WAX

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Kat, an audacious teenage girl, was the only one of her family to notice the flame, not surprisingly, considering her natural curiosity and fascination with abandoned buildings. She pointed it out to her parents, neither of whom showed any interest at all. Her father was too distracted trying to figure out where they were on the map, and her mother too busy trying to stop her little brother, Teddy, from eating twigs, unknown berries and whatever else he could get his tiny hands on.

Kat sighed and wondered why they even chose to go camping as their family vacation this year.

“I’m going to go explore that abandoned cabin,” she mumbled to her family, hoping they wouldn’t actually hear her, as she was already turning to head towards the cabin.

“Oh no you aren’t!” Her mother shouted back at her before Kat even took her second step, “You’re gonna march your mopey little tush over here and help your father with the map.”

“I don’t need help Carole, I was a boy scout, I know what I’m doing.” Kat’s father, Carl, said stubbornly.

“Mom, it's an abandoned cabin! In the woods!” Kat pleaded. “I mean when am I going to have this opportunity again? Please, don’t you want me to at least have a little bit of fun on this trip?”

“No. Now come here and help your idiot father.”

Under her breath, Kat huffed, “Fine, I’ll just go later then.” She went to assist her father and noticed that the compass on the corner of the map was upside down. She flipped the map around for him and pointed out the campsite and the canteen, making it easier to figure out exactly where they were.

“Well, I obviously knew the map was upside down,” Carl replied, masking his fractured ego, “but now I do see how we were walking in the wrong direction for such a long time…”

After twenty-five more gruelling, mosquito bite-ridden minutes, the family ended up at their designated campsite, a weed covered patch of grass surrounded by evergreens with a small homemade fire pit right at the edge.

“Home sweet, home!” Carl said as he swung the tent he had been carrying on his back down onto the ground. “Time to set up camp!”

Kat couldn’t understand why anybody in their right mind would volunteer to do this; she was already wincing at the idea of sleeping on the uneven lumpy grass with only the thin layer of the tent’s tarp between her and the wet soil.

“Screw the tent Carl, I need a fire going to get rid of all these damn bugs!” Carole complained.

“Shit! I knew we were forgetting something…” Carl said, frustrated.

“Shit!” Yelled Teddy. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Kat cracked a smile for the first time since leaving home.

“Nice one, Carl,” Carole said in a sarcastic tone, “now we’re gonna have to hear that all weekend. The people around us are gonna think we’re some kind of lawless hippy family!”

Carl knelt down to get on Teddy’s level. “Okay Teddy, now remember how we talked about certain words that mommy and daddy might say that aren’t okay for you to say?”

Teddy blurted out another word he overheard, a word that I wouldn’t even repeat.

Carole gasped as Carl quieted Teddy down with panic in his eyes, “Yes just like that one.”

“To be fair I was very angry when I called daddy that, and he was being a big one,” Carole explained.

“Well one can argue, mommy is being one now,” Carl teased back.

“Oh, CAN one?” Carole said in her softest, scariest tone as she rose up over Carl, dropping her tent poles.

“So what was that thing we forgot dad?” Kat piped in, cutting the tension between her bantering parents.

“Oh, yes, the firewood! Firewood… They should have some back at the canteen. I don’t know how it slipped my mind; we were just there!”

“Dumbass!” Teddy yelled cheerfully, clapping his hands as his family giggled.

Carole gave her son a kiss on the head, “perfect time to use that one, honey.”

Kat volunteered to make the journey to the canteen, thinking maybe she could get some information about that cabin, and possibly stop in to explore it.

Carole gave Kat some money to buy the wood and sent her off with one final request. “Don’t go snooping through that cabin! I’m not having you ruin another vacation by getting tetanus again.”

“I know!” Kat said as she rolled her eyes.

“And I mean it, straight to the canteen and back! It’s a new moon tonight, so if your precious little phone dies there’s going to be no light up there to guide you back!”

“I said I know!” Kat hissed.

Against her adventurous spirit, Kat abided by her mother’s wishes and went straight to the campground canteen. The journey felt much shorter while alone, and while relying on her own sense of direction rather than her father’s.

The bell above the canteen door jingled when Kat pushed it open, signaling her arrival to Mr. and Mrs. Woods, the campground owners.

“Oh, back already! Hope you didn’t get lost out there!” Mrs. Woods exclaimed.

