Rogue Candle

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window…”

Dad took in a deep breath of cleansing, mountain air for dramatic effect and opened his eyes wide to increase the tension, even though he felt relaxed. They’re sitting in a clearing in the woods at midnight. Dad is whittling a stick with a Bowie knife out of impotent nervousness.

Timothy, the oldest of the triplets, still wearing his backpack, cuts his dad’s story off by loudly slapping his own forehead while groaning. His brother, Adam, rolls his eyes back so much that his retinas disappear. Mike pretends to snore, triggering The Triplets to chortle together. Dad waits silently for someone to explain the interruption with an impatient, icy glare, reflecting fire.

“Mosquitos?”

“No. It’s just… I’ve seen this kind of movie like a 100 times,” admits Timothy, picking at his fangs with a pine-needle.

“I thought you liked scary stories?” says Dad.

“It’s not a movie and it’s not scary enough,” says Adam, itching his gills, as he passes a canteen to Mike. Mike smirks as they elbow each other.

“You don’t think the woods are scary, son?” Dad quizzes.

“We’re here.” Says Mike, taking a swig and cracking the knuckles in all three of his hands. “We’re not scared of Citronella candles. Just bloodsuckahz, yo!”

“Buck up, we’re all brave little campers, John. We’re not babies,” Tim bragged.

“Okay, Hugh Glass, I hope you can find your way out of here yourselves,” says Dad. “Be sure to put out that fire I made you. Or say hello to Smokey the Bear.”

Dad gets up and turns to walk away into the dark, sylvan maze. The triplets all jump toward him, simultaneously reaching for the man and pleading for him not to leave them alone. After only a few steps, he snorts, turns back, and rejoins the campfire. The boy’s eyes are welling up with tears of panic.

“Kids, shhhhhh, I know we are a 100 miles from the nearest town, but you can’t make that kind of noise. You never know what’s out here. Let alone how close it is. Do you boys think I would EVER leave you?”

The triplets look around as if to feign that they aren’t thinking the exact same thing.

“Kids, listen. I am trying …working creatively…to be the best and most mindful Dad I can be. That’s why we are on this trip. To demonstrate you how much I love you. Understand?”

“You’ve never taken us on a trip before,” considers Adam.

“Weird timing, right?” Mike thinks out loud.

“Right after…you know…” suggests Tim.

“KIDS!” Dad shouts. His voice echoes though the mountains for a few seconds. The Triplets all place a finger over their lips to signal to Dad to control his volume.

“Sorry.” Dad apologizes. “What do you want to do? Kids”

“Watch horror movies.” Mike hisses, sweetly.

“We are out of cell range.” Dad explains. “Even if I hadn’t taken away all of your phones, you wouldn’t be able to watch any streaming movies on your android out here.”

“We downloaded them onto the device beforehand,” admits Tim.

“No phones. Period. I’m not going to sleep! You are! We can watch the stars. We can tell jokes. We can tell ghost stories which I wanted to do in the first place. Or, we can just go to sleep and start heading back tomorrow if ‘God’s Country’ isn’t cool enough for you. I mean, your generation just doesn’t appreciate the Power of Mother Nature or the Imagination. You don’t even know what you want.”

“Ok, Boomer!” Says Adam.

“I’m Generation X, dude. We invented integrity.” Says Dad

“Is that why we’re broke, John?” says Tim

“Your generation wanted your MTV,” says Mike. “We want our horror flicks, John!”

“DON’T JUDGE ME!,” yells Dad as he glares silently at all three of them. He bites his tongue until it bleeds and the triplets break eye-contact. The echoes seem to last forever.

“Would have saved more money and time if I had just taken you to the drive-in,” says Dad. “But we’re here now and we aren’t leaving until all three of you are scared half out of your wits by the Spirits of the Forest! Now grab all of your sleeping bags. We’re going to take a tour of the stars first!”

The triplets unroll their bags and flop onto their backs to gaze up at the starry Pacific-Northwest sky. Dad places the Bowie knife he has been whittling with on a rock precariously next to the campfire. Flames lick the blade of the knife.

“Around Halloween, like now, if you look into Northeastern sky you can see an M-shaped constellation. Right there, that’s Cassiopeia. Now, hop over next to her and that’s Perseus. Off to the right is Algol. The Demon Star. The Gorgon’s Head. It represents Medusa. The star twinkles like a candle every three days,” says Dad.

“That’s because it’s a binary star-system. They spin around each other. One hides the other for a little while every other day. Genius, right?” Says Dad.

“It’s three suns in one system, John,” says Tim. Mike and Adam guffaw together.

“I’m just getting started. You have to look for deeper meanings and associations with stars. That star is one linked to treason and ideological takeovers. Heads of State. Decapitation. Genetic mutations. Plastic surgery. Impotence. Exorcising demons. Monsters inside our head—”

“I heard they found Rogue Planets out there,” says Tim.

“Road plan?” Asks Dad. “You getting brave again, you want to go on an adventure?” The triplets chuckle.

“ROGUE PLANET, JOHN!” yells Adam.

“Unbound!” yells Mike

“Interstellar!” yells Tim.

