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.

Something terrible had happened at the camp one fateful night that caused the camp to shut down, and Samantha just so happened to be a camper there when it happened. Now she forces herself to stay awake in her dream house across from the site of the worst night of her life. She doesn’t blame her boyfriend though, as she never told him anything about her childhood at Camp Wildwood. Honestly, she didn’t think it would bother her that much as she had been through therapy and she felt as though she had grown up and moved on. After all, she is and was a survivor. However, since they moved in Sam has been having some…issues with sleep. Since the first week at the new house Sam has been struggling with sleep paralysis, an issue that she hasn’t had since she was a child. She hates it. She hates him. She hates that he’s back when she can’t move or scream but only lay there unable to move and want to scream for help but powerless to get even a whimper to draw from her diaphragm. She tries to stay awake as long as she can now. The witching hours spent catching up on what her boyfriend calls “junk television”, but she likes it and she likes that the drama of reality shows can keep her attention enough that hours seem to pass by effortlessly. Besides, it’s her only chance to watch her shows without hearing how dumb it is from a peanut gallery. Her record currently is two days without sleep. Eventually, though, Sam does fall asleep, it is inevitable. And when she does, day or night, he’s there. Elated to see her every time.

Sam takes another drag from her cigarette and stares at the light coming from the cabin. Teenagers, she assumed. It was about 3:15 in the morning on a gloomy Saturday night nearing Halloween so it was safe to place her wager on teenagers checking the place out. They’re likely drinking, smoking, making out, maybe more; “oh to be a teenager again”, Sam thought to herself. Breaking into forbidden places and doing things you shouldn’t be doing with such gusto, drawn to the sense of danger. That’s a life she barely got to live but when she did live it, she dialed it up to an eleven. The things we do to cope with trauma. Sam took a final drag from her cigarette and flicked it into the dewy grass just in front of her. She fixed her boyfriends’ zip up hoodie to better fit her by zipping it up more as she was beginning to feel a chill. Sam sat for a moment, contemplating having another cigarette but decided against it. She turned and began to walk back to the back door. As she neared the door she could hear the stillness of the night and small waves coming and lightly rushing the beach, she could hear deer or some other woodland creatures scurry through the woods, but she realized what she couldn’t hear was the sound of teenagers having fun.

“Weird”, she thought. On such a still night she would most definitely be hearing banter coming from the other side of the lake. When teenagers have been in that cabin before she could without a doubt hear commotion, whether it be the laughter outside of the cabin, music coming from a stereo, or the noises of a couple of high school sweethearts sneaking in for a romantic rendezvous. Sam has heard it ALL coming from across the lake in just the few short months that they’ve lived there. But tonight, just an unbearable silence and that light. “It has to be coming from inside of the cabin.”, Sam says to herself out loud as she stares across the lake trying to make sense of it. She slowly marches herself from the back patio across the patch of grass to the edge of the water. She watches the light flicker and dance. “It’s a small fire? Maybe?”, she tells herself.

Samantha has a sudden memory of candles in the cabins of Camp Wildwood, some children used them at night as a source of light. It was terribly unsafe but the camp director thought it created a sense of wonderment or ambiance; some bullshit like that. Sam stared at the candlelight flickering about in the cabin and fought back tears.

“Who would do this?”

“Is someone messing with me?”

“Am I going crazy?”

Sam wanted desperately to ignore it but she was drawn to it. She rationalized that it could start a wildfire and needed to be extinguished. She walked to the dock and got in the small paddle boat that her and her boyfriend often used for star gazing in the middle of the lake on the better nights that they’ve had when she wasn’t consumed by the fear of it nearing bedtime. Sam began her way through the pitch black only guided by the small flame of a candle burning in the distance. “Like a moth to the flame.” She scolded herself.

The last time Sam had set foot on the grounds of Camp Wildwood she was fleeing with just a few other kids from neighboring cabins. Sam felt a weight getting heavier on her chest with each stroke of the oar in the lake. In her head she can still hear the screams and cries for help and it felt so real to her, it began to sound as though they were coming from the woods in the distance surrounding the cabin. Momentary flashes of that night drew panic into Sam, a panic she had spent years burying deep in the recesses of her mind.

