An Autumn Chill by Mark L. Stinson

The town of Haven had not bothered to notice the passing of years since shortly after its founding on a rocky inlet coast of the cold Atlantic. In its early days men had put little thought into the planning and order of its streets and buildings, and since those early days, very little new building had occurred at all. Crowded and crooked, its tall skinny structures of wood and tarpaper appeared to hold themselves aloft by strength of habit alone, and despite the fairly uniform and generous use of whitewash, the town appeared to be neither new nor clean. As I made my way through the winding streets of Haven for the first time, I was struck by how etched with tired sadness were the faces of the people of Haven. Repeated attempts on my part to make eye contact with someone-anyone-met with consistent and disappointing failure. Contrary to my general character, a growing sense of aloneness grew within me.

I had come to Haven to teach children in the local private schoolhouse, but as I made my way to the lodging my employer had arranged, I observed not one single child out-of-doors. Perhaps, if I had not been a pedagogue by profession, this absence of youth would have been lost to me. But I had, since my earliest working days, come to judge each new town I entered by its children. For, where better is the collective nature of a community reflected, than in the dress, manners, health, games, and general temperament of its youngest members? However, my opinions of Haven, due to the complete want of my traditional measure, were based solely on its twisted structures and their sad unwelcoming tenants.

So, it was with a certain amount of unease that I arrived at my arranged lodging, just as the icy fingers of the autumn wind had succeeded in fumbling through the layers of my clothing. The lengthening of the twisted shadows cast by the town’s closely huddled buildings filled me with relief that I had reached my destination before the complete onset of dusk. I stood before a worm-eaten dilapidated wood-frame house that by its very posture communicated origins prior to this century. I checked the faded numbers above the door of this failing and moldy tenement against the address reported to me in my letter of hire. To my dismay the numbers matched, and for a moment I entertained the thought of seeking quarters elsewhere, at some newer, better kept inn or household. But the idea of continued travel among the encroaching contorted shadows of Haven, with a blustering autumn wind poking and grabbing at my very warmth, convinced me to proclaim my journey at an end no matter what the condition of my boarding.

Knocking upon the splintered surface of the bound front door, I listened intently for any indication that behind the dark shuttered windows of this aged run-down building, some tenant may still dwell. I heard the scraping of a bolt, and the door swung away from me, exposing an ancient female face framed by the darkness of a now open portal. The old fragile face was broken here and there with deep crevices and wrinkles that bespoke a long life, full of laughing and crying and all manner of expression.

“Young man, come out of the street, it is getting dark. For a very small price I will feed you and give you shelter for the night.”

I entered the darkness of the house, comforted by the warmth and welcome in the voice of my hostess. I walked a few steps in blindness, and then stopped. I could hear the old lady fumbling with the lock on the door, and I waited as she lit a small lamp. Long shadows spread across the room from where the lamp sat shining in the corner, but I could see enough to know I was in a cozy sitting room, decorated with all categories of craft and hand-sewn quilts. The apprehension I had felt when I first realized this house was to be my arranged boarding drained away with every passing moment I spent within this snug restful room. I spied a large overstuffed couch covered four deep in quilts and blankets, and still having said not one word to my hostess, I sat upon it, shivering from a still lingering chill within my layers of clothing.

“Oh, you poor man. How long did you travel to reach Haven at this late hour?”

“I traveled from Wilmont, inland and north from here. I thank you for inviting a perfect stranger in, but I am Lewis Prather, and I believe I am expected. Dean Thomas Bordon of The Haven Children’s Academy told me in a letter that he would arrange boarding for me here, at this house....”

I stopped talking, for at the mention of Dean Thomas Bordon and his Children’s Academy, the old lady’s face took on an even paler shade of white, and her hand went to her mouth as if to hold back an utterance of terror. I held out my letter of hire to her, hoping that it would somehow ease the strong reaction my words had mysteriously inspired.

Her now wide eyes quickly looked down and away from me, and she spoke in quiet low tones. “Then you haven’t...heard, Sir?” Her whispered question was almost drowned out by the loud whistling of the autumn wind outside her small rotting home.

That gnawing apprehension I had felt about this town and its inhabitants rose again with the rising wind, and after what seemed like a full minute of silence, I finally dared to speak. “Haven’t heard...what, exactly?”

My hostess, who had seemed so wise and warm just moments before, now seemed very tired, and scared, and cold. She stepped towards me and took the worn letter from my hand, unfolding it as she spoke. “Dean Bordon’s school caught fire, and all the children....” She closed her eyes and swallowed very heavily. “All the children...died...horribly.”

