An Old Flame

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night a candle burned in the window. The light danced slowly behind the glass, before leading a tender orange waltz out of sight. Steadily, a dim glow spread throughout the house, first to the kitchen, then upstairs to the bedroom. Jeremy and Heather wondered if they should call the fire department, if one of the kids from school had set the abandoned "Party House" on fire.

"Well, what if it's just Woody in there?" Jeremy suggested. The old man had been living in the woods since before the kids had been born. As far as the town was concerned, he was just anti-social, and he had certainly never bothered any teenagers that used the old cabin as a recreational center.

"I don't think it's Woody...I don't even think anyone has ever seen him go in the cabin. The last time anyone saw him is when he bitched out Nick Russel for leaving beer cans in the creek. I think we should go back to your place and call the fire department."

"Aww babe," Jeremy whined "I thought it'd be all romantic and crap. You, me, out in the woods, watching the meteor shower. Who knows when another one of these things is gonna come through?" Heather rolled her eyes. As if there weren't shooting stars over the mountain every other week.

"C'mon, Jerm. We'll catch the next meteor shower, I promise. Plus, you don't want me safe and sound back at your house, just the two of us, Loverboy?" Jeremy swallowed, nodding enthusiastically. Stars, schmars as far as he was concerned. As long as he got some alone time with Heather, he didn't mind where they were. As they got further and further away from the cabin, the light receded, flickering more and more faintly until the house was swollen with darkness again. The falling stars looked beautiful, passing in a line straight over the cabin.

It was late, and fire season. Dispatch got two volunteer firefighters to investigate Jeremy's call. There was no road to the cabin, so the two young firefighters drove their truck as close as they could, and walked the rest of the way. Josh himself had fond memories of the cabin, and casually swapped stories with his partner along the trail.

"Oh man, Cassandra Owens," Josh laughed and shook his head, "She was absolute dynamite. Gorgeous, funny, and waaay into yours truly."

"So I guess this poor girl was lacking in the brain department." His partner chuckled. "Hey, I've got two words for you, and they ain't 'kiss me.'" Josh quipped, a triumphant grin still planted on his face. "Cassie, Cassie, Cassie."

"Then what happened to this girl who's so great? You ain't seeing anybody." Josh's grin shrunk and twisted around. "Yeah, well, she went off to college, and I..." he shrugged and sighed, "stayed here. She came back for holidays and I went out to visit her. But she started coming back less and less, and I was going out there less and less. Then less and less became phone calls, then the phone calls stopped." A gloved hand gripped his shoulder and squeezed firmly.

"I'm sorry, man. I know how chicks are. Don't get me started on my ex wife." His partner laughed to diffuse the tension. It wasn't helping. Josh didn't care, he still had those happy memories and the sound of a beautiful woman saying his name. "Josh-wah" a small voice rang through the trees. "Cass?" Josh whispered.

"You say something Josh?" his partner's flashlight was trained on his face, but Josh shook his head. "This is it, right?" the light pulled from Josh's face and illuminated a small, two-story cabin. "I don't see any sort of fire, do you?" Spots still danced in front of Josh's eyes, "I can barely see anything. Thanks for the lightshow Mitch." The front door was locked, but the window slid open easily. Josh had to shed his coat, but he was able to slip inside and open the door. Mitch followed him in, handing him his coat and extinguisher.

"Welp, I'd say there's definitively no fire here." Mitch observed, "Ready to hike out and call it a night?" Josh set his extinguisher down and pulled out his flashlight. Shining it around the bare cabin brought back memories of liquor carelessly stolen from parents, pooling money for cheap grass, and talking like Humphrey Bogart and Audrey Hepburn. Getting trashed and pretending to be mobsters and their flapper girlfriends, listening to swing on somebody's speaker, stoking a small fire in the fireplace, and Cass with her penciled-on beauty mark saying his name. "Josh-wah," the ceiling squeaked.

"Somebody is here," Josh muttered to Mitch, and motioned at the ceiling above them. The two volunteer firefighters stood side by side, moving as quietly as they could through the cabin. Stale booze permeates the entire house. The shelves in the kitchen were all empty, and the pipes in the sink fossilized with rust. The fridge had its doors removed, inside were two black plastic bags full of crushed beer cans and plastic liquor bottles. "Shiiiit I bet old Woody isn't gonna be happy some lazy kids left their trash here." Mitch giggled. Leftover rotgut vodka leaked out of the bag, adding a chemical harshness to the stale smell of the cabin.

