Dear Dr. Eldritch,
How can we explain to someone who's come back from the dead that it was just a mistake and we didn't mean any harm? It's not like we really wanted to hurt anybody!

Last Halloween, a bunch of us from the cheerleading squad and our boyfriends went to the old graveyard, so we could drink the bottle of crème de menthe Jessica's boyfriend took from his uncle's liquor cabinet without anyone seeing. While we were there, this guy, "Elmo," (that's not his real name, but we don't want anybody to know who it really is), showed up and tried to join in. He goes to our school, but nobody likes him very much, because his clothes always look like they were homemade from old blankets and he wears really dorky glasses. We didn't want him telling on us, so we let him hang out, and when the guys were checking out this big, glowing crack in the ground that was never there before, "Steve" bumped Elmo just to scare him, but Elmo slipped and fell into the crack down where we couldn't see him. He was crying and yelling for help, but he wasn't hurt so we decided to leave and come back in the morning to teach him a lesson, when he said there was something coming up at him, and he started screaming and stopped all of a sudden and the pit closed up. I wanted to tell the police, but Steve said that if we ALL pretended like we didn't know what happened to Elmo, nobody would ever know we had anything to do with it. So none of us said anything, even when the police questioned everybody at school, so they finally decided that Elmo must have run away from home, which isn't unreasonable, considering his clothes and everything.

Everything was fine for a year, then last week, a "10" showed up on Jessica's door, written in blood, then the next day there was a "9" on her boyfriend's car, then an "8" on Brittany's window. I mean, there were ten of us, and the numbers started ten days from Halloween, and now I'm really scared. Could Elmo be back from the dead, and the countdown means we're going to die on Halloween? It's not fair, because we're like really, really sorry! We didn't mean to hurt him, it was all an accident! Please, it's not right that we should die or anything, so what can we do to stop it?

-- Ashli

Dear Ashli,
Hang on, I need to plug in my Sympathy Generator so I can feel sorry for you. I was going to berate you while it warmed up, but why bother? I suspect you're going to have a Life Lesson in Accountability, and far more memorably than anything I could say. Still, I've vowed to help those who ask, so let's look at this mess and see what can be done.

Based on your description, I can't tell exactly who is behind this, but I see three primary possibilities:

1. Someone currently living witnessed the event, and plans to avenge Elmo's death.
2. One of your group has been driven mad by guilt, and feels obligated to avenge Elmo's death.
3. Elmo has tapped into some otherworldly power and has returned to avenge his own death.

Do you see the trend? It doesn't really matter who the waiter is, the entrée is a steaming platter of Vengeance and your order's up. That typically means you all will be killed off in varying ways. Some avenging spirits prefer to specialize with a particular style or weapon, but current trends involve variety, as messy and unpleasant as possible. This makes avoidance harder, since if a friend meets a brutal end via an electric pencil sharpener, it won't make you safer to steer clear of pencil sharpeners.

Your saving grace is that you expressed a desire to do the right thing, even though you let someone talk you out of it. This improves your chances. Statistically speaking, only one of you will survive until November, and since you at least displayed a small degree of responsibility, the odds that it's you are about 70-40 (I'm using theoretical Quantum Probability, that's why it doesn't add up to 100%).

Assuming you live through this, the lesson you should be learning is that when you mess up, you've got to make things right! Failing that, an honest attempt at making amends is in order. Sometimes, you can't. But if you don't even try, or worse, if you cover up your error, the "worm can" becomes a 55-gallon drum when the deed comes to light. If you had summoned help and admitted the accident at the time, you would have undoubtedly gotten in trouble, but not of the terminal kind. End of lecture, for now.

Your best plan of action uses the International Date Line (which is not "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?"). No, you're heading for the open ocean, the 180° meridian in the Northern Hemisphere, to be specific. Thanks to modern GPS, this is easy. Approaching midnight on October 30th, you'll want to be just East of the meridian, and as the second hand crosses over midnight, cross to the West. The date will then be November 1st, and you'll have missed Halloween entirely! Stay there for 24 hours or more, and then you can return home. With any luck, the avenging entity will have unleashed havoc upon your friends, found satisfaction and left, never to return. If there's any evidence to the contrary, you may want to repeat this holiday-dodging trip for the rest of your life.

If you can't arrange the ocean voyage, at least get out of town! You've had plenty of warning and there's no point in making it easy for whomever, or whatever, is coming for you. And just in case vengeance comes via one of your group, don't mention this plan or your destination to anyone! You'd be surprised at how many people mess that up.

Perhaps next time you're faced with a moral dilemma between admitting an error and covering it up, you'll ask yourself, "Is it worse to confess this and deal with the consequences now or face supernatural vengeance later?" That may help you to make the right choice. Wouldn't it be great if more people asked themselves that question?

Good luck, and let me know how it comes out!

-- Dr. Eldritch