A Most Glorious Friday the 13th

Rain came down in silver sheets, slicing the morning like razors as Gloria pounded the pavement, her backpack thudding against her back with each desperate stride. The sky above boiled in grays, a yawning beast of thunder and menace, and the wind rose as if stirred by ancient breath. Her limbs ached, lungs flamed, but she could not be late. Not her first week back. Not now.

There was a charge in the air, something old and electric, crawling across her skin like frostbite. Her arms puckered with gooseflesh. The last mile blurred beneath her feet, and she arrived just as the school bell groaned through the hallways like a toll for the doomed.

In the front of the class, Ms. Eckart lifted her eyes like a judge rising from stone, peering over the edge of her glasses with the expression of someone forever on the verge of a sigh. Gloria slid into her seat, breathless, her heart refusing to settle.

The morning dragged. Her mind swam elsewhere, backward, sideways, to the moment when she’d first felt her blanket move.

Gloria found it difficult to concentrate throughout the lessons, her thoughts continually wandering to her strange experience that morning. She’d been asleep when she began to feel the blanket being pulled off her. Clenching onto to it, she immediately felt a strong tugging which jolted her awake. She sat up, eyes wide. No footsteps. No shadow in the doorway. But something was not right.

Silence, as heavy as lead.

Then came the scraping, a low, deliberate drag, from under the bed. And a glow, green, murky, unhallowed, oozed from beneath the frame, like some subterranean bile.

She had leapt from the bed like a shot, darting down the hall to the kitchen, where her parents sat by the oversized window, sipping coffee and watching the storm with detached boredom.

“There’s something under my bed!” she had cried.

Her mother’s laughter rang hollow.

Her father didn’t look up. “Enough,” he said flatly. “We’re done with these games. Your books, your movies, you’ve let them rot your brain. Now you’re trying to drag us into your little fantasy.”

“It isn't a game—” she began.

“Enough. You want us to start throwing your things away?”

She fell into a heavy silence. The orange juice she drank tasted bitter. Acidic.

Maybe it had been a dream.

But the smell of marsh and metal, the scrape of something alive beneath her mattress, those details refused to be exiled to imagination.

She grabbed her backpack, her umbrella, and, without so much as a glance beneath the bed, ran out into the rain.

***

“Gloria? Have you heard a word I said?”

Her name struck her like a thrown stone. She blinked up, the fog lifting, revealing Ms. Eckart’s disapproving stare. A few girls in the back tittered behind their palms, chatterings of her frizzy hair and strange clothing. Gloria bit her lip.

“This day,” Ms. Eckart asserted, her voice steeped in ritual, “has long been considered a harbinger of bad luck. A superstition rooted in numerology and myth. It occurs when the 13th day of the month in the Gregorian calendar falls on a Friday, it happens at least once every year, sometimes thrice.”

She paced slowly, as though dragging fate itself behind her.

“I would like you all to do a creative writing exercise. You have thirty minutes to come up with a short story revolving around this day. Begin.”

A low murmur rustled through the room as notebooks opened and pencils skated across paper. Gloria cracked open a blank page, and like breath fogging glass, words began to form. Her pen moved like it was channeling, not composing.

The scratching.

The green light.

Long, curling nails reaching for her pillow.

A story unfurled like ivy, dark and unstoppable.

“Hey,” Rochelle whispered, leaning over. “We’re still doing the sleepover tonight, right?”

Gloria nodded without looking up.

“Cool. I told my mom you’ve got a pool and a bunch of snacks. Liliana’s bringing her new pajamas.”

Gloria smiled faintly, though her stomach twisted. She wasn’t sure the girls liked her for her. It was the pool. The pizza proposed. The novelty.

Still, she had never had a real sleepover before and thought it could be fun. She’d gone to great lengths: spooky movies selected, plastic skulls strung like fairy lights, her room garlanded in cobwebs and paper bats. A soft rebellion against her parents' endless scolding.

Her mother had rolled her eyes and told the familiar story again:

“When I was pregnant, I used to dream of writing children’s books. ‘Glorious Gloria,’ I was going to call them. About a graceful normal girl. But what did I get instead? A moody little ghoul who wears combat boots and talks about swamp monsters.”

***

The rain had thinned by afternoon, softened into a whisper that clung to the skin like a forgotten dream. Gloria walked between Rochelle and Liliana, their footsteps splashing through shallow puddles, the sky overhead a quilt of bruised clouds.

Rochelle chattered about handbags and how she'd talked her aunt into buying her one that cost more than Gloria’s entire wardrobe. Liliana giggled, polite and plastic. Gloria simply listened, her eyes scanning the street, half-hoping for something, anything, to break the facade of the dull conversation.

A man on a ladder trimmed brittle limbs from a sickly old tree, the bark mottled like the hide of a dying beast. Rochelle walked directly beneath him, too preoccupied with her story to notice. Gloria winced, silently counting the inches between her friend and misfortune.

