The Candle

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Two young boys bore witness; it was a moonless night, just as chilly as it was dark. A harsh breeze pushed through the trees and howled at their backs. The boys had seen the cabin a few times before. Over the years, they had crossed paths with the cabin frequently enough that they didn’t think anything of it by this point; it was just the same old cabin. The funny thing about the cabin was that when they were younger, the boys had tried to find the cabin again after crossing its path. They embarked on several searches, but were never able to find it. See, they had only ever been able to find the cabin when they had no idea where they were going; when they were truly lost. It was not far to civilization from either side of the woods, so they did not typically panic when they found themselves in this situation. One of the boys would just say, “Oh look, there's the old cabin again. We must be lost,” then they would laugh and carry on their way. But tonight, they stopped. There had never been a light in the window before. The wind howled and the trees quaked.

“Do you see that?” The first boy asked.

“Yes, I do,” responded the other, “There is a candle in the window.” They were both silent for a moment.

“There has never been a candle in the window before, has there?” Asked the first boy.

“No, there has never been a candle in the window before,” the second boy told him. The wind howled and the trees quaked.

“Do you think that there is someone in there?” Asked the first boy.

“I don’t know,” replied the second boy. They were both silent for a moment.

“I-it could just be that normal people live there. Maybe they always have, and we just never knew.”

The first boy considered this. “Y-yeah, I suppose that could be it. Or it could just be a homeless person spending the night in the cabin.”

The second boy nodded. “Y-yeah, it could be that too.” The two were silent for a moment. “Although,” the second boy started again, “My friend from school once told me about how back in his old town, before he moved here, there was this homeless guy who everyone knew. He was always on the street in the daytime, but no one ever knew where he went at night. Eventually, they found out that he would follow people home at night and kill them so that he could sleep in their house. B-but this guy was sick, he had some sort of problem that prevented him from being able to sleep in the same place more than once. S-so every day he would follow someone new home at night and kill them and sleep in their home. W-when the people in the town finally found out, t-the guy ran off into the woods and was never found.”

The first boy’s teeth were chattering. “O-oh, I see. W-well, it’s probably not him, right?” The wind howled and the trees quaked.

The first boy stuttered, “M-m-my father said that there used to be an old couple that lived in his neighborhood. He said that one day, they built a cabin in the woods and moved away from the neighborhood. After they moved, the police found over a dozen dead bodies in their basement. They were all chopped up in a pile. It took them weeks to piece the bodies back together so they could identify the victims. There were all sorts of different people among the bodies, all chopped up and stinking. The place reeked so bad, they had to close the entire street. They looked for the cabin so that they could arrest the old couple, but they never found it.” The second boy gulped. The wind howled and the trees quaked.

The second boy said, “My father told me that back when he was a kid, there was an evil witch who lived in a cabin in the woods. He said children used to disappear all the time. He said she did really terrible things, like cooking them and eating them, or cutting them up and tossing them in her cauldron, or sacrificing them to evil beings. He said that they knew it was the witches doing, but they could never find the cabin.” The first boy gulped. The wind howled and the trees quaked.

The first boy started again, “M-my older cousin used to tell me that these woods were haunted and filled with ghosts. He said that their leader, the strongest one, had the power to bring souls back from the dead. He said he used this power to create an army of ghosts. He said that at night, the ghosts would lurk around the woods and look for people to kill so that they could turn their souls into ghosts to serve the leader. He said sometimes, someone would find the body of one of the people who were killed, and that you could tell by their faces that they had died in real agony.”

“Oh, c-come on. Now that is just crazy,” the second boy insisted, although he hardly sounded convincing. The wind howled and the trees quaked. Darkness filled their very lungs.

The first boy thought aloud, “S-should we go look?”

“No. No, I don’t think we should. If there is somebody in there, we wouldn’t want to disturb them,” the second boy justified anxiously.

“True. We wouldn’t want to disturb anybody this late at night,” The first boy agreed. They were both silent for a moment. “Y-you don’t think that there is something really bad in there, right? Y-you don’t think that something evil is in there, like the Devil? L-like the Devil might live in that cabin, and maybe he lured us here so that he could boil us alive and drag our souls down to Hell? L-like there's a staircase in the cabin that leads down to the cellar, only instead of the cellar the staircase keeps going on and on until it brings you straight to Hell and then they lock you in there and you can never escape? L-like he’s going to drag us down there and leave us there forever to be tortured over and over?”

“N-no. No, I don’t think that,” the second boy assured the first. “After all, why would the Devil light a candle? What use would the King of Darkness have for light?”

“O-oh. I suppose you’re right. What use would the Devil have for the light in the window?” The first boy considered. Just then, they saw something shift behind the candle in the window of the cabin. A shadow stood over the candle. The two boys were paralyzed with fear. Slowly, the shadow reached out towards the candle, smothering the wick of the candle. The candle in the window of the cabin went out. The wind howled and the trees quaked. Without the light of the candle, the darkness was finally complete.

The cabin in the woods remained untouched in the years to come. Occasionally, some poor soul would come across the cabin, but never again was a candle seen in the window. And just like the flame that once illuminated the cabin window, the boys had disappeared forever.