Sep 13, 2024
I picked up my extra-long white blanket, fluffing it high into the air so it could spread out fully, almost floating like a ghost before it drifted down toward the couch—my bed for over a year and a half now. I can’t even remember what a real bed feels like, and frankly, I don’t care. This couch is perfect for me.
But as the blanket began to settle, something felt wrong. It didn’t land flat as it always did. At that moment, the lights in the room flickered violently, casting strange, shifting shadows across the walls. My heart skipped a beat, and the blanket, now halfway to the couch, revealed a faint outline, disturbingly human-like, pressing up against the fabric, as though the couch itself had suddenly taken on a body. My pulse quickened as I stared at the form taking shape beneath the blanket, waiting for it to move. But it stayed perfectly still.
Fear crept over me for the first time in a long while, even though I knew it was just another nocturnal visitor—the first in two months, the longest drought. Slowly, I pulled the blanket back. There was nothing there, just the distinct impression of something that had been lying there moments ago. I took a few steps back, my pulse thumping in my chest, and watched as the imprint shifted—flattening and then rising slightly, as if someone had sat up. I could clearly make out the shape of what looked like a seated figure, the faint depression of where its body had been.
Then I heard a voice, crackling like static through an old radio.
"Hello, Ray. I need your help."
"Where are you?" I asked, my voice trembling as the temperature in the room rose.
“I don’t have a physical form anymore—just a voice. People all around Austin knew my voice in the ’90s, but few knew what I looked like. Candle Face took my body because…” The voice paused. “She took my body because I used it to hide my filth, my dirty deeds. She took it away to strip me bare, to punish me for the lies I told. She left my voice because that’s all I ever was—a voice, no substance. And now she’s made sure I can never have a body again.”
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to steady myself. “I don’t need to see you, as long as you can tell me your story.”
“I worked as a DJ in Austin in the ’90s. Everyone knew my voice, but no one knew my struggles. I was addicted to porn and enjoyed flashing people around 6th Street. Not on 6th Street itself, but in the nearby alleys where drunk girls would wander back to their cars. I’d open my trench coat and flash them, then run away. None of my listeners knew about my dirty secret, making it even more exciting.”
He paused momentarily.
“I loved the adrenaline rush leading up to the moment I exposed myself and watching the girls’ reactions. The idea that they probably listened to me on the radio but had no idea it was me… it made me want to explode. I lived for that thrill. But eventually, I got caught. Somehow, I managed to hide the truth from everyone—my bosses, my listeners, and even my friends and family.”
He stopped for a moment, as though struggling to continue.
"After a year, I started to feel the urge again. I tried to resist it, but it took a lot of meth to stop me from acting out. One day, a woman handed me a flyer on 6th Street about Candle Face. The flyer said she could free people from their pain if they only believed. I kept the flyer, folding it neatly to fit in my wallet. I read it over and over, as if it held some answer to my misery.
One day, the same woman who handed out the flyers recognized me. She asked if I had given Candle Face any thought. I showed her the flyer, and she seemed so impressed that I kept it with me. She even shed a tear or two. We started talking, some light flirting, and I thought maybe I’d get lucky. But it didn’t happen that night. We met up several more times over the following weeks. She wanted to know all about me and what being a radio star was like.
One day, she brought up Candle Face again. She said I could help spread her message with a weekly radio show. I had no interest in doing a show about a ghost that supposedly kills people, but I played along. I only wanted to get with her. We kept meeting, and she kept pushing for the show. I told her it would start soon, knowing I was lying just to keep her attention. Eventually, I told her the first episode would air tonight, but the truth was, I wasn’t working on it at all."
His voice trembled slightly, as if recalling a memory he desperately wanted to forget. "When I arrived at her apartment, it seemed normal at first. She smiled, pulled me in for a kiss, and I thought I had won. But then, she pulled the curtains back. Outside, I saw figures standing just beyond the windows in the dark. The same people who handed out the flyers. They were watching us. Silent. Waiting."
The lights flickered again as he continued.
“She told me she knew I was lying about the show. They knew. They knew I was only interested in her, that I was stringing them along. They dragged me down, and she pulled out a knife. The others held me down while she cut into me, carving symbols into my skin. They said I would now serve Candle Face. She would take away my physical form—leave me as nothing more than a voice.”
The static in his voice grew louder, more desperate. “She left my radio-like voice because that’s all I ever had. All I ever was—a voice with no soul, no real substance. Now, I serve her in her lair."
His voice crackled with intensity, then his tone grew darker, more threatening.
"There’s a woman right now, somewhere in Austin who had ridiculed Candle Face. She believes her baby died peacefully of natural causes. But every night, I tell a different story into her ear. I tell her the truth—that Candle Face took her child. I tell her how, in the dead of night, the baby was snatched from her crib, its tiny body twisted and broken in ways no mother should ever imagine. I describe the sound of its last breath.
