School Monsters

I used to attend boarding school as a teen. Approximately 1974 to 1978.
Security was different then and there were no human monsters worth worrying about like today.

One of my responsibilities was to lock up the school late at night.
I was the school electrician and projectionist before the days of television.
On Saturday nights I would show films in the main hall and I was always the last to leave way after midnight..
Alone.. Really really dark.

As boarders we used to go down to the school weeknights to do homework until 10.30pm, when everyone would go back up to the boarding house together, and I would have a smoke and start locking up and turning off all the lights.

My glowing cigarette gave me a kind of confidence... Made me tougher?.. Maybe just distracted my terror.?
I had a master key and would lock each classroom upstairs and down.

It was really scary all alone where I had to go, down those pitch dark passages echoing... In that huge empty building.
The ghostly glow of the street lights far away cast shadows onto the ceiling in places.  Patchy and shadowy.

I did it every night and I got used to it, but the same swirling shapes followed me like huge curling ghosts of darkness.. Shapes.. Silent.. And watching.
I could feel their eyes on me and my skin prickled, but it was my job and the big boys that had done the same job before me, seemed not scared..
So I had to be the same.
(Anthony Yell.. he gave me my first cigarette.. Van rhyn.)

I also couldn't let them see how scared I really was. 
There were places where it was so dark, whether you opened or closed your eyes it made no difference.
I walked like a blind man in that darkness and knew where everything was..
How far..
How many stairs..
And exactly where the doors were..
The dark was so black it was thick and syrupy.. It clung to me like wet smoke.

There was a sound one night..
A beating swishing fluttering and my heart stopped.
I ran and got out of the building as quickly as I could, desperately locking the doors behind me.
My heart was exploding in my chest, and I had no idea what it could have been but I was not going to go back and look and I was not going to tell anyone.
Then they would know how scared I was.
The next day down at school I went to go and see what may have happened..
What it could have been.?
Who?

But there was only a huge mess of pigeon feathers everywhere and a very half eaten pigeon.

And then those rattley keyhole always gave me away.... The monsters could hear where I was, and waited in the darkest places. 
I got better at dealing with that darkness,
with those monsters,
but I never felt safe. 
They slid along the ceiling ahead of me and swirled when I turned to see if they were following me behind. 
I would sometimes stop, and hold my breath, and listen, to try and catch them out.. But they were always too quick for me. They were waiting to catch me.

A torch would have been so easy and sensible... But there was no such thing.
It was such a relief to get out to the road where the streetlights welcomed me and scared my persuers away.

They didn't follow me outside as I walked back up to the boarding house.
Only my shadow following shorter and longer between the lamplights and the bright stars smiled. They knew.

The real problem is still...
the places I dont know..
Like today..
Places I haven't been before..
Like life's Dark alleys and forests. .. Lonely places...?
We all go there

Now you know too.