“Well, we sorta did, but that’s not why I’m here. We actually forgot to get firewood…” Kat explained.

“Say no more!” Mrs. Woods interjected. “Well, what are you waiting for? Go get this sweet thing a bag of wood, won’t ya?” She said to her teenage son, Owen, whose eyes were fixated on Kat since she entered the canteen.

Kat didn’t acknowledge him or even hear the demand given by his mother as she was too distracted by the unsettling sight of dozens of missing persons posters pinned to the back wall.

“Are all these—” she began to ask, but was cut off by Mr. Woods before she could finish her question.

“Sadly yes.” He answered as if reading her mind. “Mostly children, all lost in these woods. That's why we hand out the maps to every guest. These woods are deep and merciless.”

“Well maybe one of them is in that old cabin? I saw it when we got lost,” Kat explained, as she noticed the concerned look on the owners’ faces. “It looked abandoned, but there was a lit candle in the window. Maybe someone who got lost is squatting in there?”

“Oh I’d be more worried for those kids if they were staying out in that cabin.” Mr. Woods kept the concerned look on his face, but his tone had shifted.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, legend has it that an old, nasty witch lived and died in that cabin, hundreds of years ago… A real hag of a woman too: big, long pointy nose, beady little eyes, more wrinkles than face, razor sharp teeth; oh she was any awful adjective you can imagine! And How could I forget that terrible, horrible, deafening, high pitched, shrill voice?” He jumped with his hands out and shrieked in an attempt to scare Kat, who showed no reaction. Mr. Woods shook it off and continued, “Some say you can see her ghost wandering the grounds at night!” He looked over at Kat intently. “It’s a true story, you know, I’ve seen her myself.”

“Really, dad?” Asked Owen, who had just reentered the canteen with Kat’s firewood. “You’ve seen the old witch — for real?”

“Yeah! She was running towards me, screaming bloody murder, all raggedy and wrinkly and old, just like the legend said! She followed me all the way home… It wasn’t until I got inside when I realized it was just your mother!” Mr. Woods bellowed with laughter.

Mrs. Woods smacked her Husband on the shoulder, “You know I don’t like it when you tell that story to the guests! Besides, if I was ever looking raggedy it was because I was chasin’ after you two!” She pointed at her husband and son, and then looked at Mr. Woods very sternly and warned, “Don’t you make light of that cabin in the Woods, Chris; real children have been goin’ missin’ for years.” She then turned to Kat, and began telling the tragic story of the old lady who lived in that dark, decrepit cabin in the woods:

“That cabin isn’t haunted by any old witch’s ghost, but that doesn’t mean its history isn’t a dark one. You see, long before these grounds were a campsite, there was an old candle maker who used to live here, decades ago of course, out in that there cabin in the woods. The old candle maker wanted nothin’ more than to raise a family, but it was a struggle for her, and she was told having a baby would be impossible, so she sought the help of someone — or something — more powerful. She planted herbs and other ingredients for her candles to help with fertility and everything. The locals talked and it became general knowledge that the once kind candle maker had become involved in witchcraft. Now, I might not believe in that sort of thing, but what I do know for sure is that she did have a child. She was finally happy and had everything she wanted, so she returned to making her candles; pickin’ the herbs, infusin’ the oils and meltin’ the wax; carvin’ them into magnificent shapes after they’d cooled. She would leave the candles she wasn’t satisfied with unlit on her windowsill for her neighbours to take. In exchange, those who dared enter the witch’s yard would leave gifts like fresh baked goods or flowers. Everything was perfect until one day the old witch made an entire bad batch of candles, not one of them up to her usual standard. The problem was she had used the last of her wax on them, so she needed to venture out and get more animal fat from a nearby shepherd to produce some more. She loaded the bad candles onto her windowsill, kissed her baby on the forehead, and left. The journey was quick as the shepherd's farm happened to be located right where this very canteen is now. While she was gone, some local menaces lit the candles and pushed them inside the cabin in an attempt to burn the witch, not realizing the only life inside was her child.

