Hanging by a Thread

Even the old gate wants to tell me what a bad idea this is when it opens mimicking the scream of the sinister it keeps at bay. My hand is numbingly cold although it’s still around noon. But Rita doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of this. Seeing that I had stopped, she cocks her head and opens the gate completely for me to enter. “Well, we came this far Daniel. Let’s not turn back now.”

I take one reluctant step toward her. “Are you sure you want to spend your Halloween night gravetrapping? Because we can stay up and watch a movie together. Plus no one does this kind of thing anymore.”

“Oh, come now. Curling up on a couch every Halloween night is getting rather boring,” she protests. “This, on the other hand, is much more fun.”

“Fine,” I say and walk through the open gates before I change my mind again. Rita smiles widely and leads me towards the other side of the graveyard, where we’re supposed to gravetrap.

She sets down the beer crate she’s carrying and twirls playfully to face me. She holds out her hand. “Threads?”

“Let me relax for a moment,” I say scowling at her. Then I grin at her enthusiasm and fish out the two cones of threads I brought. “You’re very excited about this,” I observe when she snatches them from me. Her fingers brush slightly with mine and I wince. She is as cold as a statue of ice.

“When did you get so cold?” I ask, removing my jacket. But she gives me a look of surprise. “Really Daniel? What about the crate of beer I was carrying?”

I inhale sharply and look down to hide my embarrassment. Rita places a hand on my shoulder. “You really are afraid of graveyards, aren’t you?”

I look up at her Halloween costume; she had styled it as a ragged white dress. I’m wearing my normal clothes. I’m not into these things. So the least I can do is help my girlfriend to fulfil her Halloween wish: gravetrapping. “I’m sorry. We’ll catch some souls,” I promise her. “My fears won’t get in the way.”

“They better not,” she says.

Gravetrapping is a tradition as old as our town. According to the legends, souls of the dead pass into the mortal realm at midnight of the Halloween. Soul of a recently dead is visible to anyone who’s patient and resilient enough to watch the grave on the burial night. Everyone has sinned when they are alive. So as an atonement, they have to hide their visible souls from the mortal world. But an unfortunate soul or two are always spotted—those are the ghosts.

In contrast, the ancient souls are invisible. They have repented their sins and are at peace with themselves. They are so beautiful. Not the physical appearance; there is something about them that makes them so attractive. At least that’s what Rita and the rest of the town think. They also believe that they can only be glimpsed by the threads soaked in the first rain of the season. If a soul happens to pass across a thread, it becomes visible for a few moments.

Rita is tangling herself with the threads all over her. “Hold up.” I walk up to her laughing and help her free herself. “So much for trapping graves.”

She scowls at me when she says, “Don’t be so hard on a novice.”

There are about fifty graves in the area we’re standing, hundreds more towards the small jungle surrounding the graveyard. Surely we won’t be able to trap them all.

Rita glances around and then at me. “We’ll trap these,” she suggests pointing to the ones closer to us.

I nod. “Anything you want. I just hope we won’t disturb their peace.” She cocks her head. “Well, if we disturb their peace, they should become visible right? Saves us all this trouble.”

“Okay, okay. You win,” I say waving a hand. “Let’s just finish this and go home.”

“And come back,” she adds as she crouches in front of a tombstone. “Oh, look. She has my name, Rita.”

I crouch down beside her and examine the tombstone. I can clearly see the first name. Rita tries to scrape off the moss covering the last name with a stone. But it’s unreadable even then. She lets out a disappointed huff and turns to me. “I want to know her last name.”

I shake my head and walk up to the beer crate. “I want to know her last name,” Rita insists. “Already bonded with your namesake?” I ask teasingly. She shots me a glare and starts cutting the threads into pieces.

“Don’t worry. She died about twenty years ago," I say remembering the date on the tombstone, “I'm sure we can find her name at the town’s obituary records.”

“Thank you,” she mutters.

In the next few hours we manage to trap all of the graves—even the ones with fallen tombstones. Once we’re done, the threads look like a giant cobweb. 

Rita sits atop the tombstone with her name on it, crossing her legs at her ankles. “What are you doing?” I chide, “That’s utterly disrespectful.”

She taps on it with her hand. “Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.” I sigh as I hand her a beer and take a long pull from mine. “So,” I ask, “What made you want to gravetrap this badly?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Who wouldn’t want to catch a glimpse of beautiful soul?”

I hold my hand up. “I don’t. Nothing to do with the ghosts or souls or anything supernatural.”