A black cat darted from a hedge, its eyes luminous, its coat ragged with damp. It crossed Liliana’s path before vanishing again into the thicket. None of them commented, but all three felt the tremor.

At Gloria’s house, something in the air changed.

She froze.

Her parents sat waiting on the porch, arms folded like crosses on a grave. The storm had passed, but they still carried its thunder in their brows.

“Sweetheart,” her mother said with syrupy falseness, “why don’t your friends come with me to the kitchen? I’ve made muffins. And lemonade.”

The smile she wore was strained and rubbery, a mask poorly affixed.

Her father gestured for Gloria to follow him into the backyard.

Once out of earshot, he began with a whisper sharp enough to cut.

“Your mother and I have taken care of it. Everything, gone. The horror films. Those awful books. That garbage you hung in your room. All of it.”

Gloria stared at him.

“What?” Gloria felt tears beginning to form. “You didn’t? Those were mine!”

“You did not pay for them young lady. From now on you will play with normal toys and do ordinary things for girls your age. We’re done watching you spiral into these fantasies. From now on, you will behave like a normal girl. Do you understand?”

She clenched her fists. Her nails bit half-moons into her palms.

“No more of this creepy garbage. No more talk of monsters. No more dressing like... like some Edward Scissorhands reject.”

“But—”

“No buts! Get in there and be a good host for your friends. Stop humiliating the family for goodness sakes.” Her father rubbed his temples in exasperation.

She walked back inside on wooden legs, each step echoing like a coffin nail.

Gloria wiped her tears and regained her composure, refusing to cry in front of Rochelle and Liliana. The girls swam for a few hours before sitting upon the floor of her bedroom. They played Candyland and discussed puerile topics. Gloria mostly nodding whilst Rochelle and Liliana chatted away.

Gloria nodded at the right times. Chuckled once or twice.

But she was a ghost among the living.

“Is something wrong, Gloria?” Rochelle asked at last.

“Yeah,” Liliana added. “You’re super quiet. Want to tell us a story or something?”

Gloria hesitated. Then her lips parted.

“Oh... I do have a story. But I don’t think you’d believe it. It’s just too crazy.”

“No way, we’ll believe you. Tell us.”

“Yeah please!” Liliana begged.

“All right,” Gloria said, her eyes flicking to the bed. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

“Okay.” Gloria’s imagination went into overdrive as she shaped the perfect scary story. “Well, there is this boogeyman who has been visiting me.” Rochelle’s face twisted in skepticism, while Liliana’s eyes widened. “I will just be laying there in my bed and suddenly I will hear something scrawling across the floor beneath me. A green illumination creeps out from underneath, almost in the silhouette of fog, a marshy smell deriving from it.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not! If you don’t believe me then I am not going to continue.”

“I believe you. Please go on.” Liliana sat with her knees in her hands, taking a glance towards the bed.

“The creature often tries to pull my blankets off. I am always certain not to have an arm or foot hanging off the bed, or he would be certain to clasp it. One night I forced myself to sit with my eyes open when I knew he was crawling around underneath. I stared just off the very edge of the bed, and I saw a long jagged black nail reaching towards my pillow. I heard a deep murmur, 'I visit quite often to cause a fright, but only on Friday the 13th do I collect souls.'”

“I’ve heard enough.” Rochelle rolled her eyes. “I guess everyone was right about you being a weirdo.”

“Yeah… I am sorry Gloria, but I don’t want to stay the night anymore. You’ve got me creeped out.” Liliana shivered. “Do you think one of your parents could drive me home?”

“It’s almost eleven, my parents are sleeping. I can’t just wake them up. Come on you guys, let’s just play more Candyland.”

“Are you kidding? After that tale? No thanks. We just came here to use your pool anyway Gloria. Didn’t know it’d come with so much creepiness.” Rochelle grabbed her bag, whilst Liliana shrugged uncomfortably.

“Okay you guys, I made it all up. I was just trying to entertain you. Please don’t wake my parents up. I can go get the leftover pizza and brownies from dinner, and soda. We can eat by the pool.”

“I don’t know.” Rochelle deliberated.

“I think that sounds fun.” Liliana rubbed her stomach. "But… after tonight I don’t think we should hang out anymore. That story… You shouldn’t make up things like that. I’m going to tell my mother. It was an awful thing to do.”

Gloria nodded, smiling through a venomous heat blooming behind her eyes.

They gorged themselves by the pool, babbled a little more, then finally curled up in their sleeping bags. Gloria sat up and examined the frivolous pastel cocoons beneath the green glow of the lava lamp. She nuzzled herself into her covers, wishing for her life to change.

