"I'd be more worried about Friday the 13th if my life wasn't already a string of inexplicable events." – Unknown

Date:
January 13th, 2017
October 13th, 2017

Occasion: Friday the 13th

Countries: Worldwide

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XXIX | Black Cats and Top Hats

Even with the many strange occurrences in the town of Necmire considered, none of them came close to the wrath brought upon it by Friday the 13th. The whole population was electrified on this particular October morning as they waited for fate to strike them down, and Wyatt Taylor was no different. With shoulders tensed and veins almost popping out of his skin, he'd made it his mission to rifle through each of my drawers, searching for any sign of a good luck charm.

Not that the view was anything to complain about, but I was growing tired of his constant shuffling and reshuffling of my possessions. Even though I'd given him permission to search through my belongings, aside from my underwear drawer, I was beginning to regret my decision, especially after noticing that the floor was now made up of more paper than carpet. Of course, I took no liberty in helping him search, preferring to laze across the length of my bed, sipping an iced lemonade.

"Found anything?" I asked, bringing the glass to my lips again so that sourness of the drink danced across my taste buds.

"Jesus Christ, how many books do you own?" came a muffled, incredulous reply from my bookshelf. Wyatt was buried deep in my collection of books, with his head stuck in between pages and the rest of his body sticking out. "How the hell do you have time to read all these, Zoey?"

"Maybe because I'm not as paranoid as you about bad luck? Or perhaps because I have a life? Loads of reasons," I answered lazily, taking another sip of the lemonade.

Wyatt emerged from the shelf, looking like he'd aged fifty years. His usual chestnut hair, streaked with natural highlights, was coated with a fine layer of gray dust. The stress wrinkles from his frown didn't help his case. He'd had that face on ever since he arrived at my house, and had to restrain himself from socking me in the face after I told him to turn his frown upside down. He usually had a sense of humor, but the prospect of bad luck always dampened his mood.

Most kids grow up believing that bad luck is a scam, but us Necmire kids, we grew up paranoid about ladders and black cats. Some more than others, as seen with Wyatt. In this town, luck was quantified into a point system. The more good luck charms we have on us, the more points, and the more often we catch sight of a black cat, or break a mirror, we lose points. The less points we have, the higher chance that our rope snaps if we decide to go skydiving, or we get suffocated by our pillows while asleep. Needless to say, we grew up terrified of everything.

"Nothing," Wyatt muttered in frustration, shaking his head so that the dust flew off in small clouds. "I can't believe you have no charms here." He cast one last longing glance at my underwear drawer, but caught the glare I shot at him and quickly looked away. "How could you be so reckless today? Of all days?"

"What?" I protested, setting my lemonade glass on a nearby table and shifting to an upright position. Wyatt quirked an eyebrow at me, so I spluttered, trying to defend myself, knowing that my argument was going to flop. "Sure, I'm not as prepared as you, but I'm just as good, if not better, at avoiding bad luck."

"How many times have I saved you? Maybe, ten? Twenty? Two hundred times?" Wyatt countered, tapping a finger to his chin in mock thoughtfulness. "You can bet my ass that you'd be dead without my preparedness."

"There's not much to bet," I retorted, glancing down to check out his butt, which, of course, was perfect, as was the rest of his physique.

Wyatt let out a snort, knowing I just wanted a reason to stare at his butt. "Thankfully for you," he said, stepping carefully over the paper on my floor as though he was playing hopscotch, "I brought my own charms, just in case you had none. If you're not dead by the end of today, you have me to thank."

On that positive note, he tore open a brown sack he'd brought with him, the kind that kids use to have sack races, and began rifling through the contents. I watched with renewed interest as he pulled out a navy horseshoe, dotted with gold studs, and tossed it onto my history assignment about the Salem witch trials. After that came a series of barnstars, which pierced through my homework about the Roman Empire, and a tiny jar crawling with ladybugs, which I picked up and observed curiously.

"What are you, Santa?" I snickered, setting the ladybug jar down as a white object flew at my face, though I managed to catch it a second before it broke my nose. Running my fingers across it, I noticed that the texture was furry. Soon after, I also realized that the fur was authentic, and suspiciously in the shape of a foot. "My god, Wyatt, what did you do to this poor rabbit?"

Wyatt paused in his crusade of good luck charms, turning to face me and raising his hands in surrender. "I had nothing to do with it, I swear. Some guy sold them for ten bucks, and I thought, why not? Raising my number of points is important, but cutting up an animal? That's overkill. No pun intended."

