A Sunny Day in Fox Falls
Submitted by Taiomah
For Jamriot’s Newgrounds Writer's Jam 2025
Prompt: Anniversary
Notice:
This document is only for use within the Ministry of Occult and Spiritual Intervention (MOCCASIN).
The following text is an excerpt from the investigative journal of Agent Remi Cochrane from the dates of October 17th to October 20th, 2012, during the Disappearance of Sunny Day from Fox Falls, Ontario on October 14th, 2012.
October 17th
I found myself waking up early on a Wednesday, as though shaken awake by a premonition of incoming disaster. Sure enough, my work phone buzzed, and I was summoned to MOCCASIN HQ for an urgent assignment.
In some remote town in Northwestern Ontario, a 10-year old girl by the name of Sunny Day had gone missing. Initially I was confused as to why this case was put down in front of me. MOCCASIN doesn't normally deal with missing persons' cases, and our agents don't have the same training as police officers or other public servants when it comes to performing search and rescue operations.
So, there had to be something especially peculiar about this disappearance.
As it turns out, what brought this case to the Ministry's attention were the circumstances surrounding the disappearance, rather than the missing person themselves. According to local reports from the town of Fox Falls, there was a weather anomaly on October 14th, the day of the disappearance. From early morning to late night, black clouds hung low over the entire town, and the sound of thunder was heard, though the town didn't receive a single drop of rain that day.
After the clouds cleared that night, they were replaced by another kind of cloud altogether. An out-of-season crow migration hit the town, with thousands of birds arriving in the night and settling in despite the coming chill. In the morning, those crows were found to have ravaged the local pumpkin farm, all but decimating the year's crop.
On their own, those kinds of phenomena could be chalked up to the effects of climate change in the region. What couldn't be hand waved as a natural occurrence, was the third omen ‒ paranormal omens always come in threes. Parishioners attending the Sunday Evensong Mass at St. Samuel's Anglican Church on October 14th attest that at exactly 5:00PM the electricity in the Church flickered off, and the votive candles on the tributary rack were blown out, despite every door and window in the church being closed.
Once power was restored, and the candles re-lit, it was discovered that one of the portraits on the tributary rack had fallen over, causing the glass of the frame to crack. The portrait was of Harold Day, the father of the missing girl, who had died five years earlier.
With three omens in the bag, I was off on assignment by noon. My job wasn't to locate the missing girl on my own. Naturally that was the job of the local police department. Rather, I was to work together with them during the investigation in order to determine the cause and nature of any potential paranormal phenomena, in order to determine if spiritual intervention was necessary to restore stability to the area.
Still, the girl's name stuck with me. Sunny Day. Lost on a Sunday.
October 18th
I arrived at the town of Fox Falls, Ontario at 2:15 PM on this cool, misty Thursday. The modest Ontario town, with a population of about 800 people, is situated right by one of the dozen unnamed rivers that drain out from Lake Nipigon.
Fox Falls itself was initially built around the Kraft Paper Mill, powered by the aforementioned drainage river. That paper mill burned down in October of 1977, so at present the town is built around a husk of charred bricks and the memories of a viable economy.
I decided that my first order of business would be finding a place where I could get coffee and a sandwich. The place I settled on was a diner called Pierre Rouge. I ordered a pastrami and cheese sandwich, which was served with fries. Apparently the meat and cheese were both sourced from the family-owned dairy farm just outside of town. After the sandwich, I enjoyed my coffee to the tune of a local newspaper that was available for free to all diners.
The newspaper, called The Thunderer, covers events from nearly every town around Lake Nipigon. I was surprised that there wasn't an article about the disappearance of Sunny Day, before checking the date on the front page. October 12th, 2012. The Thunderer was published every Friday by the looks of it.
Tomorrow's paper would likely be more interesting. There was such a regular lack of print-worthy news in this region, that the editor included a section called the Old Times, wherein noteworthy articles from previous editions that were published on the same week in previous years were highlighted.
I folded the newspaper after perusing a couple stories about curling championship wins, and park openings, deciding that talking to the proprietress of Pierre Rouge would be a better way to immerse myself in the local flavours.