“The woman returned home to her blazin’ cabin; she screamed for her baby and rushed to put out the fire, filling a pail with water from the garden spigot and dousing the flames countless times until they subsided. Although most of the cabin survived, the woman’s child had suffocated in the fire and for this, she swore revenge on her neighbours. Soon enough, the cabin was restored and the woman went back to making candles, but gone were their good intentions and calming herbs. She no longer cared to mask the foul smell of the animal fat, and her candles were now moulded in odd or unsettling shapes, such as fingers, toes, and skulls. Some people still took these candles from the windowsill, but what followed soon after was illness, disease, and death. Rumours spread that anyone who took one of these cursed candles would perish and less and less people went until nobody did at all. The old woman presumably died alone, completely off her rocker, surrounded and covered head to toe in tallow wax.”

“And what's with the one lit there now?” asked Kat, surprised at how convinced she was of this obvious campfire story.

Mr. Woods interjected, imitating a ghost and wiggling his fingers, “Her ghost is still walking through these woods looking for revenge!”

“Now you be quiet, Chris, It’s gettin’ dark, you’ll end up scarin’ the poor girl!” Mrs. Woods barked. “That candle is lit in that window because hooligan kids like my son like to keep the legend goin’. Makes it scarier if they can tell their friends about it, and then show them the evidence.” She looked at Kat almost with pity and told her to head on back before her parents began to worry.

Kat obliged and left the canteen, still curious about the old cabin, especially after hearing Mrs. Woods’ story. She didn’t get three feet away from the front of the store before she heard that same jingle of the bell that rang when she entered. The young boy, Owen, had followed her out and was trying to flag her down.

“Hey, if you’re really thinking of checking out that cabin you should go soon.” He warned, with panic in his voice as he handed her the bag of firewood she had almost forgotten inside.

“Oh yeah? And why’s that?” Kat challenged.

“Listen I’ve lived here my whole life,” The boy said as he extended his other arm towards Kat and passed her a missing child’s poster. “Fifteen years, each one I make another new friend, and each year they go missin’ after exploring that cabin in the dark.”

“Well, no offence then, buddy, but I don’t really wanna be your friend,” Kat teased.

“I’m not tryin’ to scare you or anything, I’m being serious!” He insisted. Kat turned around and folded her arms as he continued towards her, “Look, I’ve never seen the witch, but I’ve heard all the stories… whatever’s in that cabin is pure evil. All I know is if you go in after sundown when the candle is lit, you’ll never come back out.”

“Your family’s really into ghost stories, huh?” Kat said dismissively.

“Okay well, don’t say I didn’t warn you!” He said with a shrug.

Kat joked back, “Won’t be able to if I’m dead!” She rolled her eyes and smiled, then turned to head back towards the campsite.

Although the sun was starting to set, Kat still chose to take the long path back to get one last look at the old abandoned Cabin. Surely this was some sort of elaborate prank put on by the camp owners — but then again, involving this many posters of missing kids would be a little morbid for a prank. When she arrived at the pathway to the cabin, Kat let out a deep sigh. She looked at the sunset on the horizon and took in Owen’s final warning.

“I can be in and out in five minutes, and it’ll still be daylight-ish,” she rationalized to herself before approaching the old wooden steps. She dropped the bag of firewood and took out her phone to use as a flashlight; it was getting darker and darker by the second. She stepped one foot onto the first step, which creaked and sagged under her weight, slowly moving up to the second and third, careful not to break through the rotten wood. She got to the shabby door and tried pushing and pulling on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. She pointed the light of her phone’s flashlight through the pane of glass on the door, trying to see if she could see anyone or anything inside. The glass was foggy and clouded with dust and cobwebs from years of neglect; she could just faintly make out the vague incandescence of the flickering candle. Kat would have to find another way in, and quickly. She jumped off the steps and walked around the Cabin exterior hoping to find an easy entry. The front window was wide open, almost inviting her in, but even if Kat managed to maneuver through the thorn ridden rose bush that lay underneath the window, the ledge would still be far too high up for her to climb in.

Her flashlight led the way around patches of ancient, overgrown herb gardens and a variety of plants and flowers, mostly dead and all tangled up in weeds and tall grass. Around her she could smell: lavender, sage, dead leaves, and moss; that fresh forest air mixed with the musty wood rot from the abandoned cabin; and of course the overwhelming and sickening smell of the mound of astringent wax that had engulfed the front window after so many years. As Kat walked around the side of the cabin the smell grew weaker, but then suddenly stronger and stronger with each step she took. Following the pungent scent, Kat found herself perched eye-level next to a back-window that had already been broken, allowing the fumes inside to waft out.