I sat there staring at my hostess, as if she had not said a single word. Thinking back on it now, I don’t recall feeling anything at that moment. What could I feel? The innocent and happy children I had come to the town of Haven to teach had all died horrible painful deaths. The only reaction left to me was one of shock and disbelief. “No, no, you must be mistaken. I only received this letter a few weeks ago. Dean Bordon said in his letter....”

“This letter is dated before the fire, young man.” My hostess appeared to have regained some of her composure, and with a tone of warmth and concern, she told me the details of how the Haven Children’s Academy had burned. She told me of a leak in a gas furnace, and an explosion. She told me about the rush to put out the flames that had already done their dirty work, about long rows of short caskets, and of a wildly grieving Dean Bordon having to be carried away from the mass funeral by friends after attempting to throw himself into one of the still-open graves.

I sat there half-listening to the grim details of the tragedy while another part of my mind wondered how long those pink little arms had flailed against the heat and flame; pondered whether any high immature screams could be heard above the crackling roar of the all-consuming conflagration; speculated as to the quality and completeness of the remains found cooling in the charred shell of the schoolhouse. Such are the dark images an imaginative mind is privy to when hearing the details of such an event, and such are the images, that even now as I write this, continue to assail me....

I sat there on that warm quilt-covered couch in silence, visions of flaming children thrashing and screaming in my mind, while the chill autumn wind whistled its way through weathered cracks and unseen holes eaten by long-dead generations of worms and beetles. Minutes as long as hours passed, and I came to realize that my hostess had stopped talking some time ago. She was sitting opposite me in a large overstuffed chair, looking down at her small withered hands, which were clenched hard, and set side by side on her knees.

“I’m sorry I....” My words trailed off, for I realized I was not sure for what I was going to apologize.

“Sir, you have nothing to be sorry for.” My hostess looked up at me, and her eyes filled with bitter anger. “God saw fit to take the children, Mr. Prather, and he left behind a tired...empty town and a schoolmaster mad with grief. Sleep here tonight. But in the morning leave Haven and return to Wilmont...there’s no future here.” As she finished, she cast her eyes back down at her clenched fists, and I heard her whisper a short quiet prayer.

I was at a complete loss for words. I managed to thank my hostess for her kindness, and though she wished me to pay nothing, I insisted she take some payment for my room. She led me to my accommodations on the second floor, and without saying another word she closed the door as she left.

I slept fitfully that night, disturbed by short ghoulish dreams filled with images of a blackened classroom, with neat rows of charred desks crowded with the roasted remains of Dean Bordon's young students. Their skin, cracked and peeling from the flames, would occasionally fall to the floor in clumps exposing pink raw flesh underneath, and some of their limbs ended in black pointed stumps with a bit of exposed bone at the tip. In the dreams I would be at the head of the classroom, facing these macabre revenants, completely paralyzed with fear. I would stand there staring into their moist bright eyes, held captive by their glares of necrotic hate and choking on a scream that would not come. I awoke several times in the night screaming, and imagined I could still feel those eyes glaring at me, judging me. Once I thought I heard childish giggles, only to discover much to my relief that it was only the wind working its way though some odd shaped space between the wood and glass of my window.

I slept my longest and most restful stretch for several hours between sunrise and midmorning, the dreams having become less frequent with the coming of day. I arose at noon, my plans for an early departure from Haven frustrated by a night full of dark disturbing visions. It did not take long to gather my sparse belongings, but while packing I came across the envelope that had brought me my letter of hire, and which still contained my monetary advance. Dean Bordon had sent me a sizable sum of money to ensure I could not turn down his offer of employment. But now there were no children to teach, and while I admit I was tempted to keep this advance to ward off the strain of further unemployment, I was an honest young man and could not steal from another at such a low point in his life. A shiver coursed through me as I conjured up an image of Dean Bordon attempting to throw himself into those short little graves, and I pictured him screaming madly as he was forcefully carried away. I resolved at that moment to return the advance and offer Dean Thomas Bordon, who had been so generous in hiring me, whatever assistance he required.

Down the stairs and out the door I went without bidding the old hostess farewell. The sun was brightly shining, and in its warmth it was easy to ignore the pestering chill of the autumn wind that buffeted me. I looked back at the old boarding house, which in the glare of the midday sun, had lost all of the sinister qualities it had exhibited in the long creeping shadows of dusk the night before. As I once again made my way through the twisting streets of Haven, I was drawn into the collective sadness of this town without children. The adults continued going about their business mechanically, their grave tired faces surrounding downcast eyes. How terrible it must be to lose a child; how much more terrible to know that child died writhing in fiery pain.

