It’s July and it’s more than time to return to “FREE FICTION.” As you may or may not know, I have a ton of Christmas stories, but very few summer tales. I honestly don’t know why this is exactly. I like summer horror tales and movies. “Jaws is a lovely year round movie, but it is the old 4th of July standard. But for this writer, I don’t know. I adore autumn. I’m more alright with winter than I used to be and spring? Yeah, a few of those stories still stand but I m woefully lacking in stories about the summer.
Which brings me to ”A Box of Candy.”
The story doesn’t take place in the summer, but I thought it gives off the vibes seeing as the destination is a Caribbean island where rum and coconut drinks flow freely and both sun and sand are a lovely thing indeed. Ah, beaches!
”A Box of Candy” was a story published in an anthology from a now defunct publisher. It was early in my writing career, and the idea behind it was to embrace a little bit more of the science fiction end of what I was writing. Candy was my attempt at writing a slightly darker Twilight Zone episode.
A small discovery in rereading this story was how much I learned about writing in the years that followed. I still like it, but it reads to me almost like someone else wrote it. A younger guy absolutely wrote this one and it felt really good to see that it holds up alright. I hope you enjoy it!
A Box of Candy
Frank Ridgeway winced as the ship violently lurched against the crashing waves. He cursed himself for booking a ship across the Atlantic. He had suggested it as a sort of second Honeymoon; a cruise to the Caribbean would be “romantic” he had said to his wife. He cursed himself again for thinking it was a good idea.
He also thought that taking the cruise three months after her death was a good idea too.
He thought about her as he lay sprawled on his cabin bed, always on the verge of throwing up, but never quite able to do it. The storm had been going on for an hour and wasn’t getting any better. Sometimes, the lights flickered on and then off. He couldn’t even watch the flat screen TV as a distraction because they had opted out of the closed circuit and satellite networking to save money.
“Why get TV on a ship?” Candace had asked, unsmiling. “We’ll be having too much fun.”
He laughed a little, thinking of that conversation when they were booking the trip.
Then, he started to cry.
They’d been married for ten years and although some patches had been rocky (like the discovery that he would not be able to father any children) he’d thought it had been a decent marriage. He had watched in growing horror that all of their friends were getting divorced while they just “kept rocking on” as Candace had put it. There wasn’t anything wrong in their little world at all.
The three months since her death however had brought the reality a little more into focus.
Candace was a stunningly beautiful woman; honey blonde hair, a very fit figure and ice cold green eyes. She was a confident, brilliant scientist.
Frank was very average in every way; slender, nearly pale in complexion, balding prematurely and slouched a little. Candace had said he was a milquetoast.
And Candace hated him.
Her accidental death at the pharmaceutical research company though had just about killed him too, or so it felt. The details of the accident were sketchy at best and Frank was considering suing the shit out of them, but the life insurance settlement and the additional financial amount given to him by the company had held him off for the time being.
“It was a freak occurrence,” Stephan Bosen, the company’s CEO, had told him. “As safe as we try to do radiation research, sometimes…” And he just waved his hand dismissively as if to say “You know what I mean.” Frank still didn’t know what he meant.
All Frank knew was that the last things he’d said to her were in anger as were the last things she’d said to him. He’d never argued with her before (as much as he’d wanted to,) but she had always liked to yell at him. He had always been hesitant to argue with her and yes, he knew she pretty much walked all over him, but she was still his wife and that needed to count for something.
And God, she was angry that morning. She’d mentioned calling her mother in Ohio and that maybe she was going to move out for a little while.
Maybe for a lot longer.
He tried to block that conversation out, which was easy as the ship lurched to the right. He heard something move in his room and then heard a thud. He pried his head off of his pillow and looked in the direction of the noise. His suitcase has fallen over and spilled out some clothes.
And the box of Candy.
He bolted upright and got out of the bed. The room wobbled and he wobbled with it as he made his way to the suitcase. Dropping to his knees, he picked up the box with Candace’s ashes and cradled them like a baby.