“Must’ve been the work of whoever lit that candle,” Kat thought to herself. She carefully climbed through the jagged hole, making sure she didn’t get caught on any broken glass, and stumbled into the Cabin.

She began slowly walking towards the burning candle, shining her light around as she made her way into the small room at the front of the cabin where it sat. She called out, but got no response further than the creak of the floorboards under her own feet.

After another second of silence she approached the candle and examined it.

“So strange…” She thought as she noticed the lumpy flesh-coloured candle, “There must have been hundreds of years of candles here to make a mess like this…” Her eyes locked on the gruesome looking wax eruption that had enveloped the entire window sill and floor. She leaned in closer and noticed the drippings formed a gradient into a thick, dark, blood red as it cascaded closer and closer to the ground.

“Must’ve been some red candles here at some point too,” Kat thought, and continued searching around the old cabin. She came across dozens of the same missing persons flyers she remembered from the canteen; some fresh on the surface of the slippery floor, others sealed under layers of cloudy, opaque wax.

At this point Kat would have given anything to still believe this was all just a prank, but as she looked up through the window to the new moon-darkened sky, she feared her fate was sealed in wax.

How Kat saw it, she had two options: to attempt to make her way back home, and either end up the same as all these missing children, or best case scenario get yelled at by her mother; or she could stay the night and explore the cabin, and in the morning, still get yelled at by her mother. She of course chose the latter.

Continuing to use her phone’s light to guide her, Kat rummaged through the cabin, not finding much of anything until the doors of a big, dusty old cupboard swung open to her right. Kat screamed and jumped as the sudden crash revealed hundreds of oddly shaped, beige candles. She leaned in and dusted them off, noticing that they actually resembled little dolls. Each candle had pieces of different colours in them; as Kat looked closer she realized these colours were patches of fabric that had been burnt and melted into them.

“Okay, that’s creepy… ten more points to the crazy candle-lady story…” Kat mumbled to herself, consumed with horror by the feeling in her stomach that these had something to do with the missing kids.

AHHHHH!

Kat screamed when out of nowhere her phone died, leaving her in near total darkness.

“No..No..No… Shit!” It didn’t matter how hard she hit her phone, or how many times she tried forcing it to turn back on, it was dead. The only light source left at her disposal was the already shortened candle that brought her here. Too scared to stay a minute longer, Kat saw no other option but to take the candle and use its light to guide her back to camp. She snapped it free before having to immediately put it back down, wincing at the searing pain from the scalding wax.

Kat took three deep breaths and told herself she could do it, but as she reached again for the candle, she flinched, and in her moment of weakness noticed that the candle had been sitting on top of a large book; almost unidentifiable due to the amount of wax draped over it. Her curiosity peaked as she once again grabbed the melting candle, gritting through the pain, and began scraping the thick layers of wax off of the book. As the wax filled under her fingernails, one word became visible on the cover of this artifact: “Grimoire.” Kat tried flipping through the pages, but so many had been sealed together from the years of built up wax that she was only able to read a few pages. Enduring the pain of the hot candle melting in her hand, she used the flame to illuminate the contents of the hand-bound book. The cursive handwriting was hard to make out, but from what she could decipher, it seemed to be filled with recipes and diary entries regarding different experiments. There were all kinds of strange symbols, and a particularly horrifying illustration of a child submerged in a pot of boiling liquid. Although disturbed by the image, Kat found herself unable to look away. She held the candle closer to the grimoire, her hand now numb to the pain, and squinted, trying to make out as many words as she could from the page.

“Sickness…

Preservation…

Bath of wax...

Cursed...”

Kat pulled away from the book as she suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe. The air surrounding her grew thick and she let out a deep, rough cough. Her head began to pound as she developed a searing fever. Her skin began to feel hot and sticky, while her bones chilled and ached. The sweet, smokey smell of the candle started morphing into something more sharp, like the foul fume of burning hair. Kat began to feel nauseous and dizzy as she glimpsed at her hand that was holding the candle.

Drip, drip, drip

Kat screamed at the morbid sight of globs of her flesh dripping off her hand and onto the pages of the grimoire.

