The Candle that Will Never Go Out

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. I could see it from across the pond. I almost knew why it was burning, or at least I had a theory. My theories are never perfect but they’re close and my theory about that wooden shack across the pond might be as close to spot on as anything could be.

I’ve never seen any proof of life on the property, not even a squirrel, a deer or a bird dared to roam through the overgrown shambles of that pile of wood. Overgrown was a bit of an overstatement. It was silent over there and as dead as a corpse at a funeral, but it was still in one piece. Even from where I was sitting across the pond I could see that the roof was still intact and moss-free. The windows still had glass on them and the glass looked almost new. I am about a quarter of a mile away from that cabin, but from what I could tell the place was in good condition, strong condition actually. It was as if nature didn’t want to reclaim its property back. Life refused to exist over there. At least that’s what I told myself and I would soon learn that I was miles away from the truth.

I should remember what happened over there, but time has the tendency to make you forget certain things. But the magnitude of what happened over there makes it almost impossible to forget. That’s why I am writing all of this down. There’s something over there that makes me forget. Some entity or force that is capable of terrible, terrible things. It lurks around all of us. It’s the reason why we wake up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and then you can’t remember what the dream was the next morning. It’s the reason why we tend to subconsciously forget trauma at a young age. It’s the reason why all of us are capable of evil, but only some of us pursue. Once you get too close to the fire, it’s hard to live without the warmth.

I sound crazy, I know. It’s a long story, but I need to tell it as it happened. At least from what I can remember. I believe that the cabin has been empty for the better half of a decade, but once again, time has the ability to make you forget. Anyways, enough of my rambling. This is how it happened.

I moved to the lakes region of New Hampshire shortly after my second marriage fell apart. Sharon and I never got along. We had been married for almost three years. Three years of misery for both of us. Losing a child didn’t didn’t help the marriage either.

Sharon told me if we ever moved out of New York City, she would divorce me immediately. So take a guess what I did? I said I was moving out on the first of May and I am moving to a house in Vermont that overlooks a small, quiet pond. The pond was nearly impossible to find on a map and that’s the reason why I chose it. Sharon would never be able to find me. Especially because I told her the pond was in Vermont and I was actually moving to New Hampshire. I don’t think she ever cared enough to look for me. That’s fine with me. As far as I know, she is still living on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, probably happy that she’s without me. I hope she knows the feelings are mutual.

The pond is called Harrison’s Pond and the house I bought a single story cottage just enough to fit me and no one else. That’s what I wanted. I had no plans on getting married again. They say the third time's the charm, but the third time is also a gamble. On my first night in the new cottage, I poured myself a beer, lit a cigarette and sat on my front steps looking out over the pond. Somehow, I didn’t notice the cabin during the day, but directly across from me was a small cabin that seemed void of life directly across from where I was sitting. The moonlight was hitting the roof perfectly as if it was a movie set and the director wanted you to see every feature the cabin had. And I could see it all.

The cabin was built out of pine. Somehow I knew that by looking at it from nearly a quarter of a mile away. Looking into the fresh looking glass windows I instantly knew that the cabin was built in 1921 by a man who went by the name of Calvin Marlow and was married to Jane Claremont. Jane was from Meredith, New Hampshire and Calvin was from Canterbury. They had a son named Mason. Mason lived to be ten years old until he was murdered. He was murdered by Jane in the middle of the night on April 14, 1932. Calvin ended up murdering Jane a week later because he was convinced he could bring back Mason if Jane was murdered. When this didn’t work, he blew his brains out in the living room so they could be a family again. There was another detail I was missing so I looked harder into the clear glass across the cabin and I saw it.

