Free Halloween Is For Lovers by Nate Gubin Page A

For your sake and hers, please don't go."
    "I can feel her in my arms again."
    Ana huffed, her head sinking. "It's no use, it has you and it won't let go." She slid her hand into her pocket and retrieved a bent beer-bottle cap, its Hamm's logo polished with decades of cherishing. "For protection."
    Hugh took it with a smile.
    "It's from the first time I met my husband. He bought me a beer, I saved the cap."
    "I can't take this." He tried to give it back but she pushed it back into his hand.
    "No, I've learned my lesson. Better to let go."
    Hugh looked at it for a moment, then he looked up the road at the gate. There was a little scratch of something in the back of his mind, a notion that maybe this wasn't a sure thing, a notion that maybe ... He turned and looked down on the whole of the Kingdom, the wash of gray dim. "I should be going."
    Ana nodded. "You're a fool." She looked away. "But I can't blame you for being one. If you happen to run into a very tall, handsome man named ..." She choked back her tears and shook her head. "Never mind." She turned and drifted back down the road into the village, her tattered robe decaying into the ash of the landscape.
    Hugh continued his climb, quickly skirting the rim of the horrible vent. Glancing back, he tried not to notice its black smolder. “Nothing to fear,” he tried to convince himself. “I'll be alive soon and all this will be a bad memory.”

Crossing Over
     
    The gatekeeper was a chubby Chinese man with long hair pushed back over the top of his head. He was doing his best to keep his coif voluminous, like a lion's mane. He always held himself slightly at an angle to the person he was speaking to, a posture that made it look like he was about to attempt some sort of performance. In life, his parents brainwashed him into believing he could be a great opera singer. They were heartbroken when he turned out to be nothing more than a wealthy endodontist.
    "Greetings. Why, may I ask, do you approach the gate?"
    Hugh dug his pass out and handed it to him. "I'm crossing over, for Halloween."
    The gatekeeper inspected the pass, shaking his head. "You're mistaken, this pass is stamped with a rejection." He took a step back, stretched out his arms and sang, "No, no, no. You may not go."
    Hugh jumped to his side, frantic. "No, you see, they stamped it approved, after they stamped it rejected."
    The gatekeeper studied the pass closely and nodded. Once again he threw his arms to the side and sang, "Approved, approved. The council hath approved this man to pass. La-dee-dee-da-do-da-dee-da-do ..."
    Hugh stepped around him and made for the gate.
    "Just one moment, oh spirit of All Hallows’ Eve. It is customary to listen to a brief performance before passing into the Land of the Living. And without further ado I give you Turandot in its entirety." He took a step back. "Pray, a brief moment of silence to allow the air to still before it takes on the resonance of my voice."
    The gatekeeper stood poised, ready to sing. Hugh interrupted the moment. "Excuse me, I'm actually in kind of a hurry."
    "But it's the custom, I get to sing."
    "Nobody said anything about it. I'm on a real tight schedule." Hugh stepped past him and tugged at the gate, but it didn't budge.
    "How about just the first two acts?"
    "I really need to get over there." Hugh shook the iron bars and the gatekeeper deflated.
    "Nothing? Not even ‘Nessun Dorma?’"
    "Sorry, I need to get going. How does this open?"
    "Only I have the power to open the gate, for I am the gatekeeper. Entrusted with the portal from the Kingdom of the Dead to the Land of the ..."
    Impatient, Hugh shrugged. "Could you just open the gate, please?"
    "Fine, but can I at least sing a few bars as you pass through?"
    "Whatever."
    Hugh waited, tapping his foot, as the gatekeeper faced the gate, arms outstretched. "Only I know the secret word that opens the gate, and that word is ... open." They heard a clank and a creak, but the gate stayed solidly shut.