Before accepting my proposed position I had done a small amount of reading on the history of Dean Bordon’s school. The Children’s Academy had been established in the early days of Haven with the idea of providing a common education for all. It was a private school which required tuition, but donations allowed even the poorest children to attend. It was a two room building built of wood, and nothing much had changed over the years except perhaps a multitude of successive coats of whitewash, new deans and teachers as old ones died or retired, and the addition of electric lights and gas heat. The Academy had served its town well, producing every one of its mayors, several future doctors and lawyers, and even one state representative. The irony was not lost to me that day, that this institution of learning that had ensured the future of this town for so many years had now inflicted a mangling lethal wound to its spirit.

I climbed my way up Loyalist Hill on Butler Street as Dean Bordon had instructed me in his letter. Thinking back now, I am not sure what exact element of atmosphere or trick of reason caused me to be afraid. I do know that the closer I came to the top of Butler Street, to the burnt schoolhouse, and to its mourning headmaster, the more I paid heed to a rising inclination within myself to turn and travel back to Wilmont with all possible haste, and forget my honorable resolve to return the advance sum. Looking back on it now I wish I had, for the knowledge I acquired during just one day and night of the Dean’s tutelage, changed forever the tone and course of my life. Once exposed to the darkness ever present and ever hidden among us, one can never go back to that pleasant naiveté that all but a sensitive few enjoy. Call it youth, call it honor, call it stupidity; I did not turn back that day.

A few fire eaten walls remained standing, but for the most part all of the school was either strewn about the grounds by the initial gas explosion or burnt in the ensuing flames. The small house where the Dean lived was blackened on the side facing the leveled schoolhouse, and I was surprised the fire had not taken this building too. It was a modest one-level wood frame house, whitewashed like all the rest in Haven. As I came up the walk, I noticed that on the dark wood of the front door someone had painted a large black cross with broad strokes, and on each dark pane of window glass smaller crosses had been painted. Obviously, I thought at the time, the Dean has been somewhat affected by what must be a maddening grief.

As I reached to knock, the front door swung inward, startling me. “I hoped you would come, Mr. Prather. Come in.” The tall thin older man motioned me to enter. His handsome age-lined face was smiling, but his large wide-set eyes were dull and darkly circled. He was wearing a prim charcoal jacket and tie which complimented his neatly combed graying black hair. I hesitated, and he just stood there motioning me into his house, that dull meaningless smile fixed upon his face.

I walked through the doorway into a dim cluttered sitting room, unkempt and heavy with dust. Books lined shelves that covered every wall, and there was hardly a flat space not occupied by a stack of books or a single volume propped open carefully by another smaller tome. A worn path of carpet twisted its way between piles of still more books that appeared to have been tossed aside and allowed to accumulate on the floor.

“Please, Mr. Prather, sit down.” The Dean closed the door behind me, and it was then that the dim distorted shadows of the crosses painted on the window panes radiated across the room. Everything within the small chamber was touched by those cold lightless beams that emanated so wickedly from the crudely painted holy symbols of Christ. I felt myself backing blindly towards the door, when Dean Bordon’s hand fell firmly on my shoulder. “Have a seat over here Mr. Prather, we have much to discuss.”

He guided me to a small couch and then, clearing some books from its cushions, he sat stiffly in a large comfortable chair facing me. “You must pardon the condition of my house. With all that has been going on...keeping things straightened-up around here has not been much of a priority. I am used to having a maid around, but she...she left for better employment....” The Dean just kept rambling on in a pleasant cheerful voice, while those dark sullen eyes told of a deep sleepless desperation to escape a fate that had already befallen him. My attention was strained by the criss-cross of shadows that fell upon the Dean’s face and body. I had come to this place to offer Dean Bordon any help he may have required, but I began to realize I was fully out of my depth.

“I have a large pot of stew I can put on for dinner, and I really must insist you stay and eat with me. I have been very short of company of late, and it’s so nice to have a visitor. So, Mr. Prather...”

“Dean Bordon, I really haven’t come for a visit. I came to return your money.” With that I stood and held out the envelope containing his advance money. My intentions for going to the Dean had been good and honorable ones, but in a single selfish moment born of fear, I decided I needed to get out of this house, out of this town, and back on the road to Wilmont as soon as humanly possible. Dean Bordon had other plans for me.