That thought vanished and I puked everywhere. The moon went behind the clouds and the cabin went out of sight. The stars stopped poking through the sky and the night went black. Pitch black. The pond was gone. The breeze through the trees stopped and I could see nothing. I tried to breathe, but it was as if this pitch blackness was suffocating me. I stood up and felt like one of those dreams where you tried running but got nowhere. Time no longer existed, life was a dream. No. Not a dream. It was a never ending nightmare. It was Hell. It wasn’t a fire fueled landscape where the devil stood on a canyon laughing at your miserable existence. I wish it was, but instead it was nothing. It was a black, blank canvas of nothing. That cabin is hell. Inside that cabin is-

- a dream. I found myself drifting back into reality just as you would on a morning after a night of heavy drinking, except my beer was still freshly poured and my cigarette was still in my hand smoldering. I stood up and I felt fine. It was morning. I must’ve fallen asleep sitting upright. It was a long day of moving, but I didn’t remember dozing off or even feeling tired enough to sleep. It was a beautiful morning and the spring day made me feel free. Free of New York City, free of Sharon and free of that nightmare, which in that moment I didn’t even think about. Because I didn’t remember it. At least not yet.

I went on with my day as if I didn’t look into the windows of Hell about twelve hours ago. I remember feeling good; great, actually. It was my first day to myself. I was done dealing with movers, real estate agents and realtors. The day was mine. The only thing on my mind was buying that canoe that I’ve had my eye on for the last couple of weeks. I was surprised no one bought it since I’ve moved up here. I drove by it for the first time nearly a month ago when I was first touring the cottage. I hope it’s still there. Only one way to find out. I showered, finished my coffee and drove down the dirt road away from my new home and towards town.

I was right. The canoe was still there. It was still right out front to the left of the front door next to the pool floats and lounge chairs. I didn’t waste any time. I went inside and asked the man behind the counter how much the canoe out front was.

“Six hundred and fifty,” he said without looking up from him cleaning a hatchet.

“I’d like to buy it,” I said without an ounce of hesitation. The price seemed fair. I didn’t know if it was a good or bad price for a canoe. Either way I deserved myself a housewarming gift.

Are you going to use the canoe to look into the cabin across the pond?

I froze. Time began to warp. I looked into the man’s eyes. It was like looking into the windows of the cabin again. Again? I began to remember what I saw the night before.

The man wasn’t cleaning a hatchet anymore. He was cleaning an ax. His hands were drenched in blood and I knew the blood wasn’t his. I couldn’t move my eyes or my face, but somehow I managed to shift my focus from the ax to his name tag. It read, “Marlow.”

What’s wrong, sir? Do you want to buy that canoe? So you can look into the windows of hell. If you look into hell, hell will look back into you.

His voice sounded like it was underwater, but I heard everything as clear as day. His wife walked up from behind him. I knew it was his wife because she was missing half of her face. The left side was caved in and her eye and ear was gone thanks to the ax that Calvin Marlow was cleaning. I wanted to scream, but I was breathing too heavily and not even a squeak could escape my mouth. Instead I puked and managed to crawl out of the store.

I assume I bought the canoe because the next thing I remember was that I was sitting in that canoe in the middle of Harrison Pond. I guess I purchased an ax too, because there was an ax by my feet as I stared into the pond and where the cabin should be. The cabin wasn’t visible yet because it was still afternoon. Maybe it only comes out in the moonlight? Maybe it comes out once the sun goes down. Or maybe it becomes clear once the vampires roll in their grave and the werewolf feasts for the first time of the night. That last part is me rambling again. At this point anything goes. All I knew was that the cabin wasn’t visible yet. So I made the decision to wait.

I have no idea how long I waited until the cabin came back into view, but I like my theory of it becoming only visible in the moonlight. It made sense. The moon would shine perfectly through the high pines onto the empty lot. An empty lot until the cabin would begin to fade into sight. It must’ve been around nine at night when I first began to see the cabin’s structure protrude from the surrounding forest.

I was in that cabin for eight hours. I didn’t even think about how I never ate breakfast this morning. I couldn’t eat. I didn’t even know what it was that I was puking up. I hadn’t eaten anything in forty-eight hours. It was not a concern. The cabin, which was my only neighbor, was my only concern. I had to see what was going on inside of it.

If you look into hell, hell will look back into you.

