Triskaidekaphobia (From the Phobia Short Stories Collection)

A Story by Kat Calathea

Friday the thirteenth. It’s a terrible day anyway, if you’re superstitious. I’m not, but plenty is going to happen today. It is February, so things are cold. Snow is actually falling from the sky, if only a little, which surprised me because it doesn’t snow much in Albuquerque. Almost never. The snow piles on my windows, nearly six inches from the bottom. Today would be a hard day at work, because no one would be out. I turn on the radio, and the first thing I hear is a man’s voice instructing citizens to stay inside unless absolutely necessary. Maybe there was such a thing as bad luck �" I have a job that needs to be done, and I can’t do it now. I need the money bad. I think it’s necessary for me to be out, hopefully there will be families who find the same necessity today.

I grab my coat as I walk to the front door, zipping it up tightly before I leave the comfort of my house. If I was smart, I would grab my gloves, and maybe a hat, too, but I don’t worry about that right now. The car will warm up in due time, and I really just need to be on my way. I walk outside and turn on the car, which was sitting in a driveway full of snow. I turn the heater and defroster all the way up, and then I grab the ice scraper from the trunk and begin to remove the snow and ice from the exterior of my car. I shovel some of the snow from my driveway, but only enough to back out the car. The roads have already been salted, at least on my street, so I know I can make the drive. I jump in the car and put it in reverse.

I’m not really sure where I was going, as most places were closed due to the weather, but I got going anyway. I think I was looking for cars, mostly. Mini vans, preferably �" that usually meant kids. I also need a crowd, so that I could get my job done without drawing too much attention on myself. I drive for a long time, but find nothing.

I am a pretty decent guy to know, if I do say so myself. I am fun, smart, and outgoing. I don’t drink often, and I definitely don’t drive if I do. I don’t gamble. I’ve never smoked. Despite all these things that most of society today would think make me a stick in the mud, I am actually preferred to be around, rather than the drunk out of his mind, smells like smoke, ‘fun guy’ with no money. However, if I were to say I was perfect, that would be a lie. I’m perfect when around society, maybe. But at my job, when the mask goes on, I guess I am far less than perfect. That’s just because my job is deceit and theft. And no, I’m not a lawyer or a banker of anything. I take kids, twelve to thirteen years of age, and sell them. Mind you, I don’t just put them on eBay �" “Young teen, slightly used, great shape, $40,000.” No, that would be terribly stupid. I was hired by some organization that uses these kids for some project, and all I do is bring the kids to them, take the money, and leave. It’s just that I have a deadline, and I need a new kid by tomorrow, or my forty grand starts shrinking. At this time, my bills have run up enough that I very much need that forty grand. So there needs to be a family or three out today with a good selection of kids, or I’ll have to break into someone’s house tonight. And I really hate doing that.

As it turns out, Friday the thirteenth proved to be a great day in the child hunting department. When I drive up, I see that Target, Wal-Mart, and Big Five all have a full parking lot with a great variety of vans. I take the first open spot I can find, which actually proves hard to find. This brings a hint of a smile to my cynical face. As I put the van in park, I look over at the ash tray. In it is not cigarettes �" I don’t smoke �" but a stack of lollipops. A mistake I will not make again. Parents now do one thing correct, at least �" no child, especially one of thirteen years of age, will fall for the candy trick. I almost got arrested that time. But I played it off nicely. Still, I won’t use the trick today. I pop a lollipop into my own mouth as I walk out of the car.

I am about to walk up to Big Five, but then I see something on the side walk of Target that has a slimy, easy smile sliding across my face. I throw the lollipop onto the pavement and walk toward a gorgeous, young teen and her mother. I have no interest in the mother, but I see her turning to go back into the store, her young girl left on the street. I know I only have a few minutes, but she’s small. No need for sweet talk, I can just grab and go. That is exactly what I do.

This is weird, because that was, literally, exactly what I just did. I walk up to her, place my arms around her small waist, pick her up and go. And on the way to the van, she doesn’t scream, she doesn’t kick, she doesn’t struggle. She doesn’t demand to know who I am or what I’m doing. She just quietly surrenders. I get to the van, open up the back, and shove her in. She sits up as I slam the doors, not moving or scrambling to escape; she’s not whimpering, crying or shaking. She doesn’t seem scared. I’m not sure if I should be scared, or just happy I got so lucky. Either way, this is just… Weird. But I pull out and begin speeding down the road anyway.

It got weirder. As I drive, she sits to silently that I can’t take it. On any other occasion where I have taken a kid, I can’t wait to hand ‘em off so they’ll shut up! But her silence is somehow unsettling. I can’t believe I’m about to do it, but I start a conversation with her.

“What’s your name?”

“Lillian,” she replies.

“That’s pretty,” I offer. She doesn’t say anything in response to this. “How old are you?” I ask.

She chuckles. “You don’t really need to ask that.”

I can’t tell what she means. It feels like she knows something she shouldn’t, but that can’t be. I must just be freaking myself out. After a while of kidnapping and selling, there must be a point at which I start to freak myself out. So, that’s all. I just hit my snapping point. I’m going a little crazy. Nothing to worry about, just gotta get this kid to the boss, then walk away. Maybe forever. This gig is a crappy one, if a well-paying one.

We drive in silence. This time, I don’t bother breaking it. As it turns out, her silence is a little less creepy that her speaking. I look down at my speedometer and realize that I have actually slowed down to five miles below the legal limit here. My stomach begins to flip inside the barrier of my skin, anxious for the next few moments to be over. My foot begins to inch down on the pedal to build speed again, but then moves to the break, afraid to go much further. As I drive past the last car we’ll see on our journey, I watch it in the mirror, a forlorn look on my face. By the time it is gone, we are in the woods, far away from society’s calming presence. The silence continues.

In less than ten minutes, everything became clear.

I had taken us to a place where we are completely surrounded by trees, save for a space big enough for the van to fit through. The woods are exactly what any half-witted moron would expect them to be �" green, with just a little sun pushing through the leaves of the trees, brown dirt carpeting the ground, and tire tracks made on a semi-frequently used road. Nothing out of the ordinary. But as I drive further and further in, I start to see something grotesque. Really, it’s only grotesque to me because I know what it is. It’s a big, red, fiery, human figure with beautiful wings, spread out beyond the trees, it seems. And it hovered off the ground, directly in front of me. I know I can’t go through it, even though it looks transparent. I know I haven’t imagined it, but I wish that was the case. This is an angel. But it isn’t here for me.

“Dominic Marsetson,” the angel says. “You’ve had your chance time and time again, now you will be given one more. Let the girl go.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I tell it, knowing that I do know and that it knows I know. But I can’t help it. “My name’s… Bryan Adams. I don’t know any Masterson.”

I see in my rearview mirror that the girl is getting out of the back of the van and walking toward the angel. As she goes, she transforms into one as well. And with that, I know there’s no use in fighting, no use in denying. It was time to suffer for the evil I had made a career out of. After taking kids for thirteen years, all of thirteen ages, on Friday the thirteenth, with the thirteenth thirteen year old girl I nabbed, it is finally time to pay.

Nothing goes unpunished, nothing goes unnoticed.