Advertisement
Please wait...

Chicken Dinner



Estimated reading time — 3 minutes

A first hand report of the story originally reported in The Montréal Mirror in 1964:

A mother and father decided they needed a break, not having much alone time in the almost a year since their young son, Toby, was born. They wanted to have a night out, dinner, maybe a movie, and the honeymoon suite at a local hotel to possibly give Toby a little brother or sister. They called their most trusted babysitter, who unfortunately was already engaged for the evening. But she did refer a good friend of hers, Opal, who she swore could be trusted. They spoke with the new babysitter and agreed to have her arrive no later than 6:30 so the parents could get an early start.

As the parents got ready to paint the town red, Toby lay on the floor, gnawing on his teething ring in the den off to the back of the house. At shortly after 6:20 the father walked past the open doorway and saw an elderly woman sitting in the rocking chair facing the child, her back to the doorway. The father was slightly startled as his wife hadn’t mentioned the sitter had arrived. He spoke to her as he straightened his tie in the mirror on wall opposite the doorway.

“Oh my, I’m sorry I didn’t hear you come in. We appreciate you coming on such short notice. My wife put some a chicken in the oven for you. The numbers for the restaurant and hotel are on the counter if you need to reach us. We will be home around 9 tomorrow morning. Goodbye Toby, I love you.”

He hurried down the hallway as his wife was coming down the stairs, meeting her at the bottom his wife asked “What were you saying dear”

“Oh nothing, I was just giving the sitter instructions, now we should hurry so we can make our reservation on time.” he replied grabbing his coat as he unlocked the front door.

They went to the car and were in such a rush they didn’t notice the car pull into the drive way not 15 seconds after they pulled out. They proceeded to have the best night out they could remember. The wife become somewhat concerned shortly after arriving at the hotel when she called home and no one answered. The husband calmed her as he pulled her into bed, kissing her neck.

Advertisements

“Don’t worry dear, she’s an older lady and it’s almost 10, she must have gone to bed after putting Toby down.”

**************

Advertisements

The next morning after a nice breakfast they arrived home to find a note on the door. It read:
“I arrived at 6:30 as agreed but no one was home.
If you had made other plans I would have appreciated
if someone had called me.
Opal”

Advertisements

The husband gave his wife a confused look as she put a hand to her mouth and her face turned white. She threw open the front door calling out for her son. There was no reply, in fact there was no sound at all in the house, just the smell or some burned meat. She ran up the stairs as her husband raced to the back of the house the find the kitchen filled with smoke. He turned off the stove and used pot holders to grab the smoldering pan or charred meat and drop it in the sink. His wife came into the kitchen crying into her hands

“He’s not here! Toby’s gone! She took him!”

The husband then took her in his arms as she cried. It was then that he noticed blood on the lid of the trash can. A pit formed in his stomach as he left his wife and opened the trash can. He exhaled as he realized that it was only the chicken his wife had made. It was then that his eyes shot wide open as his wife let out a fresh scream of horror. As he turned toward her, he caught sight of the melted remains of the teething ring on the bottom of the open oven.

Please wait...

Copyright Statement: Unless explicitly stated, all stories published on Creepypasta.com are the property of (and under copyright to) their respective authors, and may not be narrated or performed under any circumstance.

150 thoughts on “Chicken Dinner”

  1. As the mother of a nine month old, I found this story purely disturbing. I mean, I understand that this is Creepypasta, but this story seems to take that to the utmost extreme. I may feel this way because I’m a mother, but I honestly don’t understand how people could enjoy reading/writing about killing and/or cooking children.

  2. I hate babysitters, they are untrustable. They promised they will come back when I was small. The other one stole my mom’s necklace and a yellow dress that was just new and wasn’t still tried on.

  3. Unfortunately this happens more often then it should. My dad worked at a womans prison and one of the inmates was on death row because she had microwaved her baby and served it to her husband for dinner. He didn’t figure it out until he had eaten some. Poor guy mist have felt awful. My dad told me that there a lot of cases like that.

  4. …my god this was depressing, gross, and the old lady is a stalker…I have a feeling the old lady killed the baby and smeared blood on the trash can. Then the lady swapped the baby and the chicken. The baby still had his teething ring but dropped it while being roasted or it melted from his hand. Then the lady ran away with roasted baby. Opal came by finding the door open and called into the house to see if anyone was home. She found a pen and paper wrote her note, posted it on the door, aced the pen back, closed the door, and left.

  5. TheIntimateAvenger

    A popup ad displaying a roast chicken recipe appeared while I was reading this. I laughed so hard.