Josh and Mitch crept carefully up the stairs to the bedroom. As carefully as two grown men in steel-toed boots and firefighter's uniforms could. Every creak and bend in the wood beneath their feet made the two men pause and hold their breath. Still, there was no other sound through the whole house. At the top of the stairs, Josh peeked into the bathroom, tattooed by decades of teenagers' sharpies. The dry toilet bowl had once been painted with a perfect spiral, courtesy of some tripping art student. At some point it had been painted solid black, and silver initials and tags ran haphazardly around it.

The two men entered the bedroom, spartan just like the rest of the house, save for a dirty mattress in the middle of the room. Names, stains, and tears were craters upon the mattress' surface. Near a dark, rust-colored splatter, Mitch saw several needles. "Aww, fuck man. You think that kid saw some poor bastard's lighter as they were getting their fix?" He held the thin plastic implement delicately between two fingers, "I can't imagine what horror someone's gotta have in their skull that makes smack seem like a good idea."

Josh clenched his jaw, and his shoulders raised toward his ears. He could feel himself getting warmer. He could still hear Cass' voice on the phone. "Please, Josh, you can just lend me a little money right? O-or let me stay with you? I promise I'll get clean this time. I just need some help baby please." Josh stayed silent on the other end of the line, biting into his lip to keep the sobs from leaking into the receiver. His eyes burned. "I'll come home for good, my parents cut me off, but if you can send me a little cash for a bus ticket I can be up there by the end of the week." Cass' voice had been so melodic, but she sounded choppy and dissonant on the phone. He could hear her smacking her lips, her tongue aching for water. Suddenly she stopped, her breathing sounded more deliberate. Josh broke his silence, and his vocal chords cracked and strained "Cass? Cass are you there? Is everything okay?" She came back on the line, belting in a old Vaudevillian accent, "Josh-wah! You sure are the kinda fella to keep a dame guessin'! Whattaya say, ya gonna give your old flame a hand? Keep stokin' these embers?" Her tongue was moving a mile a minute, Josh had to plug his other ear and really focus to pick words out. "Josh-wah I ain't runnin' no two-bit ramshackle rigmarole here. I aim to get right and stay right. Then after I'm done and dusted, what's say you and me cut a rug again eh? Like old times? Like old times?! Josh-wah!"

Tears dropped one by one onto the weathered floorboards. "I gave her the money, and she just came here to shoot up again." Josh was burning up. "Fucking useless!" He slapped the needle from Mitch's hand. It slapped quietly against the floor, and rolled to the edge of the mattress. A soft cry came from underneath the mattress. Josh's tears stopped, his and Mitch's flashlights were trained on the resting needle. Another tiny groan, "Josh-wah," came floating weakly from beneath the mattress. The sky was full of falling stars.

The two men stood there in silence. Hearts sending tremors throughout their bodies. Lumps growing, contorting in their chests, and snaking up into their throats. Mitch swallowed his lump, just a little bit, and snatched the needle away from the mattress. "What the fuck? What the fuck!?" Josh screamed through his gritted teeth and closed mouth. A heartbeat passes, the tremors continue. "I..." Mitch's voice is hollow, his eyes fixed on the edge of the mattress, "wanted to see...what would happen." Two more heartbeats, the tremors are shaking their bones. The lump in Josh's throat fills his mouth. He wants to scream, but can only sneak a "Don't" passed the tears and the shaking.

Mitch bends his knees, and grips the underside of the mattress. As he stands up, the mattress is flung aside and Mitch stumbles backward, retching and gagging. "Josh-wah!" a dull, raspy voice cries out. In a small cavity beneath the bed, rotted books make a bed for a nest of thin, fleshy vines. The vines slither and coil around the body of a woman. A large tendril has bored into her eye, and another into her throat. Her remaining eye is glassy and pallid, and fixed on Mitch. A raw, red hand extends from the pit, grabbing at the hem of his pants.