Sam found herself unconsciously taking slow deep breaths to bring herself back to reality. For a moment she stopped paddling and sat quietly in the boat. A few tears streaked down her face and she explained to herself that she is simply far too tired and that’s obviously making her emotional. She didn’t want to go home for fear that all this may have been a little too exhausting for her and she would fall asleep on the couch watching her shows and he would show his face. She couldn’t stand the thought of going through all this just to turn back and look into his beady black eyes and feel the heat of his breath coming from his stupid fucking grin while she laid there helpless. Sometimes his teeth made a chattering noise if he got excited about the misery he was causing her. The worst was when he would lean in as if inspecting her pain and trauma and she would get a combination of chattering, stare, and hot breath up close and personal.

Samantha began talking to herself as if she was sitting across from her therapist.

“Maybe this is something I need to do in order to move on?”, she told herself.

“I know I haven’t verbalized it since moving in but this really sucks, like…really.”, Samantha reaches into the hoodie pocket and pulls out her pack of cigarettes and draws herself one from the pack.

She fumbles around again in the pocket and eventually pulls out her lighter and shakily brings the flame to her mouth and pulls a deep drag lighting up the tip with a bright orange glow. She exhales, “Okay, I get it, I probably need to confront this head on. Make my peace and then I can finally get a good night’s rest. Hopefully. Maybe. Probably. Right?”

Taking another drag from her cigarette, “I WAS A FUCKING KID.”

“This is really stupid, I’m over this. I’m an adult now and this, all THIS [waving her hands around frantically] is just ridiculous.”

“I need to go in there and see that it’s just a broke down cabin that teenagers party in now, maybe the occasional cat sacrifice from some weirdos happen in there, I don’t know, but mostly a teenage spot which I am fine with. I will go in and see empty beer cans, some beat to hell old furniture, some graffiti, food wrappers, and maybe a pentagram, or chicken bones. I will say out loud that this is fine, this is what it is now and I can move on with my life.”

Samantha decisively points at the light coming from the cabin, “That’s probably just an old dying flashlight that some kid left there earlier tonight or something. I’m just tired and dramatic.”

Samantha nodded in agreement with herself and finished only half of her cigarette before picking up the paddles again. Sam couldn’t help but to wonder as she drew closer to the shore of the old, abandoned camp, what if she was doing something stupid? Anyone could be at the cabin this time of night, what if it was some drifter in there looking for a safe, hidden place to crash after just murdering a family in town? What if it was the weirdos there sacrificing a cat? Is she a lamb to the slaughter? Should she go wake her boyfriend up and make him come investigate? That’s what she would have done if the boat hadn’t run aground of the shore to the old camp.

As the boat sat safely at its destination Samantha remained anxiously in the boat gripping the oar tight and darting her eyes in the direction of any bump in the night. She berated herself in a loud whisper, “This is crazy. CRAZY. What am I even doing?!”

Sam took a deep breath and told herself she needed to do this and now is as good a time as any. She is no longer tired, reinvigorated from this adrenaline rush so she should soldier on but definitely bringing the oar for protection. Sam hopped out of the boat and dragged it more onto the land to make sure she had a way home when this was all over with. As she marched a slight upward slope she could see the dilapidated cabin straight away, and there, in the window, was a lit candle. Samantha stopped dead in her tracks and looked around to ensure she was alone on the old campgrounds. Her stomach twisting in knots, she began to feel sick…her anxiety. Why was there a candle in the window? Is whoever lit it still there? Is this safe?

Samantha then thought to herself how dumb it was that she forgot to grab her cellphone before her voyage at sea. Her breathing rapid, she began to feel her knees turn into gelatin and her vision was becoming a tunnel. She was flooded with anxiety and her heart felt like someone was reaching into her chest and ever so slightly squeezing it and whenever the grip was released her heart would pump expeditiously to catch up with itself. The woods began to sway as she fought off a dizzy spell. She could swear she heard running in the woods and small voices calling her name with a tone of desperation. Samantha closes her eyes to try to collect herself but in an odd twist can feel heat on her face so she opens her eyes again and takes a knee, which in turn, becomes a seat in the damp muddy leaves just off the waters coast. Samantha practices some calming breaths and when she begins to feel her heart slow down and regain control she tells herself, “This is fine, you are fine. This is the here and now. You’re an adult and you can do this. You need to do this.”

