things in it were about to come alive and tear you to pieces. It was impossible not to think of monsters because they were everywhere and you thought you shad started to hear them growling. You shut your eyes and tried to calm yourself. "People eat cakes, cakes don't eat people. People eat cakes, caked don't eat people." You whispered quietly and soon began to sweat. You tried to think of nothing. Just silence. Blackness. It worked for a little while, but then you heard a scuffling noise from downstairs. You opened your eyes and looked wildly around you. Your room was eerily still and silent, waiting. You contemplated staying in your room or going downstairs. Both ideas were equally frightening, and what scared you most of all was the apprehension. Not knowing what had made that noise, although you had a feeling you knew what it was. But you needed to know for sure, so you grabbed your housecoat and headed down into the kitchen. 

You turned on all the lights on the main floor because the darkness made you feel very exposed and uncomfortable. You held your breath as you opened the fridge door, ever so slowly, creaking open. White light poured out of the opening, blinding you. And there it was. The cake. It was just a cake with cookie eyes and a mouth made out of icing. You chuckled at how silly you had been and that was when it sprouted oozing, purple tentacle legs and sprung up and grabbed your face. You didn't have time to scream because it squandered you all too quickly, it's rapid mouth seething as it opened and closed, chomping on your nose. It's sharp triangular jaws sank into your cheeks, sending sharp pain shooting into you like bolts of lightning. You couldn't see anything. You began to feel numb and weightless from all the blood it was sucking out of you. You used both hands to grab the creature and tried with all your might to get it off you. It fell down hard on and slid across the shiny, tiled floor leaving a trail of icing. One of it's eyes had fallen off and it rolled over towards your feet. You stomped on it, crushing it into little cookie crumbs. Red icing trickled out of it's eyes socket, and then the blood began pouring out faster and faster, oozing out in puddles as the demented thing crawled over towards you.

That's when your mother and father came down and gazed around, horrified at the sight of their son beating up the expensive and beautifully decorated cake they had ordered for his special occasion. His mother screamed. "Charlie, what are you doing to your cake?!"

"It's trying to eat me! I could use a little help here!" You pulled out the giant butcher knife from the kitchen drawer. The monster lunged for your face again, but this time you swatted it down and it splattered into a pile of goo on the floor, lifeless. You bent down and panted. Your father stepped in. "I don't know what in God's name you think you're doing, young man. Cut it out this instant and look what you've done." He began yelling. "This was disrespectful, Charlie! DISRESPECTFUL! And we won't be getting you another cake for the party!"

"But dad..." You almost started to cry.

"I don't want to hear it."

That's when your mother screamed again, more urgently than you'd ever heard her. She clutched her tummy, which was shaking like mad. "I think...dear God I think the baby's coming!" Your father rushed everyone into the car. "Just take deep breaths, that's it. We'll be there soon."

You sat awkwardly in the waiting room and tried to process what had just happened. How could your parents not have seen the monster? You saw it plain as day. You concluded that you were going crazy. But at least the cake madness was over now. 

"Charlie!" It was the midwife who called you. "Come on in and see the baby. Or shall I say...babies?"

More than one? How could that be possible? You all saw the baby on the screen before. It was clearly only one. Unless it split into multiple. Could that happen? Your mother lay peacefully in the hospital bed and smiled up at you. "Come and see your new brothers and sisters!" Geez, how many were there? On her lap was a big basket with a yellow bonnet over top. Your father hovered over it, holding your mother's hand. You leaned over the bed and peered in to find, to your horrid astonishment, there weren't any babies at all, only a small army of vicious cupcakes. They had dripping icing on their tops that was the exact colour of flesh, and they stank with the pungent smell of something rotting. There were a dozen of them it total. They had the same slimy tentacles as your mutant birthday cake and each one was foaming at the mouth, which chomped open and closed, showing off ghastly chompers, as well as one blinking red eye that never unfocused it's glare from you. You couldn't breathe. You looked tensely from your mom to your dad, then ran the hell out of there as fast as you could. 

You ran across highway traffic with the monsters uttering guttural noises as they trailed at your heels. You ran all the way home and slammed the door. The monsters flew into the glass and then slid, slowly down it. But then you turned around to discover the giant cake had come back to life and was opening the door to let it's children inside. You couldn't take it anymore. You felt like you were trapped in a horror movie stuck on fast forward. Your vision blurred, the world spun and you collapsed. You woke up to find yourself in bed, your mother nudging you. "Time to wake up, it's your birthday!", she sang. 

You rubbed your eyes and croaked "What?"

"Time to get up, silly. You've already slept in and the guests will be here soon."

You stood up out of bed. "Mom! You're alive!" and you ran and hugged her.

"Well of course I'm alive, what's gotten into you?"

You laughed and looked down at yourself, wiggling your fingers and toes. "I'm alive! Whoopee!"

But your relief did not last long. After two hours of party games and playing manhunt with your friends in the backyard, you sat down at the table and everyone sang happy birthday as your mother placed the cake in front of you. There was a plate of cupcakes with pink icing that had also been placed on the table. They each had one eye. Your friends began grabbing them, picking off the eyes and chomping. Biting into the middles of the cupcakes and causing red goop to ooze out. "Mmmm" said your friend Sally. "Raspberry!" 

"Well," said your mother, "Blow out the candles and make a wish."

You blew out the candles and wished for the party to end right then and there. You felt sick to your stomach. Unfortunately, the party did not end. It kept on going for a few hours. The party guests chased each other in circles around the table, chanting and laughing, loudly. You couldn't bring yourself to eat the cake. Even though it was just a dream, because you could have sworn you saw it wink when you blew out the candles.