Mitch is still on his hands and knees when he feels a feeble tug from behind. He looks back to see the woman's face, and retches again. The thick tendril swells and bores deeper into her eye socket. A low, gurgling cry rumbles from her throat. Tendrils shift, move, climb out of the pit. The tug on Mitch's leg grows stronger. He lunges for Josh, but the tendrils keep him from making it all the way. Josh grabs Mitch's hands, but the vines have too much purchase around Mitch's legs. They match Josh's effort, pulling Mitch taught above the floor. More vines unfurl from the pit, uncovering two eroded skeletons, slick with digestive enzymes and still steaming. Thicker tendrils prop the woman's head up out of the pit. What's left of her mouth makes a guttural popping sound.

"Don't let go man. Don't you fucking let go." Mitch cries, suspended from one end by Josh, and the other by the horrific vines. "Don't let it make me fucking mulch!" The tendrils snake along the floor, guided by the woman's guttural, gurgling popping. Josh tucks his flashlight under his arm, trying to gain more leverage. The tendrils have more leverage, and start to pull Mitch back into the pit. His arms are torn from their sockets, and he releases the needle into Josh's hand. Screaming, Mitch is pulled into the space beneath the bed. Josh staggers to his feet, sprinting for the stairs. The screams quiet down, Mitch's mouth is filling with vines. Josh leaps down the stairs to see vines creeping out between the steps. He rushes through the kitchen, and into the living room.

Josh's light lands on the door, who closed it? 'Doesn't matter, time to go,' he thinks. Josh tries the handle, but it doesn't budge. He pounds against the door with his full body weight, kicks the latch with his heavy steel-toed boot. The door doesn't budge. Vines no thicker than strands of hair begin emerging from the door's lock. "Fuckers!" Josh yells. He tries the window, but can feel more tentacles holding it shut. There is no more screaming now.

Josh turns and sees a crumpled body ensnared in tentacles descend the chimney. Woody's massive beard is caked with blood and digestive fluid. A large throbbing tentacle unfurled from Woody's chest, and slithered across the floor. "Josh-wah," the tendrils rooted throughout the house rumbled. Beams split and floorboards shifted from the writhing tentacles. The large tendril wrapped itself around Josh's leg as he struggled with the window.

The tendril pulled Josh to the floor, crushing his ankle and digging into his heavy firefighter pants with a barbed tongue. The fine tentacles crept further from the lock toward Josh's face. He still gripped the small plastic tube in his hand. The needle plunged into the soft, fleshy vine around his leg, and Josh pushed the plunger down as far as it would go. The large tentacle relaxed, and the fine hairs near his face went limp, Josh was able to stager to his feet. The window still wouldn't budge, and door's latch was still full of small vines keeping it shut.

Josh's extinguisher still sat by the door when he and Mitch first came into the cabin. Hobbling, Josh makes it over to the extinguisher, and smashes the window out. Floorboards creak and moan, whatever was in the syringe is wearing off. He removes the safety pin from the extinguisher and sprays an arc of potassium bicarbonate around himself. The vines balk and twist as the chemical reaches them. Josh holds the trigger down, gritting through the building chemical burns on his hands.

Having emptied the extinguisher, filling the room with a violet powder, Josh ambles over the shattered glass in the windowsill. His hands are balled into fists, and kept close to his torso to avoid slicing his hands open. The thick, flame retardant black uniform is pieced and torn all over from broken glass. On his back, Josh crawls away from the house, seeing a perfect line of starts shooting passed him overhead.

The stars begin falling faster, they make a solid line of fire across the night sky. Josh is still staring straight up when he sees the line widen. In between the two lines of fire is a twisted pupil suspended in a black sclera. The lines come together, and widen again, Josh can faintly see a swirling mass of stars in the horrid pupil. "Fuck this," he muttered and dragged himself to his feet.

Every step radiated pain through Josh's shattered ankle, his punctured skin. His nerves smouldered and crackled. He tuned to radio in his truck to reach dispatch, and called it in: Some addicts were shooting up, and had knocked over a candle. Mitch rushed in to save them, he didn't make it out. Josh tried to pull Mitch out, and was injured in the process. With all the booze soaked into the walls and floorboards over the years, that cabin became a tinderbox. Still, Josh siphoned some gas out of the truck's tank, and doused the outside. 'Four road flares oughta be enough' he thought. This was just another controlled burn. As a one-man fire line he had to be extra vigilant. He couldn't risk any stray embers, or anything else from the cabin, jumping to one of the surrounding trees.