  6. I’m confused about the logical parts of the story. Why weren’t the parents asking questions like : how did you get in?
    Are you Opal? and if she’d baked the baby and there Is blood wouldn’t it have dried up? And why did she wipe her hands in the trash can? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for it to be a napkin?
    Or if she ate the baby couldn’t she lick her fingers? I’m probably asking too many questions 4/10

  7. What I thought was the most disturbing thing was that the “babysitter” wouldn’t put the teething ring in an oven with an already dead baby. This made me think that Toby wasn’t just stabbed or a had a relatively quick death, but instead was roasted alive while chewing on his ring O_O

  8. As a mom to a three yr old this actually creeped me the hell out. I definately would have talked directly to the “baby sitter” and given my baby a kiss goodbye before leaving though but i can imagine thatd be chalked up to being over excited about a night out. Even with those flaws still creepy to me.

  9. WhatDoesTheFoxSay

    So, wait… They
    A) left their baby alone in a room on the floor,
    B) left their baby with someone they don’t even know (OVERNIGHT),
    C) just left without talking to the babysitter and getting to know her, and
    D) didn’t say bye to their baby.
    Jesus, these people are bad parents.

  10. You Don't Wanna Know

    Like said by other readers, the story was a bit predictable. But still a great story, and when I think of that old woman, I think of the old woman/entity of the movie ‘Insidious.’ Am I the only one with that idea?

  11. An oldie but a goodie.

    It would have been better if the parents came home and found melting dentures in the oven and the baby clucking like a chicken while sitting in his high hair and gnawing on some geriatric gristle.

    “Sorry, mom & dad,” Toby said, as he pulled a long strand of gray hair from out of his mouth. “I was hungry, so I started without you. Cole slaw is in the fridge.”

  12. May not be super original, but it was still good pasta. I can not believe the parents wouldn’t check on the baby when they got home. Especially after the baby sitter didn’t answer the phone.
    And did the old woman greet them when they came home? They weren’t concerned when they arrived and no one was there?

  13. Little Cowgirl

    This creeped me out-but it also has some reference to the Hansel and Gretel faerietale, only there’s one kid this time and he got baked in the oven. Luckily, I am old enough to stay home alone and watch my bratty siblings, so I don’t think a old witch will be coming to roast anyone. Still, its enough to make anyone rethink twice about hiring a strnage babysitter. Those parents must’ve been away for a long while, since dinners usually take an hour, movies 2 hours, and the rest combined made it 3 hours-so, six hours altogether…Not very realsistic, because it’d been daybreak when they got back, considerating many couples fall asleep

  14. The dad is obviously an idiot, wouldn’t you ask the old lady if she was the babysitter instead of assuming that your wife let her in!

  15. I will agree that it does need a bit of refinement, and it is too similar to the high-babysitter-bakes-child story, but other than that it’s a decent attempt at a rehash. Though, try changing more details to make it creepier.

  16. Come on dude this is worst than a low budget horror film imeaditly you know it’s the the old chick ad some real scary shit instead of this I mean seriously my 9 year old sister could write better shit

  17. Think about it, wouldn’t they have noticed when they “pulled the charred meat from the oven” that it wasn’t chicken?
    Just my thought on it.

  18. the hash slinging slasher

    didnt creep me out, plus it was extremely predictable -__-
    but it gave me a good laugh, i like storys that end like that XD
    HOORAY FOR CRAZEH MURDER

  19. two things the old lady totally gave it away i mean what teenager would have a old lady friend and second the title gave it away also:(

    but i still enjoyed reading it:)

  20. Shub Niggurath

    That babysitter-getting-high, baby-in-oven story, only made “creepy” because it was done by a ghost instead of the actual human babysitter. Meh, I’ve seen a lot better, sorry.

  21. creeped out reader

    I currently live in a basement suite under the \’seemingly unstable\’ owner of a greek tavern, I smell smoke coming from what I assume is their kitchen and I\’m 99% sure it isn\’t lamb….and reading this just made the paranoia worse because they had an argument not too long ago…….screw it, I\’m grabbing the bat…..while he has a gun…shoulda listened to my anxiety and bought a gun

  22. creeped out reader

    I currently live in a basement suite under the ‘seemingly unstable’ owner of a greek tavern, I smell smoke coming from what I assume is their kitchen and I’m 99% sure it isn’t lamb….and reading this just made the paranoia worse because they had an argument not too long ago…….screw it, I’m grabbing the bat…..while he has a gun…shoulda listened to my anxiety and bought a gun

  23. Jesus Christ, have you ever heard of spell check?
    Completely unoriginal, I knew what it was going to be about from like the very first paragraph.

