The Candles

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The man walking past the cabin tried to calm his breathing, but it was like something was caught in his throat, eating at his brain. His mind was racing as fast as he was, and the forest path passed in a blur. In nervous huffs, he made his way out of the confining forest and onto paved cement where he trotted apprehensively to the cabin porch of the local sheriff. He shook his hands out, but that didn’t placate the tremors as he gripped his fingers into a fist and knocked on the door. It was the dead of night, so the man had to knock again, and then once more before the knob turned.

“Charles? What’s wrong?” the bleary-eyed sheriff asked, rubbing his eyes of sleep.

“My- my daughter,” Charles swallowed, pausing a moment. “She’s gone.”

It took a few moments for Charles to recompose, and told the sheriff about his fight with his daughter. “She took off into the woods, but hours have gone by and I still haven’t found her.”

“Are you sure she isn’t at a friend’s house?” Steven responded.

“She has done this a few times, takes a loop ‘round the house to cool off, but Clarissa always comes back. I swear, she always comes back,” Charles shuffles his feet, fiddling with his coat. “What frightens me is the man living in the cabin. I saw a candle burning and shadows passing. I think he took her. She’s not answering any of my calls. I think he took my daughter.”

The sheriff’s face grew pale, the blood rushing from his face. Without another word, Steven shoved his legs into dirty pants and swung on a warm coat before heading out to follow. They made their way back up to the daunting tree line, enclosing the forest’s dangerous creatures in a cloak of darkness that eagerly awaited the men. Silence followed Charles and Steven as they trekked up the trails. There were no cricket chirps or frog croaks that aided their aching ears, searching for anything normal, anything to calm their nerves. Only the sound of the abysmal darkness; like a void in the center of the earth. The goosebumps on the sheriff’s neck bristled suddenly, and before calling out to Charles in front of him, he briefly glanced behind himself. Something was there, but he could barely see three feet in front of him. He didn’t hear anything or see anything, but he felt like he was being watched.

“S’there somethin’ wrong?” Charles called back, noticing Steven had paused a few yards behind.

“I feel like someone is watching me,” he whispered back, his the whites of his eyes shining.

“Do you think the man is following us?” Charles tiptoed back to his friend, careful to not make too much sound in the breathing darkness.

“I don’t know…” He responded, and they stood for a moment, their ears perking at the slightest sound; the nasally intake of breath, the ruffle of coat, the breeze rubbing the branches together. Something supernatural pulsed at the edges of Steven’s eye, but he was never able to catch it. “Let’s keep moving.”

The two of them made their way to the front porch of the cabin, and as the door slowly creaked open, more darkness greeted them save for the windowsill that glinted in gold. Steven’s steps were slow as they made around the abandoned room, passing the flickering candle. A thick layer of dust rested on nearly every surface.

“The bed looks like it has been slept in recently,” Steven noted slowly. “And there are scuff marks on the ground, noticeable from the dust that has settled over the years. Someone has been in here, and I don’t think it’s just teenagers.”

Charles looked from the candle to the floor, the tension in the floor underneath his weight causing the wood to creak as he noticed a glint of gold from a necklace that lay on the floor.

Clarissa’s necklace. Steven gingerly picked it up as Charles watched, biting his lip as his throat clenched. It was covered in blood. He knew his daughter was gone. She’s gone. He thought as tears welled up in his eyes. She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.

Charles asked to stay at Steven’s house for the rest of the night, barely able to close his eyes. He was sure that the whole town would be able to hear his thumping heart. There was nothing the two of them could do to find Clarissa in the dead of night, so they were going to wait until morning to continue searching. When morning came, Charles refused to get out of bed and passed the morning in a haze while the town searched for his daughter… or what might have remained of her. People went deep into the woods, bringing dogs, hiking gear, whistles, and flares, but no signals came. As the sun set, Charles headed back to his house as the last of the searchers trickled from the forest, exhausted and on their way to their own homes. Able to lock their doors and forget about it all.

It was an early morning jogger who noticed the second candle in the window of the cabin, Charles had heard as he went into town for groceries. Every time someone came to talk to him, he would wave them away, claiming to be too preoccupied to talk about his daughter. He knew they were only concerned, but the less he talked about it, the better. It wasn’t until the third night, that the third candle that shone in the window did a knock echo through Charles’ small house. Steven’s stern voice called out to Charles before banging again.

“Open the door, Charles. I know you’re in there. You haven’t left.” Some more banging. “Charles, two more fucking people are missing..”

The door flung open before Steven finished his last sentence, “Someone else is missing? Who?”

“Kelsey Worshaw and Jamie Chan.” The sheriff looked Charles up and down, grimacing at the raggedy and red-eyed man before him “How are you faring?”