“Mr. Prather, I’m afraid I must insist you stay a while longer.” Dean Bordon pulled a small revolver from a pocket of his jacket and pointed it rather casually in my face. “Please, sit down. Relax. I will explain everything.” I noticed how the arm and hand that held that deadly revolver were trembling, and I promptly regained my seat. The gun now pointed at my chest, Dean Bordon began again to talk, but his tone had changed. The hollow cheer in his voice, the polite and shallow conversation, the attempt to make me feel a welcome visitor were all gone. Instead, the Dean’s voice and manner came more into agreement with his eyes: dark, dull, and unpleasant.

“Mr. Prather, can you feel them like I do? Do you hear them screaming my name?” The Dean’s voice fell to a whisper. “You hear them too...tell me you can hear them too.”

I was unable to find the words to answer. Dean Bordon just sat there looking at me, and trembling.

“I know you think I am mad. Believe me, there are times when I think I am mad. But when they come to me, and I hear the terrible things they whisper, and I see what they have become....”

Dean Bordon’s words were swallowed in a wretched outburst of emotion, and though I truly believed him to be deranged, the confused assertions he shared with me in halting whispers affected me more dreadfully than the revolver he held pointed at my heart. He had left his classroom full of children to procure a book from his study. he had heard the fiery roar of the explosion, smelled the sickening sweet odor in the smoke, witnessed those small flailing forms trapped in the burning ruins, felt the men of Haven rushing past him to put out the murderous fire, and he had stood there and done nothing. Absolutely nothing. Next came the rows of short caskets and the overpowering compulsion to join the children in their graves, stopped only by the intervention of those at the funeral. Although the town elders had determined the gas leak was not his fault, it was not long before the dreams began - nightmares filled with images of burnt classrooms occupied by boys and girls charred and reduced by flames. The children would reach to touch him with their cracked blackened fingers, all the while staring at him with those large moist eyes. Every night the visions became more intense, and the children began sharing with Dean Bordon in quiet whispers things they had learned after they had been placed in their graves, things that no living man should hear. Dean Bordon threw himself into research, acquiring and reading every book he could find on spiritual matters, studying and performing even the most bizarre rituals, and all without the benefit of restful slumber. But all these efforts had failed. The children had told him that tonight was the night they would come for him.

With this final assertion, Dean Bordon’s halting whispers ceased. It was then that I realized we had been sitting there in his study for some time. Dusk had come and gone and the autumn wind had brought a storm to the town of Haven. The dark room was occasionally lit by bright loud flashes of lightning and thunder. Dean Bordon sat there nervously glancing back and forth between me and the rain-streaked windows as if waiting for something to happen.

With an uncertain tone I broke the silence with a question. “Why do you need me here? Everything you have said is quite mad, but if there is any truth to it, why are you keeping me here?”

“Mr. Prather, the school...the children, they were my life. Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? I just stood there, Mr. Prather. Stood there while the flames feasted upon the young flesh of those in my charge. The screams, oh God, do you hear them! I can hear nothing else....” His words were drowned in deep sobbing and by the howling squall that raged outside. After a few minutes a strange sort of peace seemed to come over the Dean and he spoke his final words. “Mr. Prather, you must help me to ki...”

A bright flash and an explosive roar reverberated through Dean Bordon’s study, and I felt a strong electric charge in the air. The Dean and I stood quickly, and within seconds flames from the lightning were licking their way through the ceiling as smoke filled the small house. I turned to make my way out the door and away from the danger of the blaze, but Dean Bordon’s screams transfixed me.

I turned in time to see him toss his gun my direction, and I caught it. Dean Bordon’s face was twisted with fear, and it seemed as if some unseen force was holding him where he stood. Perhaps what I saw next was the result of shock, or a trick of the light from the flames, but I swear the Dean’s clothes moved as though clutched by small unseen hands, and his face and neck ran red with blood from small wounds that looked like bite marks. The house was burning all around us and my salvation through the front door was all but blocked by fire, still I could not take my eyes from the screaming Dean.

It was at that moment that I realized why he had kept me there at gun-point. Why he had dared not face this fate alone. I gripped Dean Bordon’s small revolver tighter in my hand and carefully aimed it at his head. In that last moment of eye contact that we shared, Dean Bordon appeared to thank me.

I never married and I never taught again. I have lived these many long years as a shadow of the man I was before the horrible events of that stormy autumn night. I have searched the world for knowledge that would make sense of what I saw, but there is no sense to be found in madness. Once exposed to the darkness ever present and ever hidden among us, one is forever tainted. I am old, and soon I will die, but the autumn wind still whispers reminders of an autumn that is best left unremembered. True terror never fades.