"Uh huh," I drawled, pinching the rabbit foot between two fingers and dropping it on a calculus worksheet.

Wyatt rummaged through a set of stones, amethyst and emerald and moonstone, almost luminous under the rays of sunlight that shone through my open window. A breeze picked up at that moment, sending goosebumps scattering across my skin and hairs standing up on my arms. I naturally took that as a bad sign, but then again, nothing was particularly good on Friday the 13th. Cold wind was the least of my problems, especially considering what Wyatt and I were preparing for.

We needed as much luck as we could get, especially considering we actually going outside today. That was a suicidal move, especially on this day, when everyone else took the liberty of keeping their curtains firmly closed and refusing to leave their beds. Not that that kept them safe. I still remember the bloke who stayed in bed on Friday the 13th and was crushed by a chandelier falling on top of him. With this in the back of my mind, I watched the ice cubes melting in my lemonade. My stomach sank, reminded of the reason why Wyatt and I were even doing this.

Noah and Parker Haylon, bless them, were twins, and also our friends. They had been unconscious through Friday the 13th last year, so they had no idea that bad omens have amplified power on this day. Wyatt and I would have texted them, but we found our phones dead this morning, though we were sure we'd charged them the night before. Must have been a side effect of our bad luck. The point is, we were now preparing to brave this day whether we wanted to or not, and warn Noah and Parker before they get run over by a train or something.

"Wear this," Wyatt interrupted my thoughts, shoving a locket strung on a silver chain towards me. I opened it curiously and raised my eyebrows. It was packed to the brim with salt. "Salt over the shoulder blinds the Devil," he explained, without even looking at me.

"I know that," I sighed, but slung it around my neck, lifting my thick sheet of hair to clasp the chain at the back. "You considered a four-leaf clover yet, professor?"

He stared at me. "Are you suggesting that we bust our asses for the next four hours in a meadow, searching for the equivalent of a needle in a haystack? No thanks."

"So, you're adamant that we need a rabbit's foot to survive the day, but a four-leaf clover is out of the question?" I asked disbelievingly. "You need to get your priorities straight."

Wyatt simply let out a scoff and rummaged through the last of his sack, sending various items left and right. A strange black shape flew straight at my face, hitting me square in the eye before I could bat it away. "Ow!" I shrieked. "What the hell was that for?"

"Sorry," Wyatt responded, though the mischievous grin stretched across his face told me that he wasn't sorry in the slightest. "Charms take priority over you at the moment. Would you rather live through the day with a minor eye wound, or die as a result of a series of unfortunate events?"

"Your birth was an unfortunate event," I grumbled, gingerly picking up the black object. It had been velvety at first touch, so I was naturally worried that it was another animal body part. "What is this thing?"

Wyatt was too busy fiddling with a horseshoe to listen to me properly. "What thing?"

"This." I held up the object, before realizing what it was. "Oh my god, is this a top hat?" I couldn't help but start to laugh. "What's a top hat going to protect us from? Evil tap dancers? The ghost of Charlie Chaplin?"

At my words, Wyatt whirled around, snatching the hat from my grasp and stuffing it back in the sack. "That was a part of my costume for a play," he said, sounding overly defensive.

"Who did you play? The Mad Hatter?" I said this as a joke, but the way his face flushed beetroot red made me choke on my lemonade. "Seriously? You of all people? The Mad Hatter? God, I pray for whoever played Alice," I spluttered, sending lemonade in every direction.

Wyatt flushed deeper at this. "The girl who played Alice was actually my girlfriend. We were twelve. We broke up after two months. Why am I telling you this?"

"Because I'm obviously the best person to confide in," I drawled, leaning back on the bed lengthways and stretching my arms out with a striking resemblance to a cat.

Naturally, the thought of a cat lead to the thought of a black cat, which took me on a trip back to bad luck lane, and that instantly made the teasing smile slip off my face.

Wyatt seemed to shake himself out of his stupor in the same moment. We were speaking as if today was just the norm. But ordinary banter was not appropriate, especially for one of the least ordinary days of the year. There was no room for humor with us Necmire residents. Not that our government let us in on why this day is so unlucky, which is just another example of how they keep us blind to the truth, despite priding themselves on advocating law and order. Of course, few things avoid corruption these days. Distrust seeps into the walls of this town like a poisonous mist, chipping away at our morals.

Even though our knowledge on the world we live in was very limited, Wyatt had this weird ability to simply know things. Ask him a question and he'll deliver the answer to your front door, free of charge.