He ignored the question and pointed in the direction of the cabin, sweating slightly. “You think the guy over there took them, too?”

“Yes, sir. What–”

“I can watch over the cabin, at night. I know these woods real well and since I live the closest, it would be easiest.”

“Charles, you can’t sit out there alone, you need help.” The sheriff tried to reason, but Charles’ opinion was set in stone.

“Let me get back my daughter, please. I need to prove to her I can get her back. Please, I need to get her back.”

“You can’t help her if you are dead before you get there. You need help. We don’t know who is taking these people, and he can be very dangerous.”

Charles nodded and told the sheriff he would accept to put only one other person at risk, no one else should get hurt, and closed the door. Night was about to fall for the fourth time since Clarissa’s disappearance, and the bags underneath Charles’ eyes showed each of the hours that he didn’t sleep. He would do anything to bring his daughter back, and he sat at the edge of his bed thinking, planning, scheming, of every way he could get his daughter safe while grasping onto her clothes and wearing her butterfly necklace. The house seemed so empty without her. Even with all of the windows and doors locked, he could feel a presence looming right beside him, speaking to him through the trees and watching him through the house. Nowadays, he could hardly walk to the sink without feeling like he was being watched, but the eyes were invisible like the presence of a higher power. When the sun fell beneath the horizon, Charles left his house, locked the door behind him, and made his way to the abandoned cabin.

By the time the sun’s rays stretched across the morning sky, Charles was panting with dirt and sweat streaked on his face. Every beat of his foot on the dewy ground matched the pounding of his heart as he darted past his house, screaming bloody murder. He nearly toppled over the first person that he saw, and in a muddled rush, tried to explain what happened. He told the stranger he couldn’t find the woman he was with that night, that she had gone in to inspect the cabin, but never returned. All that remained was an additional candle that glowed alongside the three others, a fourth person missing. Charles wept at the stranger’s feet, claiming he heard her scream, but there was nothing he could do, nothing he could do to save her. She was gone. Gone.

When Steven found him curled up on his doorstep, he brought him back to his house and laid him in his bed, covering him with a blanket. Charles insisted he leave before the man from the cabin comes and takes him, too, but his ramblings started to sound like a madman, and Steven looked at him carefully with a twinge of pity. It was that look that Charles was afraid of more than anything, and he looked away before Steven could inspect him even closer.

A fifth candle glowed the following night, and then a sixth the one after that. One candle for each person that didn’t come home that night, each person whose family was in shambles.

Charles rarely went back to town to avoid seeing their wrecked faces, and he couldn’t take their pity either, he knew he didn’t deserve it. He knew that the people wouldn’t look at him and place blame, but he felt guilty nonetheless for letting it happen. His cabin wasn’t a safe haven, either. It felt like a pit of despair or a cavern of his greatest fears that called out to him night after night. She’s gone, he tried to remind himself, but that black cavernous despair continued to greet him day after day. Nothing seemed to satisfy its nightmarish needs, and Charles was left to wander the equally haunting woods.

Twilight on the seventh evening called to Charles once more, and he closed the door to his cabin, walking down the steps before spotting Steven sitting in his truck. The sheriff looked up and opened his truck door when he saw Charles pausing by the porch steps, the slam of the door startling some birds on the nearby tree.

“Where you headed to?” Steven asked, gravel crunching with each step.

“Nowhere,” Charles answered. “Just around.”

“Care to talk in the house?” Steven gestured past the steps, but Charles quickly shook his head. “Then we can speak right here. We can’t just keep letting these disappearances happen, Charles, and we are on the cusp of the seventh disappearance if we don’t act now. Some other men and I are plannin’ on sitting in on tonight, and we want you there too. The more the better, but many are too scared to go. Claim they have weak stomachs or something of the sort.”

“T-tonight? I don’t think I can,” Charles muttered and made his way back up the stairs, jingling his keys.

“I’m sure you can, Charles,” the sheriff patted him on the back and led him up the driveway. To him, though, it seemed like a death warrant.

It didn’t take long for the two to walk to the cabin, meeting up with four other men. The six of them dispersed themselves into three groups to surround the abandoned cabin, Charles was still silent as Steven walked beside him to a dark shadowy patch that would hide them from anyone who passed by. There were still only six candles on the windowsill, unlit yet ominous in their quiet and mysterious presence.

Charles and Steven remained quiet, the silence only strained by the heartbeat pounding in each of their chests. Every passing moment was stretched into an eternity as they were waiting, unsure of what to do when the time came. Charles balled his shirt up in his hand and squeezed it, like he was trying to rinse water out of it, but his hands continued to shake.

