The clock on the wall of Bartholomew “Barry” Abernathy’s home office struck midnight, signaling the arrival of Halloween.
Outside, the wind howled through the trees. Inside, the only sounds were the hum of his computer and the occasional sigh of a man who had put off his chores for far too long.
Barry was a business owner, a “solopreneur,” as he liked to call himself. A fancy way of saying he did everything himself and therefore did nothing particularly well.
His website, Barry’s Antiques & Oddities, had launched seven years ago with great fanfare.
Now?
It was a digital ghost town.
“I’ll update the blog tomorrow,” Barry muttered, taking a sip of lukewarm coffee. “I’ll fix those broken links next week. I really need to look at the analytics…” He paused. “Eventually.”
Eventually.
That was the magic word. The spell that kept the chaos at bay. Or so he thought.
As Barry stared at his homepage, the screen began to flicker. The pixels swirled into a vortex of gray and black. The blue glow intensified until Barry had to shield his eyes.
Then the smell of stale coffee disappeared. It was replaced by damp earth and decaying leaves.
Barry blinked. He was no longer sitting in his ergonomic chair.
He was standing on a cobblestone path, holding a rusted iron lantern. Above him hung a full moon, impossibly bright against the stormy sky.
Before him stood a monstrous Gothic mansion, its turrets reaching toward the clouds and its stone walls strangled by ivy. Above the entrance, a rotting wooden sign read:
YOUR WEBSITE
“Okay,” Barry whispered. “This is a very lucid dream.” He looked around. “Or I’ve finally cracked.”
To his right, a crooked tombstone leaned precariously in the fog. Barry wiped away the moss.
R.I.P.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES
To his left, a wooden sign warned:
BEWARE: LEADS MAY BE SCARED AWAY.
Barry swallowed. Then he noticed the font.
Comic Sans.
He had used Comic Sans for his headers in 2018 because he thought it looked “friendly.”
He approached the mansion. A neon sign buzzed angrily beside the building:
404
DEAD END →
“The About Us page,” Barry whispered. “I deleted that folder during the migration and never redirected the URL.” He sighed.
“Classic.” The massive front door was barred with iron. A sign nailed to it read:
NO NEW LEADS ENTER
Barry tried the handle. Locked. Of course it was locked. He hadn’t updated the SSL certificate in three years.
He moved to the windows and peered into the dark rooms of his digital neglect. The first window was labeled:
ABANDONED BLOG
Two translucent ghosts sat at desks, typing furiously on keyboards that made no sound. A small sign read:
LAST POST: 2019
“Help us,” one ghost moaned. “We were supposed to write about the Top 10 Antique Vases for Fall.” “We had the outline ready.”
Barry frowned.
“Then you got busy,” the other ghost said.
“I was tired.”
“You watched Netflix.”
Barry decided not to argue. He moved to the next window.
CONTACT FORM
Inside, a terrifying specter hovered over a computer screen, holding up a glowing red sign:
ERROR
“I tried to contact you!” the ghost shrieked. “Last Tuesday! I wanted to buy the Victorian lamp!”
Barry winced.
“But the form wouldn’t submit! It just spun! And spun!”
“I thought the plugin was acting up. I meant to call the developer.”
“The developer left you in 2021!”
Barry took a step backward.
“My message went into the void! I went to your competitor!” The ghost paused. “Their lamp is ugly.”
Barry raised an eyebrow.
“But their form works.”
He moved on.
The OUTDATED CONTENT room was filled with cobwebs. Ghosts held up products that hadn’t existed in years.
“Buy our Blackberry cases!”
“Get your Y2K survival kits!”
Barry hurried past.
Then he saw the IGNORED ANALYTICS room.
It was completely dark except for a dusty computer screen displaying a line graph plunging toward the abyss. No one was looking at it. No one had looked at it in years.
Next came the BROKEN LINKS room.
Chains hung from the ceiling. Every time one swung, it snapped, leading nowhere.
“Click here,” a voice whispered. “Click here for the gallery.”
Snap.
“Click here for pricing.”
Snap.
It was a torture chamber of 404s.
Barry shuddered.
Then he noticed a small tower on the far side of the house.
SLOW LOAD TIME
Inside sat a massive hourglass. The sand was falling so slowly that Barry watched for what felt like hours. His hair grew longer. His beard turned gray. The sand hadn’t even reached the halfway mark.
“Five seconds,” Barry whispered. “It takes five seconds to load the homepage.” He paused. “On mobile.”
Suddenly, deep laughter echoed from above.
Barry looked up.
Perched on the roof like a gargoyle was the Grim Reaper.
He held a scythe in one hand and a smartphone in the other. On his black robe, glowing in orange letters, was one word:
LATER
“Who are you?” Barry called.
The Reaper leaned forward. “I am Later,” he rasped. “I am the spirit of I’ll do it tomorrow. “I am the we’ll get to it next quarter that buries your business.”
Barry stared at him.
“You’re my website?”
“I am the manifestation of your neglect.”
Later pointed his scythe toward the front gate. “You told yourself you’d fix the mobile site later.” “You’d update the pricing later.” “You’d look at the analytics later.”
“I have been feeding on those laters for five years.” He smiled.
“I am strong now.”
Barry looked toward the graveyard.
Thousands of tombstones stretched into the fog.
MISSED LEADS.
LOST CUSTOMERS.
MISSED OPPORTUNITIES.
“How do I fix it?” Barry pleaded. “How do I banish you?”
Later smiled. “You can’t.” “It’s too late.”
Barry stared at him.
“The code is spaghetti. The plugins are conflicting. The theme is deprecated.”
Later raised his scythe.
“You should have maintained me, Barry.” “You should have respected the user experience.”
Then he grinned. “Now go to sleep.” “I have a 404 page to design.” “It’s going to be very confusing.”
The scythe swung down.
Barry gasped—
—and jerked awake in his office chair.
His coffee cup had tipped over. Cold coffee covered his desk. The monitor was still glowing. The homepage of Barry’s Antiques & Oddities stared back at him. Everything looked normal.
But Barry knew better.
He could hear the chains of the broken links.
He could see the ghosts behind the pixels.
He didn’t say, “I’ll do it tomorrow.” He didn’t say, “Later.”
Barry opened a new tab. He searched for a web developer. He opened a spreadsheet and started auditing his content. Then he picked up the phone and called his hosting company about the site speed.
Outside, the wind howled. Inside, the only sound was the furious clicking of a mouse.
Barry knew the haunted house was still there, lurking in the code, waiting for him to slip up. Waiting for him to say the magic word.
But not tonight. Tonight, the leads were safe. Tonight, the ghosts would have to wait. Because Barry was finally working on the “Now.”
And somewhere in the darkness, Later was waiting.
Because Later always waits.
Happy Halloween—and may your load times be swift and your 404s be few! 🎃👻
