THE BLACK SKULL CANDLE

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

            Aunt Edna’s death couldn’t have come at a better time. I hardly knew the wealthy old crone but she’d left me something in her will and I was undergoing financial difficulty. Disaster might be a better word than difficulty. After decades as a struggling writer I finally had an agent who called me back … and a publishing deal. Then six weeks before my book was to be printed the publisher filed for bankruptcy and a pack of vicious New York wolves masquerading as lawyers wanted my advance back. I’d already spent the two thousand bucks.

There were more people listed in Edna’s will than there are cows in Wisconsin. I sat on a dusty sofa and watched people carry off Tiffany lamps, Butler Finnegan nesting-tables and Edward Hopper watercolors. The twenty-six room mansion, complete with Aspergillus-mold and exotic cobwebs, went to the local animal shelter. I almost chucked the black skull candle I received on the way out, but the garbage-can had been seized by an obese woman with two snarling poodles.

I was waiting in my battered car for the battery to recharge when a man wearing a straw hat and stained overalls rapped on the window. “You better leave your dark misfortune with me!” He pointed a dirty finger at the candle. “The first flame brings good luck,” he declared. “But every other time … it calls the Devil!” The Ford started and I left him in the dust.

In October I was job seeking and had forgotten my aunt Edna. My wife decided to use the black skull candle as part of her Halloween decorations.  I came home late and found her and my daughter Jane waving a lottery ticket as they danced in the kitchen. The two thousand dollars was a blessing but it didn’t last. Taxes were due just after Christmas and I stared for hours at the black skull candle sitting on my desk. I was going out of my mind. I reached for the two year old package of stale cigarettes hidden in my top draw but instead of lighting one … I lit the candle.

The flame sputtered for twenty minutes before I blew it out and went to bed. During the night a metal on metal scraping noise woke me up. I pulled a pillow over my head and went back to sleep. I laughed the next morning when I found out someone had “keyed” my rusty Ford Falcon with a bent nail. The next time I lit the candle … it would bring “good” luck.

I lit the candle as soon as I got out of the shower and before dressing to go to the pony track. I bet my entire unemployment check on Black Magic to win. It was a twenty to one shot and I went home with over eight thousand bucks.

Nothing goes faster than money unless it’s sex appeal after a honeymoon. In April I put the Ford in my garage and lit the black skull candle right after getting my sixteenth rejection letter for a new novel. I slopped Black Velvet whiskey on the sputtering wick and shivered as I finished my cigarette.

In my dreams I heard something being dragged down the sidewalk and up the stairs onto my deck. The next morning my wife and daughter’s screams woke me up. Someone had strangled our black lab with a heavy tow-cable and hung the poor dog from the porch rafters.

I locked the black skull candle in a storage chest in the basement and as I hid the key in the drawer where my cigarettes used to be I made a solemn vow never to light it again. I got a part time job at a car wash. Months later something kept nagging me as I searched the kitchen cabinets in vain for a package of Ramen noodles. I was stopping after a bad experience when I should have stopped after a good one.

I emptied the overflowing drawer on my home office floor but the storage chest key was missing. An hour later I found it in my daughter’s room … on her dresser. Jane and my wife were out of town for two weeks visiting her mother. The black skull candle had been lit so many times I couldn’t tell when the last time was. I used an elderly neighbor’s phone. Jane’s cell went to a recording and my wife’s card had been expired for months. I carried the candle upstairs to my office … and stared at it for hours.

I was out of cigarettes again. I don’t know if that’s what made me light the candle but I did. I stared at the flickering flame until I grew sleepy … wishing I had a pizza.

The house was freezing cold and I had three ragged blankets on my bed. I woke up hearing wind when the downstairs door opened. Had I forgotten to lock it? Something large dragged across the hallway and through the living room. It sounded like a rusty logging chain. I heard a thump and clunk growing louder on each stair riser.

I had a twenty-two revolver that used to be my father’s and three bullets. I aimed the gun at the door when it started to open and then pointed it at my own head.

Mr. Wilson stood panting in the doorway leaning on his rusty walker. “Your daughter called and said it was important …”

Jane’s sounded out of breath when Wilson handed me his phone. “Your agent has been trying to reach you,” she said. “He showed your novel to a publisher and they went nuts. You’ve got a ten thousand dollar advance in the mail and everyone’s talking best seller!”

I didn’t know it was 7 AM until I heard the garbage truck stop out front. I ran into the street in my pajamas and tossed in the black skull candle.

THE END ???