Today’s story is “Ecto Café” by Mary E. Lowd, who is the author of the Otters In Space trilogy, Tri-Galactic Trek, and Nexus Nine, and you can find lots more of her stories on www.deepskyanchor.com.
You’re listening to The Voice of Dog.
Speaker:I’m Khaki, your faithful fireside companion,
Speaker:and today’s story is
Speaker:“Ecto Café” by Mary E. Lowd,
Speaker:who is the author of the Otters In Space trilogy,
Speaker:Tri-Galactic Trek,
Speaker:and Nexus Nine, and you can find lots more of her stories on www.
Speaker:www.deepskyanchor.com.
Please enjoy:“Ecto Café”
Please enjoy:by Mary E. Lowd Sunny reached for the strap of her ecto-pack,
Please enjoy:but before she could pull the bulky piece of technology out of the sedan’s hatchback,
Please enjoy:an imperious feline voice rang out from the driver’s seat:
Please enjoy:“What do you think you’re doing?”
Please enjoy:Sunny mumbled something about gearing up, but Ripley,
Please enjoy:the small white cat who was the de facto leader of the Ecto-Busters,
Please enjoy:cut the yellow lab off.
Please enjoy:“You don’t need an ecto-pack to run into a cafe and pick up a quick snack.”
Please enjoy:Sunny looked over at Audrey,
Please enjoy:a St. Bernard and the other dog on the team.
Please enjoy:The two of them — yellow lab and St. Bernie —
Please enjoy:were in the back seat because Ripley always drove,
Please enjoy:and she always chose Brannon for shotgun.
Please enjoy:The little cat claimed it was because the semi-mythological otter needed extra room for his big feathery wings, but Sunny
Please enjoy:thought Ripley was sweet on Brannon.
Please enjoy:Audrey shrugged — a small shrug,
Please enjoy:but even a small shrug is pretty big on a St. Bernard’s large frame.
Please enjoy:She was no help. Though she did woof,
Please enjoy:“As long as you’re going in, could you pick me up a sticky bun? Or cinnamon roll?
Please enjoy:Any kind of pastry dripping with sugar sauce.”
Please enjoy:“Sure thing,” Sunny woofed.
Please enjoy:The yellow lab climbed out of the sedan, and as she swung the door shut,
Please enjoy:she heard Ripley meowing inside, “Hurry up,
Please enjoy:okay? It’s not like that three-headed King Kong-sized chihuahua on the roof of the Great Dane Building will wait for us before it starts ripping Dogatham City apart.”
Please enjoy:Sunny tucked her tail between her legs
Please enjoy:and felt her fur brush against the coarse fabric
Please enjoy:of her team jumpsuit.
Please enjoy:Audrey was always hungry,
Please enjoy:but somehow Sunny was always the one to crack and beg Ripley to let them stop for lunch, dinner,
Please enjoy:breakfast, or just a snack, depending on the time of day
Please enjoy:and how urgent their current mission was.
Please enjoy:Today, the mission was pretty urgent,
Please enjoy:and the time of day was ungodly early in the morning.
Please enjoy:The ecto-buster team had been up all night fighting ghosts throughout the streets
Please enjoy:of Dogatham City. Sunny needed a break —
Please enjoy:even if it was just to pick up a chai and sweet roll —
Please enjoy:before facing the hell spawn
Please enjoy:who’d summoned all these ghosts.
Please enjoy:The streets were empty now,
Please enjoy:and Sunny hadn’t been able to believe her good luck
Please enjoy:when she’d spotted an open cafe.
Please enjoy:It must have been one of those places where they baked the bread fresh early in the morning.
Please enjoy:Mmm, fresh bread. Sunny couldn’t wait.
Please enjoy:The yellow Labrador went through a glass door,
Please enjoy:set in a wall of windows,
Please enjoy:and into the cafe.
Please enjoy:She looked over the brightly lit glass shelves, showing off all the pretty pastries.
Please enjoy:Her stomach gurgled,
Please enjoy:and her mouth watered,
Please enjoy:anticipating the sweet taste.