He sat on his knees and looked at the little cardboard box. Inside was a sealed plastic bag and in the bag was his wife-all that was left of her; a small pile of ash. He choked a little but didn’t start crying again. He was thankful for that at least. He was tempted to open the box, but he didn’t want to see her like that again. It was bad enough when he had collected the bag in the first place. He had cried until it hurt and the funeral home had to call a cab to take him home.
The ship rocked again, but the sick feeling had stopped when he held the ashes. He stood up and although the boat still wobbled, he wobbled a little less.
The stateroom was small, but had several places to sit other than the bed. He’d been in the room two days already and had only left for dinner. He decided to take the box over to the little desk in the corner and sit down. He carefully walked over; trying not to fall as the ship still tilted, and rested the box near a small clock radio. He pulled out the chair and sat, turning on the little desk lamp.
The radio was off, but he heard a humming sound. The digital number display was flickering. Puzzled, he moved the box away from the radio to see what was wrong with it. He picked it up and held it to his ear.
Nothing.
He looked again at the number display and it read 3:58 PM and it was not flickering. Shrugging, he put the radio back in its spot. He figured it was just the power as the ship negotiated its way through the storm.
He reached for the box (of Candace) and slid it in front of him. Almost instantly, the radio began to buzz again. He looked at the radio and the display again was flickering, although softer than before. Frank frowned at how odd this was and without thinking, he slid the box slowly closer to the radio. The closer the box got, the louder the buzz was and the more the display flickered.
He slid the box away from the radio slowly and it adjusted itself once again-quiet and non-flickering.
This was odd, Frank thought, but nothing that unusual either. Most things had some sort of electrical discharge. Candace had taught him that early in their relationship. They were at a carnival, years before getting married-when things were good and happy. She had taken the balloon he had bought for her and rubbed it on her head. Frank had laughed.
“Now, check this out,” she said gleefully and held the balloon over her head. Frank laughed harder as her thin brown hair rose up from the static electrical charge.
“That’s pretty damn wicked, right?”
“No one says wicked, Candy.”
“I do,” she replied, rubbing the balloon on his head. “All the cool scientist chicks are saying it.”
She held the balloon up and Frank’s longish black hair stood up as well. She giggled at the look on his face.
“I only know one scientist chick,” he said grinning down at her.
“Yeah, but I am the only one you need to know,” she replied and kissed him, letting the balloon go.
If a stupid red balloon could do that, Frank rationalized, then why not a box of scientist chick ashes? He chuckled and moved the box back and forth from the radio, hearing it buzz on and off as it neared the radio and then away.
After a few minutes of this, he decided he would leave the room for a while and try to get up to the dining deck. It sounded like the storm was backing off at last and he was feeling a little less nauseated and slightly hungry.
He stood up and left the box on the little desk.
“I’ll be back, Candy.” He said. He slipped his shoes on and left the room.
When he came back an hour later, the first thing he noticed besides that he’d left the light on, was the buzzing. He closed and locked the door. The storm had indeed ended and the Captain assured the passengers that it would be relatively smooth sailing for the rest of the trip there and possibly on the way back. Frank was half resigned to catching a plane ride back though, but he decided to wait until he got there.
He walked over to the desk and the buzz coming from the radio was louder. The display of the time was worse. Not only did it flicker, but it was displaying the incorrect time. It read 9:43AM.
The box, however, was on the far side of the desk.
He sat down and picked up the radio. It was buzzing, louder than before, but the box was further away. He put the radio down and slowly slid the box closer to the radio. The buzz increased in volume and the display began to flicker once again, but this time the numbers changed.
The display was churning out random numbers. Sometimes it would seem to count down slowly and then quickly. But it was moving the numbers around in no discernable pattern.
Frank slid the box away from the radio and it calmed down, but it did not stop. The clock went back to reading 9:43AM.
Frank leaned back in the chair and rested his chin in his left hand.
