Eva wanted to walk out the door the already. She had ended up in the same cake shop in Magnolia that she recently had a photo shoot in. It smelled like cakes and fruits and other sugary stuff that she didn’t really want to know. There was one and just one item that she had liked when she last visited and that was all because it was plum flavored and covered in little juicy plum pieces. She remembered taking one bite out of some other stuff and letting her manager finish the rest.

“Oh, Eva san!” she heard the owner’s voice, a small man with a big belly and a baseball cap named Olly. “Thanks for dropping by. I’m sure you’ll be a great help today,” the man beamed as he placed a mountain of cupcake boxes in front of her. As the man emerged from behind it, much to Eva’s shock, she saw his face dusted with flour and well, the small blob of pale yellow looked like cream. She took a step back when the man began to smell strongly of vanilla essence.

Eva was sure that many people that were not her would have loved the smell and would have loved the pastries and other sweets he made even better. But for Eva, while she didn’t mind sweets so much, she was also not a big fan of them, choosing spicy and tangy snacks over the sweet ones any day. Unless they were plums, none of it was going to make Eva swoon.

“I just have to deliver them to these places?” She asked politely as she received the list of names and addresses from Olly. Her eyes skimmed through them once and then went through the stack of boxes that sat smug on the table. She sighed.

“Yes, just deliver them to all those places and be careful. You need to make sure all those pastries get there in one piece. Olly does not make anything less than perfect,” he told her with a look over his nose. Eva smiled back. She went through the list once more, folded it and placed it back in her pocket before running a finger through the cupcake boxes. She counted them, took about three of it and easily balanced it in her hands before walking out the shop.

She went around the places closest to the cake shop. As she went around the streets, she noticed that most of the people that ordered the cupcakes were the normal city folk hoping to just snack on them now and then. But everyone that she met were extremely happy when she gave them their boxes of cupcakes. They smiled and jumped in excitement, praising Olly for his wonderful work. It sort of made Eva get into a positive mood too although she still couldn’t care enough about the cupcakes or anything that Olly made.

“Oh my God, thank you so much for delivering these!” a lady, around her age, exclaimed as she took the box of cupcakes.

506/1000

“How did the deliveries go?” Olly asked Eva as she came in to get another bunch of boxes. Every time she delivered them, Eva made sure to strike off each names that she was already done delivering in. Seven more places where left. “It was fine,” Eva said. “Everyone looked really happy when they received their boxes. They asked me send you their thanks and well wishes,” she spoke, noticing Olly’s smile grow wider at each word Eva said.

Eva tried to balance four boxes in her hands next. They were all heavy but it was nothing Eva couldn’t handle at the same time. From the small gap of the box’s folds, the sweet smell of cream and fruits wafted over. Eva had to lean back and keep the boxes to a distance so that it didn’t make her dizzy.

The next four places she delivered to were all normal as well. Some had kids jumping up and down and sprinting around her for the box of cupcakes while the others were quite old with a particular place for everything sweet. She kept striking off the names from her list as she walked back, already planning the fastest route to the next three destinations.

Olly wasn’t even to be seen when she dropped by the shop the next time. His helpers threw small smiles at her and that was it before she took off with the remaining three boxes. The first two places were, again, normal. They smiled as they received their boxes and asked to send their regards to Olly. The last one, however, was a little weird as the moment she opened the door, all she saw was two sunken eyes and a pair of rotting teeth. To say she was taken aback would have been an understatement for Eva’s first reaction was to scream. But of course, she couldn’t possibly let her image go like that and bit it back with a tiny bit of gasping sound escaping her lips.

When he extended a body, clawed hand at her, Eva quickly dropped the box on it with a thanks and turned around to walk away. That was probably one of the creepiest things she had seen in a very long time. Eva quickly made her way back to Olly’s bakery but, again, he was nowhere to be seen until she heard a cluttering sound and smelled something being baked. ‘Oh he is working,’ she thought as she handed over the completely marked list to one of the apprentices. They smiled and gave her their thanks before rewarding her with the money she earned after all that running around under the hot weather. “Olly’s back in the kitchen icing a cake,” the apprentice had said when she was about to take her leave. “I’ll tell him that you have done all the jon. I think you were one of the fastest so who knows, he might call you back again,” he said while Eva nodded with a smile, though totally not interested in the idea at all.

1015/1000