Every night, I make her hear the baby’s cries. Not the gentle cooing of a newborn, but the tortured wails of someone caught in a meat grinder. I tell her the cries are coming from the other side, louder every night, louder the longer she stays awake. She thinks if she keeps her eyes open, the cries will stop, but they never do. I make sure of that.
Sometimes, she’ll claw at her ears until they bleed, desperate to drown out the sound of her baby’s torture. She’s afraid to sleep because when she does, I make the cries even more vivid. In her dreams, she sees her baby reaching for her, its tiny fingers blackened and stiff, its eyes empty, staring into darkness. She tries to hold it, but the baby crumbles in her arms, a pile of ash. And still, she hears the screams, louder and louder, until she wakes up, sobbing and gasping for air, wishing for death.
The truth is, Ray, she’s already gone. She doesn’t know it, but she’s lost her mind. I’ve hollowed her out. I’ve turned her into a shell, and soon, she’ll do anything to silence the cries… even if it means joining her baby.”
The kitchen lights flickered again.
"And there’s a man, a doctor. People trusted him with their lives. But he mocked Candle Face. Now, I make him hear the voices of every patient he’s ever lost on the operating table—their voices twisted with pain and betrayal, as if they knew he could have saved them but didn’t.
Every night, I shout their last words into his ear. The desperate gasps, the pleas for him to keep trying, even when their hearts had already stopped. He can hear the machines flatlining, the beeps echoing in his head. I remind him of every mistake, every hesitation that led to their deaths. I make him relive every incision, every cut that went too deep, every moment where he hesitated—those seconds that cost them their lives.
One patient was a young girl, no older than six. She went into surgery for something routine—a procedure he’d done hundreds of times. But when she didn’t wake up, her parents never forgave him. Now, every night, I make him hear her voice, soft at first, ‘Doctor…’ she says, ‘I can’t breathe… why didn’t you save me?’ He tries to answer her, but his throat closes up. She keeps saying, ‘You let me die… why didn’t you save me?’
Another voice belongs to a man who had a heart attack on the table. His surgery was supposed to be his last chance, but the doctor’s hands slipped during the operation, severing an artery. The man bled out in minutes. Now, I make him feel the blood on his hands, warm and sticky, as the patient’s voice comes through—gurgling, choking. ‘Why did you let me die?’ the voice asks, over and over, in a wet rasp. ‘I wasn’t ready.’
It’s always the same, Ray. The voices start soft. But by midnight, they’re screaming. They scream his name, they beg for him to help them again, they accuse him of playing God. Sometimes, I make him feel their hands—cold and clammy, grabbing at his shoulders, pulling at his wrists, dragging him back to the operating table. He feels their fingers digging into his skin, trying to drag him down with them.
He doesn’t sleep anymore. He can’t. Every time he closes his eyes, I make him see their faces—gray, lifeless, staring at him from the cold steel of the operating table. Their mouths gape open, but instead of silence, they scream. Sometimes, I show him their corpses, rising from the table, the gaping wounds he gave them still raw, bleeding, as they reach out to him, yelling, ‘You should have saved me.’
He thought he could hide, tried to drown himself in alcohol, pills, anything to quiet the voices, but they follow him. I follow him. Candle Face follows him. He’s already seeing shadows, thinking he’s catching glimpses of them standing at the foot of his bed. But he knows—no matter where he goes, I’ll find him. They’ll find him. They’re always waiting for him to slip up, waiting for the moment when he’ll be the one lying on the table, with no one to save him.
That’s the beauty of it, Ray. He can’t save himself. No one can.”
His voice grew more intense. “I’m the voice that reminds them, Ray. I’m the voice that keeps Candle Face alive in their heads. I tailor each story, spinning it just right to dig deep into their worst fears, their darkest regrets. I get into their heads, using my DJ voice, planting seeds of terror until they break.”
I tried to speak, but my voice was barely audible. “Why… why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Ray,” his voice crackled, “it’ll be your turn soon enough. You’re already hearing me, aren’t you? Candle Face sees you, and trust me, she’s in your head. You just don’t realize it yet.”
My throat tightened, and I tried to breathe.
“Soon I’ll be yelling into your ear,” the DJ continued, his voice shifting from desperate to almost gleeful. “Maybe I’ll tell you that the people you trust are turning against you. Maybe I’ll make you see Candle Face’s victims in every face you pass. Or maybe I’ll make you doubt everything—your memories, your thoughts, until you can’t tell what’s real anymore. That’s when the fun begins, Ray.”
I staggered back away from the couch, trying to shut out the suffocating feeling that was closing in on me.
"And you know, when I’m done with you, Ray... I’ll be promoted. Candle Face rewards those who serve her well. I’ll become one of her shadows, the ones who torment her critics when they arrive at Candle Face’s lair. But first, I get to toy with you. I’ll make you feel like you’re burning alive, your skin peeling off as you scream. And then I’ll take away everything you hold dear, one piece at a time. Your sanity? Gone. Your life? I’ll make you beg for the end, but it’ll never come."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle before continuing.