Please enjoy:She didn’t know how Ripley and Brannon could fight ghosts all night and not work up an appetite.
Please enjoy:Well… That’s not true.
Please enjoy:Ripley was such a small cat that she could probably live off nutrients gleaned from the air like some kind of baleen whale,
Please enjoy:and Sunny was pretty sure that Brannon kept all of his jumpsuit pockets stuffed full of fish jerky.
Please enjoy:She wrinkled her nose remembering the smell.
Please enjoy:Sunny found a bell on the cafe’s front counter and rang it.
Please enjoy:There was no one visible anywhere in the shop,
Please enjoy:but the neon sign out front had said “open,”
Please enjoy:and all the lights were on.
Please enjoy:The front door had been unlocked.
Please enjoy:Sunny looked around,
Please enjoy:her muzzle straining into a nervous expression.
Please enjoy:Someone had to be here.
Please enjoy:Someone had to have opened the shop up
Please enjoy:for the morning crowd…
Please enjoy:Except, there wasn’t likely to be much of a morning crowd today.
Please enjoy:Not after the spectacular spook show
Please enjoy:that had filled the streets all night long.
Please enjoy:“Spooktacular.” Sunny chuckled at her own cleverness.
Please enjoy:Then she jumped, startled,
Please enjoy:as a creature rose up behind the counter.
Please enjoy:Not a dog. Not a cat.
Please enjoy:Not a ghost. But… some sort of
Please enjoy:gloppy, unbaked golem of bread dough.
Please enjoy:Shaped vaguely like a dog, maybe,
Please enjoy:but much droopier. “Caaa-a-a-n I heee-e-e-lp yoooou?”
Please enjoy:the bread golem gurbled.
Please enjoy:Sunny glanced over her shoulder to look back out the wall of windows
Please enjoy:at the ecto-buster sedan parked out front,
Please enjoy:waiting for her, where her ecto-pack was still stowed uselessly
Please enjoy:in the hatchback trunk.
Please enjoy:Ripley was in the front seat,
Please enjoy:gripping the steering wheel so tight her claws had to be piercing the vinyl.
Please enjoy:She was glaring at Sunny with her little white ears flattened against her head.
Please enjoy:She probably couldn’t see the barista was a bread dough golem.
Please enjoy:Just that Sunny was still inside and keeping them from driving off
Please enjoy:toward the Great Dane Building.
Please enjoy:Sunny made a judgment call and woofed, “Yeah, I’d like two of these cinnamon rolls–”
Please enjoy:They were the kind with pretty spirals of white icing on top.
Please enjoy:“–and the biggest to-go cup of chai that you’ve got.” “Sweee
Please enjoy:-e-e-t or spiiii-i-icy chai?” the bread golem gurbled.
Please enjoy:“Um, sweet,” Sunny woofed,
Please enjoy:trying not to feel too weirded out by the way the bread golem’s doughy face kept skewing sideways as it spoke.
Please enjoy:It looked kind of like a yellow Labrador would if dogs could melt in the sun. “Cooo-o
Please enjoy:-ominng rii-ight up.”
Please enjoy:The bread golem glooped its way over to the glass cases
Please enjoy:and removed two cinnamon rolls.
Please enjoy:Then it performed a bizarre balancing act,
Please enjoy:stretching out one of its doughy limbs far enough to reach the to-go boxes
Please enjoy:on top of the glass case
Please enjoy:without dropping the two cinnamon rolls in their paper wrappings from its remaining limb
Please enjoy:that grew smaller
Please enjoy:as the dough of its body flowed into the other limb.
Please enjoy:Sunny let out a breath of relief
Please enjoy:as soon as her paws were on the little box of pastries.
Please enjoy:All she needed now was her chai and to pay.
Please enjoy:Then she could go.
Please enjoy:But instead of bringing her a to-go cup of chai,
Please enjoy:the bread golem glooped its way through a door behind the counter into what must have been the kitchen.
Please enjoy:Maybe they kept the sweetened condensed milk in a refrigerator in the back.
