Crawlspaces

Tucked away at the edge of town, past the old railroad tracks and where the streetlights stop working, there’s a run-down gas station that’s open all day, every day. It looks like any other forgotten gas station in the middle of nowhere—with dusty shelves, strange snacks, broken lights, and a creepy smell that never goes away. But this place is anything but normal. Strange things happen here. There’s a gang of weird, possibly mutated raccoons living in the crawlspace—led by Rocco, a huge raccoon who likes to chew on car tires. There’s also a mysterious man known as the bathroom cowboy, who sometimes appears in the restroom, handing out balloon animals or singing songs that give people strange feelings of peace. The only full-time worker is the narrator, who spends most of their time behind the counter, dealing with broken equipment, strange smells, and even stranger customers. From a drunk who says he insulted the devil, to an old lady who insists her never-seen children were taken during a storm, to a farmer whose animals grew human faces—everyone around here has a bizarre story. Whether it’s the eerie silence of the woods downhill, the strange folks who wander in from the forest, or the way things just seem… off—this gas station is more than just a place to fuel up. It’s a mystery, a warning, and a strange little world of its own. If you ever stop by, be careful. The weirdness might follow you home

Mason Wilder is a man haunted by silence—by a past he buried and a girl he never said goodbye to. His life is quiet, cautious, and forgettable until the day he receives a mysterious black box on his doorstep. No return address. No explanation. Inside, a single word was scribbled on a folded slip of paper -LUCKY—and the chilling knowledge that the box knows more about him than it should. The box becomes a fixture in his home, refusing to be thrown away, returned, or forgotten. Then it starts changing. At night, it moves. Its contents shift. One morning, Mason wakes to find a photo inside, a girl with green eyes, red hair, and a smirk that hasn’t changed in over a decade. Emily. The girl who vanished in a fire the night Mason ran and never looked back. From that moment, the box begins counting down. Each day, something new appears: a photograph of Mason sleeping, a key that fits a door he doesn’t remember locking, a note that reads only “REGRET.” The air in the house thickens. Shadows stretch too long. The number 3:14 begins repeating—on clocks, in dreams, etched in fog on his windows. He begins to dream of a long hallway with black tiles and no ceiling, a door marked “EMILY’S ROOM,” and a whisper that follows him everywhere: ” This is what you owe.” As Mason is drawn deeper into the mystery, the physical and metaphysical boundaries of his home begin to dissolve. Footprints appear in the dust. Voices echo through the vents. The box reveals a candle—white, pristine, paired with a single match. A note appears beneath it: “FIVE DAYS.” With each candle he lights, the ritual tightens its grip. Mason discovers he is not the first to receive the box, and he won’t be the last. Through haunted crawlspaces and buried memories, he finds records, boxes from others before him, ledgers of names, and signs that this “test” has been going on for decades. He uncovers the story of Leonard Kasner, a physicist turned recluse who vanished after documenting “the system of inheritance” Mason now finds himself trapped in. The candles change color. From white to black. From black to red. Each flame opens a door, not just in the house, but in Mason’s mind. He relives the night of the fire. The choice he made. The moment he turned his back on someone who ran into danger while he ran away. But the flames aren’t just memory; they’re transformation. As he lights the third candle, the line between victim and vessel vanishes. The haunting is no longer about guilt. It’s about passing the fire on. Emily reappears not as a ghost, but as a figure bound to the ritual Mason is beginning to understand. In the end, Mason is no longer running from a curse. He is the carrier of it. He receives a final message: “TAKE.” A red candle. A mirror image of himself. A choice. And when he lights the last flame, Mason becomes part of something much older, much deeper, and far more terrifying than a haunting. He becomes the next name in the box. The fire doesn’t end. It moves forward. The novel closes with a seventeen-year-old girl waking up at 3:14 a.m. in a home that doesn’t belong to her, where nothing ever sticks. She finds a box on her nightstand. Inside: a candle, a match, and a note. “Light this when you’re ready to know the truth.” The cycle continues.