    Also, how was this a firsthand account? If someone had witnessed this situation, the tone would be completely different, instead of a wanna-be news article.
    It would also most likely be told in the point of view of one of the characters, who would have been mentioned in the story. So there would be more details. Instead of “A mom and a dad”, it would probably reveal the names, to personalize the story.

  24. what a bad dad he should have waited for the damn sitter to reply and ask his wife if she let her in. man oh man i would have drove right home had it been my kid! that is why when i ever get a sitter im hiring a private detective to keep an eye on him and a sniper for them both lol.

  25. It’s the same as the “Stoned Babysitter roasts baby in lieu of turkey” only it has A LOT of plot holes. It doesn’t explain who the old lady rocking the baby was, if it wasn’t the sitter who was it? A ghost, demon or madwoman? Well? Did the mother accidentally put her baby in the oven? Or did the mystery hag switch the baby and the chicken once the parents were gone? Not a lot of thought was really put into this, but what do you expect? It’s not like Stephen King is writing creepypasta.

  26. W.T. Hitbob C.

    the fact that it was called chicken dinner instantly made me think mostly about the oven and cooking. and i kinda had the idea the baby was gonna be cooked as soon as she mentioned the chicken dinner in there (as i also knew this woman wasn’t the babysitter) and i knew for sure the baby was dead as soon as they got home. i knew it was in the oven.

  27. Good pasta but very cliche. I’ve heard this story twisted many ways and I honestly knew what the ending would be by the time she said “there’s chicken in the oven”.

  28. Very, very, creepy. The only problem was that it was also very predictable. As soon as the father mistook the old woman for the babysitter, I knew exactly how the story was going to end.

  29. Nightmare Fuel Drinker

    “Toby! Throw the old woman out!”

    The most disturbing thing is MY old babysitter was a fat old lady named Opal…

  30. Knew how this was going to end when I saw ‘wife put a chicken in the oven’.

    Read it anyway.

    Felt horrible as expected.

    If I got it that fast, this was awful.

  31. bonjour petite anus

    LOL The Montreal Mirror is a free monthly paper that has movie listings. This was so gay from the start.

    Love,
    a Montrealer

  32. I remember reading a story similar to this one where the babysitter was some hippie chick that got high and put the baby in the oven and the turkey in the crib.

  33. BUT WHO WAS OLD LADY?

    ah i thought it was really good…i kinda wish that you would given more of a story to the old lady but y’know what it doesn’t matter still good stuff anyways

  34. Brohan and Brosef

    That whole first part about being a newspaper is rather unnecessary, given the format of the main body.

    Other than that, it’s reasonably interesting.

  35. i heard of this story before… lol but when i started to read this i know what was going to happen but still…i love this stories idea of the babysitter cooking the baby not the chicken :) also in the version i heard the babysitter put the chicken in the cradle and the baby in the oven ……lol

  36. The way this is written is extremely irritating and incorrect. I think I would have enjoyed it more if the person wrote it better. Ridiculous

  37. A completely shitty story that’s just trying to disturb people. A Pauly Shore stand up routine is creepier than this.

  38. Pasta was good, but I couldn’t take it seriously due to my own connection of the name “Toby” with Labyrinth. Damn you, Bowie.

  39. it’s the dad’s freaking fault for thinking that old lady was the babysitter. I’m assuming that the trusted babysitter who had plans that night was around 16-20 ish. She refered her friend not her grandmother lord.

  40. what shit stupid parents. heeeey, let’s call a babysitter and then just assume that some old lady who magically showed up in the house is the babysitter.
    didn’t like this pasta, would’ve preferred roast baby over this.

  41. Eh…. pasta was predictable, but a good second attempt at one. Roasted baby was a plus, but was more fucked up than creepy.

  42. Feaster of Fear

    So the kindly old woman decided to make me dinner, eh? I approve. They don’t call me the Feaster for nothing, you know…

  43. It’s a good story, creepy and kinda weird
    But too predictable
    Once it said “parents gone for the night with sitter” it was obvious
    and the old lady gimmick was too easy too, why would a teenager recommend an old lady

  44. But the call was coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE.

    Rehashed. It’s been done before so many times that I actually didn’t even bother reading the middle part, and I didn’t even need to read the ending because the first sentence gave it away. I read it anyway, just to make sure I was right and didn’t just sound like a ranting, uninformed douchecock at the end here. I also think that you should invest in a keyboard that has more commas on it so that you won’t be so stingy with them in the future.

