The third time in four months. Really this had been the strangest case to ever pass across Jorge’s desk. He’d seen some strange things, of course. Mutants who had given consciousness to an orchid of fruit, mutants who could envelope others and trap them in a world of perpetual darkness where they would feast upon their essence for years, even mutated Christmas trees that attacked the city en masse. Really, there was no end to the strangeness that Jorge Cervantes had seen. But this one, forgive the pun, really took the cake.

There wasn’t a lot of information to go on, at first. People vanished all the time. Whether they fled the city, fled from their boring lives, or simply wanted a change of scenery and forget to tell those people who knew them. It was just one of those things that happened, especially in a city this large. But soon it would become apparent that some of these disappearances may have far stranger origins.

Oddly enough…it all started with a gingerbread man. The precinct had not been expecting it but one evening, after a particularly rainy day, a small, squeaking voice begged for help from the front desk. Unsure of what was going on, the receptionist at the desk leaned over to find, to their surprise, a gingerbread man. Only about seven inches in height, gumdrop buttons and a frosted mouth, leaning on a twig due to the fact that one of its legs had gotten soggy and broken off along the way.

The department wanted to believe it was a joke, some elaborate prank but it was fairly impossible at this point. Jorge had been there that evening, the case had been assigned to him. After speaking with the gingerbread man, he had come to learn that he was actually a missing person from a month prior, by the name of Chris Koober. The story he told was, in all fairness, unbelievable.

It seemed that Chris, devoted father of two, a bank teller, had been walking home one evening when he was suddenly lured in by the scent of something being freshly baked. It was odd, especially considering that the street he was on had no residences or restaurants nearby. Assuming it to be his imagination, he carried on until he felt something heavy hit him on the back of the head and down he went. And his story would only continue to get stranger.

Jorge sat behind his desk, a pen in his mouth as he looked over the story (again) that the little gingerbread man who was once Chris Koober gave to him. Chris had stated that while walking home from work, he had been attacked with a heavy blow to the back of his head. Upon awakening he had learned that things were certainly not going to get any better for him.

His surroundings were dark, foreboding, and completely unfamiliar. Shelves upon shelves were around him, like in a pantry, but the shattered door in front of him allowed him to look out and see that adjoining room. It was a kitchen, and one that was seemed rather disgusting. Chris couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was looking at, only able to identify the room as a kitchen thanks to the absolutely giant stove that was situated across the from him. It was an old fashioned on, black, cast iron, with the glow of fire behind a metal grate.

Most telling, however, was the scent of baked goods in the air, exactly the same as he had smelled from before. Looking down and noting that he was bound by rope to a seat, Chris had begun to panic and started to squirm and shake to get himself free. However, nothing he did seemed to have any effect on his predicament. It was then that, from just outside the door, he watched a shadow loom across the dirty, tiled floor.

Framing the doorway was a massive man, rotund, sweaty, with stained pastry hat sitting on his head. As he stepped into the room, Chris’ panicked further until he released that the scent of baked goods grew even stronger with every step he took into the room. A demented gleam in his eye, Chris’ panic renewed as he struggled more but it proved to be fruitless as the scary chef eventually was before him, shaky hands out as he bit his lip and seized Chris by the shoulders.

“You…” Chris recalled the chef saying. “…I’ve caught you…my little gingerbread man.”

After that, Chris could only recall pain and shock as his body seemed to be quivering and shaking, struggling to keep itself together. It was as if someone had found the one string that was keeping him pieced together and completely unraveled it with a single tug. Afterwards, there was the pain of being rebuilt from the ground up and only pain and surprise would follow.

The more that Jorge read of Mr. Koober, the harder is actually became to believe. It seemed that after the interaction with the mysterious chef, the victim found himself in an even stranger predicament. He was no longer bound to a chair but seemed to be lying flat on his back, staring up at the grimy ceiling. Everything felt…different to him. And when he sat up, he realized exactly why – he wasn’t human anymore.

It all felt like a bad dream but a look at his hands and arms revealed long, rounded nubs in the vague shapes of arms; the same with his legs. On his chest were large purple buttons covered in sparkling sugar, and his body itself was flatter and crisp, like a cookie. It took a few seconds for him to realize what had happened but he was, in fact, the very gingerbread man that the chef had called him earlier. And that would be the beginning of Mr. Koober’s torture.