Candace used to call it his “ponder face” and that’s what he was doing.
Pondering.
He sat like that for a minute and turned the radio on.
There was a screech of electronic noise; static, but somehow worse. It didn’t sound like white noise. It sounded almost like a scream and it was nearly deafening. His head began to pound and he shot a hand out to turn the radio off. The scream stopped and the buzz returned. He looked at the radio again and saw the volume knob on the side. He turned it all the way down and turned the radio back on again, this time, ready for the sound.
He could still hear the screaming electronic noise, but the volume control lessened it-even though it was all the way down. Slowly, he turned it up to a comfortable level-as comfortable as the screeching sound could be.
He listened carefully to the sound. It really did sound like a scream, but there seemed to be something else behind it.
He looked at the box (of Candy) and slid it closer to the radio. As he did so, the scream seemed to change. Not in intensity, but in pitch.
He slid the box right next to the radio. The digital display again jumped to 9:43AM, but the last number kept flickering to the number 4 and then back to 3.
The scream stopped and a voice came out of the radio.
“Frank?” the radio asked.
Frank’s face went pale and he felt seasick again. His stomach began to swing.
“Frank, can you hear me?” the radio asked.
He opened his mouth to speak, but that was absurd. This was not happening. There’s no way it could.
“Frank, it’s…it’s me. Candy. Can you hear me?”
Frank’s world went black and he slid off of the chair.
When he came to, he found himself half under the desk in the stateroom. His mouth was dry and it felt like he’d eaten a pair of socks. He pushed himself off of the floor. The ship was rocking again, but he felt a little better.
He pulled himself in the chair by the desk and looked.
The box of ashes (Candy) was still next to the radio. The radio display still read 9:43AM and the radio as far as he could tell was still in the on position, but he couldn’t hear anything.
Frank sighed and chuckled.
“My wife is a radio,” he said aloud. “That’s almost funny.”
“I’m not a radio,” the radio said. “Frank, I need your help.” Frank stared at the radio.
“I don’t believe this,” he said. “You’re dead.”
“I still am.” The radio with Candace’s voice said. “At least I think I’m dead. I don’t really know for sure what I am.”
Frank began to weep. He was going crazy, he was sure of it. He was talking to the fucking radio now, on a cruise he was taking with a box of his wife.
“I’m talking to myself,” Frank said, almost laughing. “Or, I’m talking to the box of ashes with you in it, but it isn’t you.”
“Frank, you need to listen,” Candace’s voice returned. “I know this is hard to accept, but you are hearing my voice and I need your help.”
Frank looked around the stateroom and as he thought, he was still all alone.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“I’m not exactly in the room with you,’ his dead wife said. “You can’t see me and I can’t see you.”
“No,” Frank said softly and put his head in his hands. “It’s not possible.”
“Frank? I don’t want to scare you.”
Frank, still holding his face in his hands, laughed.
“I don’t know if it’s fear or misery, Candy. I really don’t.” His laugh turned into a sob. “I don’t want you to be dead and I don’t want to be crazy.”
“I’m dead. And you aren’t crazy. You have to help me.”
Frank considered this for a moment; his dead wife was talking to him through a radio on a cruise ship headed for what was originally a second honeymoon.
“Some second honeymoon, huh?” he said.
Radio Candy laughed.
Frank stood up and walked away from the desk to clear his head a little.
“Where are you going?” the voice sounded worried.
“I’m here,” he replied. “Just, walking around a little. Trying to let this sink in, you know?”
“Okay, I thought I lost you. I’m so sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I don’t know,” Candace said.
“It does put a damper on this trip, but it’s not like it’s your fault. I was thinking of suing that goddamn company.”
“You won’t win,” Candy said. “It’s not their fault. It was mine. I got stupid.
Clumsy.”
Frank looked at the radio and frowned.
“You aren’t clumsy or stupid, Candy. You never were.” Candace on the radio sounded like she sighed.