Please enjoy:Impatiently, Sunny waited,
Please enjoy:swinging her tail in a jaunty rhythm to pass the time.
Please enjoy:She pulled open the corner of the pastry box and stuck her paw in far enough
Please enjoy:to tear off a piece of one of the cinnamon rolls.
Please enjoy:She was about to pop the piece of gooey confection in her mouth
Please enjoy:when a cinnamon scented cloud of green ecto-plasm swirled out of the opened corner of the pastry box.
Please enjoy:“Oh, no,” Sunny woofed.
Please enjoy:The cinnamon scented ghost was small —
Please enjoy:barely bigger than the pastry that had spawned it —
Please enjoy:but it was translucent green
Please enjoy:with glowing red eyes and a toothy maw most cinnamon rolls don’t have.
Please enjoy:“Gnaw, naw, nom!” the cinnamon ghost howled with its toothy little maw.
Please enjoy:Sunny shoved the bite of confection,
Please enjoy:untasted, back into the box.
Please enjoy:She wasn’t going to eat a pastry that was actively possessed.
Please enjoy:That didn’t seem like a good idea.
Please enjoy:She did not need some sort of cinnamon roll ghost inhabiting her stomach like she was a weird old lamp
Please enjoy:and it was a parasitic genie.
Please enjoy:Sunny took a closer look at the pastries still behind the glass,
Please enjoy:hoping she could switch out her possessed ones for pure ones.
Please enjoy:She got her muzzle so close that her breath fogged up the glass,
Please enjoy:but before her view was completely obscured
Please enjoy:she saw faint green sparks of ecto-plasm
Please enjoy:fizzle electrically
Please enjoy:along the entire row of pastries —
Please enjoy:muffins, donuts, bear claws, and yes,
Please enjoy:each of the cinnamon rolls.
Please enjoy:Doggonit. No pastries today.
Please enjoy:They were all possessed.
Please enjoy:Sunny glanced nervously back at the ecto-sedan outside.
Please enjoy:In the driver’s seat, the little white boss cat was gesturing at her wrist
Please enjoy:as if she were actually wearing a watch.
Please enjoy:Ripley’s message was clear:
Please enjoy:“Hurry up.” Maybe this stop didn’t have to be a complete loss
Please enjoy:if Sunny could still get her chai.
Please enjoy:Audrey would be disappointed.
Please enjoy:So would Sunny’s tummy.
Please enjoy:But some milky sweet tea might tide Sunny over long enough for them to face down against that three-headed chihuahua monster.
Please enjoy:And if Audrey cared so much about getting a snack,
Please enjoy:maybe next time she could ask Ripley to ease up and give them a break.
Please enjoy:At the very least,
Please enjoy:Audrey could have come into this haunted cafe with her
Please enjoy:instead of staying in the car listening to music while Ripley and Brannon low-key flirted.
Please enjoy:Sunny called out toward the back of the cafe,
Please enjoy:“Hey, I’m kind of in a hurry?”
Please enjoy:She leaned over the counter, trying to get a look at the kitchen.
Please enjoy:Then it occurred to her that maybe there was an actual barista back there,
Please enjoy:a real dog or cat,
Please enjoy:being held hostage by the bread golem.
Please enjoy:She’d better check it out.
Please enjoy:Sunny jumped right over the counter and poked her head through the door into the kitchen.
Please enjoy:“Hellooo?” “Bee-e-e rii-i-ight wii
Please enjoy:-i-ith youuuu,” the bread golem gurbled.
Please enjoy:It was messing about with a small refrigerator,
Please enjoy:while holding a carafe of dark tea and a small plastic carton of sweetened condensed milk.
Please enjoy:There were slick spills of white milk and brown tea on the floor all around it.
Please enjoy:Sunny rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth.
Please enjoy:Even when demons were possessing unbaked bread dough instead of ripping the city apart,
Please enjoy:they still weren’t good for anything.
Please enjoy:On the bright side,
Please enjoy:she didn’t see any dogs or cats wrapped up in bread dough like pie fillings,
Please enjoy:being tortured by the spirits inhabiting this cafe.