Once the chef had returned, he collected his latest victim and took him to another grimy room, this one filled with the shrieking voices of many people – but none were in side. There was a large table that spanned the entire length of the room and upon the yellow-stained cloth were the platters upon platters of confectionary dreams. Perfectly created cakes, pies, cookies, and various other types of sweets that only a master baker could have ever created.

It was only when they drew closer that Mr. Koober realized that this was where the other voices were coming from. Not from people in the room, but rather, from the pastries that baked goods that were now lying upon the table, each of them screaming for help, all in small voices, none of them getting the help that they required.

Tossed onto a platter and with a glad lid placed atop it, Mr. Koober looked in horror to see other cookies around him, all of them screeching, some for help, others just out of sheer madness. Turning his frosted eyes back to the scene, he watched as the chef sat at the head of table, dropping his heft onto the strengthened chair and sighed as he looked out over his spread with snaggled teeth. The most delightful of grins upon his face, and the chef reached over, pulling over a pie that screamed and begged, but drew silent when a butcher knife was shoved directly into the middle. The pie grew silent at that moment as the chef served himself a rather large slice.

And it was then that Mr. Koober realized that this would be his fate.

If it weren’t for the fact of how real it all was, Jorge would have probably laughed it off as a fever dream of some lunatic or drugged out crackhead. Rather it was very actual, very real, reality. If it weren’t for the fact that Jorge had sat there, taking the statement of a ****Ing gingerbread man, then he certainly would have thought that the whole ordeal was made up. Sadly that wasn’t the case and now the situation was only getting worse.

Mr. Koober revealed the rest of his story, how he had managed to escape from the mad chef by means that were best left to the imagination. However the month he spent on that kitchen table had been one wrapped in terror and something that he pushed out of most of his mind. When placed in truly terrifying circumstances, there is only so much the mind can take. The victim watched as confection after confection was consumed by the man, starting at one end of the table and working his way down. He was voracious, never allowing himself to breathe in-between bites and only focused on consuming as many of his delights as possible.

At some point, watching as new creations were brought to the table and others were consumed, the chef finally made his way to the cookies, a large glass of milk in hand. His intent was clear that night. As the glass dome was removed, and a handful of his maddened comrades were picked up, it eventually came to his turn. Paralyzed by fear, the victim seemed ready to accept his fate but, just as the hand brushed against his gingery leg, he felt panic rush through him.

The rest he couldn’t remember. All Mr. Koober could recall was breaking free from the man’s grip and running off the table and he kept on running. The chef’s cries echoed behind him as he gave chase until, finally, he caught a whiff of rain and he ran for it. Slipping out through a crack in the blistered door, he ran out into the night and kept running, never once looking back. The next thing he knew, he was standing outside the police precinct, his leg having gone soaked through and broken off during the run.

It was a tale the likes of which Jorge had never heard before and probably would never hear again. But now that it was on his desk, he needed to figure out what the hell he was going to do about it.

The story had seemed rather insane but there definitely was truth to it, besides the fact that there was a walking, talking gingerbread man visiting the precinct. His family brought him in a cat carrier, too scared for anyone to see what he looked liked. Fear of embarrassment, of being ridiculed, of being carried off for some sick science experiment, or worse, recognized by the mutant who did this to him. Whatever the case, Mr. Koober kept his visits on a need-to-know basis only and Jorge did his best to protect that privacy. As a matter of fact he would have rather that Mr. Koober didn’t have to come by at all, but each day he needed to ask him questions about his time and each day the small cookie of a man gave him the same tale, only with a little detail extra here and again.

Over and over they went over his report, trying to pull anything that could give him an identifying feature. A store name, a street name, hell, the license plate of a parked car could have worked. But at the end of the day, over and over, Jorge heard the same thing, that is, until he got to one particular day when Mr. Koober was exhausted and frantic about his current state of being.

He was crumbling. The frequent visits, the exposure to air, his wife tried keep him in air-tight plastic but at most it was only slowing the progression and nothing more. He would eventually, like any other baked good, spoil. Jorge could imagine that an impending demise could instill in the confectionary man a sense of clarity. It was that clarity that finally afforded the good detective with a direction, at least on where to start looking.

