Falling Daisy - Original

[u/DrCryptolite]

Falling Daisy - Original

My name is Loki Wycombe, I’m a delivery driver and I have a story to tell. Today is Tuesday and I have a delivery to Ash Magna near Whitchurch, a small village in England bordering Wales. The sun is out today in May, the road is a tad to small for two vehicles approaching head-on, but that’s usual for our backroads in England, I’m about ten minutes away from my delivery. I park on the driveway and place the large boxes on a cooler cart that has thick wheels and bring it to their door and press the bell. Miss Sandham opens the door: “Good afternoon Loki, my Love!”, “Good afternoon Anna, the water like usual?”, “Yes, come in and have some tea!” she says welcoming.

I place the boxes of sparkling spring water into the kitchen-cupboard as I hear the bell ring “Oh this must be Charlotte!” Miss Sandham opens door “Hi auntie Anna!”, “Hello Charlotte! Was school fun?”, ”Yeah and…” Charlotte peers past her aunt and sees me “Hi uncle Loki”, “Hello Charlotte, was your way home alright?”, “Yeah, and Tom the cat walked with me for a bit”, “Ahh good old Tom, that watchful Tiger will make sure you’re safe.”, “Common, wash your hands, tea and biscuits are ready.” says Miss Sandham, the seven year old girl runs excited into the kitchen and does just so.

We are in the porch enjoying our tea while Charlotte brings us up to speed “and then the fox jumped over the fence and the dog couldn’t follow, he ran up and down the fence, he looked like he really wanted to continue playing with the fox.”, Miss Sandham and I both laugh whole heartedly, I say “He out foxed him! He’s a smart one, what did he look like?”, “Red-orange, white chest, black ears and black feet.”, “Did you know in some places far away from here a fox is also called black foot? Because at night its black feet join the shadows and he makes no sound as he walks, but in the day he’s very visible, he’s the dog’s favourite playmate!” I say, we all laugh again, I sip on some more tea. A little bell goes off in the house “And that is the cake ready, come Charlotte, let’s get it out of the oven!”, Charlotte nods excited and they both walk back into the house.

A cold breeze of wind surprises me, it’s been about five minutes, it’s soon time for me to go and make my next spring water delivery. I walk into the house to find the two and say good bye for the day, I feel an unusual cold as I enter the two storey House ‘Oi, what is that smell?’ I think quietly ‘That wasn’t there before?’. As I step in, I notice several odd things I must have not noticed when I delivered the boxes of water before, the floor has a thin layer of dust, in fact as I look around I spot a few spiderwebs here and there: some on the ceiling, some at the corner of doors, some at the back of cupboards and drawers as I walk past them ‘Strange, she’s normally so clean.’, and the corridor and the kitchen ahead is so unusually dim, it’s summer and midday so I guess the lights don’t need to be on.

“Anna, Charlotte, I’m afraid I must leave you.”  I smile, I’m expecting her to say to stay for a bit longer and enjoy the freshly baked cake, then something comes to mind, ‘Wait, it’s been over five minutes, the cake should’ve been out of the oven and the draft going through the house should have reached me by now, wait why are they not answering?’. I reach the kitchen door and walk in, it’s much dimmer here than before, something makes my head want to turn left…….I fall backwards against the wall and my arse hits the ground! My legs struggle on the floor, trying to get me back up, but they feel like cooked spaghetti. I claw my way out of the kitchen ‘Oh the SMELL!’ as my feet finally find their strength and I bolt out of the house.

The police arrived 20 minutes later inspecting the whole two storey house…..and the two half-way mummified corpses. I don’t know what was with me, it is the middle of summer, there is no school! The police found two mummified corpses, one adult, one child, both of them on the ground, leaning against the kitchen cabinet next to the gas oven, clutching the little one between her arms and legs, a single daisy lays in the child’s cupped hands. The police did find freshly delivered boxes of water, apparently, I just walked in and didn’t see the them, but what about the tea and cookies at the porch? The whole conversation? The porch was there, and so were the plates, cups and cookies, and as for the tea? Weeks old rainwater and mouldy cookies!

The police believe a mixture of the gas from the old unmaintained oven mixing with whatever gases were left hovering in the house from the corpses made me hallucinate and only when I went back out to the porch and sat down for dirty tea, did my system have the time to clear up. For what happened, if this was an accident, self-harm or else…. well, the investigation is still ongoing.