The Candle Man

I am not sure why I am writing this. I am not seeking forgiveness, in fact I know that I won’t get it. What I have done is unforgivable. I just need to tell someone, to share the weight on my mind, if only for a little while. And perhaps, someone here will understand why I did what I did.

Because now I am free from his grip. Now I can finally sleep easily. And if my waking hours are filled with grief and remorse, so be it.

*

When I try to remember when it all began, my memory clouds. It feels like he has always been there. That there never was a beginning. Knowing what I know now, I guess I must have been around eight years old.

I was a happy, smiley child. Always in good humour, never crying except for when I suffered the odd bruise or scraped knee. I was the only child of a single mum, but felt no less loved or cared for. Mum worked long hours to provide for me, and never let her tiredness get in the way with taking me nice places at the weekend.

The only problems I caused were at bedtime. Even before it all started, sleep never came easily to me. Soon as the lights went out, the darkness of the bedroom and the descent into sleep terrified me. The last thing my mum needed when she was so tired was to have her rest disturbed by me. I was too young to realise the strain I was putting on her. Perhaps if I had, then my father would not have been allowed to return home.

Father had first left when I was a few months old. He couldn’t cope with the responsibility of raising a child. Not with the personal problems he had. Before my arrival, he had been drinking himself to sleep every night. After I was born, my mum wouldn’t tolerate it any more. Faced with a choice between fatherhood and the bottle, unfortunately it was an easy choice.

But, my difficulty at night-time saw my mum look for any help she could find. Her parents were elderly and frail, her sister too preoccupied raising her own family. With no other options available, she reached out to my father.

He returned a complete stranger to me. There was no innate connection between us, nothing except the cold blue colour of our eyes gave any indication of our shared genetics.

I remember him looking at me with sad eyes. Guilty eyes. He never cared for me much, never took me out to play. But he was there with me at night-time. He would sit in an armchair in my room, with a book and a bottle. His presence calmed me. Allowed me to sleep.

Lulled me into a false sense of security.

Father waited until my mum was away. Visiting her sick parents, who would soon pass away. In many aspects, father had planned things to perfection, although perhaps it was more of a coincidence that events converged so easily.

I went to bed with practised ease that night. My father took his seat nearby. There was no bottle that night. He wanted to remain sober. I thought it might be because my mum was away, that he wanted to keep his senses in case of an emergency.

That was not the case.

Father had to be awake. So that when he came, it was me he came for.

That night, I had the worst nightmare I have ever had. Well, I say ever had. It’s only because I’ve had that exact same nightmare every night ever since.

I was lying asleep in my bed when I heard footsteps. Somehow, I knew they weren’t my father’s.

When I opened my eyes, I saw candles. A trail of them. One by one, leading out of the room. At least that’s what I thought. I guess in most dreams, you get up and follow the trail, leading you on some sort of magical slumbertime adventure. But here, I knew that I had to stay in bed.

As I stared at the candles, the one furthest away suddenly extinguished. In the darkness created by the light’s absence, a shadow appeared. It had no shape or form. Like ink that had spilled on paper, clouds staining reality.

And then it was gone.

The next candle went out.

And the shape returned. Only it had more form this time. Less abstract. More of an outline. A silhouette.

It too disappeared.

Only to return when the next candle extinguished.

The pattern repeated, as the shape drew closer to my bed, becoming more realised with every step. More horrific. I could tell it was supposed to be a man. A horrible, crude recreation of a man. Dressed all in black except for its beige, featureless head.

It was just one candle away when I passed out. One candle away from being fully formed. From revealing it’s true self. It seemed my mind switched itself off to save me from the insanity.

I woke a few minutes later, shaking from the terror. The candles were gone. So too, was the dark figure. And my father? He was sleeping peacefully in the chair.

After that night, my father stopped sleeping in my room.

My night-time troubles only intensified. It wasn’t a fear of the unknown that terrified me. Because I knew what was coming. The path of candles. The horrible man. And the passing out.

I was no longer the smiley, happy child. I became quiet. Distant.

Haunted.

I tried to avoid sleep as much as possible, so I was tired and irritable. My temper flared at everything, and, when my mum tried to calm me, I reacted badly.

My father walked out a few weeks later. Free from his own issues, he was happy to leave my mum to deal with mine.

Her parents had passed away the night I first saw the candles. With my problem behaviour back worse than ever, and father out of the picture, mum was pushed to breaking point.

It was then I decided I had to face my problems alone.

Despite the fear and terror I felt every bedtime, I lied to my mum. I closed my eyes and pretended to go to sleep. And when the man came for me at night, I didn’t scream out in fear. I kept quiet.

I was still the haunted child. But now my mum could sleep. As for me, I faced terror every single night. And I faced it alone.

*

My father died six months ago.

Cancer.

I was the only person at his death bed. It seemed his habit of walking away from his problems had its consequences. Dying alone should have been one of them.

But instead, he reached out to me. It seemed he had something weighing on his conscience. He would not pass until he could confess.

I sat with him in the hospital, his frail body lying in the bed, me in a chair beside him. He looked at me with the same sad eyes from all those years ago.

“My boy,” he said, “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

I sat up when he started speaking. It didn’t need to be explained further. He wasn’t talking about walking away or abandoning my mum. This was about the candle man.

“I was desperate. Desperate and cowardly. I just needed to sleep so bad.”

“What did you do?”

“I switched places. Passed my suffering onto you.”

“But what is it?”