“Nomad! Wanderer! CALL ME WHAT YOU WILL!” The Triplets sing together and mime an air guitar solo to an ancient heavy metal hit from the 1990s.

“SHHHHHHH!” Shushed Dad. “Keep your voices down, we’re not in a bar.”

“Yeah, there’s ‘BARS’ in them-there in the woods,” jokes Adam.

“Rogue planet! It’s a planet that escapes its parent system,” clarifies Tim.

“Who told you that?” asks Dad.

“Mom,” says Mike. “In 2020, when the scientists first detected one. She was interested in more than the just the Rule of Law. Right before she died.”

“They move fast,” smiled Adam. “Rogue Planets are gnarly.”

“Like around 30 million miles per hour,” Tim points out.

“Some are three times the size of Earth, just hurling through the soundless void,” contemplates Mike.

“Does space have a smell?” wonders Adam.

“Yes. Some say hot metal. Some say burnt meat,” states Tim.

“I don’t have a sense of smell, or taste,” says Dad.

“Yeah, we know.” Adam says as he passes a canteen filled with moonshine over to Mike without having to hide his breath. They elbow each other in the dark and burp without fear of consequence.

“Okay, smart alecks! You think you’re so edgy, why don’t each one of you tell me a ghost story,” says Dad.

“Allow me to start?” Says Tim.

Dad genuflects in front of the flickering firelight on his back.

“Go, Mr. Fireside Chat!” Dad whispers, as if reminding everyone to keep it quiet.

“Okay. It was a dark and stormy night…” says Tim.

“Genius,” says Dad.

“Boring,” says Adam. “I’m going to water the ivy over in the dark. Everything is so dry. Hit pause until we come back, Tim!“

Adam stands up with his canteen and winks at Mike.

“I’m going with you,” says Mike, cryptically.

“You, Tim, will stay and start the story without them. There are no VHS machines in the woods. In the 70s and 80s, if you missed something, you missed it. You had to commit to the time and be in the moment.”

“Ok, John.”

“Stop with the John! Start calling me Dad from now on!” He whispers to The Triplets, frustrated.

“Don’t wander too far and get back here in five minutes,” insists John to Adam and Mike.

Mike and Adam sprint into the ring of trees without their flashlight and disappear.

“Ok, Tim,” John says. “Continue with the story. I’m listening.”

“I just thought of another one,” says Tim. “I’m going to riff off of your earlier opening line and make it up from there.”

“That’s using your Imagination, Tim. Roll the tape!”

"The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years," says Tim, "but one night, a candle burned in the window…um…the man and his three boys could see the light of the candle from their house across a narrow valley. It was only walking distance. The boys snuck out of the house one night, as dad went to bed early and slept deeply, as he had no sense of smell or taste and was hard of hearing.”

Out in the wilderness, a wolf howls. It sounds close.

“Did you hear that,” says Dad, sitting up and looking toward the gloomy tree-line. “Adam? Mike?”

“When the three boys arrived at the cabin," Tim continues, "they realized that the candle was there for someone’s family member who was away. Maybe they abandoned everyone. Maybe they just went missing. One of the brothers found a journal under a floor board that answered most of their questions.”

Multiple wolves howl, echoing through the mountain.

“KIDS! Get back here now!” John says, not listening to Tim’s story.

“The journal explained how she had been attacked by her own husband after she accused him of systematic abuse, drugged, and forced her to have the three unlucky, deformed children she couldn’t afford to have but he wanted because he was impotent. She was imprisoned in the cabin for months while he lied to the public and told the authorities that she had abandoned the family. Wandered off. Ghosted.”

“Tim, be quiet.” Warned John as the howling grows closer.

“The Man told his wife that he planned to make money off of the children, and that she was expendable. The journal ends there. Then the boys found her head …IN A PICKLE JAR!”

“Tim, shut-up for a second!” Says John, staring into the moonless, godless timber void.

“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?” Tim shouted, standing up and holding up his backpack.

“Tim, we might be in very, real danger here…That sounds like a bar…I mean a bear?”

“JOHN! It’s high time that we untether ourselves from the System!”

Tim picks up the Bowie knife from the rock by the fire pit. The blade is glowing orange with heat. Damned, unseen things, loud and fast and growling, rush toward them in the woods from both sides of the clearing. John shakes his head, stuck between fight or flight, immobile. Paralyzed.

Wielding the hot blade, Tim cuts the backpack open with a flourish of his arm. Rusty sparks fly off as the canvas rips open. A human head, with long blonde hair, drops out of the pack and rolls toward the fire. John screams as the two creatures crash out of the bushes, fast, roaring with the voices they learned by playing football and watching drive-in horror films for years. Their metal-mouths wide, teeth with wired-braces bared, and wearing sleeping-bags over their eyes. It’s Mike and Adam. Adam tackles John and knocks him to the ground. Mike takes a swing of moonshine, climbs on John and starts tickling him, while burping in his face. Wolf and bear sound effects continue to roar from their cell phones. Their battle noise melts into shared laughter fast as their sleeping bags slip off their heads. Gruffly cackling, they turn their gaze to Tim’s silhouette in front of the dying fire. He waves a red-hot knife at them.