"Do you know what else will happen, Ray? Your stories—the characters you created in your books—they’ll haunt you. Every twisted plotline, every agony you wrote into their lives, they’ll inflict on you tenfold. All Candle Face’s victims will also come to you, they’ll all start to blame you for their agony. The woman who lost her child will come to you, every night, cradling her broken baby and asking you why you did it. No matter how much you plead that it was just fiction, she won’t care. She’ll leave that lifeless child in your arms, and the cries you made her hear. You’ll hear them too, louder and louder, until your mind shatters under the weight of her pain.
Remember the doctor, Ray? He’ll come for you too. You’ll be the one lying on the operating table, feeling his botched surgeries, over and over again, each cut leaving you closer to death but never letting you die. You’ll scream for mercy, but just like in your story, there will be none."
His laughter echoed in the room as the shadows seemed to thicken around me.
"And Candle Face… oh, she’ll enjoy this most of all. You think you’ve been writing about her, don’t you? But she’s been writing about you, Ray. She’s already in your head, twisting every thought, and soon, you won’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s fiction. You’ll see her in every corner of your mind, hear her voice in every silence, feel her hot breath in every nightmare. And the worst part? You’ll never escape."
My heart pounded in my chest, and for the first time, I realized that the stories I’d written, the horrors I’d conjured, were coming back for me.
Tears welled up in my eyes as the weight of his words crushed me.
"When I’m done with you, Ray, you’ll wish you had never jumped in that hole. You’ll wish you had never even heard of Candle Face. But by then, it’ll be too late. You’ll be too far gone."
I stood there, trembling, as his voice faded into silence. For the first time in a long time, I felt the walls of my mind closing in, and the thought that crept into my mind terrified me more than any spirit ever had: I need to focus on my own sanity before I become one of the lost souls myself.
Personal Note to My Readers
To all of you following my journey, I feel it’s time to share the truth that I’ve been grappling with—truths I wish I could bury, but they won’t stay hidden. Candle Face has been in my life far longer than I ever imagined. What started as a mission to help the lost souls trapped in her twisted grip has now become something I can barely comprehend. I’ve written their stories, shared their pain, and tried to give them the peace they deserve, but now I fear that trying to save them has brought me closer to becoming one of them.
Each night, the voices grow louder, the shadows grow darker, and I can’t escape the feeling that it’s no longer just about helping the souls who cry out to me. It’s about saving myself. I need to protect myself as much as I’ve tried to protect them. Candle Face is no longer content with taking her critics—she’s coming for me, using the DJ, using her victims, and soon enough, she’ll break into my mind fully.
It’s a cruel irony, isn’t it? I still believe that helping these lost souls is the key. I’ve convinced myself that if I pick up the pace, if I help more of them, maybe it’ll stop. Maybe I’ll have done enough to quiet the voices, to end this nightmare before it consumes me. But then again, I don’t even know what to believe anymore. My mind plays tricks on me, twisting reality into something unrecognizable.
I’m haunted by the very souls I’ve tried to save. I hear their cries now, which is something I haven't written before. They accuse me, blame me, ask why I didn’t do more. And Candle Face… she’s in my head now. She’s writing about me as much as I’ve written about her. What will she do with her story about me? What does it say?
The weight of it all crushes me more with each passing day. I don’t know how much longer I can stand on this tightrope, balancing between protecting the lost and protecting myself. Maybe there’s no protection at all. Maybe it’s all part of Candle Face’s game, and I’m just another piece on her board, waiting for my time to fall. I have mentioned this before, but this time, I know I can't escape.
To my readers, I want to say thank you for standing by me. But I fear that soon, I won’t be able to stand at all. The shadows are closing in, and I’m not sure if I can hold on. I need to focus on my own sanity before I become one of the lost souls myself. But even as I write these words, I know my time is running out. Candle Face is already here, and the battle for my mind is well underway.
Stay safe, and pray for the lost souls. Pray for me.
Ray
Key To Understanding
To ensure readers grasp the full context and significance of this journal entry, it’s crucial to be familiar with Arthur Mills’ award-winning memoir The Empty Lot Next Door, inspired by actual ghostly events in Austin, TX. The memoir provides essential background information, and without it, the nuances and depth of this journal entry might not be fully appreciated. Therefore, reading The Empty Lot Next Door is highly recommended for a more enriched and coherent understanding of this journal entry's content and implications.
To purchase The Empty Lot Next Door, please visit Amazon
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To Purchase Candle Face Chronicles: The Lost Souls [Book One], please visit Amazon
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eBook: https://amzn.to/4bsM6ib
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i'm sick of you lying about "Candle Face." You heed help!