After a particularly grueling session of question, Mr. Koober, fiddling with a spot of growing mold on his arm he finally gave into his frustrations.

“I’m tired, detective! The mold is growing! I don’t have much time left. If I can’t change back, I just want to be with my family!”

”I understand that. But from what you told me, a lot of people are suffering like you are. I’m trying to make sure that they can be saved too.”

“Don’t B.S. me! Everyday I stay like this, the more I realize I’m not during back. This is permanent! I’m going to die as a cookie!”

”I don’t know what the future holds, Mr. Koober. But even if that is the case, I would hope you’d want to prevent this from happening to anyone else.”

“…”

”Now…one more time…please…”

“…I…ran. I got out the door. I didn’t care it was raining. I turned a corner. I tripped on some flowers and then hid under an awning…”

”Wait…” Jorge said, stopping him. ”…flowers?”

There were tons of flower shops in New York City, from the small mom-and-pop owned ones to the big 1-800-4PETALS ones. They, forgive the pun, sprouted up everywhere, especially around the holiday seasons. Nothing like buying flowers last minute to show your loved one how much you care for them. Jorge wasn’t one to judge, however. On the contrary, at this moment, he was actually very glad for the predictability of the booming flower industry because, right now, there were no major holidays that required flowers.

In the middle of summer, far from Valentines or Easter, High School and College graduations already having been done since at least June, now was the slum of most flower businesses. This meant that there were few, if any, of those pop-up flower stands or anything that would make the search more difficult. By checking the few flower shops that were around, matching them with how long Mr. Koober said he was on the run, and identify known routes, the Jorge was able to come up with three distinct places of origin.

On all sides of the precinct where the victim showed up, Jorge stalked the streets. He traveled across the same routes that Mr. Koober could have taken, peeking into abandoned buildings, flower shops, etc., but none of them seemed to fight the bill. However, when, finally, he came across a small flower shop at the corner of a lonely street, he looked up at the torn awning that hung over window, a window which sported faded letters that touted that flowers were for sale. On the ground he noted several broken stems and petals, flowers the likes of which that Mr. Koober could have easily tripped over.

”Hrm…” he though to himself.

Turning the corner, Jorge slowly made his way down a dark and foreboding alley. As his tired eyes drifted over the scene, he took everything in, slowly, keeping an eye on his environment and being wary of everything and anything. This alley, it certainly looked like an alley that a small gingerbread man would have been terrified of as he fled a scene. It certainly made his own skin crawl, that was for sure. But Jorge pressed on, bolding crossing the spoilt, foul smelling alley. At the end he spotted a door, a cracked door, one that smelled of fresh baking…

The door was simple enough to get in through without having to cause himself too much hassle. It was old, weather, and already compromised due to neglect. The crack at the bottom of the door was sizeable, enough to allow a small man made of gingerbread to dash through without being stopped. Though that alone didn’t fully identify this place as the same room Mr. Koober escaped from, the smell of baking was enough to egg Jorge on to investigate further.

Since the victim escaped, Jorge had looked back at other missing person cases. Most of them were pretty garden variety, but there were a few that seemed to match the M.O. of Mr. Koober’s case. Random people, with no reason to disappear, just vanish without a trace. In at least two cases, where the disappearing party wasn’t alone, eyewitnesses did report smelling something yeasty, like baking bread or melted chocolate but figured it was nothing to truly take note of at the time. As out of this world as it seemed, Jorge couldn’t help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, those cases were indeed connected with this one.

It was sobering to come to that conclusion, to realize that all this was maybe connected. That so many people had gone missing and, if Mr. Koober was to be believed, consumed by some mad mutant with an obsession for baked goods and pastries. In all honesty, there was no way that Jorge should be taking this case by himself but, on the off-chance that people could be saved, he needed to confirm whether or not this was the place. Time was of the essence.

So, pushing in the door, Jorge held his breath as he carefully pulled out his gun from its holster. Holding it firmly in hand, he stepped into the sweet smelling room and began his search.

