Stella

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. "Damn kids," Stella thought to herself as she caught a glimpse from her bedroom window. The cabin always made her feel uneasy, even in the short time she had lived here, but there was little she could do. It sat just outside her property, and anytime she brought it up to her neighbors they would change the subject, clearly reluctant to even talk about it, let alone do anything with it.

So she continued watching for a few minutes to see if anyone was going out to investigate. The cabin was a hazard, and if the neighborhood kids had gone inside they could fall through the floor, or have a piece of rotting wood fall on them.

When it became obvious that no one was going to check the cabin out, she wrapped her robe around her, made her way downstairs and put on her shoes. As Stella walked slowly towards the cabin, she looked for signs of activity on the inside. Nothing. So she continued, calling out, "is anyone in there?"

Finally she made it to the front door of the cabin. She turned the flashlight on her phone on and panned the room. It didn't look like anyone had even been inside. There were no prints in the years of dust on the floor. Long standing cobwebs remained untouched. Yet the candle was there, in the window, it's flicker making shadows dance on the walls. Stella stepped carefully inside, calling out one last time as she made her way towards the candle. Regardless of how it got there, if it were to fall the whole cabin would go up in flames almost immediately, endangering the homes in the area, including her own. She took another look around, then blew the flame out.

With an ungodly roar, the candle relit and the front door slammed shut. Stella fell to the floor, frightened and startled. The shadows that playfully danced on the walls before now drew menacingly towards her, coming together as one malicious entity. She scurried along the floor towards the door, a frenzied crab-walk, her voice unable to utter an accompanying plea for help. A black hand rose up from the entity, its fingers dripping shadows like blood, moving slowly towards Stella.

The hand stopped as the front door creeped open to reveal Beth and Todd, the neighbors. Stella leapt to her feet and threw her arms around them. "Oh, God, thank you, thank you," she stammered, tears streaming down her cheeks, her chest heaving for breath. It would be a few moments before she noticed that neither one wrapped her in a comforting hug, or walked her away from the cabin.

It was Todd that pushed Stella away. "It's been five years," Beth began, her eyes gazing inside the derelict cabin, "Five years since our precious daughter Katherine died here." "The cabin, it took her," Todd continued, "The floor opened up, taking her down, barraging her with pieces of wood and glass as she fell. We couldn't even tell it was her. Every square inch of her body had been flayed away."

Stella's face dropped. "That's, that's horrible," she cried. "The coroner came, took away what they could," Beth whispered, "but she stayed behind. She stayed behind. So every year we bring a candle to the front door here, and she takes it to the window and lights it." Stella looked at the pair, her eyes betraying the fear at what she was hearing. "It's comforting, in a way," Todd smiled, "to know she's nearby. But she must be so lonely..."

As Todd trailed off, Beth shoved Stella back into the cabin, where the ominous hand reached around her mouth and dragged her to the center of the room. "We'll bring two candles next year," Beth grinned, the last words Stella would ever hear as she was pulled below, her final breaths lost in the sinister darkness that enveloped her.

THE END