Candle Makers Cabin

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. An ominous candle, that burned constantly without so much as a flicker. Such a strange occurrence was disregarded by most; that is until people of the nearby town discovered that one of the young teens had gone missing in the woods and had not yet returned. The people gathered together and searched the woods; two people even searched that old abandoned cabin, but with no luck, they were forced to give up their search. A few years went by and gradually the people of that town forgot about the missing child, though rumors of that abandoned cabin grew. They warned of devils and fairy tale goblins that lived within that cabin that preyed on young children who carelessly wandered where they were not welcome.

One summer a group of six college graduates decided they would celebrate their graduation with a group campout in the “Haunted Woods” of their hometown. After much preparation, they gathered their supplies and went into the woods to prove their courage. After about an hour of travel, they pitched their tents and started a fire, wherein they began to joke and goof off with one another for the course of a few hours. As the coals began to smolder with their red luster, the eldest of the graduates, a man named “Biff” began a series of “ghost stories” about the “Haunted Cabin” that his father warned him of as a child. After the story had been told, the others decided that finding and entering the cabin would prove which of them was truly the most courageous of the group.

They gathered up a couple of flashlights and as a group began to search the woods for this cabin. After only a couple of minutes, however, they saw a small light in the distance, not far from where they had decided to camp. As they got closer, the light split into what looked like three candles lit on the windowsill of an otherwise dark cabin. Undeterred, Biff plunged ahead of the others and ran straight into the open doorway, merging into the darkness. Steeling up their courage the other five made to enter the cabin, stopping only momentarily to notice what appeared to be a new candle burning slowly in the attic window. Then they all pushed their way through that dark gateway into a small kitchen.

Dust covered the counters and appliances, and a large white cloth lay bare over a small table in the center of the room. The room being too small for all five of them to move comfortably, forced them to split up. John and Cathy went upstairs and Carmen went into the main room in search of Biff. The final two, Sally and Mark, who were the youngest of the group descended downstairs into the cold heart of the basement. No sooner had they reached the bottom of the stairs, when the sound of glass shattering echoed from upstairs, followed by an eerie silence. Figuring it must be some accident the two continued their examination of what appeared to be a large cellar chamber. Wine racks lined most of the walls and strangely, in the center of the room, stood a large stand mirror covered in a white cloth.

Sally went to check out the mirror while Mark noticed an old-fashioned dumbwaiter inset into the corner of the room. As he began to inspect the device, he heard a “creaking” and “whirling” sound as the dumbwaiter began to lower from one of the upstairs rooms down into the cellar. Knowing it must be being operated by one of his friends he waited patiently, until with a soft “thud” it reached the bottom. He opened the door to find… a candle. The wick was already lit and burning, but no wax dripped from the heat of the flame. Upon closer inspection, he noticed for the first time that the candle appeared to be a human body, distorted beyond recognition, as though the body had been twisted around and around at the spine, with the hands bound above its head holding the burning wick. Most disturbing of all was the face, the face was a mask of pure agony and terror, and something about it reminded him of John…. “BOOM” there was a loud crash followed by a scream of terror originating from what must have been somewhere in the attic.

Mark’s heart leaped into his throat as he jumped away from the candle, slamming the dumbwaiter door closed, hiding the unnerving candle within. Terror coursed through his veins as he crashed into Sally who had begun screaming in fear at the sudden outburst of noise from above. They collapsed to the floor shaking and grasping each other close in an attempt to calm their now frayed nerves. The screaming from above had sounded like Cathy, it had only lasted seconds but the silence that followed was deafening. They felt as though their hearts were ramming against their ribcages as though they no longer felt safe inside their prison of bones. Sally’s fear dissolved into a torrent of tears that cascaded down her face, seeping into Mark’s shirt as he held her close.

As Mark’s own fear faded and thought began to flow once more, a furnace of anger blazed within him. Anger directed toward Biff and his uncouth and childish behavior which almost assuredly caused this sudden bout of terror throughout the cabin. He helped Sally to her feet and led her towards the mirror so that she might calm down and clean up her now tear-stained eyes. Still shaking with sobs she lifted her head from the comfort of his chest and gazed into the mirror… and screamed bloody murder!

Supprised Mark held Sally tighter in an attempt to calm her, all of the blood had drained from Sally’s face and she began to fight back with a renewed vengeance. She kicked and clawed at him, desperately trying to escape his grasp, screaming all the while. Mark spared a glance at the mirror, and his blood turned to ice. Large lidless eyes stared back at him from behind his shoulder freezing him in place, two pale, withered arms began to reach past him. One grasped Sally's throat and the other clasped over her mouth, silencing her screams. Mark released his grasp on her and stared in horror as the creature in the mirror began to pull Sally’s head back, back, and back, till her whole body convulsed as her spine neared the point of snapping, her eyes bulged and her skin took on a wax-like texture as Sally’s whole body began to bend backward at an unnatural angle. A scream finally escaped his lungs as he turned and fled up the stairs as fast as his legs would take him.

Mark burst into the kitchen and crashed straight into that small table that occupied the middle of the room… and found himself staring at a new candle, this one depicting a person who had been bent backward and had their chest ripped open, with the wick set inside. The face wore an expression fitting of a man in such a situation, only the face was unmistakable, it was Carmen! She had gone into the main room not minutes before! Mark scrambled back to his feet and dashed out of the cabin into the dead of night. Ice pierced his brain, numbing his senses, whilst fire scorched his veins making it harder and harder to breathe. Onward Mark ran. Pale arms seemed to reach out of the night, tripping him, grasping at his clothes, and tearing into his skin. But he got back up and continued to run, onward, and onward… After what seemed an eternity of running through those seemingly endless fields of Asphodel. Mark finally broke through the treeline and found himself running through the familiar streets of home.

**********

A year went by and rumors spread about a crazy college graduate who returned alone from a group campout, who told stories of nightmares and demons who trapped people in candles of endless torment. The man in question, “Mark Sterling” eventually went mad with grief over the death of one of his friends, “Sally Davis” whom he evidently watched die before his eyes. Officials found Mark strung up in his house in a room full of burning candles on July 4th, 1998. His story spread and the legend grew. Today grandparents and parents alike, scare their children with ghost stories about the terror of the “Candle Maker, in the Haunted Cabin!”