She had been drifting into sleep when a heavy breathing stirred her back to consciousness. She gulped hearing what sounded like long hideous nails grazing upon the hardwood floor. She slowly cracked open her eyes to see the foggy green light radiating from below. The others breathed in rhythm. Unaware.

The green light thickened, pooling like mist. She turned her head. And from the shadows came a voice:

“Gloria… you are glorious. It is they who are not.

Rest now. I will make this the most wonderful Friday the 13th you’ve ever known.”

And Gloria, who had never been told she was glorious by anyone, closed her eyes.

And smiled.

The night peeled itself apart like wet wallpaper. The air hung thick with something unsaid.

Gloria stirred.

Something, some instinct older than language, had pulled her from sleep. The green glow was no longer just beneath the bed. It had spilled into the room, breathing against the walls, casting shadows that pulsed like living things.

She swung her legs off the bed and her feet slipped in something wet.

She fell with a soft thud. A sticky warmth clung to her hands.

She carefully walked to the light switch.

Click.

The room flooded with sterile yellow light. And with it, truth.

Rochelle’s body hung from the ceiling fan, her arms twisted like broken tree branches, hair trailing in blood. It dripped from her fingertips onto the floor in slow, metronomic rhythm.

Liliana was in the corner. Not sleeping.

Her eyes were open.

Wide.

Mouth too.

The body a ruined thing, gashed, hollowed, as if something had tried to carve her into meaning and failed.

Gloria didn’t scream.

She simply stood there, soaking in the silence.

Then she turned and walked to her parents’ room.

They too had been visited.

Her father’s body was slumped across the threshold, his eyes wide with surprise. Her mother lay on the bed, hands clutching the covers, as though even in death she couldn’t bear to see what Gloria had become.

And maybe Gloria hadn’t become anything.

She had always been this.

She walked through the hall like it was a cathedral. Out to the pool. The water, still and glassy, welcomed her.

She stepped in, fully clothed. Let herself float on her back, her hair drifting like kelp around her.

Above, the stars blinked indifferently.

Far off, sirens howled, wolves made of metal and light.

Voices shouted. Footsteps thundered.

“Is she hurt?!”

“Blood on her shirt, get her out of the water!”

Hands grabbed her, pulled her to the edge.

“Are you injured?” a voice asked, too loud.

“No,” she said simply.

“What’s your name?”

She smiled.

“Glorious Gloria,” she whispered.

The officer furrowed his brow. Her clothes clung to her body, streaked with red.

Another officer stepped in. “Sweetheart, we need to ask you something…”

“Do you know who did this?” the first officer asked gently. “To your friends? To your parents?”

“Yes,” Gloria said.

They leaned closer.

“It was the boogeyman.”

A long silence. The officers exchanged a glance.

“And what does this… boogeyman look like?”

“I don’t know. Just his hand. Green and black. Cracked like old stone. He has long, curled nails. He lives under my bed.”

Their faces shifted, no longer concern, but calculation. One of them scribbled something on a clipboard.

“Why would the boogeyman do this to your family?”

Gloria frowned.

“Because that’s what he does. He always takes souls on Friday the 13th. He’s been doing it for centuries.”

***

The detention facility smelled of bleach and exhaustion.

The walls were a pale, bureaucratic gray, and the cot they gave her was thin enough to feel the bolts beneath. She lay with her eyes open, arms folded over her chest, her mind neither here nor elsewhere, suspended, like a candle’s flame in a sealed jar.

They had asked her the same questions all day. Different voices, same script.

“Did you kill them?”

“Where did you get the knife?”

“Why do you keep talking about a boogeyman?”

She answered calmly, as if reciting bedtime prayers. Sometimes, she thought they almost believed her. Other times, they looked at her like a mirror that had cracked before reflecting anything back.

That night, under a buzzing light that flickered in fits, she closed her eyes.

And dreamed.

Only, she wasn’t sure it was dreaming.

A voice, low and rich with swamp and shadow, called her name.

“Gloria...”

Her eyelids fluttered open.

From beneath the bed, the green light began to pool. Not seeping now, but pulsing. Alive.

The floor creaked. Not loudly, but deeply. As if the whole world had exhaled.

Then:

“Come down here, Gloria.

There’s a world for you. Where the spooky is sacred and no one calls you strange.

An endless horror land of wonders and frights.

You’ll never be lonely again.”

She slipped her legs over the side of the cot.

Her breathing quickened, not with fear, but a quiet thrill.

The light kissed her toes.

She knelt.

And with the reverence of someone entering a church, she slid beneath the bed.

Her foot vanished first.

Then her calf.

Then her hip.

Then, nothing.

Only the flicker of green.

And silence.

They never found her.

No trace. No body. No whisper of where she went.

Only the light.

That strange, impossible green glow, pulsing softly beneath the cot in an otherwise empty cell.

Some say the boogeyman took her.

But others say—

Gloria found the only place

where she could truly,

gloriously

belong.