“I don’t know for sure. I thought I found its name once. But its nature? Is it a curse? A demon? Whatever it is, it feeds on us. Like a parasite. It needs us to live.”

“What’s it’s name? Tell me!”

“Nixos.”

Soon as the name had left his lips, I knew it was correct. Something clicked inside my mind. The creature that had been feeding on me every night. It had a name.

“What can I do? How do I stop it?”

“You can’t stop it,” said my father, “You can only pass it on.”

“I won’t do it.”

“Then you will suffer. Every single day for the rest of your life.”

He motioned for the water beside his bed. I took the glass and poured it gently onto his lips. “There must be a way for me to stop it.”

“I heard stories of a fearless one. One who could suffer the creature for the rest of their life. If the host dies, so too does the parasite. But no one is that brave. No one can carry the burden for that long.

“I thought I was brave. But I am a coward. I learned how to pass the curse onto someone else. To find an innocent and light the trail of candles to their bed.”

“Then I will pass the curse back to you,” I said, “You’re dying. You can take it with you.”

My father laughed. “No one my age is innocent. Besides, Nixos would not feed on the sickly.”

“What if I kill myself?” I said.

“You won’t,” said my father, “Nixos knows that.”

My father’s eyes closed.

“I am so sorry. But I had to do it. You can too.”

After these words, my father became still. The final sleep having come for him.

His selfishness and cowardice disgusted me then. I would soon learn that these traits were genetic.

*

In the years between the father passing the curse and his death, I had learned to hide the pain from others. My mum was first of course, but soon I discovered I could deceive others quite easily. I forged friendships, even had a few girlfriends. Never slept together. Well, we shared a bed, but never actually slept.

A few days after my father passed, one of my friends, Oliver invited me to stay at his house. He had moved away after school and so thought it might be nice for me to have a change of scenery. I accepted his invitation.

It had been a few years since I had seen Oliver. I knew he had got married when he was away. I didn’t know about the boy.

“Say hello to your uncle Alfie.”

Alfie smiled at me, a big toothless grin.

“How old is he?” I asked.

“Eight months old,” said Oliver, “Isn’t he amazing?”

I nodded. Amazing. Cute.

Innocent.

An idea formed in my head. A way to save myself. A way to kill the creature.

Since my father had said the creature’s name, I had carried out my own research. The internet had few references to the Nixos. Snippets here and there. The most I could find was an entry on a wiki page hidden in a dark corner of the internet. The fact that others knew of its existence brought me some comfort. I wasn’t insane. It was real.

I knew that I had to find a way to destroy the creature. To erase it from existence. But I also knew that I could not kill it while under its curse. I needed energy, strength. I needed sleep.

*

The plan came together quickly. I stayed with Oliver and his family a few days. Found a nearby shop and bought some candles. My internet research told me that they had to be made of a certain type of rare wax, so it proved a little tricky to track down. Once I had them, it was simply a matter of buying a few sleeping pills.

“A bottle of wine, to thank you for having me.”

I poured a glass for Oliver and his wife, Emma. Made sure they drank it down. They soon passed out into a deep sleep. Nothing would wake them. Not until it was too late.

I made my way up to Alfie’s room. He was asleep in his cot, a farm animal mobile slowly spinning above. I moved a chair into the room, placed it facing the bed. Then I took the candles and began laying the trail.

The resources online said it needed eleven candles in total. They had to lead out of the bedroom, out of sight of the bed. When the Nixos first materialised, it had to be out of sight of the victim. Otherwise, it would not come.

Once the trail was created, I began lighting the candles. I had to do it from the bed outwards, creating some sort of sick landing lights for the demon. I could feel a change in the air as I lit them. A tension. Like I had cast out my fishing rod and caught an instant bite.

The candles lit, I took my seat and waited.

It was a little under an hour when the Nixos arrived.

I saw the reflection of the first candle’s light extinguish against the hallway wall. By the time it entered the room, it was almost fully formed.

One by one, the candles went out, the Nixos growing stronger with the darkness. When one candle remained, the Nixos stopped. Lingered around the edge of the final light.

Then it turned to look at me.

I gasped in horror at the creature’s face. The formless creature I had seen before was long gone, replaced with a grim replica of a human’s face.

I recognised the face.

It was my father’s.

I tried to scream out in horror. Seeing my father before me once again. I knew he was dead, I had seen it.

But this wasn’t my father. This was the Nixos.

The face started to shift. To rearrange its shape. To take on a new identity. A new face to terrify poor, poor Alfie.

My face.

I lunged forward, to try and extinguish the last candle myself. To break the trail.

But it was too late.

The candle went out. The Nixos was gone. And poor, poor Alfie. He stirred terribly in his sleep, caught in the midst of a horrible nightmare. One that I had suffered for over fourteen years.

Faced with the horror of what I had done, I ran. I collected up the candles and left the house, taking my belongings with me. By the time Oliver and Emma would wake up, I would be long gone.

*

Oliver called me a few times over the next few days. Asked why I had left so suddenly. He sounded different to before. Even apologised for the change.

“It’s Alfie. He’s not very well. Has terrible trouble sleeping. I…I just don’t know what to do.”

I blocked his number.

You see, I wish that escaping the Nixos’s grasp would have been the push for me to try and find a way to defeat it. But I cannot get over the face I saw. My face. And if I tried to destroy it, I would have to look at the creature again and see my guilt. My shame. My fear.

And so I broke off all contact with Oliver. Changed my phone number. Changed my name. Moved to a remote village by the seaside. Even now, the guilt haunts me.

But I sleep so well.