As she repeats this mantra the noise, the heat, and the anxiety begins to slowly fade away. She no longer hears voices, but can now hear fish jumping in the lake, and a calm from the surrounding nature. The heat replaced with the chill October air. She still feels a little anxiety but that’s to be expected when lurking around abandoned campgrounds in the middle of the night. Sam uses the oar to pull herself back up and thinks to herself that that would have been a good time if any for a murderer, or satanic cult to make their move if they were in that cabin. It’s probably safe? Still…the oar.

Sam swung the oar over her shoulder and carried on toward the cabin. The candle was likely a romantic gesture by some high school junior trying to get lucky from his girlfriend that’s barely a freshman and likely not ready to see the goings on of this cabin for a couple more years. She probably shot him down and demanded he take her home and in haste forgot to blow the candle out. Just keeping the forest safe from a fire while also exorcising some past trauma. Then she saw it. Right next to the door leading into the cabin was the cabin’s number. Seventeen. This was it. This was her cabin. All this time, all those cigarettes smoked while staring across the lake and it was her old cabin she was gawking at. She could feel her emotions swell. This cabin should not be standing. How? Of all the cabins this is the last one standing?

The oar clanked onto the ground and Samantha lost herself in her memories. She loved this camp. She made so many wonderful memories for the few summers that she got to stay. Camp Wildwood was one of the few places that she felt accepted for being an odd kid. She was an awkward, and nerdy girl and she had friends here. She was “Sam Sam” to her friends and counselors, and for a month each summer she felt happy. Sam was overcome with emotion but felt that she needed this. She was finally coming to terms with what happened that night. What, for years, she told herself wasn’t her fault but ultimately knew was her fault. She was responsible for the deaths of nearly fifty kids, despite the final investigation in the matter stating it was an unfortunate accident. Camp Wildwood shutdown after the incident and so did Sam.

Sam knew what she had to do. Even if that candle was lit by a kid just looking to get lucky earlier tonight, she knows now that it’s the universe telling her it’s time to forgive herself. It was time for Sam to recognize what happened and to move forward.

Sam collected herself and pushed open the door to the cabin. What she saw on the other side of that door was not what she expected at all. From the outside the cabin was barely hanging on for dear life, but the inside looked like nothing had occurred at all. Did the kids that hangout in here renovate it? What the hell is going on? She felt like she was Sam Sam again, it was just like stepping into a memory. The smell of cedar, bug spray, and whatever cheap laundry soap the camp used filled Sam’s senses. Sam walked towards the window that she could see from her house and there was a candle burning nearly to its end in an old tin candle holder on the windowsill just like when she was a camper. Curious, Sam picked the candle up and gave it a once over with her eyes. It had to be a remnant from the old camp. She took the candle and used it to light up parts of the cabin. She felt a sense of dread as she illuminated the cabin. In the dark the cabin appeared to be in disrepair but as the light hit it appeared as though it had been locked in the past, all except for the bed she stood next to. The bed right next to the window was unscathed in light and dark. She brought the candle closer to the bed and saw scratched into the wood of the headboard S.O.S.

“No way.”, Samantha looked in disbelief.

These were Sam’s initials that she herself had carved into the bed. It was her calling card as a child. She did it to every headboard each year at camp. Sam sat on her old bed and felt the soft mattress underneath her. It felt just like when she was a kid a camp, Sam noticed that even the bedding was the same and the bed was neatly made just like her days at camp. Hospital corners and everything! This was getting very weird. Maybe it was just a coincidence? The bed, the candle, the sheets; there must be an explanation. Could her bed have survived the night? Maybe the teens found an old supply cabin that is still around and got the mattress and sheets from that.