“I was. More than you know.”
Frank walked back to the desk and sat down.
“How are you able to talk to me? You’re some kind of ghost, right?”
“Not… exactly,” she said. “There was an explosion at work. They told you that much I’m sure.”
“They did,”
“Well, the explosion didn’t just kill me; it irradiated my body in some terrible way near as I can figure. It killed me, but it kept the molecules intact. Alive and aware somehow. Even when I was cremated. It must have been the new isotope generator we had started using it. Experimental. My ashes are near the radio I guess.”
Frank looked at the box and put a hand on it.
“You’re right next to the radio.”
“I can feel it. That makes sense,” the voice said. “Where have you kept the box?
I’ve been hoping you’d put me near something electronic to test my theory.”
“Theory? You’ve been a pile of ash for three months.”
“Yes, and I’ve been just hovering around. It’s been awful-hearing you and not being able to say anything. It’s like being in hell.”
Frank was still reeling from this, but it was starting to sink in a little bit more.
“God, I’ve missed you so much Candy,” he said.
“Then you need to help me Frankie. You have to free me.”
“Free you how?”
“I need you to dump the ashes. You need to separate the ashes and scatter me. I think I can move on if you do that,”
“Is this another theory?” Frank asked. Although he was getting closer to believing what was happening, he wasn’t so sure he wanted it to be over; just hearing her voice made him feel better.
“It is, but if I was right about the radio, I should be right about this,” Frank felt his eyes well up again.
“I don’t know that I can do that, baby. I really don’t know-”
“I have to tell you something that may make you change your mind,” she said.
“What?”
“I didn’t accidentally blow myself up.”
“I know. Those bastards were careless…”
“No, Frank. I blew myself up.”
Frank stared at the radio in disbelief. That didn’t make sense.
“Honey, that-“
“I killed myself.”
“You’re lying,” he said. “You were happy. We were happy. You didn’t kill yourself.”
“You were happy,” Candace said. “You were always happy, Frank. I’m sorry to say that, but you have to know.”
“You’re just saying that to make me dump the ashes,” Frank said, but he knew when she was lying. He always did and she wasn’t lying now. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I tried to, but I couldn’t. I knew you’d never divorce me. Not without a fight. I just couldn’t…face you after our argument.”
Frank sat there, looking at the clock. He didn’t say anything at all, he just looked. The digital display still read 9:43 and flickered to 44 every few seconds.
Candace had wanted out. And she got out, alright. But that number…what the hell was that all about?
“Frank?” Candy asked. “Are you still walking around?”
“No, I’m here.” He said. “Just pondering I guess.”
“Ponder face,” she said and gave a small laugh.
Frank wasn’t getting something. She couldn’t face him about not being happy? She was able to face him about nearly everything else and talked about leaving him. He looked at the clock.
“What happened at 9:43AM, Candy?”
“What?”
“The radio your voice is coming through? It’s a clock radio. It flickers on and off between 9:43 and 44. What’s that all about?”
There was a silence and then she responded,
“I… don’t really know.”
“The time of death was 10:32AM, so it’s not that. What happened at
9:43?”
Again there was silence.
“That’s odd.”
Frank laughed.
She was lying.
“You’re a box of ash talking to me through a radio and that’s odd?” He clapped his hands. “Oh Candy, that’s wicked.”
“Frank, are you going to scatter my ashes? Are you going to let me go?”
“I want to know what happened at 9:43.” Frank said.
He stood up from the desk and walked over to the TV. It was a big widescreen television that was mounted on the wall. In all the time he was in the stateroom, turning it on was never an option. He just wanted to cry, mourn and go on. But now…
“I have a theory, Candy.” Frank said and pushed the power button on the TV.
“Frank?” Candy said through the radio and then a large burst of static shot out.
The TV screen was a bright blue that began to break up as soon as the static sound blared over the radio.
