Candle Face Victim #24: Buried Beneath the House

April 15, 2024

Main Subjects: Candle Face

• Victim #24

After spending too much time scrolling through Facebook and YouTube on my phone, I finally set it down and got ready to sleep on the couch again. I walked over to turn off the light. Just before the room went dark, the last flash of light showed a shadowy figure standing there. I froze and stared at the outline, with the sense that he was waiting to see what I would do.

Maybe he noticed my hesitation, because he moved closer and leaned against my bar. I couldn’t make out much in the dark, but I saw two knives stuck in him, one through the chest and another at the neck. He looked toward me and spoke in a wet, blood-thick voice. “Looks like I’ve overstayed my welcome in the living world, don’t you think?”

I didn’t answer. I knew speaking might draw him deeper into Candle Face’s Lair. He didn’t seem bothered by my silence. He stayed where he was, resting against the bar with those knife handles catching the faint light. Then he began to tell me how he died.

I used to think I had a decent sense of who I could trust. That day proved me wrong. It started before sunrise when my cousin and his friend pitched me a plan. We would drive to Houston, pick up a load of weapons, and sell them back in Austin. “Easy money,” my cousin said, like it was nothing.

We left Austin that afternoon and took Highway 183. When we got to Luling, my cousin said we needed to stop and pick up a “box of gats.” We turned off onto Salt Road and drove a few more minutes until we pulled up to a plain-looking house.

Something about that house felt wrong. The second we stepped inside, I knew I should never have come.

It happened fast.

I never saw it coming. My cousin hit first, driving a knife into my ribs and then into my chest. His friend followed with a blade to my neck. In those last moments, I saw their faces, grim and set, no regret in them at all.

They buried me beneath that cursed house. From under the floorboards, I listened while they talked through the rest of what they had planned. They were going to Houston to pick up the weapons, then north on Interstate 45 to some apartment to get more. After that, they’d head to San Antonio on I-10 and dump my belongings somewhere to throw off any investigation. Then they’d come back to Austin and act like nothing had happened.

But that house had something wrong with it long before I ever set foot in it.

It wasn’t long before Candle Face called them back. I watched them return and stand in that haunted spot above my body. She was already there.

Her voice filled the house, low and mocking. “You thought you could decide his fate without me?”

My cousin tried to act tough. “We did what we thought was necessary. He wouldn’t have believed in you anyway.”

Candle Face laughed. “Belief,” she said. “People hand it over so easily, and it still carries power.” Then she looked at me, even though I was already dead. “And you doubted me.”

I found my voice then. “I never believed in the paranormal. I believed in what I could see and touch.”

Her smile twisted. “And yet, here you are,” she said. “Touched by the very thing you denied.”

Then she told us the town and the house sat on old ground, a place tied to whatever lies between worlds. What they did to me there finished some kind of summoning.

She turned back to my cousin and his friend. “You share a name I know well,” she said. “That tells me something about you. I see what use I can make of you.”

They looked at each other, and I could see it on their faces. They knew they were in deeper than they had expected.

Then Candle Face softened her voice in a way that made it worse. “You did well bringing him to me,” she said. “Now go find more like him. Doubters. Deniers. Bring them to me, and you stay in my favor.”

They nodded. Fear and ambition did the rest.

Then she turned back to me. “As for you,” she said, “yours ends here. Theirs is only starting.”

Pain tore through me harder than anything I’d ever felt. I was bound to that house, one of many souls trapped beneath its floorboards.

And my cousin and his friend? They walked out with a job to do, feeding others to Candle Face. They thought they were in control, but they were just pieces in her game.

Now the house above me is a tomb. My cousin and his friend may think they got away clean, but I hope their turn comes. Candle Face doesn’t let anyone walk away untouched.

He gave me a sly grin, pushed himself off the bar, and stepped back into the corner. The knife handles in his chest and neck bounced with every step. Just before he disappeared, he said, “Good luck, Ray.”

Personal Note to My Readers

This account is different from the ones I documented earlier. This spirit gave unusually specific travel details: Austin to Luling, then Houston and San Antonio. He named Highway 183 and Interstates 10 and 45. He mentioned “Salt Road” in Luling. From a quick search, I couldn’t find a road by that exact name, though there is a Salt Flat Road. That could mean his memory was fading, or it could mean something in the account was distorted.

What troubles me most is his claim that Candle Face described the town and house as an old site of power, and that multiple victims may be buried beneath that house. If that’s true, it raises serious questions I couldn’t risk asking him:

• What exactly is this old ground she spoke of?
• Is there a pattern of unsolved deaths tied to that location?
• How does Candle Face fit into whatever happened there?

The killers, a cousin and a friend, were said to share the same name, and Candle Face seemed to see that as significant. Whether that’s a coincidence, I don’t know yet.

As more clues come in, I want to stay focused on what can be checked. Every detail, strange or not, may help us identify that house on Salt Flat Road.

The investigation continues in the three most recent entries below. Each adds to the record on Candle Face (Isabel), the Lost Souls, and the Fugitives. You’ll find every entry to date in The Journal.