Setting the candle down on the nightstand, Sam slowly traced her initials with the tip of her finger and smiled ever so slightly. She was a kid. What happened was awful but she didn’t mean for it to happen. It was an accident. Everyone that she explained what happened that night tells her that it was just a tragic accident. The camp director, the cops, the fire inspector, her parents, everyone that knows her story. They have all forgiven her and now its time to forgive herself. Finally.

A smile grows on Sam’s face as she lifts the candle up to her face. The light dances on her features making her look quite sinister, like when they would tell campfire stories to each other way past bedtime in this very cabin. She watched the flame flick around for a few moments and felt a sense of comfort and acceptance melt over her. The heat from the candle kissing her cheeks and the tip of her nose felt lovely instead of horrifying. “I’m sorry.”, she said to herself as she drew in a deep breath and blew towards the flame.

Nothing.

The flame simply fluttered about but did not go out.

Sam looked a bit confused but blamed her smoking habit and gave it another strong blow.

Still nothing. The candle, being stubborn, seemed to simply dance in delight at her attempt to extinguish it.

Do they make trick candles this big? Is that why whoever lit it didn’t put it out?

Sam drew in a very deep breath and blew as hard as she could for as long as she could and still the flame danced. Sam let out a frustrated grunt and set the candle back down. She licked the tips of her pointer and her thumb and set out to snuff the candle. Upon pinching the wick in between her spit lathered fingertips she heard a slight hiss and a plume of smoke rose from the candle. Satisfied, Sam stared off.

Without the light of the candle the cabin was now only lit by the little light breaking through the clouds from the moon. As fast as Sam stood up to leave she quickly sat back down on the bed. Feeling lightheaded from her many failed attempts to snuff out the old candle Sam decided it might be best to take a moment before standing up again, as she didn’t want to pass out on the floor of the old cabin. She found it best to lay down in her old camp bed just to for a minute or two in order to collect herself before getting up and heading home. The pillow had just the right amount of fluff and the bed felt like she was sinking in since the mattresses were kind of cheap at camp, but Sam liked it. It was like being brought in for a gentle hug, one that she hadn’t felt in so many years. She felt like a weight had been lifted from her, she could finally move on with her life.

Then in the corner of her eye she could see a couple sparks flick from the wick of the candle. That damn trick candle was at it again, trying to reignite itself. A few crackles and a couple more sparks lit up the cabin ever so slightly until there was a warm glow breaching the darkness surrounding her. Annoyed, Sam went to turn her head to look at the newly lit candle and thought she would just throw it in the lake this time but something was wrong. Sam could not turn her head to look at the candle, she could only see it from the corner of her eye. Sam found she couldn’t move AT ALL.

“What is happening?”

“Why can’t I move?!” her thoughts raced.

Then it hit her. She had fallen asleep in her old bed. It was happening again. She couldn’t believe it, Sam thought for sure everything she had just put herself through would have finally stopped him from coming to her ever again. She had freed herself, she had forgiven herself, why was she dealing with this? Sam felt a new level of frustration. She just wanted to live her life, she wanted to scream out of panic and frustration but could barely move her jaw enough to let out a few quiet indiscernible mumbles. Then she heard it. The chattering of his teeth.

Overwhelmed, tears began streaking down the corner of her eyes. His fingertip felt clammy and sharp, as if it was leaving a grease streak down her cheek as it played with her tears. His hand reached for her chin with its stretched blackened fingers and turned her head towards his direction. She could see him crouched down next to the glow of her candle. Its eyes were the darkest they had ever been in her memory, almost a matte black as there was no sheen reflecting off. All except for the small bead of white right in the middle of each eyeball staring deep into Sam’s soul. His grin was unbearably big, outstretched beyond any normal friendly smile. This was a sinister smile with teeth big, clunky, and decayed. The chatter that they made when it was excited to see her suffering seemed to echo in the stillness of nothing surrounding Camp Wildwood. Sam, inches from its face and could see the glow from the candle illuminating her initials carved into the bed, S.O.S, how ironic she thought. He brought its hands around the flame of her candle almost like it was playing with its blaze, making it flicker and move at his will. Then he brought his hands around the candle, interlocking its fingers, almost to shield the light from her face and creating something of a stage light for itself to be highlighted as if it were about to narrate a spooky monologue from her life’s play.