In shock, she tried to drop the candle, but as hard as she tried to shake it loose there was no point as it had already melded with the flesh of her hand; it was impossible to tell where the candle ended and where her fist began. The horrific sight of disfigurement sent Kat spiraling to the floor with tears of panic in her eyes. She watched as the skin from her fingertips melted away, exposing the ignited bones underneath that resembled the braided wicks of candles. She had never felt pain like this before as every nerve ending in her hand sizzled away, leaving nothing but scolding, white-hot numbness. As she coddled herself on the ground she began to feel the same hot sensation on her shins, as if she was sitting with her legs too close to a smouldering summer bonfire. She felt as if every hair on her body was being singed off, her skin began to feel tight and dry, as if flames were crisping it layer by layer. She felt paralyzed from the pain, so disoriented she became unaware of her own limbs. She tried to steady her thoughts and focus, but the dry air and her smokey lungs weren’t allowing her any oxygen. She caught sight of the door, but lacked the strength to crawl to it. She threw her arms in front of her and pulled her body with all of her might towards the door. Her waxy glob of a fist sprayed the room with splatters of hot flesh as it pounded into the floorboards. Kat let out a hoarse, dry, silent scream as she slowly pulled herself toward the door, like dredging through a trench of lava. Her left leg fused with the floor of the cabin and tore off from behind her, as she made it another inch closer to her escape. Kat wiped the sweat off her blistering brow, taking a chunk of her now soft, gooey skin with it, leaving her skull partially exposed only to be covered again by her melting scalp. Kat laid nearly a foot away from freedom, unable to move any further and sobbing as her inner ears melted, producing a deafening, high-pitched ring that would be the last thing she would ever hear. She opened her mouth to scream once again, but still no sounds could be produced from her scorched esophagus. Her mouth hung open in pain as her eyes grew hot and began to ooze down her cheeks in a viscous stream; her eyelids quickly sunk in, melting her now empty eye sockets shut. Her entire body was now consumed in the heat, her skin dripping off in waxy, thick, bloody clumps. Her face drooped and melted while her jaw dislocated and fell to the floor in the puddle of her melted flesh. Soon all that was left of Kat were the puddles of wax cooling and hardening to the cabin floor.

Kat’s family searched every inch of the woods for her, even the campground owners helped try to find her, but there was no trace of her anywhere. Kat’s mother searched the old abandoned cabin ten times over, but found nothing more than the bag of firewood outside. She called out for Kat when she entered the shack for the final time, pulling Teddy tightly by the hand behind her. Through her tears, she begged for Kat to return. “Please, honey, come back to us… Next summer we’ll do whatever you want to do, just please come back!” With no response, she let out a mournful, desperate sob as Teddy reached up and hugged her tight.

“Kat!” Teddy called to his mom as he pointed to an oddly shaped unlit candle lying on the waxy floor. It had odd patches of colour melted into it that uncannily resembled the clothes his big sister was wearing the night before, only burnt at the edges and foggy through the wax.

Carole ignored Teddy’s observation and comforted the small boy, “It’s okay, I know, you’re scared… but we’ll find her.”

“Excuse me miss,” Owen said gently after quietly entering the cabin. “The police arrived down at the canteen, they’re lookin’ to talk to you.”

“Right, right, of course.” Carole said, wiping her tears and regaining her composure. She took Teddy by the hand and walked towards the cabin’s front door as the toddler fought against her grip, continuing to shout, “Kat…Kat!” Carole ignored her child’s cries and continued out of the abandoned cabin, turning back only to ask Owen for directions.

“I’ll take you back, just, um, one second.” he said and quickly shuffled deeper into the cabin. He bent down and picked up the candle from the floor and returned to the grieving mother and son to guide them back out of the woods.

When they arrived at the canteen, Carl and the police were waiting for Carole. Owen stayed outside watching over Teddy while the adults talked with the police inside.

Owen turned to Teddy and handed him the fresh candle he had stolen from the abandoned cabin. “I think this should go home with you.” He said to the young boy. Teddy’s eyes lit up and he reached out grabbing towards the candle.

“Just one more thing,” Owen said with a pause, “don’t ever light it.” He knew Teddy wouldn’t understand him, or even remember any of this, but the warning still felt like an important one to give. He handed the toddler the doll-like candle and Teddy instantly hugged it close to his chest.

Ever since that night, the cabin in the woods had been abandoned once again, but some say on the dark night of a new moon, you can still see the weak flame of a new candle, flickering in the window; taunting those with a curious nature to enter the witch’s cursed house of wax.