And it will laugh. But it was me laughing. Not hell, not this cabin. I couldn’t help but feel ridiculous about this whole thing. No wonder Sharon left me. No, I left Sharon. Either way there was no cabin floating into existence on Lexington Ave. There were different kinds of monsters in Manhattan. Those were real monsters. I am not too sure what kind of monster I was dealing with.

The Devil.

No, not the devil. It wasn’t Hell either. It was just a cabin. Just a fucking cabin. A cabin that’s been driving me insane since I first looked into the windows last night, which is something I remember now. I remember everything. I just needed to show the cabin that I wasn’t scared of it. It was just a bunch of wood in the shape of a house. It’s abandoned. There’s no one in there and if there is then I will call the cops. There shouldn’t be anyone inside.

I rowed my canoe closer to the cabin. It was becoming more clear. I didn’t look into the windows yet, but the moonlight seeping down perfectly through the high branches made it hard not to. I fought the urge and looked right at the front door. The knob was perfectly gold. Even from my canoe on the shore of the lake I could see my reflection in the gold door knob. I could even see the reflection of my cottage on the other side of the pond. I couldn’t believe how clear the reflection was. I could see the whole pond as if it was a television. I turned back to look at my cottage, which took a lot of courage. I wasn’t too sure if turning my back this close to the cabin was a good idea but the cabin wanted me to turn around. The perfectly shiny gold door knob wanted me to look back. So I did. I wish I hadn’t.

I left a light on outside my cottage. It was the light that lit up my entire front side of the house. I could see a man sitting on the front steps of my home. I was far away but I could tell that he was smoking a cigarette and next to him was beer that hadn’t been touched yet. That scene seemed all too familiar.

That’s me.

I squinted as if that would change the fact that I was looking at myself from across the pond. A younger me. A whole -twenty-four-hours ago younger me. I didn’t remember much from last night, but one thing for sure I didn’t remember was a man slowly approaching behind me with an ax in his hand. I could only see two silhouettes from this distance, but the man sitting down was me and that other man was a mystery. He dragged the ax in the dirt as if he was lazy and didn’t want to do what he was about to do. I must’ve known he was there. Did I get away? It’s not looking too good for me over there.

The mystery ax man was directly behind my old silhouette. We both were frozen. In my current state, I was frozen. I was almost a quarter of a mile away from my side of the lake, safe from that ax man, but about to witness my own death. Am I dead? Am I in Hell? Is hell just watching yourself die over and over again?

The way the man lifted his ax over his head and brought it smashing down on mine made me nearly fall out of my canoe. There was sound. The sound echoed terribly across the lake. It wasn’t the sound of my body falling limp onto the dirt, it was the ax hitting my skull. It was like dropping a raw chicken breast in an empty basketball court. Everything stopped. The light ripple of water went silent. The breeze through the surrounding forest froze and the only thing to be heard was my thudding heartbeat. I looked back over at the man who had just murdered me. He was still a silhouette, but I knew he was looking directly at me. I couldn’t make out any facial expressions or what the man looked like, but what I could see was his arm rise from the side of his body and wave. He was waving at me.

I looked back at the cabin. There was a candle in the window. I don’t recall there being a candle there in the window before I watched a man murder me, but there was now. For some reason the candle calmed me. Maybe it was the devil’s way of saying that Hell won’t be so bad.

You’re only going to watch yourself die until you blow your brains out.

But what good would that be? If I’m already dead the afterlife will be nothing short of painful suffering. I felt at ease as I stepped onto the rocky shore just in front of the cabin. I didn’t exactly want to go inside, but there was no alternative. I just watched myself get murdered outside of my home, so going back to my cozy cottage on the other side of the pond seemed comical.

The golden door knob was still as reflective as a mirror. I looked at myself as I stood eye level with it at the bottom of the front steps. I was distorted. Not in the way like you’re distorted in a fun house or a warped mirror, but distorted meaning I had a bloody ax wound in the top of my head. My eye was dangling from my socket and my hair was streaked in dried maroon colored blood. It was a nasty sight.

No wonder Sharon divorced you. HAHAHA.