It was a kitchen, or rather, the back room of a kitchen. As Jorge walked in, the details of Mr. Koober’s experience started to flesh out, become more life-like. It was as if he were walking directly into the man’s horrid tale and it came to life before his eyes. All the details were here: the large table he woke up on, the back room with the shattered door, even the heavy, cast iron stove that glowed with fire deep in its belly. Jorge shook his head, unable to believe his eyes as he wandered through as here the stories and reality were colliding. While it was impossible to disbelieve Mr. Koober, now just made it all the more real.

Moving through the kitchen, the fire behind the oven’s grate cast a wicked light over the scene. The detective remained cool, however, moving carefully and with precision as he stepped through the dilapidated kitchen. Mr. Koober clearly didn’t notice this but it seemed that the kitchen was part of what was one a bakery. This wasn’t someone’s home, but rather an old business that looked as if it had been defunct for quite some time. With each step deeper into the kitchen, the evidence of this became far more real as he noted dirtied aprons and pastry hats, all of which were emblazoned with the name “Patti’s Cakes!” It was all starting to make a sick sense.

As he approached the edge of a doorway, Jorge kept his gun at the ready as he slowly peered around the corner. What would have once been the waiting area was reconstructed into a small dining hall, the only piece of furniture being an extra-long table. The windows themselves were covered with flaps of cardboard, keeping out the light of day, allowing the room to be lit only by candlelight that was scattered throughout the table.

Another step and Jorge watched in surprise as he looked upon the expansive table. There, just as Mr. Koober said was a large array of pastries, all of which looked to be desperate for help. They screamed behind their glass containers, some of them unmoving except for the visage of flies hovering over their half-eaten forms. Though they were just cakes and pies, knowing what Mr. Koober had gone through made it enough to turn Jorge’s stomach.

”God damn…” he muttered to himself.

He shook his head and turned to face the kitchen again. However, just as he did so, Jorge’s eyes widened in surprise when a pair of large, meaty hands grabbed him by the face. A tooth-decaying smelling voice then spoke directly as two large glowing eyes bore into his.

“Well, well, well…a police officer, huh?” the sickening voice whispered. “How about a nice…doughnut?”

If Jorge screamed, he didn’t hear it. As a matter of fact, he didn’t hear anything at all. All he could do was feel and it felt like he was being unraveled from the tips of his hair, down to the very core of his soul. The metamorphosis that Mr. Koober had described was happening to Jorge, whether he realized it or not. All he knew was that pain radiated through his body and the strange sensation of being completely unwound and reformed was the only thing he could feel. It lasted for what seemed like an eternity but, before he knew it, the light, sound, and sensation all flooded back into him at the same time, thus making his head swim.

Jorge gasped and shuddered. He looked up, struggling to opening his eyes. When he did, he realized, that the room was much, much bigger. Mr. Koober’s story filled his mind with dread as, once again, story became reality. He shouted “No” to himself, several times over before he finally managed to sit his new, rotund form upwards.

”Ahhh…****!” he shouted in frustration.

“Keheheheheehehe!!!” giggled a booming voice.

Sitting up, Jorge looked at his extremely thin, spindly legs, even moved his hands in front of him to see that they were exactly the same. Though he couldn’t see himself in any reflective surface, Jorge reached up and felt the sides of his head / body: round...with a large gaping hole in the middle. He was a ****ing doughnut. His own fear taking over him, he turned his his...everything...to the side and noticed the large giant of a man with a stained apron.

The Chef was tall, boom, with greasy black hair, an acne covered face, and glowing bright eyes. His sadistic grin hinted at the madness behind his gaze. When he finally calmed down, he ran his large hands over his fat body, dressed in only an apron and stained sweatpants with a greasy shirt. His twisted, green teeth caught minimal candlelight as he peered down at the new pastry on the ground.

“Oooo, you do look like a tasty one…” he cackled. “Maybe I should start with doughnuts this evening?”

It was actually a little degrading being in this form. Sitting on the ground like a small child but made instead made of flour and sugar. It made him feel as if he were one of those sacks of flour that were given to middle school kids to teach them the difficulty of parenthood, only he got assigned of Johnny Forgets-a-Lot and he was left on the radiator in the basement so he partake in underage drinking. Some parent you’ll turn out to be, Johnny. Sadly, his grumbling wasn’t going to change the situation for him any and he was still a man, or rather a dough-man, in trouble.

