Ch. 5

Without another word, Mr. Garris turned on his heel and began to walk with a long, powerful stride, leaving me to decided for myself whether I would enter or not. I quickly considered the panic attack I had felt only moments before and convinced myself that I must have imagined it. The gate keeper had returned and watched me with two large, fearful eyes that bulged out at me as if pleading me to leave. Bah! He looked of a coward and talked like one. I tugged down on my jacket to straighten it out, then raised my eyebrows at the keeper as an indication that I was waiting for him to open the gate. He did so reluctantly, and as the gate creaked on its hoary hinges, he made the sign of the cross over himself and then over me. I thought of mentioning the inappropriateness of his gesture considering he didn’t know what religion I was affiliated with, but the ware on his face made me pity him, and I thought it best to say nothing. Without another glance at his pallid face, I cleared my throat before passing by him. I could hear him tisk-tisking my decision before the gates, with their creaking hinges, clanked shut.

Mr. Garris had managed to gain a good distance ahead of me, so I had to break into a slight jog to overtake him. When I approached about five feet away from him, he turned suddenly with wild eyes and clamped fists. “Don’t ever run at me.” He snarled like an animal. I held my hands up in front of me to show no intention of harm. His eyes fell from my face, to my hands, and rose back to look me dead in the eye. The frost-green pupil in his left eye twitched, and I could see the pulse just above his temple. He was a madman. This spell only lasted for half a minute as Mr. Garris finally deflated his chest and shook his head as if to dislodge whatever was causing the glitch in his brain. Nonetheless, his complete transformation terrified me to the point of reconsidering my trip. For the second time, Mr. Garris showed me his broad back and started off at a much faster pace than before. I noticed that he kept looking up at the sky as if it were going to fall. He repetitively scratched the back of his head rather angrily as if he had an obsessive compulsive disorder. I didn’t know what to make of this man, and worst of all, he was my host.

As we hurried by all the huts in the village, it was difficult to imagine any diabolical mischief disrupting the simple life these people led. It was a very clean community with fires glowing from within each hut on the path. Everything was peaceful. The only thing that was out of order was the absence of any noise or movement. My host and I were the only living things moving outside of a hut. I ascribed this phantom-like ambiance to the lateness of the night though I could feel that my senses were not totally at ease. I had counted at least twenty huts spread out at no specific length from each other situated on my left-hand side. We must have been on the main path of the village since there were no other paths as large and as straight as the one we were treading. The huts themselves were hard to see with the fire being on the inside and only the moon offering a source of light, but from what I could make out, the outer material of the shelters was made of some coarse hide from a beast. I could just barely make out the small strands of hair silhouetted against the dark gray sky. Shadows created by the fires were dancing on the ground, forming illusions of rodents or small creatures scampering about the trails interlinked within the campsite of huts.

Absorbed in the imagination these shadows invoked, I was unaware that Mr. Garris had stopped, and I would have run smack into his back if I hadn’t sensed something towering over me. Because my head was turned, my inner ear had picked up the presence of a barrier that stood in front of me, and by instinct, I stopped just in time. Mr. Garris had indeed halted, but my eyes caught a glimpse of something else looming before us. It took some time for my eyes to focus on the black figure, and though I couldn’t make out the carved details, I knew immediately what it was. Mr. Garris dropped to one knee, made the sign of the cross, and then recited a handful of prayers in Latin. Unable to understand anything he said, I took this time to better examine the massive structure in the middle of the path and moved in closer for a better look as the moonlight both revealed and obscured some of its parts . It was constructed of stone with intricate chiseling marks done to the cross for realistic purposes. The body of Christ was sunken and depleted. His face was drawn, and seemingly full of pity. A meager cloth was tied around his waste while the thorn crown around his head struck me as offensive. Something about it was utterly violent. Even compared to the nails embedded in his hands and feet, the crown stood out as very sharp and digging deep into his head.

As Mr. Garris continued to deliver his prayers with a bowed head, I proceeded to scrutinize the work of art that held my attention. Shadows produced by the twilight were cast across the left side of His face so that it lay hidden in the dark. I fancied that I saw a piece of Christ’s nose crumble to the ground, but there was no sound or evidence of this. Upon further inspection of His body, I realized that the color of the stone was not uniform. Some parts were very light; others were dark, and the smaller bits like the fingers, toes, and hair were decayed from age with patches of algae growth in the crevices. It was less of a statue and more of a mosaic shrine. I extended my hand to press my palm flat against the bottom of the cross, seeing as how I couldn’t reach any higher, and felt a shock of very cold, hard flesh against my wrist. Mr. Harris had finished his praying without me noticing, and just before I could lay a finger on the shrine, he clamped his fingers around my wrist and stopped me. He needn’t say anything. I understood the warning in his threatening expression. 


© Mikal Minarich