Please enjoy:Probably the actual employees of the cafe had known better than to come in today,
Please enjoy:and the demonic spirits had decided to open up the shop on their own.
Please enjoy:Sunny didn’t have her full ecto-pack on,
Please enjoy:and she didn’t want to go outside and admit to Ripley that she’d been trying to order chai and pastries from a bread golem rather than immediately trying to capture the ghost animating it.
Please enjoy:However, she did have a protonic wand tucked into the cargo pants pocket of her jumpsuit.
Please enjoy:The wand wouldn’t be powerful enough to entirely dissipate an aggressive,
Please enjoy:hostile spirit, and it didn’t have an ecto-reservoir for containing one.
Please enjoy:However, the pastry spirits were
Please enjoy:quite small — they had to be to fit inside of pastries —
Please enjoy:and whatever spirit was animating the bread golem seemed mostly…
Please enjoy:friendly. So, maybe the protonic wand would have enough power to jolt the cafe spirits
Please enjoy:back across the veil temporarily.
Please enjoy:Then Sunny could fix the chai herself,
Please enjoy:drop some money on the counter,
Please enjoy:and get out of here.
Please enjoy:The yellow lab pulled out her protonic wand,
Please enjoy:and the microphone-shaped object made electronic bleep-blooping noises as she waved it menacingly at the bread dough golem.
Please enjoy:The pale pasty dough of the golem’s belly rippled in response to the ecto-waves,
Please enjoy:and the golem gurgled out a cry of horror,
Please enjoy:dropping both the carafe of tea
Please enjoy:and the carton of sweetened milk.
Please enjoy:The glass carafe shattered, and the carton landed on its side.
Please enjoy:Milk blubbed onto the floor,
Please enjoy:rippling into a white puddle.
Please enjoy:Then the puddle sizzled with green ecto-plasm,
Please enjoy:bringing it to life,
Please enjoy:animated by yet another spirit.
Please enjoy:The spilled tea sparkled greenly too.
Please enjoy:Within moments, Sunny found herself facing not only a bread dough golem, but also
Please enjoy:a darkly transparent chai phantom
Please enjoy:and a smaller, pearly white, sweetened
Please enjoy:condensed milk ghost.
Please enjoy:They both looked angry about having been spilled out on the floor.
Please enjoy:“Chraaa!” the chai phantom cried,
Please enjoy:ripping its middle apart into a toothily-shaped mouth
Please enjoy:and stretching out vaguely-shaped proto-arms.
Please enjoy:It rushed towards Sunny like a shadow,
Please enjoy:and the Labrador retriever
Please enjoy:yipped in surprise and tripped backward,
Please enjoy:paws sliding in the mess of milk and tea on the floor.
Please enjoy:She dropped her protonic wand, and it rolled away from her,
Please enjoy:out of reach under a big chrome oven.
Please enjoy:The chai phantom whooshed past Sunny.
Please enjoy:The yellow lab sprawled awkwardly on the floor,
Please enjoy:and before she could get up,
Please enjoy:the sweetened condensed milk ghost
Please enjoy:swooped onto her
Please enjoy:and pressed against her muzzle
Please enjoy:like an unwanted kiss, sloppy and smelling of sour, spoiled dairy.
Please enjoy:“Blech!” Sunny cried,
Please enjoy:wanting to scrub off her tongue with a sponge and stuff her face into a bouquet of wildflowers.
Please enjoy:Instead she scrambled backward, trying to get away from the milk ghost
Please enjoy:until she banged her head on a set of shelves that toppled forward.
Please enjoy:A dozen or so mugs clattered to the floor,
Please enjoy:several breaking, and a silver insulated pitcher of coffee fell.
Please enjoy:Black liquid glugged out, steaming hot
Please enjoy:and sizzling with emerald sparks of ecto-plasm.
Please enjoy:So much coffee; much more coffee than there’d been of the chai…
Please enjoy:The spilt coffee barely touched the floor before the dark liquid pulled together into a sloshy, splooshy poltergeist.