I often pester him about how he gets his hands on such information, much of which I'd discovered over the past few months, was confidential. I never thought Wyatt of all people would seek out illegal information, but he surprises me time and time again.

So, I was unsurprised that he had an answer ready for me when I asked, "what's up with Friday the 13th, anyway?"

"You need to be a bit more specific than that," Wyatt prompted, looking amused.

"Alright," I said, leaning against the headboard of the bed. The frigid wood pressed into my back like the branches of a tree, dragging me into its depths and encasing me for eternity. To be fair, considering our insane plan was the alternative, I was fairly open to the idea of tree hibernation. "Why Friday? Why thirteen?"

"There are loads of different backstories for the number thirteen," Wyatt said in his usual knowledgable tone, "but the two that stick out are associated with Jesus and Loki."

"Is that so? Do continue," I said in a posh accent whilst aiming a barnstar at a nearby dartboard. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Wyatt raising an eyebrow, to which I replied defensively. "What? I'm listening. I just need to be doing things while people are talking. Helps me focus."

Wyatt shook his head at the ground, though I could see a laugh threatening to burst from his lips. "Anyway, the Jesus one refers to the evening of the Last Supper, in which Judas, a betrayer of Jesus, was the thirteenth guest. The same with Loki in Norse mythology, when he crashed a Valhalla dinner party as the thirteenth guest. The banquet dissolved into chaos, because duh, it's Loki."

"And Friday?" I prompted.

"A poet named Chaucer said that Friday was a day of misfortune, and even though he was kidding, it was taken seriously," Wyatt recited. "You know those people who just don't get sarcasm?" I nodded. "There were a lot of people like that in the Middle Ages. That's why Friday is feared."

"So, what you're basically saying," I concluded, piercing through the dartboard with another barnstar, "is that Chaucer trolled his readers so hard that he caused the whole world to fear the best day of the week."

"Exactly," Wyatt let out a laugh. He checked his watch, and his eyes widened upon seeing the time. "Come on, we should go," he urged. "I don't know how long until the twins will start being affected by bad luck."

The thought of the twins being run over by a train returned to mind, which jumpstarted me into action. I drained the last few drops of lemonade and shrugged on a leather jacket, stuffing a barn star in one pocket and a horseshoe in the other. After stashing as many charms as we could in our clothes, we hurried out of my room and towards the front door, which was when I heard the first few droplets of rain splash on my roof. I stopped short, which caused Wyatt, who was walking behind me, to also skid to a halt.

"What a great start to the day," I said sarcastically, jogging to a nearby umbrella stand and snatching the largest one I could find. "Thank god for these, right?"

What I did next, despite my good intentions, was something very stupid. On a good day, I would've been thinking straight, but the stupid superstitions had amplified my paranoia. At the time, I was solely focused on avoiding the rain, so when I opened the umbrella, I didn't realize what I'd done until it was too late.

"Zoey!" Wyatt shouted as the umbrella stood poised above my head, like a ballerina with deadly elegance. With reflexes much faster than mine, he lunged towards the umbrella, fumbling with the mechanism at the top so that it snapped shut with a sharp click.

The momentum of his leap, however, sent him toppling towards an ornate mirror hanging on a nearby wall, and I could only stand there and watch, muscles frozen, as Wyatt stumbled backwards and made contact with the mirror. A thunderous shatter followed as my limbs unfroze. I skidded over to Wyatt as a cascade of mirror shards rained down around us, strangely beautiful in our dazed state.

Wyatt was bleeding. The skin of his scraped shoulder was streaked with scarlet, and several cuts lined his jaw, though those could be passed off as shaving nicks from a razor. Despite his injuries, he was too devastated about the mirror to care. He silently stood up, brushing the remaining fragments of mirror off his body. They clattered to the ground, echoing in the deafening silence.

I sucked in a breath to avoid hyperventilating. "Shit. Seven years of bad luck."

"Not helping." His voice was brittle, but he collected himself admirably fast, patting his pockets to make sure the charms were still there. "Let's go, before anything else happens. Leave the umbrella, I'd rather take my chances with the rain."

"If you say so," I said shakily. It was a mark of the severity of the situation that I didn't argue, because I usually hated the rain. We gingerly stepped over the mirror shards, terrified that we would crush more. The last thing we needed was seven more years of bad luck. Once we were clear, we sprinted out the front door. A strong gust of wind sent the door slamming shut behind us, causing us both to jump. Nature must be on board with this Friday the 13th thing.

