The Ramen Witch

Hello.

I recently wrote a comment in response to a friend who mentioned that one Halloween, a woman actually gave his daughters ramen noodle packets instead of candy. Because candy is too unhealthy or something. This turned into a short story, a kind of affectionate horror story parody, so I will cut and paste it here, in hopes people might get some entertainment out of it. 'Tis the season, after all.

I present to you, The Ramen Witch:


Halloween night, kids walking the streets. A group goes up to a house at the dead end of a long cul-de-sac street. Bushes, trees, entire yard overgrown. House dark except for a faint light within. "Should we go there?" "I've heard she's crazy." "I'm scared." "Shut up, let's go."

They walk up the stairs, which jut and turn at strange angles, some seemingly impossibly steep, some which seem to go on too far and too low.

They make their way to the door and ring.

After some time, the door pops open with no warning, no sound of footsteps approaching within the house.

"Hello, my pretties!"

"WOW, THAT'S A NICE WITCH COSTUME, LADY!"

"What did you say to me, you little... welcome to me world of treats, boys and girls! You are the only children who made your way to my lonely doorstep tonight, and at such an hour..."

She looks towards the sky, and the kids follow her glance, gazing towards the glowing full moon, as the clouds seem to speed up, passing across it like wisps of incense. Their hearts pulse faster.

What is your heart's desire? We have treats such that you've never seen."

The children look past her into the gloom of the house. The only light is at the end of a long passageway, what looks like a dimly glowing coal stove. In the room just behind her, shapes just distinguishable from the shadows seem to leap on the furniture and flit from place to place. Cats, probably.

The boldest one speaks up first...

"I want a lollipop as large as a house! A rainbow spiraling lollipop spinning in on itself, never to end!"

"And you?"

"I want rock candy, like the crystals that glow with multicolored light within the deepest caves!"

"And you?"

"Um... I'll go with the neverending gobstopper, like, with layers that never end and stuff. You know. Thanks."

*Clasps hands* "Ah ha ha. Your imaginations get so carried away with themselves, ha ha ha. Kids. Wish I had 'em."

"But I have something for you greater yet. Something beyond your greatest imagination. There is tell of a food of the gods, brought down from heaven..."

The fire down the hall sparks and glows white for a moment. The front room briefly gets just a little bit less dark, revealing the... cats, they must be cats, frantically running to hide, before everything falls back into shadow.

"Anyway, even a child's dreams cannot imagine what manna had arrived to our world. Even the gods had trouble putting a name to it. They had to consult Ra himself to advise them on how to translate the unearthly taste into the tongue of men. But he is not with us now, children, is he?" Her features turn dark, worried, as a large cloud obscures the moon.

"Miss, please, can you just hurry up and give us some treats? It's very late and cold, and our parents are waiting on us."

"Of course, of course..."

The old lady shuffles backwards, turning into a shadow flickering across the walls as she retreats down the hall to the kitchen. The shadows flicker wilder and wilder as she seems to disappear into the stove, which flares up and sends shadows scattering down the hall like bats frantically flying from a mine shaft explosion. The light slowly dims and dies out. Complete darkness.

The children wait in the dead, still silence for what seems like ages. The large cloud obscuring the moon passes. Wind dies away.

"Whelp" says one of the kids.

More time passes. A strange sleepy feeling overtakes them.

"Maybe we should go home."

All of a sudden, the woman slides out of nowhere from the left side of the door. She is holding three small, square packages. Even though the moon is uncovered and glowing brightly, they can't make out her features. They could swear they saw a small glimmer in her eyes before, but they are black as deepest night now. She stands before them silently.

"Okayyy...."

They can see the lines in her face twist into a grin.

"I have found your treasures, children. There were only three left. No, don't mind me. Don't mind me at all. I eat light, hee hee. As they say, so to speak."

There is a sense of darkening, as if another cloud had passed over the moon, but the sky was clear of clouds now. Moon glowing brighter than ever, but seeming as if it might wink out at any point, extinguishing everything into complete blackness. The children blink a few times, and the effect recedes.

"Hold out your bags, hold out your bags, then!"

The children hold out their bags, orange, black jack-o-lantern faces on them.

"For you, my dear little Frankenstein's monster," she says, "I have... Chicken Noodle flavor." She holds out a package of ramen into the light, and drops it into his bag.

Plop.

"Thanks ma'am, but it's a skin condition. Supposed to be the hulk."

"Oh. And for you, my... are you supposed to be the Joker or something? Like, one of the newer Jokers? Anyway, for you, I have... Picante Beef flavor.'

Plop.

"Uh, thanks."

"You're welcome. And for you, my princess, oh, you have put the most work into your costume. The prettiest princess in the land, you are. Even the moon agrees!" Strange flickering from behind them. "Anyway, for you, I have the best of all." She looks at the last package, as if reluctant to give it away, an unbearable, ancient sadness, then leans forward to place it in the girl's bag. "Sriracha Chicken flavor" she says, her voice suddenly drained of all cheer, strangely flat.

Plop.

The moonlight captures her features for an instant, and there is something unutterably wrong, sending a shiver of pure nightmare panic through the children down to the core of their being, they feel as if taken into a still instant of everything wrong forever, something familiar as if behind the surface of everything for their entire lives, which had always and only been leading up to this point, caught inexorably in the Medusa's gaze as they froze into statues of pure fear in the cold emanating from the heart of it all.

But then they blink, and she is back in the shadows.

The children stare silently into their bags.

"Anyway, don't want to keep your parents waiting. As for me, the witching hour is upon us, and beckons me home. Toodaloo!"

She stands staring at the children blankly for some time. Her eyes seeming to gather the shadows within them. Then she seems to float slowly backwards. The light of the stove down the hall flares up briefly one last time, and she appears to come apart in leaping shadows, which fly and hide themselves in the corners of the room as the stove dies out again, and everything goes dark. The door slowly closes itself and locks.

There is now a cloud cover, with the moon only peeking through at times.

The children stand at the door silently for some time. Look again in their bags.


...

...

...

"Let's not come here again next year."