Please enjoy:The coffeegeist roared
Please enjoy:and shrieked through the small kitchen
Please enjoy:like a caffeine-powered tornado.
Please enjoy:The mere touch of the coffeegeist brushing against Sunny’s golden fur —
Please enjoy:damp and clingy like fog on a gray morning —
Please enjoy:made the yellow lab’s heart race.
Please enjoy:She didn’t think her heart was racing from fear;
Please enjoy:it felt more like the pounding of adrenaline caused by drinking too much chai.
Please enjoy:Jittery and overcaffeinated.
Please enjoy:This was why Sunny didn’t drink coffee.
Please enjoy:There was a reason Sunny preferred chai —
Please enjoy:the yellow lab had a bouncy,
Please enjoy:buoyant enough personality without full-coffee levels of caffeine coursing through her veins.
Please enjoy:Chai’s level of caffeine
Please enjoy:was enough to lift her up,
Please enjoy:make her feel a little more awake,
Please enjoy:and not leave her bouncing off the walls.
Please enjoy:Like the coffeegeist was doing right now.
Please enjoy:The translucent storm cloud of coffee
Please enjoy:zipped around the small kitchen, from one wall to the next,
Please enjoy:like an angry hornet trapped inside a car on a hot day.
Please enjoy:Without her protonic wand or ecto-pack,
Please enjoy:all Sunny could do was watch in horror as the coffeegeist,
Please enjoy:milk ghost, and chai phantom came together,
Please enjoy:blending into one super-drink of a spirit.
Please enjoy:Oh great, Sunny was being menaced by a giant, angry dirty chai.
Please enjoy:She hated dirty chais.
Please enjoy:If you want coffee, get coffee. If you wanted chai, why would you ever put a shot of espresso in it?
Please enjoy:The yellow lab shuddered.
Please enjoy:During all of the chaos of animated liquids, Sunny had forgotten to pay attention to the bread golem
Please enjoy:who had started this all.
Please enjoy:The doughy apparition picked up the empty milk carton and the glass handle from the broken tea carafe,
Please enjoy:and it burbled sadly over them. “Ooo-oo-oh, nooo
Please enjoy:-oo-o! Yo-ou-ur te-e-ea…! I-i-i’m soo-o-o-orry-y-y!”
Please enjoy:Sunny was having the weirdest day.
Please enjoy:If she didn’t know better, she’d think she’d fallen asleep,
Please enjoy:leaned against the counter, waiting for her chai,
Please enjoy:and she was dreaming all of these tasty, scary ghosts.
Please enjoy:She was pretty tired after a full night of chasing ghosts.
Please enjoy:Come to think of it…
Please enjoy:Sunny peeked out of the kitchen,
Please enjoy:back to the front of the cafe.
Please enjoy:She didn’t see herself slumped against the counter, drooling and snoring.
Please enjoy:But she did see Ripley in the driver’s seat of the ecto-sedan,
Please enjoy:ears fully flattened,
Please enjoy:and the car door partially open beside her.
Please enjoy:From what Sunny could see, it looked like Brannon was trying to convince the cat to stay in the car and wait a little longer.
Please enjoy:Bless his winged-otter heart.
Please enjoy:But even so, Sunny’s time was running out.
Please enjoy:She needed to get this ghost house in order
Please enjoy:and get back out to the ecto-sedan with snacks,
Please enjoy:pronto. Stat. Quick as a bee.
Please enjoy:Bees are quick, right?
Please enjoy:Sunny’s mouth watered,
Please enjoy:thinking about golden,
Please enjoy:gooey honey. Then her stomach grumbled,
Please enjoy:and the vision turned sour in her imagination
Please enjoy:as the honey turned into a sticky ghost
Please enjoy:glomming onto her fur,
Please enjoy:joining the dirty chai ghost and the bread golem in tormenting her.
Please enjoy:It was almost enough to put a dog off food entirely.
Please enjoy:Almost. Let’s be serious: nothing could ever really put a hungry yellow lab off food.
