Caring Cuddles pushed the diner door open and looked inside, seeing only the dim twilight reflecting off the shiny metal of stools and long-emptied napkin tins. The place looked a little worse for wear, and certainly quite dated, but definitely not haunted.
"You sure we should do this, Carin'? Those colts aren't offering that many bits for it, and this is where your grandma...you know... What if there really is a spaghetti monster ghost out for revenge?" asked Fragrant Pansy from her right side.
"Relax, Pansy. There's nothing in here but dead bugs that starved when the last scraps of food ran out. Besides, the whole concept is utterly ridiculous! What's it going to do, noodle us?" Carin' replied confidently as she trotted in and spun an old stool seat around and admired the old menu that was still mostly intact.
"I don't know... let's just get something from the kitchen fast and get out, okay? I've got a really bad feeling in my gut about all this," Pansy said as she kept her head low following behind.
"That's cause you get indigestion at the drop of a hat, and you're lucky I put up with it. My gut is feelin' fine. Now, no more talk about my stupid grandma and how she snapped here, okay? I get enough teasing at school about my name. Stupid mom would've been better off givin' me something like yours, just callin' me Weak Stomach or whatever," Carin' said as she distracted herself from the aggravating thoughts by going up to the kitchen door.
"It's not that, it's like I'm... being watched, Carin'," Pansy replied.
"What, do you feel it's BIG GOOGLY EYES staring at you? Just shut up, Pansy, you know I don't like when you start getting like this," Carin' asked as she pushed open the creaky swing door with one hoof and trotted in.
"N-no, but now that you mention it um... let's hurry it up," Pansy replied, shaking.
Carin' shook her head before stopping and taking a few loud sniffs and gagging on an absolutely rotten odor. "Ugh, what is that stench?" she asked as she put a hoof to her nose.
"Th-the colts said that its sauce smells as bad as the stuff that was left out for a week before being served to your grandma..." Pansy quiveringly said while she closed the door behind her.
"Oh, sure, a rotten smell means ghosts. If you're trying to make me not suspect you, I'm not buyin' it this time, Fragrant," Carin' scoffed back as she looked to a shelf with an old box of salt left behind and walked over.
"It wasn't me! M-maybe the colts left behind a snack? Hehe...yeah... but why leave it and run? Carin', listen... what if it's hovering around right now, wiggling its noodle arms, and just waiting to... to pasta us?" Pansy asked as she grabbed on to Carin's rear.
Carin groaned loudly and slapped Pansy's face. "No holding me in public! I know it's my special talent to cuddle, but I've got an image to maintain, and no stupid fears about something that hunts with 'snifferdoodles' are excuses to risk ruining it!" she shouted before picking up the old box.
"Snifferdoodles can smell fear! They're no joke!" insisted Pansy as she let go and backed off.
"Yeah, I bet they can with how fragrant you get when you're scared," chuckled Carin'.
She heard only an exasperated sigh in reply as she inspected the old box. It was empty, but surely that would do, as you couldn't buy these anymore.
She heard a familiar squeaky sputter of a certain filly letting rip behind her, and began to turn around. "Oh come on, barely a few minutes and you can't ho-"
She shut up when she noticed the sounds of squelching and squealing too, outlasting the sputter. Looking in the darkness, she couldn't see much, but there was a large shape surrounding what looked like something moving rapidly in the center. Carin' lit her horn and saw that her friend's rear, with hooves kicking furiously, was sticking out of lips that were giant spaghetti noodles.
Before her, the creature indeed had two snifferdoodles like pig snouts made of noodle, but the way they squished so much as they rhythmically sucked in air horrified rather than amused her. As her gaze went upwards, she stared into the googly eyes, with pupils as black as black could be like a void trying to suck in her soul as their gaze met hers. Worse, she finally became aware of its whole form being somewhat like a legless, big-headed pony, and sticking out between two noodles was a very worn name tag that read "Mgr. Susan". It was the manager her grandma got killed.
Carin' dropped the old box and shook as she then looked to the noodles wiggling to its sides, with bits of sauce dripping down as they moved like they had a mind of their own, separate from the main one of the creature's. She realized its silence was because none of them touched the floor, and an occasional dripping sound was easy to mistake for a leaky roof.
Finally, her attention was brought back to her friend as a loud gulp signaled Pansy slipping fully inside. Carin' closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, then opened them again to find that the bad dream hadn't gone away. It took a moment more to process that her best friend was likely not coming back to laugh off a bit of embarrassment. She turned to flee, but it was too late as she found a noodle wrapped around her rear hoof, tripping her to the floor.
She tried to scream, but another slimy, disgusting noodle wrapped her muzzle shut, and she could only groan. A glance to the creature showed its underside undulating grotesquely, and then opening up.
Carin' couldn't look away as a meatball the size of her friend plopped out unceremoniously. It was perhaps the part she wished most not to be true of what the colts had said. Her lunch came up from her stomach, but her muzzle couldn't part to let it out.
As the noodly appendages secured her other limbs, Carin' thrashed, but to no avail. They slowly dragged her into the much-too-wide pasta maw. Inside was a horrendous tongue made of noodles a bit firmer than the rest of the creature, and which gripped her tightly as it pulled her in. She could hear her own heart pumping to try to give her the energy to escape, but she knew there was no chance now, and simply hoped that in the afterlife, her friend would be there to hang out with.
As she felt herself gulped down, she closed her eyes expecting harsh acid, but there was none, just what felt like pasta sauce. She was glad it didn't hurt, at least, but the oddity of it made her worry even more and then as she inhaled a bit, which made the stench of the sauce hit her hard. She began holding her breath and crying.
When she tried to open her eyes a moment later, she found she couldn't. She tried to scream, as it felt like the noodle around her muzzle had slipped off, but it wouldn't open either. She couldn't move at all.
As Carin' panicked, it took her a second to realize she couldn't hear or breathe either...she could only feel. And feel she did, as she felt the floor of the stomach give way, and herself fall down onto something soft and round. She realized it to be Pansy.
It was only then that she recalled the last thing the colts had said: "And forever a living meatball its prey shall be, like what old Carin' begged for so heavily."
