In "The Boy Who Drew Cats," when the boy entered the temple, he did not see anyone. What could be the reason?

When the boy is thrown out of his own temple for drawing cats after he has been forbidden to do so, he travels to a big temple he has heard of twelve miles away to ask if the priests there will take him in as an acolyte.
When the boy gets to the temple at night, it is dusty and empty. The reason, though he does not know it, is that it is haunted by a goblin rat. Priests have gone into the temple and never been seen again, so everyone is now afraid to enter the temple.
The boy sees white screens and is happy because he can draw cats on them. This he does and then falls asleep, only to awake and find that the cats he drew killed the goblin rat.