Please enjoy:Sunny needed to stop thinking with her stomach, and start thinking with her brain.
Please enjoy:Without any of her technology at paw,
Please enjoy:she needed to resort to old-fashioned strategies.
Please enjoy:And the first rule of subduing ghosts is:
Please enjoy:understand what they want.
Please enjoy:Honestly, that rule works for almost any situation, not just ghosts.
Please enjoy:At this point, the bread golem was chasing the dirty chai ghost around the kitchen with a paper cup,
Please enjoy:burbling out the words, “Geee-e-e-t iii
Please enjoy:-i-in heee-e-ere!” So the bread golem wanted to serve.
Please enjoy:Whatever spirit was animating that unbaked dough wanted,
Please enjoy:more than anything,
Please enjoy:to be a good barista
Please enjoy:and serve chai to its one customer.
Please enjoy:And that one customer was Sunny.
Please enjoy:Good. An ally. And what did the coffee ghost want?
Please enjoy:Sunny wasn’t sure.
Please enjoy:So, she’d have to start by working with the bread golem.
Please enjoy:“Hey, uh, my good barista,” Sunny stammered, not entirely sure what to call the golem.
Please enjoy:“I’d, uh, like to change my order?”
Please enjoy:The doughy golem stopped in its tracks,
Please enjoy:and its blobby shape settled,
Please enjoy:thickening around the bottom. “Yee
Please enjoy:-e-es?” Sunny eyed the oven.
Please enjoy:The big chrome machine was already turned on and, according to the little red light on its control panel,
Please enjoy:preheated. Extreme heat won’t destroy a ghost, but if the ghost is inhabiting a host that can feel pain,
Please enjoy:then the ghost might choose to disapperate back to its original dimension
Please enjoy:to avoid the pain.
Please enjoy:The question was:
Please enjoy:does bread dough feel pain when it gets baked?
Please enjoy:Sunny hoped not, for the sake of all of the sandwiches she’d ever eaten.
Please enjoy:But on the other paw, she needed a way to get rid of these unwanted spirits.
Please enjoy:And the bread golem seemed eager enough to please
Please enjoy:(as a dog, Sunny knew a little bit about that)
Please enjoy:it might just jump in the oven if Sunny asked.
Please enjoy:But while the oven might work for the bread golem, Sunny couldn’t picture trapping an angry cloud of animated coffee,
Please enjoy:milk, and tea inside an oven.
Please enjoy:Unless the haunted liquids were absorbed by something else first.
Please enjoy:“I’d like to order some…
Please enjoy:coffee cake,” Sunny said.
Please enjoy:The bread golem glanced around the kitchen in growing horror. “Wee-e-e doo
Please enjoy:-o-on’t haa-a-a-ve thaa-a
Please enjoy:-at!” “Would you like me to tell you how to make it?”
Please enjoy:Sunny offered, feeling strangely sorry for the gloopy pile of dough.
Please enjoy:It wanted so badly to be a good barista. “Yee
Please enjoy:-e-es pleee-a-ase!” “Well…” She almost couldn’t do it.
Please enjoy:But then Sunny thought about how Ripley would glare at her with those cat eyes if she messed up a simple snack stop.
Please enjoy:Cat eyes glare better than dog eyes do.
Please enjoy:It’s something about the way feline pupils can narrow down to mere slits, pointed like daggers.
Please enjoy:Eye daggers. “Look,”
Please enjoy:Sunny continued. “You just need to take coffee, spices, and milk–”
Please enjoy:She pointed with a dull claw at the storm of dirty chai swirling around the ceiling
Please enjoy:like an angry rain cloud.
Please enjoy:“–like those and mix them into… well…”
Please enjoy:She let her paw drop back to her side.
Please enjoy:Then with a deep sigh,
Please enjoy:she raised her paw and pointed the dull claw at the bread dough golem.
Please enjoy:“–a basic bread dough.
Please enjoy:Like you.” “Ooo-o-oh.” The golem slumped.
