Other Stories
By T. W. Fielding
Copyright © 2011 T. W. Fielding
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Other Stories
by T. W. Stetson
For years my school sent students on private retreats. The bus would drive for hours into the mountains and through a forest of large trees to an old monastery. We stepped down from the bus onto a grassy field, breathed in the fresh air and listened to the silence.
The monastery reminded me of those huge old houses in horror movies where something awful was going to happen. Roberto said it just like that house in the killer ghost movie that just came out and was banned wherever it was shown. The low stone building was as long as a football field.
The bus backfired as it rumbled away and Tony fell on the ground like he'd been shot. When the bus rolled out the large gate some priests and monks came outside and greeted us. They all wore dark brown cassocks with the hoods up over their heads and we couldn't see their faces. The few faces we could peek at were pale and hairless.
We were led through an antechamber full of stone statues to a long narrow corridor. The hall had white washed cement walls with candle scones between the doors and long rectangular skylights in the arched ceiling. Fading afternoon sunlight streamed through the skylights. Small doors were across the hall from each other and ran the length of the long hallway.
We were each given a room the size of a closet that smelled moldy. I had room 'M'. It had a small wooden bed, a night table and chair and no place for personal stuff. I put my backpack under the bed and lived out of it. No room had windows or closets or dressers. The doors were rough-hewn wooden planks. After we stowed our backpacks, they gave us a tour of the grounds. The woods smelled sweetly of pine trees. We heard no cars, no radios, no TV, internet, saw no houses, saw nothing of other people. We were told the nearest town was on the other side of the mountain.
Afterward we went to dinner in the great hall. We sat at two long tables -- the monks sat at the other tables -- and were not allowed to talk. We could only talk when we gathered in the chapel.
At dinner the monks waited on little Roberto like he was someone special and the guys kidded him. Roberto was the smallest kid in the grade and also the prettiest, but he was never short of girlfriends.
Father John, our retreat priest, was blind and led us from the dining hall to the small chapel at the far end of the monastery. Tony said hiking through the halls was more of a workout than football practice. We went down halls and up stairs like we were in an Escher drawing.
Father John told us, one at a time, to walk from the back of the chapel to where he sat and then tell him our names. After that whenever we spoke he could tell who we were. He could tell our names when we walked past him, saying “No talking Tony,” “Good question Walter.”.
Father John had gray hair and a red face as if he shaved with sandpaper and told us we could tell stories in the chapel. They didn't have to be completely real, but they had to be truthful. In the flickering candlelight he started the ball rolling by telling us about a werewolf that roamed the mountains looking for young boys to assault. When he finished he jumped up and shouted and all the boys yelled. Then he laughed and said, "Any other stories?" When no one spoke he said, "The world is full of stories. You must have a few you can share." We were silent. "They don't have to be truthful as long as they're sincere."
No one spoke.
"Perhaps after you've been here awhile, you'll have stories to tell."
We were told to pick up a small candle and light it from a big white candle and carry the little candles down the hall to our rooms. The little candle would be our only light to get undressed and climb into bed.
My candle flame flickered so much I put my hand in front of it to stop the light from going out. Some monks stood in doorways, their brown hoods lowered, only a little of their faces visible, as we went by.
All of us were afraid of a werewolf coming to our room. Kids whispered about it as we walked down the long hall. Some said they were going to barricade their door.
When I was in my little room I dragged my chair to the door, but the door could still open with the chair in front of it. The wooden bed was too heavy to drag and the night table was too small. In the drawer was a Bible and I remembered in Father John's story the Bible helped stop the werewolf.
The door was so roughly hewn I could fit my fingers under it. I wedged the Bible under the door so it wouldn't open.
Sitting on my bed, the aroma of my burning candle filled the room. The soft hot wax dripped down the side of the little candle. I was afraid of the light going out and used my fingernail to push the hot wax back up to the flame.
Finally, I took off my jeans and got under the scratchy brown blanket. I leaned over the white candle and looked at my little room with the bare walls and wondered why they didn't put a crucifix or something on a wall. With a nervous breath I blew the candle out.
For a long time I could not sleep and stared at the dim light coming under the door. I must've dozed off cause I woke when I heard something in the hall. I was instantly awake.
The light under the door was not enough for me to see my own room. We were not allowed to bring flashlights or matches. I stopped breathing so I could hear if anyone was outside my door. I listened and listened, but heard nothing. I listened so hard I imagined I could tell what every sound in the corridor was, but there were no sounds.
I had just given up listening and was about to try to go to sleep when a shadow came between my door and the hall sconce candle. My heart was in my throat. The metal latch handle squeaked. I knew a werewolf was raising it, trying to come in.