Staring up at the looming threat that was the chef, Jorge could understand why Mr. Koober would quiver in fear at being in this situation again. Hell, Jorge would never want to be in this situation period. However, seeing as he didn’t have a choice in the matter at the moment, he knew that he was going to have to react accordingly.

As the chef laughed and cackled like a Shakespearean witch, Jorge moved onto his miniscle feet, on hand on his side and other pointing a finger at him. ”You’re under arrest, sir!” Jorge bellowed in his tiniest of teeny voices. This was so incredibly demeaning.

The chef paused, looked down in surprise for a moment a Dough!Jorge before he simply started to crack up with maddening laughter all over again. To be fair, anyone hearing that coming from a doughnut would laugh (or think themselves completely insane) but given the circumstances, the chef was simply embracing his insanity. Who could begrudge him that?

With a giggle and a shake of his head, the chef sighed as he wiped foul-scented tears from his eyes. Tilting his head, as one would do an adorable child trying to be tough, the chef looked down at Jorge, a scoff upon his lips.

“Silly man. Do you think I haven’t been threatened by police before?” he asked. “How do you think my beloved bakery was closed down?” Another cackle fell from his lips. “Oh but I showed them. Whenever they've come by, looking, checking, I've shown them all.” A pause. A wicked grin. “Just. Like. I’ll. Show. You.”

Things were quickly taking a turn for the worse. However, while the chef may have dealt with plenty of terrified individuals, right now, the detective was not going to allow himself to succumb to fear. While everyone, including Mr. Koober, cringed and cried in fear, Jorge was an X-Man and such events were not totally unknown to him. The man has battled living buildings, living islands, a once thought to be extinct civilization, even Christmas Trees hellbent on destroying New York. No, the man had faced far worse and he was not going to allow himself to lose over something as small as being turned into a doughnut!

The irony was not lost upon him and, if this were a movie or a book, he may have laughed at it. But, right now, he had more pressing matters to deal with, such as a deranged mutant baker.

The towering mutant seemed intent on picking the doughnut-shaped watermancer up and tossing him onto the table with the rest of his victims. However, Jorge was not the type of man to just lie back and let such things happen. Rather, he took action and immediately went on the run. The chef grunted, his hand slamming into the ground, as Jorge took off, dodging around fallen chairs, discarded items, and trash and debris that was littered all about.

“Come back here!!” The baker roared.

Jorge didn’t. He ran, he dodged, he tried to find a hiding place so that he could collect himself but he was quickly running out of places to run. Without meaning to, he took a sharp left and found himself in the familiar setting of the kitchen, the oven still roaring to life. If the man still had sweat plans, he probably would have sweated out his body weight the second he ran inside. Unfortunately it seemed as if he had ran himself into a corner as he couldn’t see any way out. Even the cracked doorway that Mr. Koober had used was now blocked.

Shaking his head, Jorge turned to head back into the rest of the home, but stopped once he saw the massive frame in the doorway. The baker was here and he was clearly upset.

“Stupid little cop! You know, I was going to savor you later, but may as well have my snack now!”

Jorge ground his teeth, trying to desperately think of any way out of this. He didn’t have his gun, he couldn’t call for help, he couldn’t physically outmatch the other, so what was left for him? He started to back up, his mind racing as he looked for any means to get away from this crazed man who made it a point to say that he was going to eat him. Of all the ways that Jorge imagined that his life would eventually end, this was certainly not high on that list, or frankly had even made it on the list! But what he could he do to prevent it now?

He grumbled as he continued to back away, his mind reeling. However, as the doughnut!man took a second to recollect himself, he paused and released that it was just the baker he knew was coming for him, but he could still sense some of the water surrounding him. It seemed that even though he had been turned into a living doughnut, the man still had some of his mutant powers! Thank god for not being completely genetically rewritten!

“Come on, my tasty pastry…” The baker cackled. “Let’s finish this.”

Jorge smirked his doughnutty smirk and held out his spindly arms. ”Exactly what I was thinking.”