    Additionally, the word, “or,” is not an appropriate substitute for the word, “of.” It was done twice in a row, within like 2 sentences of each other. That annoyed me almost as much as the fact that you copy pasted this story out of one of those $7 “Creepy Ghost Stories III” books. Try harder.

    Actually, I think I’d prefer it if you just never tried again.

    1/10

  45. God damn old lady. Doesn’t she know there are people starving in Africa with no baby’s to eat. If your going to make food at least attempt to clean your plate.

  46. This one gave me a feeling between that slow crawling feeling up your throat when you’re about to cry and that sick feeling minutes before you throw up… But not quite that… Not fear, not chills, just… disgust… but not really. That was weird.

  47. So, honestly, I’d never heard the stoned babysitter chicken/baby oven-switch before. The story reminded me of something that happened to me as a baby, so I was thinking of that and this ending was largely unexpected, but no less.. not great.

    My story was that there was apparently an elderly woman’s spirit living in my old house. (Sometimes my mom or sister would see a woman with a grey bun walk down the hall from the corner of their eye; I would hear a piano playing at night while I was falling asleep, and after moving from the house, I learned my mom had heard the same thing. Stuff like that)
    I shared a room with my older sister when I was a colicky baby (basically that means I cried a lot for no reason). One night after everyone had gone to bed, I started bawling, and my sister didn’t want to get up to deal with me. But then I stopped. She rolled over to see a woman seated at the end of her bed, cradling me, and she went back to sleep.
    In the morning, she thanked my mother for coming in to silence me, but my mom replied, “What? I thought you had done it?”

    I never entirely believed them, but it was a comforting story when I was a kid.

  48. Sorry, but this was extremely predictable. When I read the title and then got to the part where it said “But she did refer a good friend of hers opal, who she swore could be trusted.” I sorta saw it coming, even though it wasn’t opal.

  49. it could use a bit of a fix up, but it has a LOT of potential. i like the idea that it was a deranged lady that roasted the baby instead of just a ghost or something.

  50. Meh. First hand? Not believable. Also, why the hell would some random old lady just come into the house & decide that tonight she’s going to cook a baby when his parent’s are out? Mmkay.

    Not to mention, why wouldn’t the mother want to say goodbye to her son if she cared about him so much as well as speak with the babysitter?

    Jeez. :3

  51. Writer here. Thanks for all the comments, good and bad. This was my 2nd attempt at a creepy pasta ever. I wrote it really late/early 2 days ago in about 45 minutes. I really should have gone through and checked the grammar a bit more but I was half asleep.
    I should also mention that this was intended to be a rewrite/mashup of the Angel statue story. Oddly enough I have heard/read the babysitter on drugs story but did not think of it once while writing this. so any connection to it is unintended.
    In refference to the blood on the trashcan, very true, I actually changed the ending shortly before posting and forgot to fix that little mistake. I didnt put enough details in about how the chicken wasnt in there very long at all when the parents left.
    About the old lady: I purposely made it so you couldnt tell if she was human, ghost, or demon. though I made an attemptto hint at her being supernatural with the line about the father unlocking the front door, I could have gone into more detail about it. I placed the story in the 60s because it was a more innocent time. Thats why the father doesnt wonder how she got into the house because he thinks his wife let her in and just forgot to tell him.
    About the narrative: I MEANT to put a line or two in there detailing how this is a rough timeline constructed from the police notes regarding the interviews of both parents and Opal. which is why it gives details that shouldnt be able to be given by just one person.
    and lastly, about the newspaper: thats just plain laziness on my part. I googled montreal newspapers and picked one at random. :)

    I actually have a better ending to this that I was hoping to intercept this being posted with, but oh well. maybe I can get this replaced with my new version.

  52. Eh, it was ok. It kind of seems like you just mashed together a few classic babysitter stories, but it’s still well written and entertaining.

    3.5/5? Is that legal?

  53. I have heard this before, as an urban legend. The babysitter was a hippie and she acccidentaly roasts the baby…

  54. The ending was predictable, I agree, but it was really well written and still had a major creep factor (partially because of it’s predictability).

  55. even though it was completely obvious how it was going to end, it’s still really frickin disturbing.

    I’ve never heard this story or any version of it, but I’m glad that the story wasn’t the babysitter getting high and putting the kid in the oven because that would just piss me off.

    I’ve read enough stories with babysitters to know that babysitters alone with children always leads to bad stuff (either the babysitter/children dying from a maniac or the children dying from the babysitter).