I felt fine, normal actually. Normal as if I hadn’t looked into the windows of Hell yesterday or if I hadn’t seen Jane Claremont standing upright with a mangled head inside of a boat shop. None of this bothered me. It might have to do with me stepping into the cabin and feeling the emptiness of everything take over me. It was sort of nice and relaxing, like laying down after a hard working day in the yard or slowly lowering yourself into a hot tub. I felt at ease. I stepped in and the cabin was beautiful. The furniture was still stuck in time, but it was clean and tidy. There was no television set. Probably because there were no TVs in the 1920s. There was a moose head on the wall above the fireplace. To my surprise there was a fire burning. I hadn’t noticed smoke coming out of the chimney when I was rowing across the pond, but I was a little bit distracted. It would’ve been an easy thing to miss.

I stepped further into the cabin and closer to the fire. The fire wasn’t giving off any heat, which I didn’t find too strange. This is a nightmare, after all. That’s the only explanation I have. I just need to wake up. I could still be living on the seventh floor of the Marcy Building on Lexington Avenue for all I knew. I managed to keep my urge to panic under control when I looked into the fire. At first it looked like a jagged piece of wood or maybe a strange shaped tree branch, but I was very wrong. It was the arm of a human burning in that fire. A child. What I thought was a few sticks was the arm of a child slowly smoldering away. I could still make out the fingers. I looked deeper into the fire to see a small boy’s structure slowly being taken over by the heat of the flames. The skin was completely gone and a skeleton was slowly beginning to appear. It was an awful sight. If this is a nightmare, this should be the point where anyone would jolt awake, but it wasn’t. The nightmare was just beginning.

If watching the remains of a small child burn in a fireplace didn’t wake you up from a bad dream, you’d think that a massive crash coming from one of the bedrooms would, but it didn’t. I was still here in this cabin. The bedroom was at the opposite side of the cabin. I couldn’t actually tell if it was a heavy object being thrown across the room or a scream. I stood motionless waiting to see what would happen next. I didn’t want to open the door to the bedroom, but my curiosity was starting to win over my conscience.

Fuck it. I’m dead, aren’t I?

My curiosity didn’t have to overtake me because before I could even make a step towards the door. It flew open. A man stepped out; a familiar looking man. It was the same man who had appeared behind the counter when I asked how much it was to buy that canoe out front. He looked right at me, or through me. I didn’t know if he could see me, but if he did I was probably going to be his next victim. He was drenched in blood and he was holding an ax. He was crying.

In a strange way I almost felt bad for him. I know he just murdered his wife, but I know he never wanted any of this to happen. He stood in the doorway and his focus shifted to the fire. The fire, which was being fueled by his dead son, started to die down. Human remains were no longer recognizable. The skin of his son was gone and the bones were charred enough to look like firewood. Calvin Marlow dropped the ax and crossed the room to the fire. I knew he couldn’t see me because he walked directly through me. It felt cold. I knew if you felt a cold spot it meant a ghost was in the area, but this felt like my whole body was dipped into the Arctic Ocean and then immediately dried off. I turned around to see Calvin kneel beside the fire that his dead son was smoldering in. He began to sob quietly and soon his cries began to sound like a shrieking animal. It was a non-human cry; like a demon being forced back into life after being defeated. Back in the bedroom was the chopped up body of his wife. Her head was in two pieces, but her right eye was looking at me. It blinked and that made me shiver. Jane Claremont looked a lot like a woman I knew. I couldn’t quite place it. All of a sudden I felt calm. I wasn’t scared anymore.

The scary part about Hell is that you learn to be content with where you are.

I walked up next to Calvin and stood next him looking into the fire. Was I looking into Hell or was it just the embers of a child burning in front of me? It seems to be the same thing. It no longer bothered me. Nothing did. The more I looked into the fire the more I could see. It was something that only could be described as the truth.

What happened?

Something happened. Something that I don’t remember, but in this cabin there were no secrets. I couldn’t lie to myself, at least not here. The fire told me what I needed to know. I looked deeper into the flame and could see the universe diminishing around me. It wasn’t scary anymore.

After all there are no secrets in Hell.

The fire kept a steady flame and I saw it all. I saw my son that Sharon and I lost.

