The Candle

One

The Candle was in the center of the room. How the hell did it get there? Stephen looked to the mantle, where it always was. It wasn't there. It sat, alarmingly, in the center of the room.

The darkness of the foyer seemed to boil as he stood, frozen in place. He breathed shallowly, afraid to move. He was glad Trish was away for the week. Something wasn't right in her house.

Stephen wiped his forehead with his hand. He didn't know if it was hot in this room or if he was scared. Probably both. Stephen jumped as he made contact with the stitches on his left hand. The wound was almost healed and didn't hurt too much anymore, but the roughness had spooked him. Anything out of the ordinary would spook him. He was all jived up.

The last time he'd been in this house, those stitches hadn't been there. Just a long gash, spouting what felt like gallons of his blood onto the carpeted floor. He looked down to see if there was a stain, or if Trish had been able to get it out. It was too dark to tell, and he was too freaked out to care about her damn carpet.

A creak from the direction of the kitchen made him start again. He stopped breathing, but the only thing he heard was the pulsing of the blood running through his ears. He scanned the room frantically for Frank — god, had he really named the thing? — trying not to move anything but his eyes.

There was something definitely wrong with the house. Or rather, something felt wrong in the house. Different. He didn't have any experience feeling a presence he couldn't see, at least not before these past few weeks. But he sure felt it now. He felt blocked in on all sides, like eyes were bearing down on him, scrutinizing his every move.

From outside the house, a bell rang, startling him. Moments later, the screams of children floated through the walls from the school just beyond the field. One of Trish's closest neighbors. He jumped at their happy sounds. At their yelling and playing. The interruption of normal life outside should have steadied him, but instead, it made him feel even more alone.

He moved closer to the waxy white lump in the middle of the room and his heart sank to his stomach. The candle had been burned down, despite his warnings to Trish. His skin tingled as he looked at it, the hairs on his arm standing on end. It looked as if half the wax had been burned off over the course of the last few weeks.

But as he got closer, he saw that wasn't quite true. The top half of the candle was still there. The large hunk of white wax, which he'd seen whole and intact not too long ago, sat with its sides mushroomed outward.

As if something from inside had pushed its way out.