The woman behind the counter looked as old as the town, and wore an expression as severe as a heart attack.
I asked her plainly what she thought about the recent disappearance of Sunny Day, and she had quite a piece of her mind to give about it. I'll summarize what she said about the entire affair as best I can:
"You're talking about the Day girl, Harry and Angie's kid? So you must be another out-of-towner come in for the search parties. This is the only kind of thing that ever brings fresh faces to Fox Falls. That's a damn shame, what happened to that family, but it's nothing out of the usual. Harry, he died five years ago now, leaving Angie to raise a five year old daughter on her own. You know what did it? The what-do-you-call-them, the drugs, the opiates. Harry was out of his mind on painkillers when he fell off his truck at work. Ran himself over. A thing like that just doesn't seem possible, but those folk have the worst luck. I swear that Kraft family has drawn the Evil Eye somehow. Oh, the name? Kraft? Yeah, that's Angie's maiden name. Angeline Kraft. Her family used to own the paper mill, before it burned to the ground. Ha! Town's gone to shit since that happened, I tell you. Half the town unemployed, people dying from opiates, girls going missing, whole pumpkin crops getting ruined. I'm going to lose a fortune on pumpkin pie this year."
I tipped the proprietress a tenner for the information, which was a good deal better than the food. I'm sad to say that the fare at Pierre Rouge was a cut below what I'm used to from small town diners. The pastrami was far too lean and chewy.
I have my first lead in the Kraft family and their history of misfortunes. Tomorrow I'll be meeting with the local police force and kicking off my investigation in earnest.
October 19th
My conference with the local police was short and not altogether helpful. There were a total of four local officers present, as well as six officers sent in from nearby towns. Apparently they had combed the town and the surrounding woods as best as their number would allow. Their search was focused especially on the ruins of the Kraft Paper Mill, Sunny’s last known whereabouts.
A volunteer force of about two dozen townsfolk were assembled, though the only one among them who was allowed into the meeting proper was Angeline Day, mother of the missing girl.
Angie was uncertain as to why I began questioning her on her family's history. According to her, she had already given the police every bit of info she could think of that was relevant to the case, and wasn't sure what my asking about untimely deaths, spurned lovers, and any family connections to occult or pagan practices could do to help find Sunny.
Here is a summary of what I could manage to get out of her:
"Sunny has always been a troubled child, always wandering off and making me have to chase her down. Doctor Phillips said it probably has to do with the circumstances of her birth. Sunny actually had a twin, an older brother, who was stillborn. We never told her about him. You wouldn't think an infant would remember trauma from their birth.
“Yet, for some reason, she would always bring up a boy named “Charlie.” She would vanish from my sight, and I would find her and ask where she was. She would tell me that she was following Charlie. That was what we were going to name her stillborn brother, after his uncle. I never told her about him. I wonder if Harry ever brought it up to her.
“Her behaviour got even more erratic after her father died. Losing her father on her birthday made her terrified of the date. October 14th. It's been such a cursed date for my family. That was the day that the mill we owned burned down, and we lost our status as the most prestigious family in Fox Falls."
October 14th. The date kept coming up over and over again.
I thanked Mrs. Day and returned to Pierre Rouge, solely to pick up today's copy of The Thunderer. The disappearance of Sunny Day was the front page story, and nearly the entire edition was dedicated to the story so far. What I was after, however, was this week's Old Times. I studied the dates, focusing on every incident that I could find that had occurred around the 14th of October.
October 14th, 2007 ‒ Tragedy has struck as local tile setter Harold Day was killed in a work-related accident during the project to reconstruct the Kraft Paper Mill, converting it into a lodge. The project was scrapped as a result of the accident.
2002 ‒ Mass hysteria has broken out as individuals in Fox Falls report seeing a large black bird flying off with a newborn baby.
That would have been the day that Sunny was born, along with her stillborn older brother, Charlie. Twins. Black birds. I’m seeing a clear pattern in the omens.