Behind the loud white noise he could hear Candace calling for him. It sounded like she was at the bottom of a well, but slowly on the TV, the screen began to clear up; not enough to where he could see anything clearly, but he could make out something.
“I can almost see you Candy,” Frank said and sat at the edge of the bed.
“Are you there?”
“What are you doing?” Her voice was very faint, but he could hear her.
“I turned on the TV.” He said.
“Frank, turn off the TV,” she said, still sounding distant, but getting closer.
“Let’s see. Show me the explosion,” Frank said, and almost instantly, he got a grainy looking point of view looking at the image on the screen. It was Candace’s lab. It was scattered with microscopes and gloves and computers that all flashed by like a continuous wild camera shot. Occasionally, Frank could see Candace’s hands come into view and she was moving frantically across the lab. The quick blackouts that happened must have been her blinking, he thought.
“I’m seeing what you saw that day,” Frank said. “This is amazing,”
“Frank, stop it! Please-you don’t want to see this!”
Frank ignored her and kept watching. He watched Candace walk to a power box filled with fuses and switches. She began to flip random switches and then she ran to a large terminal that had a huge warning sticker above a dial. She grabbed the dial and turned it all the way to the right. She spun around and looked at the power box from across the room. There was a moment and then a blinding explosion. Frank jumped back from where he was sitting and gasped.
He had just watched his wife die from her point of view.
He cried as he heard Candace calling to him. “Frank, turn the TV off. Oh God, please…turn that off.”
Frank let out a big sigh.
“Show me what happened at 9:43,” he said.
The TV went to static and then cleared again. It was another point of view from Candace but this time she was typing at a computer. It looked like she was typing an email. Candy looked away from the email and at a picture of her and Frank on her desk. Then she looked at something in front of the picture.
It was a pregnancy test. Frank couldn’t make out what brand, but he could see the color.
Pink.
Candace again looked back to the email. She hit the ‘send’ button and the email was sent. Candace looked at the bottom corner of the computer screen and saw the time. 9:43AM
And a split second later, it was 9:44.
Frank turned the TV off.
He sat there.
“Frank?”
Frank sat and said nothing.
“I’m so sorry, Frankie. I don’t know what to say.”
“You couldn’t tell me?” he asked. “You could tell me every horrible other thing but that? Who was it?”
“No one you know,” the radio said.
“Obviously,” Frank said and chuckled. “You cheated on me and then you got pregnant and then killed yourself and your unborn child.”
Silence.
“How could you?” Frank asked.
“I’m in hell, Frank. Literally. I’m sorry. You’ll never know how sorry I am.”
Frank laughed.
“What was the email? Was it to him?”
“Yes,” Candace said simply. “He didn’t want to pay for an abortion and I wasn’t about to tell you. I panicked and told him I was going to kill myself. He wrote back, ‘fine.’ Can you believe that?”
Frank just sat there, not saying anything. She sounded so cold. As cold as ever in fact.
“I’m going to go take a walk, Candy. I’d ask you along, but I don’t think the cord to the radio is that long,”
“Frank, wait!”
Frank got up and stormed out of the stateroom.
He walked around the entire length of the ship twice, which took longer than he thought it would take. He thought about what had just happened.
He had spent three months feeling broken and now, he was broken all over again in a different way.
The question now was what to do.
After an hour, he came back into the room. He didn’t hear anything on the radio, but when he slammed the door closed, he heard Candace start to cry.
“Frank? Oh, baby. Are you back?” Frank sat at the desk.
“I’m here, Candy.”
“Are you okay?”
“Is the baby in there with you?” Frank asked. “I know it wasn’t really formed yet I guess, but is it?”
“Yes,” Candace replied. “You can’t hear her? She screams all the fucking time.” Frank remembered the scream when he turned the radio on earlier.
Frank nodded. “I’d always wanted a daughter, you know.”
