Lockjaw

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Its waxy fingers reached around the sill on both sides, gripping splintered wood.

Through the dawn and into the afternoon, the flame could be seen by the occasional passerby rounding the curve of Thornbridge Road, the only road in Woodbury County still unpaved. In all probability, it never would be. For the same reason that no car would ever stop along it: to keep away from the cabin in the woods.

"Hey! Slow down." Eva Brown called ahead.

Dwight McLean, already in the sunny spot of the road, looked over his shoulder.

"Hey, catch up!" he shouted over the crunching of leaves under his tires. "You ride like a girl!"

The comment was enough to get Eva rolling the pedals backwards on her bike, skidding to a stop; kicking up a nebulous billow of dust that swallowed her whole. As it cleared, settling on her ball cap and overalls, Eva didn't seem to mind.

Dwight, on the other hand, made sure to keep his button-down pristine and tucked in. He circled back with a smirk he'd been parading around all morning.

Eva waited patiently for him to arrive within earshot.

"Now that's something a prick would say. You're not one of those city-boy pricks, are you?"

"Me?" Dwight recoiled, puffing out his chest. "Course not."

Eva, less than convinced, felt a pull to look away. Her gaze followed the roadside, where it sloped to a watery undergrowth that stretched to the faded porch of the sunken cabin. Its slant suggested a losing battle with a moat of sludge at its base. Even from across the sunny enclosure of Douglas-firs, its broken glass and cracked timber threatened cuts and splinters. In the window, a fiery hand seemed to be waving at them.

"Woah," is all Eva said.

"Woah what?" Dwight asked.

"The candle."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Who lights a candle in the middle of the day? Back in the city, we got this new thing called e-lec-tri-city. You townsfolk should give it a try."

"Right, you haven't heard a thing about this place, have ya?"

"When?" He turned his Omega wristwatch, face up. "In the twelve hours I've been in town?"

"Yeah. For a second there, I forgot you're just the new kid. Not to mention, the first in about a decade."

"Thanks for the reminder," Dwight rolled his eyes from Eva to the cabin. "Looks like a dirty, old shack to me. Who gives a damn?"

"Lots of people, actually. It's the first building in the county. Where the first family used to live."

"In that piece of crap? That’s the kinda place a kid’d get tetanus. Yuckh! That’s gotta be my greatest fear. Plus, I could blow that thing over with a burp. I see why they left."

"They didn't." Eva spun her ball cap around so that her bangs poked through the opening, then answered the question on Dwight's face. "Story goes, a couple of newlyweds built it. But, on their wedding night, the husband was called to fight with the other Bluebellies and never came back. And the wife was just. . . snuffed out."

"By who?"

Eva shrugged.

"Newcomers, I guess. Not really sure. But that candle," she pointed, "I never seen it like that."

"Newcomers, huh? Like me!" He let his Western Flyer lean on its kickstand. "Well maybe I should give the old place a tour. Move in, if I like what I see."

"No, Dwight, seriously. I agreed to show you around, we should get on with it."

Dwight turned his back to the cabin and took a few playful steps towards it, toe to heel.

"What's the big deal, huh?"

"The candle," Eva said, "what they say about the candle."

"And what exactly do they say about the candle, Eva?" He took another precarious step into the soft shoulder of the road.

"That it works like the NO in a motel vacancy sign. When it's lit, it's occupied."

"Oh c'mon. You're telling me someone lives in that thing?"

The line of her lips tightened. "Who said anything about living?"

"That, my friendly new neighbor," Dwight said in a singsong manner, "is a sizzling casserole of bullshit you've just served me."

Eva puffed through her nose, parting her lips to protest when something stole her attention and stopped Dwight in his tracks.

When they looked again, the cabin was now sitting upright at the end of a cobblestone walkway, a picture of the American Dream. Its bright blue walls and stark white shutters glimmered in the sunlight, its porch lost in a dandelion-speckled lawn beyond a picket fence. The fresh aroma of wet paint and mowed grass filled the air, drawing them in.

"Would you look at that!" Dwight said under his smirk, stretched to palpable discomfort. "Now, that's my kinda place! And here I was thinking this filthy town would be the death of me."

Dwight quickened his steps towards the cabin.

"No, Dwight, wait!" Eva shouted, her second-hand bike clanking and dinging as it hit the dirt. "You don't understand. It's a trick."

But the big-city grin across Dwight's face had taken over. He would have rolled his eyes at anything Eva called after him. What he had, unlike these townies, was street smarts. And what he'd learned through hard knocks was not to buy into these small-town fables. Stories told to keep bored kids occupied — those without a summer fling to fill their days — while they farmed the land and swam the crick. He might have been dragged to this one-horse town, but he wouldn't be dragged down to its level. He wouldn't become another kid, pissing his pants just to pass the time. Even if this was some parlor trick, it was nothing he couldn't handle. He'd climb that porch, whether it was brown or blue, rotten or robust, and do a few jumping jacks just to rub it in Eva's grubby face. Show this place what Dwight McLean's worth.

But despite the mirage, the barren, overgrown yard crunched under his tennis shoes. Sharp ends of its branches and vines sunk deeply into his skin, drawing blood around his ankles. They didn't call it Thornbridge Road for nothing.

As he climbed the porch steps, the first one creaked, the second one whined, and the third one moaned. But, on the fourth, it was Dwight who cried out, a rusty nail having slipped right through his rubber sole. He yanked up his foot, tearing at the laces.

When the shoe and sock came off, he grew quiet, finding the nail still claiming both sides of his foot, its bloody tip peeking through at the base of his big toe.

"Dwight," Eva called out from the road. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he grunted. "Just a prick."

Then, stone-still, Eva watched the doorway darken as a shadow slid into the frame with unsettling ease. She felt her throat swell, like the time she'd swallowed a wasp that stung and stung until it drowned inside her. When a face came into view, Eva screamed, but no sound came forward.

A young bride stood, dressed in white, tears spilling down her cheeks like black paint.

"Look what we have here," the bride said, smiling from ear to ear. "A city boy. Long way from home, are we? Hope you got your shots."

"Huh?" Dwight grunted, clutching his foot, where the small circle of blood around the rusty nail began to spread like cracks in glass. What started as tingling through the jagged lines of his veins, soon became bulging. The panic came with the sensation of poison consuming the entire foot and, eventually, the entire leg.

All the while, the bride remained motionless in the doorway, apart from her grinning face, turning hangdog in false pity.

Writhing in pain, Dwight hit the deck of the porch, tensing all over as every limb locked up. First his fingers and toes, then wrist and ankles, next elbows and knees. Finally, his jaw. His entire body curled and rose upwards like a twisted rainbow bursting of reds and blues. Until the tension peaked and he collapsed, wooden and lifeless.

Eva looked on as the bride sighed, grabbing Dwight by the leg and sliding his bent corpse inside. In the second it took the door to close, the house caved to ruins and the yard withered to brush.

With no wind, not even a breeze present to take the blame, the flame of the candle was snuffed out, much like Dwight McLean. The only trace of either was a plume of smoke and, soon, that too was gone. And just like that, there was one less newcomer in Woodbury County.