We walked for a few minutes in silence at a hurried pace, raindrops splashing onto my neck, sending shivers down my spine each time it happened. Noah and Parker lived on the other side of town, for our utter inconvenience, and neither of us could drive, so walking was the only option. If we got on a bus, I was sure that it would crash or explode or kill us somehow.

I popped a piece of gum in my mouth and chewed it so that fresh mint coated my next breath. Wyatt cast one sideways look at me, but said nothing. Just as I was about to comment that our luck seemed to be fine at the moment, a crack in the concrete caused me to stumble. I managed to remain upright, but the movement sent the gum flying down my throat. I croaked out a gasp in response.

Wyatt stopped in his tracks and noticed me bending over, spluttering helplessly as I tried to eject the gum through vigorous coughs, though I only succeeded in irritating my throat even more. There, in the middle of the pavement, slowly dying by gum ingestion, I began writing my will. Noah was a bookworm, so my books would go to him, whereas Parker's been eyeing up my video games for ages...

I got no further than my mom when Wyatt pounded me on the back. I let out a mixture of a cough and a shriek at the sudden force, but my airway suddenly cleared. It took a second for me to realise I was no longer dying. Once I registered the situation, I straightened up, my first breath trembling in the crisp air. "Thanks," I mumbled at Wyatt, who shrugged in response.

"I thought you deserved a more dignified death than choking on gum," he replied airily.

"You thought right," I said, with my usual inability to express sentiment, and jerked my head down the road. We forged on through the rain, which was splashing down faster than ever.

Since everyone was hiding out in their houses, the road was deserted and every shop was closed, so the glow of a chandelier in one of the stores we passed was jarring. Wyatt and I both paused, craning our necks to read the decrepit wooden sign. "Your prophecy awaits," Wyatt read out, frowning. "Should we go in?"

"Can't hurt," I shrugged, stepping under the ladder that acted as a doorway. There was always lots of construction going on in Necmire. The more urban our environment, the less likely we would be haunted by archaic superstitions. "Maybe we can ask whether the twins get eaten by a wolf or something."

Wyatt also stepped under the ladder and into the shop. We both sighed at the welcoming flood of warmth which encased us. The shop was small but cozy, like the home of a witch who brews hot stew and bakes apple pies for newcomers. Objects were scattered everywhere, some glittering gold and others giving off puffs of smoke. I poked interestedly at a floating orb that glowed indigo.

"Do you think–" Wyatt began, but he was interrupted by a dark shape hurtling towards him. He shouted out as the thing latched its claws onto him, and at a closer look, I realised it was a cat, with fur darker than midnight. "What the hell?" Wyatt grabbed the cat and held it at arm's length so it wouldn't claw his eyes out, but no sooner than he'd done so, knobbly hands scooped the cat up.

"Chester, it's rude to attack guests," the elderly woman scolded the cat, placing it on the ground. The moment its paws touched the floor, the cat scampered away. The woman straightened up and smiled at us, the creases around her eyes deepening. "What can I do for you today?"

Wyatt shook fur off his coat, disgruntled. "Maybe you can start by getting rid of that ca–" he began, but I hastily cut him off.

"He means, your cat is lovely, but we're here for a different reason. I hear," I approached the topic with hesitation, "that you can show us the future."

The woman looked delighted. "Oh, so you two are customers! I didn't expect customers today. Come, come, let's use the crystal balls." She shuffled to the back of the store, pushed aside a thick, violet curtain, and disappeared to the other side.

Wyatt and I exchanged skeptical glances, but I figured we had nothing to lose, so we followed the woman and emerged on the other side to greet two crystal ball, swirling with white mist. Two stools sat waiting for us, as knobbly as the woman herself. I happily took a seat, whereas Wyatt sat with more hesitation.

"Do we just... look into them?" Wyatt asked, a hint of scorn lacing his voice, though the woman seemed unfazed.

"Yes, but you must clear your mind of all mundane thoughts. Put your full focus on the crystal ball," she instructed.

Suffice to say, that sounded like a load of shit to me, but I stared into the ball anyway. It continued to swirl. I tried to look for patterns in the fog, but all I could see were blobs. This continued for a while, and I was close to flipping the table, when something bloomed in the centre of the ball, and I was suddenly captivated by a vision. It wasn't as clear as I expected, but it was certainly there. Wyatt and I dodging lightning, a toppling tree, train tracks... and then everything went black.

