Ryan Westhoff

The Candle of Cabin Seventeen

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The glow from the wick cut through the thick of the night across the lake and its low-lying fog to Samantha Ophelia Samuels sitting on her back patio smoking a cigarette trying her best to stave off that night’s sleep. Sam’s boyfriend had built this beautiful house on the lake because, “the land was so cheap”, but she thought it was perhaps a twisted joke from the universe. Across the lake sat a single remaining cabin from what used to be a summer camp for children. It was worse for wear from years of neglect and was the last artifact from Camp Wildwood. The camp had been abandoned for nearly two decades now, or since Sam was about ten years old.