Lost? Not the right word.

I stepped back from the fire and the only thing that I could feel was the breath of Calvin, who was now standing behind me. I turned around slowly and I was eye to eye with the killer. But he looked familiar now. He wasn’t the guy from the boat store cleaning a hatchet. It was as if I was looking into a mirror. Calvin was looking a lot like me drenched in blood. He had the same baby blue eyes, the same nose, same hair color and the same scrape on his chin I had from when I was six and fell off my bike. He was me. His eyes told me everything. I need to get out of here. How does one escape Hell? I looked back into the flame and saw Calvin’s son. My son. He was alive and he was screaming. I didn’t save him. I watched him burn. No wonder I murdered Sharon. She did this. That crazy bitch. I knew that-

-Hell has no secrets, you murderous bastard. Now light that candle in the window. Light it so you can come back tomorrow and discover all of this for the first time again. Light the fucking candle so you can-

-Remember all of the terrible things that Sharon did? She drove me insane. She murdered our boy and I murdered her. She didn’t deserve me or our son. My son. I started to remember it all. I looked into the flames and I saw the truth. The truth about my life before the cottage.

Sharon no longer lived in Manhattan on Lexington Street. She had been dead for almost three weeks and no one but me knew that. Our son, Daniel, died about thirty minutes before Sharon. I was the only one to know that too. Both of them were murdered. They were murdered by me. Three weeks ago, I was living with my family of three. Sharon was coming home from work and Daniel was playing with his action figures by the fireplace. We weren’t supposed to light a fire in our apartment, but we did and never got into any kind of trouble for it. Earlier that day I had caught wind that Sharon was going to divorce me and hand me the papers while obtaining full custody over Daniel. I refused to let that happen. When Shaon came home that night, I murdered her while we were in the bedroom. We were having what she called a discussion and what I called an argument. When she finally faced away from me and sat on the other side of the bed about to tell me about her getting full custody of Daniel. Before she could let out another word, I was striking an ax down on the top of her head. She was dead instantly, but for good measure I slammed that ax down on her body thirty-two more times. Yes, I counted. I walked out of the bedroom and stared at Daniel. He still had his back to me by the fire. He had headphones on and was listening to audio recordings of his favorite comics. I couldn’t kill him with an ax, so I did what I thought to be the next logical step. I knocked him unconscious with the handle of the ax and without any hesitation, I threw him into the fire. I watched him burn and then I watched Sharon burn after dragging her body to the fire. And then I left for New Hampshire.

I know someone is looking for me. It was probably easy for detectives to figure out that I murdered my family, but I still haven’t been located. I never changed my name or any part of my identity. Maybe I got lucky or maybe there is something else.

I was still standing in this cabin looking at the flames. The fire was almost out and there was no longer any sign that a child was burning in it. Calvin and Jane were no longer around. The only thing left to do was grab the candle in the window and relight it. So I did. I don’t know why I had to do that, but this cabin had a hold on me. It was clinging onto me as if I were the puppet and this cabin was the master. Maybe I haven’t been found because living across from this cabin is my punishment; coming over here and watching my actions through some invisible lens was my punishment. Who was Calvin Marlow and Jane Claremont? Possibly made up names just reveal that this was a crime I committed. Who knows, I’ll forget all of this soon. I put the lit candle back in the window and left.

I canoed my way back to my cottage completely forgetting I had seen my own silhouette be murdered by a man with an ax. That was just my imagination, or maybe karma. I don’t know, I barely remember. By the time I got back to my cottage I forgot nearly everything that I had seen. The sun was beginning to rise so I looked back across the water to see an empty space and nothing but a quiet forest behind it. I went to bed instantly thinking of nothing.

The next morning was a regular morning where the events from last night didn’t even cross my mind. I must’ve forgotten, but when nightfall came and the sleek moonlight began to trickle through the trees, a cabin was revealed. There was a candle in the window. That cabin had been abandoned for years and now a candle burned? Who lit it?

I’ll have to go over there and see who is in there. Unless I blow my brains out first.