Please enjoy:For a moment it looked sad,
Please enjoy:and then it raised gloopy arms toward the ceiling and called out, “Coo
Please enjoy:-o-ome hee-e-re! I-i-i-i nee-e-e-ed yoo-o-ou!” “CHRAAAA!!!”
Please enjoy:the storm cloud of caffeination cried from all around.
Please enjoy:Sunny was too hungry and tired for this nonsense.
Please enjoy:Especially tired.
Please enjoy:Then it struck her: what would animated coffee want?
Please enjoy:To energize. She just needed to convince the beverage demon
Please enjoy:that being eaten by her,
Please enjoy:in the form of coffee cake, was in its own best interests.
Please enjoy:“Look, I’ve been up chasing ghosts all night long,” Sunny barked at the swirling coffee cloud around her.
Please enjoy:“And I need to go chase some more ghosts around the Great Dane Building.
Please enjoy:The elevator is probably broken, because it always seems to be the first thing you ghosts knock out in a building–”
Please enjoy:Sunny’s voice rose as she spoke
Please enjoy:until she was barking her head off.
Please enjoy:As her volume increased, the storm cloud around her seemed to calm.
Please enjoy:“–so I’ll probably have to run up twenty flights of stairs.
Please enjoy:AND I’M TIRED. I just need some caffeine,
Please enjoy:and then I can get out of here!”
Please enjoy:The air stilled. The storm cloud of dirty chai
Please enjoy:settled from a twisty tornado into
Please enjoy:a translucent smear of eyes and mouths
Please enjoy:and grabby claw-hands hovering beneath the ceiling.
Please enjoy:It was the kind of sight that could give a dog nightmares for years.
Please enjoy:“Do you want us to haunt you???”
Please enjoy:the words gibbered from the air in a buzzing chorus like a whole hive of bees.
Please enjoy:“That wasn’t quite what I had in mind…”
Please enjoy:Sunny took a step backward,
Please enjoy:towards the door out of the kitchen.
Please enjoy:“We’ll wake you up!!!”
Please enjoy:the gibbering mouths buzzed
Please enjoy:in slightly out-of-synch accord.
Please enjoy:“Uh…” Sunny kept backing away.
Please enjoy:The cloud of dirty chai condensed, growing thick and chocolatey as it approached her —
Please enjoy:the pearly white of the milk ghost swirled with the richly roasted browns of the chai phantom and coffeegeist.
Please enjoy:Its eyes glistened like tapioca pearls.
Please enjoy:Several grabby hands reached out,
Please enjoy:and as their claws wetly scratched Sunny’s arm,
Please enjoy:passing right through the coarse cloth of her jumpsuit,
Please enjoy:she felt zips of static electricity in her fur,
Please enjoy:tiny shocks and jolts all over her pelt.
Please enjoy:Sunny yipped in surprise.
Please enjoy:“I don’t want to be possessed!”
Please enjoy:She slipped and fell backwards again.
Please enjoy:The horrendous dirty chai spirit descended on her,
Please enjoy:and Sunny turned her face away,
Please enjoy:eyes squinched shut. She expected the beverage demon to soak its way through her jumpsuit
Please enjoy:and fill her body with hyperactive over-caffeinated energy.
Please enjoy:Instead the air knocked out of her lungs as a heavy weight fell all along her body.
Please enjoy:Instinctively, she rolled to the side to get out from under the squishy weight.
Please enjoy:When Sunny opened her eyes,
Please enjoy:she found the bread dough golem beside her,
Please enjoy:squirming on the floor like invisible paws were kneading it.
Please enjoy:The beverage demon’s eyes blinked frantically
Please enjoy:and its mouths shrieked like angry bees,
Please enjoy:but the bread dough golem kept twisting itself up
Please enjoy:and stretching itself out,
Please enjoy:inexorably mixing in the chocolatey brown ripples of dirty chai
Please enjoy:with its own pasty whiteness.
Please enjoy:The eyes and mouths became buried inside the sticky mass
Please enjoy:of unbaked dough.
