April 25, 2024
It’s been six days since I’ve had a nocturnal visitor. These late-night encounters have taken me on an emotional roller coaster—swinging from dread to tense curiosity and back again to a more familiar fear. At least I got a short breather. But that respite ended abruptly this morning.
I was settling onto the couch, ready to drift off, when I noticed a shadow in the far corner of the living room grow larger. My heart pounded in my ears as I thought to myself, “Here we go again.” I took a calming breath, bracing myself for the spirit who was about to appear.
Sure enough, a young man in his early to mid-twenties, draped in a sheet, stepped forward and looked at me. I met his gaze in silence, a quiet agreement that I was listening, that he should begin. And so, he told me his story:
I left my apartment in San Marcos, heading to my parents’ place near Houston. After entering their address into my GPS, I set off late in the evening, hoping to avoid the Christmas season traffic. My journey took me along Highway 80. Near the small town of Stairtown, I noticed a man in a construction vest and hard hat on the side of the road. He held a large white sign above his head, which read, “CONTINUE STRAIGHT,” accompanied by a black arrow pointing forward. He waved as I drove past, seeming like a construction worker directing traffic despite no apparent construction.
A few minutes later, I encountered a woman wearing a construction vest and hard hat, displaying a sign that read, “KEEP GOING, YOU’RE ALMOST THERE.” She waved, and I honked my horn in response. By then, my GPS signal had dropped, forcing me to rely on my memory, which was shaky since it was only my third time driving this route.
Where Highway 80 and Highway 183 intersect, another woman held a sign with an arrow pointing straight ahead. I hesitated, thinking I needed to turn right, but she pointed directly at me and instructed me to continue straight. As I complied, she shouted, “I love you!” prompting me to laugh and honk in return.
At an intersection, a group stood, each holding a sign. One sign caught my attention; it read, “BEYOND THIS PATH LIES THE UNKNOWN. TRUST YOUR HEART TO LEAD YOU HOME.” It felt like a prank by my college friends, who knew I’d be passing through.
Feeling more relaxed and entertained by the apparent joke, I sped up. Moments later, I spotted three friends from school by the roadside, waving signs that read, “YOU MADE IT,” “WELCOME HOME,” and “I LOVE YOU.” As they suddenly jumped in front of my car, I swerved to avoid hitting them, skidding to a halt on the dirt road. I leaped out, greeted by the glare of my car’s headlights.
“What are ya’ll doing here?” Laughter was my only response from my friends. They rushed to me, grabbed my arms, and began directing me to step across some barbed wire fencing. “Where’re we going?”
“We’re going to a party, and you’re the guest of honor,” they replied, their voices now hollow.
Feeling uneasy, I hesitated. “Wait, I need to know where we’re going before I go any further,” I said, trembling slightly.
“Don’t be a baby; we love you,” they chuckled.
At that moment, my instincts screamed that something was wrong. I took a step back towards the barbed wire fence. “I think I should head back to my car,” I said, trying to look calm.
In an instant, the familiar features of my three college friends contorted, their bodies stretching and twisting. Their once recognizable forms dissipated into tall, dark, swirling shadows that hovered just above the ground. The air around us grew hot, pressing against my skin.
One of the shadows moved closer, its form becoming more defined yet no less terrifying. It appeared almost human but elongated and distorted, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror. The voice that emerged from it was unexpectedly smooth, chillingly serene against its ghastly appearance. “This isn’t a request,” it said.
Slowly, it tilted its head towards an old structure hidden deep in the thick brush, barely visible. The shadows stripped me of my clothes and dragged me to this house. The house seemed to sag under the weight of countless years, its windows dark and vacant.
“Come,” the shadow urged. “She is waiting for you.”
The shadows pushed me forward against my will. “No, I... I need to go,” I responded, but the shadows didn’t heed my protests. They, instead, ushered me through the door. Once inside, the old wood under my feet creaked like bones cracking with every step. The air was hot; each breath I took felt hotter than the last, filled with the smell of decay and old earth.