“I know,” Candace said, sadly. “But you wouldn’t have wanted someone else’s baby, would you? You would have thrown me out and-“
“Bullshit, Candy. Just bullshit.” Frank said. “You should have known me better than that,”
“I do know you better than that,” Candace shot back. “You never would have let me go. You would have wanted counseling or some such thing. Truth is I just wasn’t in love with you anymore. Sorry, but it’s true.”
“You’re sorry.” Frank said flatly to no one in particular.
“Yes I am and I’ll never be able to make that up to you. But please. You have to help me! After the explosion, all I have is this baby screaming and nothing else. There’s no light, nothing else but her and her damned screaming and I hate it!”
Frank looked at the radio and cocked his head to one side.
“You hate your own daughter?” He asked. “Candy, that’s your daughter!”
“She was an accident!” Candace nearly screamed and Frank heard, for the first time, the faint sound of a baby. But he also heard something else, in the back of his head.
She really doesn’t love you anymore and probably hasn’t for a very long time.
Then another thought.
She killed herself and an unborn baby to get away from you.
“You really hated me. Didn’t you?”
There was a pause.
“Yes!” She screamed. “I fucking did and I’m sorry, but I did. For a long time I did. Now, I just want to move on, don’t you see that?”
“Why didn’t you just go to your mother’s in Ohio?”
“Just dump my ashes, Frank. Can you just do that one fucking thing for me please?”
“Candace, I want to know-“Frank started. But Candace, dead or not, still interrupted him.
“No, we are not picking up from our last fight!” Candace said. “Can you just let it go? For the love of God, can’t you just let it go?”
Frank, heartbroken, said nothing.
“You’re pathetic! I figured you’d at least get a little satisfaction out of dumping my ashes into the god damn sea, but you just want to talk and argue. I wanted you to be a man! You never fought back no matter what I threw at you. Do you see why I-“
He got up and turned off the radio. He grabbed the cord and yanked it out of the wall. He threw the radio hard on the stateroom floor. He picked up the box of ashes, stormed across the room and put it roughly in the suitcase, then put the suitcase in the little closet.
He walked over to the bed and kicked his shoes off. He felt awfully tired and figured he’d try to go to sleep. Tomorrow or the next day (he couldn’t honestly remember), he’d be in the Caribbean. Frank fell onto the bed, still in his clothes and fell fast asleep.
In the early afternoon two days later, Frank walked off the ship-the SS Celeste from Happytime Cruise Lines-in a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, some flip flops and a back pack. The air was warm and smelled like sunscreen and tourists. The sky was a deep blue and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. He put on his sunglasses and looked for the nearest beach.
He found a bar instead.
After about an hour, he’d managed to have three Pina Coladas. He was directed by a young islander to a small beach about a mile away from the bar. Somewhere there weren’t a lot of people, which was what he’d wanted and after about 45 minutes of walking, he saw the beach the young man had told him about.
It was perfect.
He walked on the sand about half way to the shore line and took his back pack off. He opened it up and pulled out a very small blue kid’s shovel.
Then he pulled out Candace’s box of ashes and dropped the back pack.
He dropped to his knees and began to dig a hole. Not a very deep hole, but one just deep enough.
Frank had been tempted to bring a small portable radio so he could hear Candy scream and yell, but he’d decided he’d had enough. He picked up the box and rested it in the hole-it was about two feet deep.
“Bye, Candy.” was all he said and covered up the hole. Somewhere in his head, he could almost hear her yelling at him.
He stood up and looked at the small grave. Bending down to grab his bag, Frank stuffed the small blue shovel inside. He turned and walked away. Maybe he’d go back to the bar. The drinks were great and inexpensive.
He thought about Candy one more time and hoped that someone with a radio didn’t lay their blanket anywhere near the box.
They’d get an earful for sure.
© Nelson W Pyles 2015, 2025 All Rights Reserved
Story appears in EVERYTHING HERE IS A NIGHTMARE from Burning Bulb Publishing
The photos used are courtesy of https://unsplash.com/ and are credited as hyperlinks on the picture except the embedded box image. The credit for that photo is here.
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