My eyes flew open with a gasp. I found myself shooting up as though I'd been electrocuted. Glancing around wildly, my eyes fell on Wyatt, who was in a similar state, eyes almost feral. He saw me and grabbed my shoulders, pulling me close so that his breath tickled my ear. "What did you see?" he whispered.

"I think–" I started to say, but the glint of his watch caught my eye, and I bit back a scream once I saw the time. "Holy shit. Wyatt. It's half past eleven. At night."

His eyes widened. "How the– when the– what the fuck? We were in this state for twelve hours?"

"Watches don't lie."

"We need to get out of here. This place is messing with us."

"I second that," I said, before realising that the woman from before had disappeared. "Wait, where did that lady go?"

"Never mind that, come on!" Wyatt insisted, sprinting out of the room with me hot on his heels. "God, I hope Noah and Parker are still alive," he huffed with concern.

"Not much point warning them now, is– woah." I skidded to a stop just outside the shop's door. The rain had become increasingly violent while we were submerged in our prophecy visions, and chunks of ice were now pouring from the sky. "Hail? Seriously? Give me a break, Mother Nature!"

"Maybe we should go back inside," Wyatt suggested. We both turned back, but a bolt of lightning flashed before us and struck the shop, blasting it into rubble.

"Or not," I squeaked, dragging Wyatt outside by the wrist. Hail instantly began striking my skin, leaving faint red marks, but outside was the only place we could go. "Why aren't our charms working?" I shouted at Wyatt, opening my locket and scattering salt in every direction, with no effect.

"Friday the 13th seems to be so powerful that our charms are useless!" he bellowed back, holding up his coat to block the hail.

"Well, if I'm going to die, then– argh!" I screamed as the wind lashed out like a whip, toppling down a mighty tree, which would've crushed me flat if not for Wyatt, who snatched my wrist and yanked me away in the last second. Blinded by hail, the two of us stumbled as far away from the tree as possible, until my feet were pressed on a peculiar, bumpy road. Are roads supposed to be this bumpy? How are cars supposed to drive on them?

"Zoey." Wyatt cut through my thoughts, sounding terrified for the first time.

I forced my eyes wide open enough to see two bright lights, fast approaching, but the sound was what made my stomach sink. The unmistakable foghorn of a train. And we were in perfect position to be flattened by it. But the worst part? The shock. Our shock was what rooted us to the tracks. The shock was why we didn't run. We were going to be killed, not by bad luck, but by our own human nature.

Wyatt seemed to realise this at the same time I did. I felt his hand clasp mine, squeezing tight. At least I wasn't going to die alone. The horn grew louder. I clamped my eyes shut. The prophecy was coming true. In the vision, everything went black after I saw the train. I hoped I would see black again. I hope I have a quick death. The train kept approaching. I waited for impact. But it never came.

A second before everything ended, I was yanked away from Wyatt. A warmer hand gripped mine, and as it did so, the sky ceased fire. The hail vanished at once. I cracked open one eye, and then the other, blinking a few times to adjust to the moonlight, before I zeroed in on Noah Haylon, who was still gripping my hand like it was a lifeline.

"Hi," he said.

"What the hell? Where did you come from?" I gasped, lurching away from him. "We've been looking for you all day!"

"Half the night, too," he added, pointing up at the luminous moon. "And we've been looking for you two to warn you that charms don't work here on Friday the 13th."

"We noticed," came a grumble behind me, making me jump three feet in the air. Wyatt and Parker Haylon were stood behind me while Noah and I were talking, the former looking as disgruntled as I felt. "How did you two save us?"

"Just before the train hit you, it turned midnight," Parker said cheerfully, taking a swing from a beer bottle he probably nicked from a nearby store. "Your charms started working again, and since you had so many of them on you, they made sure you were saved."

"Whoop-de-doo." I raised my arms in mock celebration. "When's the next Friday the 13th?"

"April next year," Noah pitched in, the corner of his mouth twitching up into a smirk.

"Only six months away?" I complained. "Ugh. I'm moving away."

"Can you really bear to give up this, though?" Parker asked. "The magic? The luck? The stuff that makes life here interesting?"

I thought about it for a moment. Sure, there were loads of cons here. A corrupt government, a high chance of dying a couple of times a year, crystal ball prophecies predicting said deaths, etcetera. But, as Parker said, there was the magic. The mystery, the fairytale quality of this town, and above all, Friday the 13th. As mischievous as its origins. It may have been born from chaos, but I also lived chaos. I survived chaos. And to be honest, I've grown to love chaos.

"Would I give up this life?" I echoed, before cracking a grin. "Not a chance."