“You guys ruined my campfire story. Look at all the work I put into this head.” Tim points to the head next to the fire with the red Bowie.

“We told you to wait for us,” reminded Adam.

“Wow, son,” exclaims Dad, calmly. “You put a lot of creativity and imagination into this fake decapitated noggin. It looks just like Mom’s.”

“And,” says Tim, “I made it out of ingredients from Mother Nature. Latex from tree sap, a wig from Goodwill for the hair, wood alcohol… for the smell, a real skull! Authenticity!”

“That’s… freakin’ scary, Tim,” John gasped, catching his breath. “Great craftsmanship. Adam, turn off your phone, please. It’s nice to be out here in nature enjoying moments like this, with…you…three. We wouldn’t have had the money to travel this far if you didn’t help me with the…you know…magic disappearing act. And if it wasn’t for your Mom, we wouldn’t be able to afford to go on trips like this to, y’know… bond together… over our… creative work.”

“We’re on the lamb,” reminded Tim.

“From the Law,” Adam jumps in.

“Like Ali MacGraw...,” Mike rhymes.

“Okay, filmmakers, stop the Hip-Hop! I’ll grant you your prank badges, but you haven’t learned how to tell a story. You have what it takes, but it’s not just jump scares. If it wasn’t for your Collective Imaginations, we wouldn’t have been able to get rid of Mrs. Just-Ice-Potpourri-Cinnamin-flippin’-Citronella-Pumpkin-Spice The Candle-Lady in such innovative ways. I mean, with the snake pit, the pig pen, the tallow shop, a lake, and an incinerator? Geniuses! Wizards, all three of you… mon …Excuse me…MAN…sters! I am so proud of you three. But you have to learn how to scare people with a story—“ John’s eyes get misty.

Suddenly, John hears something unexpected.

A tiny, red, flickering dot, about the size of firefly, zig-zags through the trees accompanied by a high-pitched buzz. It grows louder quickly.

“What’s that noise?” John says, pointing toward the dim wisp zipping their direction.

A white candle floats by itself through the thicket towards them, its flame changing from red to orange, and by degrees to yellow. A wind begins to blow embers of the dying campfire-pit out into the dry grass. Tiny flare-ups ignite around them like red flowers.

“Anyone noticing that we are all about to burn? Should we have a meeting? John doesn’t understand our language. We need to move fast! I don’t think he can protect us.”

John jumps in front of the Triplets and behind the fire-pit, squinting at the shifting shadows. He unknowingly kicks Tim’s special-effects head into the campfire-coals.

The head goes up in flames fast. The tree-sap latex burns and melts away, revealing the remaining skull smiling maniacally within a mini fire-tornado in the pit.

The translucent, luminous figure of a woman, drifts slowly, ominously out of the pines and draped in flowing judges robes towards the petrified, male rogues. The air fills with the smell of a potpourri candle. Cinnamon. And burning flesh and bone.

John runs back around and cowers behind The Triplets.

Tim rips the canteen away from Adam takes a huge swig of Ghost-Pepper-Moonshine and holds it in his mouth. Mike is frozen in fear.

With ever gaping mouths and widening eyes, The Triplets face the headless, glowing visage of their murdered Mother as she draws ever closer in the trembling air. In her left arm, she holds a candle which blazes like an emergency road torch. In her right arm, she holds out her phantom head; crimson viscera oozing out of the stump, haloed by a cloud of mosquitos, wasps, and hornets. Snakes, flies, and worms writhe around her crown.

Mom’s head gazes at The Triplets and John and widens her eyes, giving them the ‘Mom-look’ they always disliked when she caught them being monsters.

Tim closes his eyes, and wishes on a star, swishing the moonshine around in his mouth to clean his fangs, and forked tongue taste-buds… and to meditate.

He chooses the star in his mind to meditate on.

Algol. Oops, that one’s bad luck.

Then he hears popping sounds next to him.

Tim regrets peeking at his brothers instantly.

Adam and Mike’s eyes burst forth like exploding grapes in a microwave. The fire pit sizzles as bits of eye-gore land in the red embers and bubble like the lost s'more a girl scout dropped into the coals.

“Don’t reach for it, because maaaaan… it’s gone,” Thought Tim, forgetting to swallow the fire-swill in his mouth.

Almost laughing at his internal joke, Tim involuntarily spits out the acidic moonshine and the dry, grassy clearing around them ignites into an inferno. Tim looks one last time at the ghost of his Mother, and then, The Triplets, turn into anthropomorphic pillars of stone.

John had already vanished split-seconds beforehand; dissolved by the cleansing, flickering, blood-red light of the apparition. Only now, John’s shadow is seared into the mountain rocks, cowering forever behind the three stone pillars.

Mom, The Mother, and The Judge, rises into the air above the clearing in the woods. Mrs. Eris John Law, her deep, vengeful eyes wide like storm-windows reflecting moonlight and red lightning, shrieks like a banshee, and wakes up everything, living and dead, within 100 miles.

Then, all the stars go dark.