The sun set early on a rainy late October day in ancient Nara. Water rushed, dripped and fell all around as the light faded slowly to a gray mist in Japan’s Kasuga-Taisha Shrine, which the information booth guy said is Japan’s highest-ranked Shinto shrine. We found it folded into the Kasagayama Primeval Forest as a chill descended on the already cool day. Stone lanterns loomed up from just beyond the gravel pathway, their vacant faces devoid of light. They did nothing to cut the deep darkness. The slosh of wet gravel beneath our feet drowned out most sound, but indistinct and far off, a shrill cry pierced the hushed darkness. Shadowy shapes shifted before us on the path and Nara’s deer materialized between the tree roots twisting on either side. Somewhere we’d taken a wrong turn.
An inhuman scream just ahead froze us in place. A wild-eyed deer—horns shorn off and steam billowing from its gaping snout—wheezed out three hoarse shrieks. I shouted in surprise, tightening my grasp on the baby and Chris; the creature lumbered off and we proceeded through the blackness. Suddenly our shadows lengthened in front of us as we were outlined in a car’s headlights. I didn’t know this wide, gravel path was a road; I turned to see where the car was coming from or going, but the light vanished and the car disappeared when I looked back. 
A creepy old building rose up to our right amidst towering, gnarled old trees with blue and purple light issuing from its high windows. Chris approached the iron gate and a girl in black materialized. “Haunted house?” Chris asked. “Halloween?” But no, this is a very special after-hours Buddhist art exhibition…won’t you come in? We were cold and soaked through, but this seemed a little too much like a set up for a bad horror movie, especially in Japan, which is filled with creepy legends of men who fell in love and married beautiful women who turn out to be dead ghouls.
Anyway, we continued and the rain subsided. An iron temple bell tolled solemnly and I thought of:
“Hear the tolling of the bells –
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan….”
“The Bells” by Edgar Allen Poe
Just before we reached the train station, we passed an illuminated pagoda in a complex under construction. High in the rafters of the temple, lights flashed and moved throughout the floor. I’m sure it was just a security detail, but I was still relieved when we got out to a busy thoroughfare. I can’t remember ever finding myself alone in the dark in Japan before, and I recommend taking precautions against it…especially on Halloween.