Candle Face Victim #27: Every Sign Said 'I Love You'

April 25, 2024

Main Subjects: Candle Face

• Victim #27

It had been six days since my last nocturnal visitor. These late-night encounters have turned fear into something familiar. At least I had a short break. That ended this morning.

I was settling onto the couch, ready to fall asleep, when I saw the shadow in the far corner of the living room grow larger. My heart pounded. I remember thinking, here we go again. I took a breath and waited for the spirit to show himself.

A young man in his early to mid-twenties stepped forward, draped in a sheet. I met his eyes and stayed quiet, letting him know I was listening. He took that as his cue and began to tell me what happened.

I left my apartment in San Marcos and headed toward my parents’ place near Houston. I put their address into my GPS and set out late in the evening, hoping to avoid the Christmas traffic. I took Highway 80. Near Stairtown, I saw a man standing on the side of the road in a construction vest and hard hat. He was holding a large white sign over his head that said, “CONTINUE STRAIGHT,” with a black arrow pointing forward. He waved as I drove by. He looked like a road worker directing traffic, even though there was no construction anywhere around him.

A few minutes later, I passed a woman in a construction vest and hard hat holding a sign that read, “KEEP GOING, YOU’RE ALMOST THERE.” She waved, and I honked back. By then, my GPS signal had dropped, so I had to rely on memory, and I had only driven that route twice before.

At the point where Highway 80 and Highway 183 meet, I saw another woman holding a sign with an arrow pointing straight ahead. I hesitated because I thought I needed to turn right, but she pointed straight ahead and waved me on. I did. As I passed, she shouted, “I love you!” I laughed and honked again.

At another intersection, I saw a group standing there, each holding a sign. One of them stood out to me. It read, “BEYOND THIS PATH LIES THE UNKNOWN. TRUST YOUR HEART TO LEAD YOU HOME.” It felt like the kind of prank my college friends would set up if they knew I was coming through.

That made me relax. I even sped up a little. Then I saw three friends from school standing by the road, waving signs that said, “YOU MADE IT,” “WELCOME HOME,” and “I LOVE YOU.” Then they threw themselves in front of my car. I swerved to avoid them and slid to a stop on a dirt road. I jumped out into the glare of my headlights.

“What are y'all doing here?”

They only laughed. Then they rushed me, grabbed my arms, and steered me toward a barbed wire fence.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to a party, and you’re the guest of honor,” they said. But their voices sounded hollow.

I hesitated. “Wait. I need to know where we’re going before I go any farther.”

“Don’t be a baby. We love you,” they said, laughing again.

Every instinct in me said something was wrong. I took a step back. “I think I should go back to my car,” I said, trying to sound calm.

Then their faces changed. Their bodies stretched and twisted until the three people I knew were gone. In their place were tall, black, swirling shadows hovering just above the ground. The air around us turned hot.

One of them came closer. It looked almost human, but too long, too warped, like a reflection pulled out of shape. When it spoke, the voice was smooth, calm, and worse because of it.

“This isn’t a request.”

Then it turned its head toward an old structure buried deep in the brush.

The shadows stripped me naked and dragged me toward the house. It sagged under the weight of age, its windows dark and empty.

“Come,” the shadow said. “She is waiting for you.”

I tried to resist. “No. I need to go.” But they ignored me. They pushed me through the door. Inside, the floor creaked under every step like old bones. The heat was suffocating. Every breath I took felt hotter than the one before, and the air smelled like decay and earth.

Dozens of candles lined the room. Their flames lit the shadows and guided me toward the center.

Then the room shimmered, and Candle Face stepped out of the dark.

The stories made her sound like a pretty little girl. What I saw was tall and thin, her wax-like face lit softly by candlelight, her hollow eye sockets fixed on me.

Her brow tightened. “I am irate,” she said, her voice carrying through the room. “You refuse to believe in me. After all I have done, after all my efforts, your doubt has worn my patience thin.”

The air grew hotter with every word.

I tried to speak. I wanted to apologize, to beg. But fear locked my throat.

“You will not ignore me any longer,” she said.

With one motion of her hand, the floorboards gave way beneath me. I dropped and landed hard under the house.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw that I wasn’t alone. Dozens of others were down there with me. Their eyes were hollow, but every one of them was fixed on me. Together, they began to sing, over and over:

“I love you.”

I lay there trapped under the floorboards. Candle Face wasn’t finished with me.

“One day, someone will come looking for you. Someone who loves you,” she said. Then she laughed as her voice faded.

The silence after that was crushing, thick with the smell of old earth. I could feel the other spirits around me, each trapped in a nightmare of their own, each buried with a story nobody had heard.

Then her voice came again.

“It is not merely to torment you that I bind you here. There is a way out, a puzzle that, if solved, will break the chains that hold you here.”

A faint light appeared above me, as if the idea of escape alone was enough to change the dark.

“Listen well,” she said. “This riddle is your only key. The one who truly understands the power of this house can unravel it and free you.”

The air grew hotter again. Then she gave me the riddle.

After that, silence returned. But now it carried the smallest possibility that someone might come, solve it, and get me out of there. Who that person is, I don’t know. The answer is trapped in that house, the same as I am.

He stayed near the edge of the portal, gave me a tired grin, and turned to leave.

“Wait!” I shouted, louder than I meant to. The force of my own voice startled both of us. He turned back, his eyes wide, and I knew right away I had crossed a line again. Candle Face had warned me not to speak directly to the Lost Souls, and I had done it anyway.

Since I had already broken the rule, I kept going.

“What’s the riddle? What did Candle Face tell you? If you want my help, then help me. Give me the riddle.”

He glanced back toward the portal, then looked at me like he thought he had nothing left to lose.

“She asked this,” he said.

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?

Then he turned back toward the portal. He looked torn for a second, until a calm but firm voice came from inside it.

“Come.”

He gave a small nod and disappeared into the dark.

Personal Note to My Readers

I wrote the riddle down as fast as I could and rushed to my computer to record the rest of his testimony. I still don’t know what it means.

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 a strange pattern here. “I love you” keeps showing up on the signs, in the voices of the fake construction workers, among the spirits under the house, and inside the riddle itself. I don’t yet understand how those words connect to his death.

I searched online for clues and found nothing useful. I thought about asking the paranormal community, but too many of them seem more interested in dust specks and camera glitches than real hauntings. I may need to go there myself. It’s less than two hours away. After thirty years in intelligence and investigations, I should trust my own methods enough to work this through.

I’ll let you know what I find.

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.