Behind him Sam could see movement, almost as if the cabin was coming to life. The wall behind him looked as though it had snakes or worms slithering all over it and then they began to reveal themselves. Tiny hands pushed through the walls, and in each childlike hand clutched a candle in tin holder. The candles began to ignite in a manner like dominoes collapsing upon each other until the room was lit by nearly fifty candles. She knew what they were, or WHO they were. These were the hands of all the kids that suffered that night. These were the hands of the children that cried for help only to never receive it. It pained Sam to see them, they had been suffering all these years and she never thought about that.

Sam looked at him and began to cry, snot running down the side of her face and slobber pooling at her chin. She understood now, the ramifications of that night. She was just a kid, but she was far worse than the monster that sat in front of her now. She looked upon its eyes and she remember now what had happened. How it happened, not just what she told people, but the truth about that night. It had been so long since she thought about the truth that she began to believe her story of what transpired that night as gospel. She would tell people she must have been sleepwalking and she had no memory of anything that happened, but deep down, locked away behind a lie she knows the truth.

Camp Wildwood wasn’t filled with fond summer memories as she had been telling herself. It was a nightmare each summer. Sam was bullied mercilessly for being awkward and weird by both the kids and the counselors and her parents always assumed she was just being “dramatic” when she would complain each summer about having to go. This was going to be the last summer for Camp Wildwood one way or another she thought to herself. She thought about it all summer while attempting to dodge her daily abuse. So wrought with anger and fear Sam spent her nights at camp laying in her bed…planning. Then one night she forced herself to stay awake until the camp was still. It must’ve been around three in the morning when she felt like the other campers were sleeping. She snuck to the supply cabin that the counselors often left unlocked out of their own sheer apathy for the jobs and searched for something to put the plan in motion. She grabbed two cans of kerosene and a book of matches. Young Sam slinked into each cabin in the darkness of night and poured kerosene around each bed of the campers leading a line to the foot of the door. She stole the fire extinguisher hung near the door of each cabin for good measure and threw them in a pile in the woods. She went back to her cabin and grabbed her candle on her nightstand, lit it with the matches and used it to torch as many cabins as she could. Kids began screaming and chaos ensued. When some campers were able to make it out running for help Sam followed suit acting like she had been caught in the confusion and mayhem. When it had all settled the camp was closed by the community as parents were outraged by the events and the deaths of the children. They questioned the safety of the camp and how the personnel did the bare minimum to keep their children safe. No one would ever give the camp a dime to restore and reopen and it remained as it was left to slowly collapse and become a forgotten relic. Sam would never have to go back to Camp Wildwood. Until tonight.

Now she laid helpless in her old bed, unable to move from her sleep paralysis. Her heart feeling that grip on it again, she could feel the heat coming from the room as flames began to engulf her surroundings. Her legs searing in pain as the fire climbs up the footboard of the bed onto the cheap mattress and bedding. A smell permeates the room. A smell that is a familiar memory for Samantha, the smell of flesh and hair beginning to burn. Her lungs scorched as the smoke and fire fills them. For years Sam was only sorry for what she had to go through, she had forgiven herself for years but refused to take ownership towards the events of what actually occurred, she knows this now and this is her penance.

A wind cut through the window of the cabin whipping the flames around and creating a rumble and roar. Samantha watched as the gust snuffed out the candles of the kids that she had murdered, the hands and candles that had grown from the wall ashed, embered, and blew into the surrounding blaze.

Yet her candled remained, protected by his hands. Its toothy grin chattered and the little beads of white in its eyes reflected the orange glow of her candle. Samantha could only watch as its smile slowly sank away and for a moment they stared at each other expressionless. His eyes began to slowly look upon her candle and back towards her. The wax of her candle drawing near its end, his smile grew back upon his face. His eyes pierced into her own as it drew in a breath and blew out her candle. Sam could see how weak her flame had been this entire time, she watched as the string of grey smoke climbed to the rafters of the cabin. Samantha, feeling a sense of euphoria upon its release, shut her eyes in an almost welcoming manner and let the cabin consume her.