1997 ‒ The wedding of Harold Day and Angeline Kraft took a turn for the dramatic, when Angeline's sister Abigail revealed at the altar that she had been having an affair with the groom."
1992 ‒ A two-headed calf was born at Brown's Family Dairy. This news comes in light of suspected genetic defects as a result of inbreeding among cows in the Lake Nipigon region.
That explains the bad pastrami. I’ll count this as twins again, why not?
October 14th, 1987 ‒ The population of Fox Falls continues to free-fall, dropping to half the total number of people residing in town since the economic bust that came as a result of the Kraft Paper Mill being destroyed ten years prior.
1982 ‒ An unprecedented strain of Crytosporidium was discovered to be the source of a recent outbreak of sickness in the Lake Nipigon area. The source of the waterborne bacteria seems to be the drainage river from Lake Nipigon where Fox Falls is situated.
1977 ‒ The Kraft Paper Mill burned down, with the heir to the Kraft family fortune, Charles Kraft Jr., trapped alone inside. His body was never recovered, though he was presumed dead. According to his father, Charles Jr. would frequently play at the Paper Mill despite Charles Sr. forbidding it due to danger. Charles Jr. is remembered as a clever and mischievous boy, nicknamed Little Crow by the staff at the paper mill. He would stay there for hours at a time, undetected by any of the staff, and would only be found again when he decided it was time to come home. He was ten years old.
Charles Kraft, Jr. That must be the Charlie that Sunny’s stillborn brother was going to be named after.
1972 ‒ A construction project was completed on the old Kraft Paper Mill. After sixty years in operation, the building has received a facelift. New facilities were added to the paper mill’s compound, however, safety concerns have been raised about the expansions simply being built over the old facilities.
Of course. That kind of slapdash construction would leave all kinds of tiny corridors for kids to hide in.
1967 ‒ In the largest scandal Fox Falls has ever seen, twins are born to Louisa Kraft. The controversy comes in naming the father of the twins. Could it be her husband Charles Kraft? Or could it be his twin brother Albert Kraft, with whom Louisa was having an affair?
It’s astounding just how much patterns tend to repeat themselves in this family’s history.
1962 ‒ On the fiftieth anniversary of the construction of the Kraft Paper Mill and the establishment of the town of Fox Falls the township unveiled a new mural, crafted in bronze, depicting the story of the town's history. On this day, fifty years ago, the twin brothers Adam and Fox Kraft settled a dispute about the ownership of the land by way of a duel of pistols. Adam was the victor, and his brother Fox was killed in the duel, with the town being named after his honour. The site where this fateful duel occurred is the current site of the Kraft Paper Mill, which the town is built around.
A feud between twin brothers ending in the death of one. That is the exact kind of incident that dooms a family for generations. Building the family fortune right on top of the spot where Fox fell must have created a spiraling sinkhole, cursing the Kraft family to repeat that tragedy of twins over and over again.
That settles it. I know exactly where I'm going to find Sunny.
October 20th
Last night, five days after her disappearance, Sunny Day was found alive at the ruins of the Kraft Paper Mill.
I suggested researching the old building plans, which were archived in the town’s library from when the historical paper mill was first constructed. Comparing the original blueprints to the reconstruction project from 1972, I determined which parts of the facility had been paved over. Specifically, I located the room that was designated to be Adam Kraft’s personal office, which would have been the exact spot where the duel between him and his brother Fox occurred.
Sunny was found in a room that was more akin to a cave, with floors and walls utterly covered by the droppings of crows. She was covered in black feathers, and surrounded by the guts and seeds of pumpkins, which seemed to be what she had been eating the past five days. When she was found, she was holding, to the shock of the other members of the search party, a human skull that appeared to have been decades old at least.
Upon my approach, Sunny held the skull out to me, beaming, and said:
"Look mister, I found him! I found my twin brother!"
Memorandum
Sunny Day was returned safely to the care of her mother, Angeline.
DNA tests are pending, but initial analysis has confirmed that the skull that Sunny was found holding is in fact that of a ten-year-old boy.
Case Closed