    Despite all that…

    that is still some fucked up shit!!

  56. Good thing my dad just left me home alone. And never with a so called “babysitter”. Om Nom Nom.

  57. Pretty lame. And the Montreal Mirror isn’t really a conventional newspaper. It’s an indie free paper.

  58. this is like, the one horror story thats older than the “when a stranger calls” one.
    no retelling can make it any better, either.
    especially not this one.
    (:

  59. I agree with the long comment. The grammar errors completely detached me from the tale, and it was just a stupid rehash of an old urban legend.
    2/10. The 2 is only because I had high hopes for this.

  60. I don’t get it. At least when the babysitter is on acid, there’s an explanation as to why the baby got cooked. There’s no explanation as to who the mystery lady is. Is she a ghost, a random psycho who wandered in, WHAT? And why didn’t the parents at least ask a question like ‘oh, are you Opal? How did you get into the house?’ My suspension of disbelief does not remain suspended,

    1. No joke, shut up Brian Ross. Get an idea, write it down; you are looking at an example of something you should keep to yourself.

  61. I saw that coming ten miles away. As soon as I read the title and the part with the old lady, I knew what was going to happen. Blah. Predictable. Baby gets cooked in oven. Blah. Cliché.

  62. The title gave away the whole story, really, if you’ve read enough creepypasta to know the generic plots.

    But that doesn’t change the fact that this kind of story is always disgusting and enraging.

    obligatory BUT WHO WAS OLD LADY?

  63. Emre = Fail on so many levels!
    This story is so overdone it’s not even scary anymore; although the thing about the teething ring made it worse. I have a 9 month old myself and thusly I don’t like the thought of something like this happening to him.

  64. Honestly, it was just too predictable. The old lady=not the babysitter part was the immediate conclusion I came to when the guy first saw her, and even though I hadn’t even heard of this stoned babysitter/baked kid cliche until I read the comments, I figured out the kid was in the oven when the narrator got to the part with the blood on the trash. There was no real build up in between, either, and if there had been it would give a person more time to doubt their initial conclusion. And if the lady had been more believable, instead of being creepy and mute, that would have made less red flags go up. Oh, and the car thing can just be omitted entirely.
    Also, I sort of agree Brian Ross II, in that it didn’t at all sound like a first-hand account. I mean, who went following the couple around like a stalker? If it is first-hand, the narrator is scarier than the old lady who cooked the kid.

  65. The way this story is written defies its claim that it was a first-hand account. A first-hand account would be written with more specific details and probably would contain less colloquialisms. It might have quotes from the parents about what they thought and their regrets, etc. It also probably wouldn’t end with the stinger. A more believable approach to the premise might have made this much creepier.

    Ignoring that flaw, this story is still pretty lame.

    The chicken-child oven switch is a really old trope. When I read the title and the beginning of this one, I thought I was getting set up for a retelling of the old story with the stoned baby-sitter who accidentally baked the baby and put the turkey to bed. This sets me up with expectations for something weak on the outset and I’ve already lost my suspension of disbelief.

    The pacing is weak. There’s an absolute lack of cleverness. It’s crappypasta all over.

    One more thing: The final reveal is fucking ridiculous. If the chicken had already been in the oven for as long as the story suggests, there’s little chance any remaining blood could be mistaken for human. The writer of this one needs more experience cooking meat.

    1. I don’t really care to get into a critical debate with you, but how do you know that the blood on the trashcan had been from blood being on the women’s hands after killing said child. She could have smeared it while throwing the chicken away to make room for the baby

      1. I Hate Assumptions

        It’s so funny when not-very-mean people try to be mean.
        But it ISN’T funny when not-very-mean people try to be funny. Then it’s just dumb.

        So I’m not sure whether I’m amused or exasperated with you.

    2. The “sitter” isn’t even the sitter at all. It was that twist that made it an alright pasta. The real sitter left that note on the door and said no one was home. So whoever was sitting in that chair took the chicken OUT of the oven, put the child IN, and probably smeared her hands on the trashcan somehow after tossing the chicken in the trashcan. I’m thinking you need to start thinking outside of the box because your logic is flawed. You’re one of the reasons why I hate people. Your comment just makes me want to kill you. With that said, you, sir, can eat a bag of dicks.

      1. I have a theory that certain web pages are possessed by spirits, and any time you see a bunch on sequential comments like this, it’s because the content of the page is actually a demonic presence.

        Yay, I figured it out.

  66. A nice take on this story. Usually the babysitter just gets high and roasts the baby instead of the poultry.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top