The sheriff ignored his friend’s nervous gestures and adjusted the grip on his pistol, armed and ready. Hours had passed, the night at its fullest and Charles’ twitching at the highest, when he decided to break the silence, “Charles, I think-”

Before he was able to finish his thought, something whacked the back of his head and he fell unconscious.

It took Steven several minutes to fully wake. It was still dark out, and he could feel himself being dragged through fallen leaves, the cold holding onto his fingers. He was inside a house the next time he opened his eyes, his eyes barely adjusting to the dark living room. The floor was cold and harsh but Steven was unable to get up, his head throbbed painfully and the darkness of unconsciousness kept sweeping over his eyes again and again. From the floor, Steven watched Charles lift up the oriental rug and prop open the trap door underneath. All of the warning bells inside Steven’s mind were going off, he wanted to run but his body simply refused to move at an incredible speed. His arms grasped at the ground, trying to hoist himself up, but stars danced in his eyes and Charles ran over before him before he was able to move a muscle. With a firm hand, the man grabbed the back of the sheriff’s collar and hoisted him up into a standing position and on wobbling legs, lead him down through the trap door and into the hidden cellar. Steven lowered himself down the ladder first, his muscles protesting against each movement, and his heart up in his ears and throat. The farther he sunk into the blackness, the more he could hear the whispering of something. Steven turned around as soon as he hit the ground but saw nothing in the dark until Charles joined next to him, reaching back and flicking on the light bulb that hung low on the ceiling. Steven had the unmistakable feeling that something was down here and not just a presence of a person, but a void that seemed to take everything with it. Like it consumed all sound, all air, all of the breath from his lungs. He couldn’t shout or ask questions, the blood rushing in Steven’s ears sounding more and more like whispers. The whispering got louder and more demanding, and Steven turned to see a young girl standing in the corner, her hair parted at the center and falling past her shoulders, her night clothes speckled with blood. If one were to see her from a distance, one might simply see a girl covered in dirt, but the girl was no longer there. Her presence was pulsating and calling to Steven, reaching for Charles. The walls were smeared and splotched with dark red, the cement barely visible as human remains were strewn about. Her eyes were devoid of all color, the iris and pupil completely gone, only to leave the foggy whites. Ice ran through his veins as Steven noticed the girl that stood completely still, save for her whispering mouth.

“Clarissa?” Steven asked, and it was the last thing he said before Charles pushed him forward, and he was devoured alive.

Charles was racing back up the ladder and closing the trap door before Steven’s screams reached his ears. He still heard them, though, through the wood. Each minute they continued, Charles hummed to himself in a corner of his room, ignoring the tears on his face for the loss of his friend. What was he supposed to do? Charles couldn’t kill his own daughter, he raised her and fed her, and cared for her so deeply. Clarissa was only a shell of what she was, soulless, and seeking her father’s soul in revenge for that silly deal he wasn’t able to pay off to the devil. If giving Steven’s soul, and the souls of the townspeople helped keep her alive, then that is what he was going to do. He didn’t want to think about what might happen if he gave himself to her. Would she go back to normal, without a father? Would she be unleashed upon the world and wreak havoc? It was a sacrifice he was not willing to make.

By the time the cries had subsided and his tears dried up, Charles found himself kneeling by the trap door, on his knees like he was about to pray to a god, hands clasping the necklace.

“Clarissa? My dear, I want to make this better for you. I wish I could kill you. I wish I could give myself to you as well.” Underneath him, Charles heard the ladder creaking, like someone was climbing it very slowly. His first thought was that Steven was alive and climbing up to safety, but the creaking stopped, and then continued again, as if contemplating. Steven slowly pressed his hands over the wood, unsure of whether the lock would hold, his breathing becoming shallow. The door banged once, then twice, Charles’ body moving onto the door as it continued to bounce underneath him. No shouts came with it, only the whispers of his name. Charles… Charles… Charles… Father… Father…

The pounding persisted, again, and again, and again, and Charles wept into his hands as he sat on the door, preventing it from opening, and wishing he could make a choice. He didn’t want to die, and he didn’t want to kill his only daughter even though her soul was already gone. Gone. Gone for seven nights.

“I’m sorry, Clarissa.” He wailed, “I’m sorry, I wish I could take it back. I wish I paid my debt to the devil and didn’t offer you instead. I didn’t think this would happen!”

The banging didn’t stop for another few minutes, and Charles was rushing to the abandoned cabin before daybreak. With a candle in one hand, he lit it for his fallen friend and placed it on the windowsill of all of the lives he took, toying with the butterfly necklace he planted for Steven to find. One for each night that his daughter required feeding, and one for his daughter.