The Empty Lot Next Door: The Origin of Candle Face

December 28, 2023

Main subjects:

• The Empty Lot Next Door

• Candle Face

Let me share the story I wrote about in my memoir, The Empty Lot Next Door. It began in the 1970s, when my family moved from the city projects to a small house in Austin, Texas. Back then, I was just a kid called Ray, and I was immediately drawn to the empty lot next door, a strange place where a house once stood, leaving behind nothing but a gaping hole in the back.

Our new neighborhood was packed with kids, and we turned that lot into our own playground. But it wasn’t just an ordinary patch of dirt. The lot came with a grim tale that both intrigued and terrified me. The house that once stood there had burned down years earlier, and rumor had it that a little girl died in the fire. According to the local kids, her ghost still haunted the lot, targeting anyone daring or foolish enough to jump into that hole.

Being young and reckless, I couldn’t resist the challenge. I decided to test the ghost story, and it’s a decision I’ve regretted ever since. That’s when I first encountered the ghost I came to call “Candle Face,” named for her charred appearance. She invaded my dreams and even left handprints around the house in broad daylight.

But the story behind The Empty Lot Next Door goes deeper than a ghost. It came out of survival, kids left to fend for themselves while their parents worked long hours, and the despair and helplessness that came with facing real and imagined horrors. Sibling abuse, bullying, and trauma left marks that shaped all of us in ways we didn’t fully understand at the time.

One day, armed with newfound courage, I faced Candle Face in a standoff I can only describe as fierce and terrifying. In the end, I thought I had defeated her, banishing her back to hell. Or so I believed.

After high school, I enlisted in the Army. My time there allowed me to see the world and sharpen my analytical and investigative skills. In 2010, I wrote The Empty Lot Next Door, hoping it would bring closure for me, my family, and the friends who had been touched by those events. For a time, it did. But closure can be fleeting.

Now that I’m retired and back in Texas, I’ve revisited my past with fresh eyes. After more than three decades as an intelligence analyst and investigator, I’ve decided to find out whether Candle Face was real or just a product of childhood trauma. If she’s real, is she still out there? And who was she before she died?

Over the years, I’ve received countless emails from people claiming to have encountered Candle Face. I used to brush them off. But being back here made me curious enough to follow up. Most of the people I contacted were too terrified to talk, fearing her revenge. One man, an 82-year-old named Mr. John Doe, stood out. Unlike the others, he seemed eager to share his experiences.

I met with him in October 2023 under strict conditions of anonymity. During our face-to-face interview, Mr. Doe shared his account of the fire that destroyed the house next to where I grew up. According to him, the fire started when the father spilled gasoline while cleaning a car carburetor in the kitchen. Tragically, a young boy named Paul died in that fire. His body was later recovered from the wreckage.

This clashed with what my friends and I had always believed as kids. We thought it was a young girl who had died and become Candle Face.

More than his account of the fire, I kept thinking about Mr. Doe’s belief in Candle Face. He described an encounter near the creek at Wilson and El Paso Streets in 1990 and offered me a piece of advice: ‘It’s better to believe, just in case. It’s akin to an insurance policy. If you believe, you’re safe. If not, you might end up with a visit.’

Since that interview, my nights have turned into a blur of nightmares much like the ones Mr. Doe described. Candle Face seems to be part of them, but the voices are harder to place. Some rise in shouts. Others fade into whispers. I can’t make out what they’re saying, but the experience is frightening. I’m surrounded by voices that argue, cry, and plead.

Are these visions hallucinations, or are they messages from Candle Face herself? Whatever the case, her story isn’t over.

Maybe she’s been waiting for me all along. Now I’m searching for answers, hoping that understanding this nightmare might help me bring it under control or finally bring it to an end.