He reached out with his sense, mouth set in a firm scowl as he connected with any nearby sources of water. Bottles, the sink, leaking pipes, Jorge latched onto all of them. It wasn’t as easy as it normally was but, still, the water bent to his will, spilling out from every source he found and pooled collectively in front of him. The baker himself was stunned by this, pausing in his advance, but Jorge wasn’t going to let him off that easily.

Jorge retracted his arms, summoning the pooled water to form a crude shape resembling something humanoid, a vague representation of the man Jorge was. The glitter of his eyes caught the baker’s, stunning him, before a few swift motions from Doughnut!Jorge caused his water doppleganger to lash out, delivering a firm punch to the man’s face. The baker grunted in pain, flipping to the side, stumbling and barely keeping onto his two feet.

It was time for round two…

Jorge was relentless against the mutant. Matching his avatar’s movements, Jorge lashed out with devastating punch after devastating punch. He knocking teeth from the baker’s mouth and sending him scurrying back, falling into a heap across the ground. The baker whimpered, struggling to remain conscious but Jorge couldn’t allow that. The power he had was terrifying and the fact that he ate his victims (even if they were just pastries) was too terrifying to allow to continue. As much as Jorge wanted to rid someone like this off the face of the planet, he wasn’t a murderer.

Feeling his powers draining, Jorge broke down the water-avatar and quickly encircled the remains around the baker’s head. The man gagged and gasped, struggling to claw the water out of his mouth and nostrils, but there was no use. The water kept coming, kept swirling, slipping between fingers and cutting off the man’s supply of oxygen. It was only when he finally began to fall unconscious that Jorge pulled the water away, allowing him to breathe again.

Water stretched out across the kitchen floor as Jorge strolled up to the fallen baker. He tried not to think about the fact that he was still just a doughnut-shaped man. All that mattered right now was that the the crazed mutant was down. He sighed, looking closely at the other to make sure he was unconscious before he turned and headed back to the living / dining room.

As he walked in, Jorge kept his eyes peels. With as many victims as the baker had, surely he would have collected something from them. It took time, especially given his much smaller stature, but eventually Jorge found the small jar that looked filled with all kinds of cellphones. Normally it would have been impossible for any of his converted victims to find it, but Jorge was lucky enough to come across it, and possessed enough power to use water to tip it over, giving him access to the phones inside.

About five or six phones in, he finally found one that worked and dialed the precinct. This was going to take some explaining.

Several squads showed up, greeting Jorge in the foyer. While he could see that they wanted to let their jokes fly, the tragedy was that there were still several people trapped in this room, all of which were laid out on the table in jars, plates, etc., all relieved for rescue, but terrified for the future. What was to be their lives now? They were pastries. Candies. Cakes. What life was left for them other than cartoon parodies on kids’ shows? Even Jorge was now beginning to be pestered by thoughts of him, his life with Gemma, Chase, and Mari. What would they say?

One of the paramedics, a nice looking man dark beard and stylish hair, moved into the room and with his partner. They honestly didn’t seem to know where to start but as they turned to start working on the fallen baker, one of them reached down to take his pulse. Almost instantly Jorge could feel a change sweep over him, a sudden spark -- and he wasn’t the only one. A glance at the table showed all the transformed treats shaking and quivering. The gathered police stepped backed, worried this was going to be an attack of sorts, but instead were shocked by another turn of events.

There was a cacophony of sound as glass shattered and the table snapped. Every single treat, from cookies, to gingerbread men, to pies, and cakes, all were suddenly transformed back to human. Even Jorge himself who, a second ago, was little more than a doughnut, snapped back to his bare, naked human form. Exhaustion immediately swept over him as he, like the others, collapsed onto the ground. Who would have thought that such a sudden transform would be so tiring?

Jorge gulped, his eyes struggling to stay open. He didn’t know who it was that draped a blanket over him, but he was thankful. Slowly he turned his head, watching as other people were treated first, some of them with missing limbs, others just traumatized by their experience. Jorge sighed just remained where he was. The others needed to be treated first, he could wait. Besides, he glanced back to the paramedic who was watching everyone, but still had his hand on the unconscious baker. He had an inkling what happened -- especially since he was the only man in the room that Jorge couldn’t sense any water in.

THE END