“You wouldn’t say so when you see one of them,” she says.

“You talk like you’ve actually seen one of them,” I say, sitting on the ground. She shrugs and I take another pull. “How do we know the time when they come out to wander?”

Rita sets her beer down and folds her hands together on her lap. “They come out right around midnight. However, there are some signs that announce their arrival.”

“Really?” I laugh. “Like what?”

“Well, first of all, a thick mist covers the whole graveyard,” she explains. “It’s so thick that it dew starts to form; then a cold wind blows over the graves, clearing the mist. In a few moments, you can hear the clicking sounds of the coffins unlocking.”

A chill runs down my spine. I’ve grown up listening to the tales of gravetrapping my whole life. But this is the first time I’ve heard about mists and sounds of coffins unlocking. “You’re kidding right?” I ask. “You just made that up.”

“No, I did not,” she says. My hand trembles a little as my heart starts to pound. Rita keeps staring at me for a few moments and breaks into a laugh. “Fooled you, didn’t I?”

I sigh exasperatedly and get to my feet. “That’s it. We’re going home.”

“Oh, are you really that afraid?” she says. “Come on, let’s hangout a while longer.”

“And let you fill my head with creepy stories,” I ask. “No, thank you. Are you coming or not?”

“Why are you so afraid to be in a graveyard, Daniel?” she asks, still sitting on the tombstone.

“Why are you keep asking me that question?”

“I’m just curious,” she says. “Others are generally afraid of ghosts, I understand that. But you’re terrified of them.”

I say nothing. I don’t feel comfortable answering her. She presses me again. “Is there a particular ghost you’re afraid of?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

“You really don’t remember, do you Daniel,” she says. Bile rises up my throat. “That’s enough! I’m leaving this place.” But before I take another step, several drops of dew land on my arm. When I look up, I can’t see the sky or any of the nearby treetops.

I look back at Rita and there’s a wall of mist coming from behind her, ready to swallow the whole place. But she is still sitting on the tombstone while dangling her feet as if she hadn’t seen any of this. When the mist reaches her, however, it stops spreading.

“How did you do that?” My voice rises. “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“No, it’s not a joke. What I’m doing is quite simple.” Then her face becomes as pale as the backdrop of mist behind her. “I’m punishing you.”

“What?” But my voice trembles. “What did I do to you?”

“Do you know who I am?” she asks. Something about her voice makes my skin crawl.

“You’re—Rita,” I stammer, not daring to even blink.

“Really?” she asks, “Then what’s my last name?” Her last name? I try to remember it but I can’t.

“No,” I counter, “This is some sort of a trick. You’re messing with—” That's when I notice that she hadn't taken a single sip from her beer.

“You opened the gate,” I remind her. But she merely holds my gaze and I feel like air has sucked out of my lungs. I think back to the moment I opened the gate and I remember how I felt my hand cold. It was me—I opened the gate. And she didn't carry the beer crate or gravetrap—I did. That's why I was so tired. But I know Rita. She's my girlfriend.

“Who are you?” I ask, taking several steps away from her. “You're not real?”

“Oh, I am real, Daniel,” she says and I start hearing a howling sound and a cold wind brushes past my body, carrying the mist away with it. I feel like I'm in a freezer. I rub my hands together to warm them up.

Now that the mist has cleared, I can see Rita so clearly. There are cracks on her white face. She looks—dead. My heart is hammering against my ribs.

Click. Click. Click. I jump when hundreds more clicks follow.

“It’s time.” When she drops from the tombstone, she’s twice as tall as me.

“How?” I ask, “it's still noon.”

“Look around,” she says, “Is it still noon?”

I do, and what I see is pitch black darkness around me. It's midnight. “You came here at midnight to gravetrap me and try to drink away the guilt,” she says. “But you know you don't have to trap me to see me."

I shut my eyes close. I’m hallucinating. No, I think, I had too much to drink. This isn’t real. None of this is real. But I open my eyes and she’s right in front of me, her fingers curling around my throat.

“Please,” I mutter. She says nothing as she lifts me off of the ground. She raises me to her eyelevel and takes her hand off. For a moment I think she’s going to spare my life; but then I realize I’m floating. No. I’m not floating. Something sharp is stretched around my neck. Something thin and sharp.

I wiggle hoping to free myself from the thread I’m hung from. But it only tightens the noose. My executioner is wearing a cruel smile as she watches me gasping for air. The thread is too thin. And sharp. Moments before I lose consciousness, I see that it’s noon again. But I know that it's still midnight.