Extinguish

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. It had been a long day for Jenny and Rob moving into their new abode, the 75 year old wood “new” cabin. They didn’t know it now, but this would be the last time that candle in that window would ever be lit. It’s last burn. It flickered slightly in the still night, there was no breeze only a heavy chill descending with the sunset.

Rob didn’t believe in ghosts nor did Jenny, neither of them cared for horror movies much either, they were more the ABC science documentary types. Rob was pulling back on a cold one in a camp chair by a pile of chopped wood ready to be lit when he spotted Old Ma Trickett heaving her her heavyset frame through the long spear grass toward the cabin he and Jenny had spent the day moving into, she was inside nesting as they had hoped to conceive there first born child here.

Ma Trickett fell into the empty camp chair, “Getzing settled in alright?” The chair creaked and groaned like a wooden ship under her, her German twang was inimitable, East German, you could smell the Merkell proletariat on her bourgeois old money. She drove a late model BMW saloon, bronze colour with Marvin Gaye pumping through the Bang and Olufson sound system, a woman of few words and immense practicality, she hadn’t walked all the way down to her back paddock for nothing Rob thought to himself.

“Yeah pretty much done, Jenny and I are forever thankful for you allowing us to rent the cottage, can I offer you a beverage?”

“No” she says , “I just came to say that if you do light this fire make sure it is fully extinguished”.

She peers at the wood pile suspiciously

“Where’s Jenny ?” She quizzes

“Inside, making potato salad, should I fetch her?”

“No, you can pass on the message”

Rob laughs nervously as the sun slowly sets behind the nearby fence line of hedgerow poplars . Old Ma Tricketts eyes glaze over and she starts in a monotonous tone through her thick spectacles glasses. Like a chef looking into a hot oven. Rob pulls his flannel shirt in a bit tighter as the night chill descends.

“The main house and this cabin were built after the Great War in the 1920s in 1929 after Black Friday on the stock exchange the children of the suicides came to this place as a boys home. In 1935 it caught fire and burnt down some say due too an unattended fire in the main hall living room, others say it was arson to spare the families the embarrassment of the parents. Suicide in the higher circles of society is still taboo. This cabin was spared and some say the 22 boys who perished that fateful night live in purgatory here as stewards of extinguishing unattended fires”

Rob pulled back on his beer and called out to Jenny. “JENNY!” Jenny appears a bit startled as Rob looks like he is beginning to regret moving here already. Old Ma Trickett says

“Be sure campfire extinguished lurve , ve don’t vant any bushfire”

She hobbles off through the long grass with her gas lantern back to the grand old main house that obviously must have been fully restored and rebuilt.

“What was that about“ Jenny quizzes Rob

“Ah nothing just need to put the fire out later that’s all”

“Ben and Cheryl aren’t coming“ Jenny states in a matter of fact tone.

“Just you and me then” he smiles and slaps her hard and her denim Jean clad butt.

“Light the fire! I’ll get the potato salad” Rob watched her cute fiancée wander across the lawn towards the cabin door in the silhouette of the candle in the window.

5 hours later under the clear starlight sky Rob and Jenny carouse around on a blanket in front of the dying embers of a bonfire.

Jenny leads Rob inside as they both stagger off after a few good bottles of South American red.

“Wait wait I gotta put out the fire I promised Old Ma Trickett”

“Ok hurry up I’m ovulating tonight it’s our best chance”

Rob is pleased with himself at preparing a couple of buckets of water earlier and quickly puts out the fire. He double checks it is fully out. He runs inside like a teenage boy arms flailing .

Jenny lays wantingly on the thick winter Alpaca blanket. The candle is still upright in the window pane reflection as Rob glides on to bed unzip himself skivvy out of his jeans and pull off his shirt in a kinda of simultaneous move into a smelly campfire heap at the base of the bed. He falls awkwardly as Jenny deftly slips from under him and straddles on top him. Rob leans on her to finish her glances toward the end of the bed and goes ashen white. Jenny sees his face and wonders if she’s given Rob a heart attack and killed him , she has no idea what came over her , it was if she was possessed by a fertility god.

She stoops and looks over her own shoulder to where Robs gaze is held. There, at the end of the bed is an eleven year boy in a public school uniform, his fleshed is charred behind recognition and he has eyes that are black cinder smoking holes.

Rob goes a shade whiter and shakes a microntremble , Jenny is decidedly sober leaping under the blanket behind him. No scream, just open mouth aghast, silence, stunned. Truly terrified into stone.

The boy holds up an exquisite antique brass candle extinguisher and stuffs out the candle in the window into total darkness.

7 hours later….

Rob brushes at the fire ash at the floor of the bed carpet, thinking he must have walked it in from the campfire last night. It is exactly where the schoolboy was standing, he shudders slightly. he looks over at the melted burnt out candle in the window , a puddle of yellow beeswax now, it looks like a squashed spider so unthreatening and disappointing in its demise. He and Jenny don’t even mention last night; out of fear maybe, they each oddly pretended the other one must be too drunk too know or be sure that didn’t want to come off being crazy to the other, the Birds are chirping it’s a crisp autumn day and he’s thinking about going into town to get some poulets for the chicken coup out in the back yard. No such thing as ghosts, he never mentions it to Jenny until 36 weeks later in the delivery suite, when they look at each other and share a moment.

22 years later Jordan stands in the magistrates dock covered in tattoos and is about to be sentienced for his third arson offence. He had been conceived under that still candle in the window of the cabin in the woods that fateful night to Rob and Jenny, it was his destiny to be The Extinguisher Arsonist.