Please enjoy:When the bread golem had attained a fairly uniform consistency —
Please enjoy:marbled now with lines of dirty chai,
Please enjoy:including the occasional glaring eye or snarling mouth
Please enjoy:smeared across its doughy body —
Please enjoy:it began wobbling its way toward the oven.
Please enjoy:“Yo-oo-ou wi-i-ll haaa-aa-a-ve to-o-o taa-a-ake mee-e-e-e oou-ut bee-e-efore I-i-i buuu-u-u-u-urn,”
Please enjoy:the golem gurbled
Please enjoy:as it climbed into the oven.
Please enjoy:“Wait, you need–” It was too late.
Please enjoy:The golem had climbed right into the oven without a pan or baking sheet or anything.
Please enjoy:The dough dribbled between the metal bars of the rack,
Please enjoy:slicing into gloopy folds.
Please enjoy:Sunny leapt to her paws, grabbed a baking sheet from the counter beside the oven, and shoved it inside the oven as quick as possible. She caught most of the dough on
Please enjoy:the baking sheet
Please enjoy:and then put it back on the rack to bake.
Please enjoy:Usually, a mass of dough of that size would take —
Please enjoy:well, Sunny wasn’t sure; she wasn’t much of a baker —
Please enjoy:but probably an hour or more to bake?
Please enjoy:Instead the pasty dough sparkled green and then glowed red
Please enjoy:as the tiny mouths of the beverage demon
Please enjoy:shrieked in what sounded an awful lot like pain.
Please enjoy:Sunny tried not to think about it too hard.
Please enjoy:As the tiny eyes and mouths blipped out of normal space-time, disappearing with purple folds of the space-time veil,
Please enjoy:the angry red calmed into a toasty,
Please enjoy:mouth-watering golden brown.
Please enjoy:Mere seconds had passed,
Please enjoy:but the odd lumpy loaf of coffee cake already looked
Please enjoy:done. Sunny grabbed some oven mitts and pulled the baking sheet out of the oven
Please enjoy:and set it to the side.
Please enjoy:She turned the oven off,
Please enjoy:sought out a big serrated knife,
Please enjoy:and with only a moment’s hesitation,
Please enjoy:sliced herself and Audrey each
Please enjoy:a large, aromatic piece of the weird loaf.
Please enjoy:She wrapped them each in paper and headed for the door.
Please enjoy:The kitchen was a mess, but she had more ghosts to chase and no more time to spare.
Please enjoy:She’d leave an extra big tip, she decided. So,
Please enjoy:she dropped a pile of coins and bills on the counter on her way out. When Sunny reached the car,
Please enjoy:the sun was already rising.
Please enjoy:She handed one of the paper-wrapped slices of coffee cake to Audrey before getting in.
Please enjoy:As she strapped herself into her own seat,
Please enjoy:Ripley peeled the car away from the haunted cafe with a squeal of the tires.
Please enjoy:“Took you long enough,” she meowed.
Please enjoy:“Go easy on her,” Brannon said,
Please enjoy:shifting his wings against the car’s sudden acceleration.
Please enjoy:“Dogs get hungry.”
Please enjoy:But Audrey said, “Ooh, this coffee cake is still warm!”
Please enjoy:She’d already eaten all but a few crumbs
Please enjoy:that she was still trying to lick off of the paper.
Please enjoy:“And so good!” Sunny had to agree.
Please enjoy:She felt weird eating a coffee cake that had so recently been a barista —
Please enjoy:even a ghostly golem of a barista —
Please enjoy:but the chai spices on her tongue were rich and complex;
Please enjoy:the bread soft and creamy;
Please enjoy:and she tasted the buzz of the caffeinated coffee.
Please enjoy:This snack would be
Please enjoy:perfect for giving her the energy to keep ghost-fighting all morning long.
Please enjoy:And that was how the bread golem barista
Please enjoy:would have wanted it.
Please enjoy:This was “Ecto Café”
Please enjoy:by Mary E. Lowd, read for you by Khaki,
Please enjoy:your faithful fireside companion.
Please enjoy:Thank you for listening
Please enjoy:to the Voice of Dog.