The shadows were now silhouetted against dozens of candles along the room’s perimeter and center. The flames guided me to the center of an old, dusty room.
Suddenly, the space around me began to glitter, and from the shadows, Candle Face emerged. She wasn’t a pretty young girl from the stories I have heard, but a tall and slender woman, her wax-like face illuminated softly by the candlelight. The hollow eye sockets, dark and deep, seemed to look right into my soul.
Candle Face said to me with a wrinkled brow, “I am irate,” she began, her voice echoing around the room, “that you refuse to believe in me. Despite my many attempts and all I have done for you, your doubt has worn my patience thin.” The air grew hotter with each word, the shadows around us growing more intense.
I tried to speak, apologize, and plead, but fear tightened around my throat, squeezing the words back down.
“You will not ignore me any longer,” Candle Face declared. With a wave of her hand, the floorboards beneath me gave way and landed softly but firmly just below the house.
As my eyes adjusted, I noticed I wasn’t alone. Dozens of others lay under the floorboards, their eyes hollow yet seemingly looking right at me. In a haunting chorus, they sang, “I love you,” over and over again.
As I lay there, trapped beneath the house’s floorboards, Candle Face had more to say. She wasn’t done with me yet, she said in a faint yet unmistakable voice, “One day, someone will come looking for you, someone who loves you,” Candle Face said, her voice fading, laughing as her voice faded.
The silence that followed was deafening and thick with the scent of old earth. I felt the presence of the other spirits around me, each trapped in their own nightmare, their stories untold and forgotten, their fates sealed like mine.
“It is not merely to torment you that I bind you here,” Candle Face’s voice emerged again. “There is a way out, a puzzle that, if solved, will break the chains that tether you to this place.”
A flicker of light appeared above me as if the mere mention of escape gave me hope. “Listen well,” she continued, “for this riddle is your only key to salvation. The only one who truly understands the depths of this house’s power can unravel its meaning and grant you release.”
The air grew even hotter, and I braced myself as she delivered the riddle.
The silence returned but now charged with the faintest chance of possibility—that someone could come, solve the riddle, and free me from Candle Face’s hell. Who’s this person who will come looking for me? The answer remained trapped within the walls of the haunted house, just as I remained trapped under its creaking boards.
He lingered just at the edge of that dark portal, tossing me a tired grin before turning to leave.
“Wait!” I blurted—louder than I intended. The sudden force of my own voice startled us both. He spun around, eyes wide with surprise… and maybe fear. Right then, I knew I’d slipped up. Candle Face had specifically warned me not to speak to the lost souls, yet here I was, crossing that line again.
But since I’d already stepped over it, I decided to press on. “What’s the riddle? What did Candle Face tell you? If you want my help, you need to help me. Give me the riddle,” I demanded, ignoring the knot in my stomach.
He shot a nervous glance back into the portal, then looked at me, as if thinking he had nothing left to lose. “She posed this riddle: ‘Across the cemetery’s silent stones, I love you pierces through the bones. Who hears this declaration low, where none but departed souls may go?’”
With that, he turned back toward the portal. For a moment, he looked torn, until a calm but commanding voice drifted out of the portal: “Come.” He gave a small nod and vanished into the gloom.
Personal Note to My Readers
I quickly scribbled the riddle down on paper and rushed to my computer to capture the rest of his story. What could it mean?
"Across the cemetery’s silent stones, ‘I love you’ pierces through the bones. Who hears this declaration low, where none but departed souls may go?"
There’s this odd thread of “I love you” that keeps surfacing—from road signs and “construction workers” to the floorboards hiding spirits, and now in this riddle. How does “I love you” tie in with his fate?
I tried searching online for clues but came up empty. I thought about reaching out to the paranormal community, but most people I’ve seen there seem more concerned with dust specks on camera lenses than dealing with real hauntings. I might need to go check things out for myself. It’s less than two hours away, after all. With thirty years of intelligence and investigative work under my belt, I should trust my own methods to dig up the truth. I’ll let you know what I discover.
Key To Understanding
Purchase Candle Face Chronicles: The Lost Souls [Book One]
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