At two a.m. I was woke from a dream and I was dreaming about a small boy who had climbed the bell tower in the village and was ringing the bell. It was olden days and he was ringing the bell out of fear. Fear of being murdered as some of his friends and staff members of the school he attended right there in the old monastery…
He rang the bell and screamed in Russian, “убитый” or “murdered.”
This was not the first time I had dreamed of this boy and I laid back down and put it to a worn out mind that I had from a long day. Then as I closed my eyes; the bell on the tower at the monastery rang. It was just a few minutes after 2 a.m. and it was pitch dark. On top of that it was foggy, so foggy that a flashlight refused to cut through it and with aid of a light, I was able to see barely my hand in front of me. The reflecting light from the water droplets dancing in the air around me,were in fact a hindrance to walking as I was being blinded by the reflections. I was all aglow and the light was contained in an envelope of foggy suppression…
Boza was thinking twice about walking with me, for he sensed I was dumb and going to go to the tower. The tower bell kept ringing, one long resonating ring after another, about five seconds apart. Boza stuck to my side and I held the flashlight as low as my arm would allow and with knowledge of the path up the hill in my head, we trudged upward to the bell tower as it rang in the dark, so thick wet fog, that I was drenched with water running off me in a few seconds. The fog clung like a cloak of suffocating cloth…
I will be honest with you; I turned back three times and three times the bell rang an extra ring. That turned me back to the sound and I kept going. As I got near the tower, I could make out a shrill voice screaming bloody murder and my dream rolled over me in a wave that made the fog thicker yet…
Now if I had ever doubted that sound is a physical force that can alter and effect your surroundings. I will never have such thoughts again. I stood right in front of the bell tower, I knew by the ground around me, for Boza and I have transverse this area many times during the day and night. Then the bell rang and as the wave of sound rolled across Boza and I, the water droplets, were pushed in front of it and collected into a huge sheet of water that descended upon us as a avalanche of water. What was not soaked, became soaked…
Then I heard a wail from whoever it was ringing the bell. It was such a sad and forlorn sound, that my soul wept as I heard it again and again. Boza and I walked around the whole tower, for I knew it was locked up, but as we came back to the front of the tower. I heard a cracking of wood. The sound continued and something grunted and with a last sound of shredding wood, it became silent all around. Then the bell rang again and and Boza barked, then leaped into the open doorway of the side wing of the tower. I could not see Boza for the fog was so thick, but I knew where he went. I walked straight ahead and found Boza and a door. A door that had been locked, was ripped open, the lock torn from the wood around it and the door swung back and forth gently as if in a summer breeze. There is no way around us and or out of this wing, except straight up through the missing roof, or through the newly ripped open door…
Through the door and inside, the fog was not present and I have my camera as I always do. I snapped a picture with flash of course and saw a stairway leading upwards. It was new and I have never seen these stairs. Using the flashlight, I progressed one meek step at a time upwards…
Boza decided he had enough and curled up into a ball near the door to the right side of it. His eyes closed as if that would make it all go away. I being of lessor intelligence than Boza walked to the stairs and with the aid of a flash on the camera and the flashlight, went up to see what I could find. Now, I am not going to tell you that I am a brave and fearless soul, for I would be lying and telling a story. I was scared $%^&*@# and my legs were like weak jello as I climbed the stairs. To what?
To an empty room, that is what! The stairs continued upwards, but ended against a sealed roof and there was no way up any farther at that point. What ever had ripped the door open, could not have gotten by me, for the stairs are too small for more than one at a time. The room I found was effectively a sealed room for now…
Then the bell rang and the sound was horrendous inside that room. The vibration cut through me like a knife through butter and I felt something trying to take a bit of me with it as the sound faded…
It was right at that point that I decided that I am no longer caring who or what it is, I decided, as Boza had already, it is time to go home and allow the games to be played without us. I left the tower, I grabbed a huge log and forced the door closed against its wishes and Boza and I slowly stumbled away in the fog so thick, I could not see. I fell down twice before I realized that I dropped my flashlight somewhere along the way escaping back there and turned to find that no light was visible to see were I dropped it. It was that thick of a fog…
I started to go back to get the flashlight and when I reached the center of the bell tower front, the bell rang one last time and as the sheet of water colluded around me, something fell from the tower and hit the ground hard, right in front of me. Boza growled and the hair on my body stood on end and I heard a shuffle of feet, a groan and breathing as in a dying gasp type breathing. A smell of sweet decay wafted over me and then a wail so loud, that my heart almost stopped and something shot past Boza and I (down the hill toward the lake at a run) and it took the fog with it, for in a few minutes, the stars became visible as I stood there and no more than a few feet away, lay my flashlight shining upwards in all its glory. The sky was just starting to show a glimmer of light in the distance and a bird chirped with delight near by…
We went home after I propped another log against the door, for the air had cleared and the force that had been present was gone and all was calm again…
Fog and deeper than Fog, or maybe I should just say; Truth can be stranger than fiction at times…
Now that is why I love Russia…
Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
PS: I am going to go back later today and nail that door shut with several boards. Go back with the sun shinning and the safety of its warmth… 🙂