Luciana

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The man who wandered these moonlit woods in the stifling southern heat was startled when he noticed the hint of flickering light. But just as he observed it, a gust of wind caused thick Spanish moss-draped oak branches to sway overhead. The brittle white moss resembled a dense curtain of spider webs, concealing the light behind a flowing barricade.

He told his companion Luciana that he had seen candlelight in the window of a cabin, but she didn’t believe him. These woods were known to be haunted, and Luciana said that nobody would venture out here, especially not to make this ghastly place a home. The man wasn’t even sure why he was there, but this lapse in memory was likely thanks to the bottle of whiskey in his hand, of which he took another swig. His blurred vision led him to stumble over a gnarled root on the woodland floor, where he landed flat on his ass and chuckled. Luciana was not amused.

“I’m positive I saw a candle burning in a cabin window, just down there,” the man said. Luciana responded that there could be no light, as only a fool like him would be anywhere near these woods at midnight. Still, the man felt compelled to follow the pathway towards the enigmatic cabin. They walked further into the forest, the glimmer of stars guiding them as withered leaves crunched underfoot. After some time, Luciana became distraught, insisting that his inebriation had led to delusion, and that perhaps he should pay attention to the ominous shadows that moved deep within the woods instead.

“All the more reason to reach the safety of that cabin,” the man said. He didn’t fully understand it, but he was convinced that something vital was located there. Luciana shouted at him to wait, and her voice shook with fear as she pointed out two warnings gouged into the thick trunk of an oak tree just a few feet ahead of them. The serrated wood was smeared with what appeared to be congealed blood, with one carving spelling out ‘RUN,’ and the other ‘GO BACK.’

But the man looked past the tree without deference because he finally saw the log cabin, around 100 feet ahead, and it seemed such a reprieve from the malevolent woods. The cabin was a modest home but well taken care of, with a wraparound front porch, wicker baskets filled with bluebonnets on the stoop, and a cherry red front door. On either side of the door was an awning window, and now the man could clearly see candlelight shining through the right window. “There, I told you there was a light!” he shouted, sprinting towards the cabin as fast as he could.

Luciana had no choice but to come along, but she screamed, a shriek of pure terror, a guttural sound of pain and grief as the man ran toward the cabin, a sharp contrast to his spirit which soared with hope.

Finally, finally, he had made it, but the man suddenly became confused, and Luciana was silent. Now that they were directly in front of the cabin, it appeared nothing like the image he thought he'd seen before. The cabin’s creaking red door hung halfway off the hinges, slapping against the frame as wind howled across the porch. The cedar logs that made up what remained of the walls were soggy, stuffed full of mold and covered with ivy. The rest of the cabin was blackened and charred. The entire left side of the roof and walls had collapsed and the remnants festered on the forest floor.

There was a candlestick in the window, but it was not lit. No, he remembered now, it had not been lit for years. The moon and stars beamed off the thick muddied water of a small pond near the cabin, splashing a mirage of dancing and flickering light onto the window. As he looked around the field, there were dozens more messages carved deep into tree trunks. ‘LEAVE NOW,’ ‘HIDE,’ ‘SAVE YOURSELF.’

He remembered now. Luciana was the one who had told him to carve these messages into the trees. All this time, she had been speaking of dark shadows and haunted woods so that he would not come back here, to the place of real horror. She had been trying to protect him- not from the woods, but from himself.

Oh god, he remembered now. He remembered years ago, his wife Luciana lighting candles in all of the windows before placing a steaming platter of salmon, rice, and vegetables on the table where he and their three children sat waiting. The family dug into the meal while the children vied for attention, each of their stories more extravagant than the last. He washed down his meal with a strong glass of whiskey, annoyed at the sound of the children’s loud chatter. Luciana smiled as she listened, but yawned while rubbing her protruding belly, more tired than usual due to the baby growing in her womb. He was also tired from working incessantly to provide for all of them, and terrified that this small cabin would soon contain six people. He poured his fourth drink of the night, sloshing a bit onto the table, and the children cast wary looks at one another. He chugged the viscous liquid and it burned as it flowed down his throat, then he slammed the empty glass down on the table.

“What are you looking at,” he slurred, and the children ran upstairs to bed. Luciana sighed and cleared off the table, then made her way upstairs after she kissed his cheek and asked him to blow out the candles before bed. He grunted in agreement. Once she was finally upstairs and he was alone, he grabbed the whiskey bottle and stepped outside for a nighttime stroll. He enjoyed wandering aimlessly through the woods on these summer nights, draining the rest of the drink with no judgment from his family. His eyes may be fuzzy, his gait wobbly, but at least his mind was cleared, and for a brief time he could be free from the burdens of life.

On that night, many years ago, he fell asleep on the forest floor, and woke later to the sound of thunder and thick droplets of rain slapping against his face. He remembered how he had stumbled back home, where he found the cabin half destroyed by fire, dark pungent smoke still billowing out of the gaping hole where the roof and upstairs rooms had once been. His family was inside, but they made no sound. No laughter, no loud chatter, no screams. All that was left of them was their bones. He had forgotten to put out the candles before his walk. The storm had extinguished the fire on one side of the cabin but the rest was destroyed. A candle had slipped off the windowsill and lit the hem of a thick curtain in the dining area, engulfing the entire home in flames.

Now, as he presently stared at the slag and decay, he howled into the night and retched as the sickness of the loss filled him up again. Why had he come here? The sound of Luciana’s voice in his head had tried to stop him, as it always did. He stared into the window on the front porch where the candlestick stood and glimpsed his reflection. He knew what he was about to see, as he had seen it every night for years. Half of his head was blown off, including his left eye, and dark clotted blood combined with grey brain matter was splattered across the side of his face that remained. He reached up to touch his head, and his fingers slipped through transparent skin to the other side. The shotgun he had used the night of the fire still lay in a pile of ash next to his skeleton.

How could he have forgotten the worst and last day of his life? How could he have forgotten the voice of his darling wife, his internal influence of protection and intuition? Now, he finally conceded as she told him once again that it was time to leave, and he vowed to listen to her forevermore. They walked away from the cabin, Luciana silent, back into the darkness of the woods. Once far enough away from his torture, the man finished the remains of the whiskey bottle in order to help him forget- just for tonight, just one last time. He fell asleep on a carpet of leaves, Spanish moss swaying overhead.

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but the next night, and every night afterward, the man saw a candle burning in the window.