Night of the Living Bread [BMHWC]

The room was filled with more smoke than Cheech and Chong’s van rolling down the interstate on the way to a Grateful Dead concert. If it wasn’t for the burnt smell, it might have looked like a thick fog had settled into Sue’s kitchen.

“I told you that you baked it for too long,” John laughed as he pulled the battery out of the smoke detector to disable the annoying sound that seemed to pierce into his skull.

“I was just following the recipe my Grandmother gave me,” Sue groaned. “I still think that I didn’t get the ingredients right. The bread didn’t look like it had risen enough before I put it into the oven.

“Do you think she wrote the recipe down wrong? John said, still laughing and coughing deeply trying to remove the smoke from his lungs.

“Maybe. She’s not the sharpest of pencils these days. I think I’ll just add some more ingredients to her sourdough starter mix and try again in a couple days. It’s getting late and by the time the kitchen airs out, the last thing I want to do is burn my next attempt at making bread and be up even later.”

Sue threw the burnt loaf of bread into the trash. It looked like someone had spray painted it black. Reaching into the cabinet she grabbed all of the ingredients she thought she needed to replace what she had used of her Grandmother’s sourdough starter.

“Maybe since the bread didn’t rise, it needs more yeast in the mix. I bet my Grandmother wrote down the wrong measurement,” Sue said, proud that maybe she solved the riddle of the burnt bread.

Looking at Sue lovingly, John opened his smile a little wider and said, “Try it dear. What’s the worst that could happen?”


That night was stormy, and as John and Sue laid peacefully sleeping, the unthinkable began. Unknowing to them, a bolt of lightning struck an electrical transformer near their home, sending a surge of power through the electrical circuits of the house. If they had been awake, they might have seen the arc of current running from the electric plug on the kitchen counter to Grandmother’s “secret homemade sourdough starter”.

It was almost as if Dr. Frankenstein himself was conducting an experiment in the reanimation of corpses as the life of the yeast inside the sourdough was sparked into multiplying. Within a matter of minutes, the mass had grown too large for the jar that was trying to contain it. Pieces of glass littered the kitchen as the jar exploded.


“Did you hear something?” Sue asked as she was shaking John back to a waking state.

“No. Go back to sleep,” he mumbled, and then resumed his usual snore.

A little uneasy, but too tired to fight the urge, sleep returned to Sue.


As the sun came up that morning, the sourdough mass quivered with life. It was nearly large enough now to engulf the kitchen, the windows beginning to buckle with the stress of the pressure. With sleep still lingering in Sue’s mind, she began making her way toward the kitchen for the morning ritual of a cup of black coffee. As she came closer to the kitchen, she became aware of an overpowering smell of yeast.

Within the writhing mass of sourdough, the impulse to feed its growth was becoming overwhelming. During the night as it made contact with the refrigerator and the kitchen cabinets, it had engulfed every possible source of nutrients to further its expansion, but now it needed more to continue. The mass could feel Sue’s footsteps vibrating through the old hardwood floors and into its body. It knew that food was near.

Before she was even aware of what it was that dominated the doorway of her kitchen, a scream began to form in the back of Sue’s throat. It never made it to an audible sound. A tentacle like form of sourdough whipped through the hallway, forcing its way down the mouth and throat of Sue’s body.

Usually, John was a sound sleeper who would lie in bed until Sue came back upstairs after her morning coffee, but this morning he was in “need” of her. There was no better feeling than making love to his beautiful wife before work. He pulled himself out of the bed and began walking toward the kitchen. For just a moment, he thought he was still dreaming when he walked into the hallway to see his wife struggling for breath with a mass of cream colored goo engulfing her face.

Rushing to her aid, he pulled at her with all his strength, releasing her from the goo with a plopping sound. John began dragging her back through the hallway while trying to pull the last bit of remnants of the goo from Sue’s mouth. She was breathing, but it was labored, and she was just barely conscious.

It was losing its food. Slithering after it, the sourdough pushed its mass into the hallway, hungry and ready to expand its growing colony.

“What the hell is that thing?”, John thought as he pulled his wife through the front door of the house onto the front lawn. He could see it moving into the living room, getting closer to them. There was little doubt that it was after Sue and him. He had never seen anything remotely close to the horror that dwelled inside his home. He wasn’t sure what to do, but he knew he had to react quickly or he risked losing the love of his life. Whatever it was inside, he wasn’t going to let that happen.

After making sure that Sue was still breathing, he gently laid her in the grass next to the giant oak tree in their front yard, and ran to the garage that stood next to their home. He didn’t think to grab his keys off the hook next to the front door of the house, so with a forceful blow of his foot, he broke down the door of the garage. What he was thinking was insane, but what choice did he have.

John grabbed the can of gasoline from beside the lawnmower and rushed back to the house. Sue was rolling around on the ground under the tree. At least she seemed like she would be okay he thought as he began pouring the gasoline all over the front of the house. With the front door and windows covered, he ran as fast as possible around the house to the back door. He could see the mass oozing from the windows of the kitchen, so he threw as much of the gasoline on it as he could.

John wasn’t supposed to still be smoking cigarettes, but he would sneak one every now and then when Sue wasn’t home. He was thinking that she’d forgive him for his dishonesty since he would not have had a lighter in his truck if not for it. He lit the corner of an old magazine that was sitting on the floorboard of the truck, and walked up to the front of the house. A tear ran down his check as he thought of all the time, effort, and money that had went into fixing the old house up.

Ten minutes later, John and Sue sat beneath the oak tree in their front yard watching what was once their home send smoke and flames high into the air. The smell of baked bread filled the neighborhood.


“I think the bread rose this time dear,” John said to his beautiful wife Sue.

Looking over at her husband, Sue couldn’t help but release a smile. “Yeah, but we’re out of butter.”

reply to post by isyeye

The room was filled with more smoke than Cheech and Chong’s van rolling down the interstate on the way to a Grateful Dead concert.

That was a fun story !! Now I wonder if the grandmother thought that she had somehow added some secret ingredient in her recipe to make that dough come to life !!!

S&F !