A teenage girl is home alone at night for the first time when a storm knocks out the lights. She calls her father.
“Are the lights on in the neighborhood?” he asks.
She looks out the window. “Yes.”
“Then it’s a blown fuse. All you need to do flip the main breaker.”
“In the basement?!”
He laughs gently. “Yes, honey. In the basement. Right at the bottom of the stairs.”
“But it’s scary down there.”
“You’ve been down there hundreds of time.”
“Not in the dark. I’m not going down there.”
“Okay, but I’ll be gone at least another couple of hours. Do you really want to sit in the dark until I get home? No TV. No internet?”
“Noooo.”
“Then you need to throw the breaker.”
“Where’s the flashlight?”
“Oh. It’s on top of the fuse box.”
Under her breath she says, “Way to go, Einstein.”
“Use the light from your cell phone.”
Over the line, he hears his daughter walk from the living room into the kitchen, and then listens to the creak of the basement door as it opens.
“It’s pitch black down there.”
“I’ll talk you through it.”
He can hear her breathing quickening.
“Honey. You want to babysit? Knowing how to change a fuse is all part of the job. You can do this.”
“Okay.”
But she still hesitates.
“Tell you what. There are exactly twelve steps. I’ll be with you for each one. Easy as pie.”
“You know I hate pie.”
“Smart ass. How about it’s a piece of cake?”
“Chocolate?”
“Any flavor you like…”
“Fudge?”
“You’re procrastinating.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s do it!”
“Here goes then. Step number?”
His daughter lifts her foot up. “One.” She steps onto the first stair. “One down,” she says, proudly, but whispers to herself, “eleven to go.”
“See how easy it is. Now together, step?”
They both say, “Two,” and she takes a second step.
“Good girl. See, you can do it. Okay? Three.”
Once she has her stride, it becomes easy. She counts loudly, “Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.” But she hesitates on the last step.
“What’s wrong, honey? The fuse box is only a step away.”
“I think someone’s down here.” She pans her cell phone around the basement, but its light is so dim she can’t see anything.
“Nonsense. It’s probably the water heater.”
“I hear breathing.”
“It’s just the gas heating the tank. You can do this. One last step. Ready?”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“On the count of three: one, two, TWELVE!”
“I made it!”
“Good girl.”
“But there’s still another step.”
“What?”
“I can feel the empty space with my toes. Here goes.”
“Honey, there are only twelve steps.”
“THIRTEEN!”
“Honey? Honey? There are only twelve steps. You must have miscounted. The fuse box is directly to your right. The flashlight’s on top. Honey?”
The line is still connected, but there is no sound, none at all, not even the background noise of the storm. He leaves the connection open and races home. When he arrives, he finds all the lights are on. He’s relieved because this meant she fixed the breaker. But when he gets inside, she’s not there. He climbs down the basement steps and calls for her, but there is no answer. Just to be sure, he counts the steps. There are twelve. Quickly, he searches every room. Nothing, even in the attic. But his cell phone shows that they are still connected! The silence is deafening. The phone company cannot explain it. His daughter’s and his phone remain linked together, so long as he doesn’t hang up. So he keeps his charged, and it is never far from his ear. Officially, his daughter is a runaway, but he believes she’s lost in the basement. Every night he turns off all the lights and stands atop the basement stairs. In the darkness he slowly counts, calling out her name with every step: one, two, three, four… With each footfall he prays that this time he’ll reach the thirteenth step.
Richard M. O’Donnell’s works have appeared in Sniplits, North Coast Review, Binaryorganic, Mind Fair, Kaleidoscope, Heartlands, Many Voices, The Gamut, Diskazine, The Alchemist, Telescope, Intro and The Plum Creek Review. His short story collection, Rice Wine, was published on Disk 1983, and he has received two Ohio Arts Council grants. His has a MFA from BGSU. He is the co-founder of The Oberlin Writers Group where he is working on a mystery novel, Measure Twice, Cut Once. His online publication links are Placebo Effect, Genesis of the Easter Seals Society: The Memorial Trolley Car Disaster, and Desperate Reference.
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33 Responses to “THE THIRTEENTH STEP • by Richard M. O’Donnell”
Comments
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March 25th, 2009 at 2:11 am
I really like the concept here, but I think it’s let down by the writing. This should have been scary and tense, but there wasn’t really much atmosphere, and the dialogue and descriptions fell a little flat.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:19 am
I really liked the concept too but it reminded me of a screenplay or movie treatment with all that “a teenage girl” does this and “a man” does that. No flavour or description. Might make for a good short movie, but not a brilliant flash as is.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:33 am
I have to agree with Gerard and Cat… great concept, though.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:48 am
Well, it was scary enough for me, Richard…
March 25th, 2009 at 5:41 am
Spooky! I’ll have to tell this one around the campfire sometime.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:03 am
I agree with Oonah. It was scary enough for me, too. I think the ending is chilling!
March 25th, 2009 at 6:27 am
I liked it, too. The dialogue gave a good feel for the relationship between father and daughter. Perhaps more details would have added to the mood, but that would have made it a different sort of story. I liked the spare approach.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Interesting concept, but it left too many unanswered questions and was too brief to feel as scary as it should have.
March 25th, 2009 at 6:46 am
I liked this a lot. I was sucked in and creeped out.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:00 am
This is very, very good for the suspense it engenders–perhaps enhanced by using the present tense. And, I’m a sucker for 1940s and ’50s radio shows that played to the power of imagination.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:07 am
Should the landing be considered a step? A so-what number game. Probably at thirteen she fell into the lap of the breather. Both were considerate enough to leave the lights on for the father whom they left all alone.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:20 am
I agree with some of the others about how the great concept was treated more like a screenplay than a story. Maybe naming the characters would help, or just something else to help the reader get to know these people better – we’d have more invested in them then, we’d care more, worry etc. I know, hard to do in a flash…
March 25th, 2009 at 7:26 am
I really enjoyed this. Extremely creepy. You can feel yourself going down the stairs with her in the dark, and when she hears breathing? Whoa! Well done!
March 25th, 2009 at 8:45 am
I really enjoyed this one. It creeped me out! The 13th stair was a good twist. I hope that the father finds his little girl again!
I actually know someone who had a car accident, and his son was able to call on his cell phone and hear what was going on the car even though no one answered the phone. Cell phones can be freaky!
March 25th, 2009 at 9:12 am
This reads like two stories: the first is dialogue-driven and, although it has some issues as already mentioned, it moves pretty well.
The second story, starting with “The line is still connected. . . ” lost me very quickly. I scanned to the last line and then got on with my life. Waaay too much exposition, especially in light of the relatively taut structure of the first section.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:29 am
Someone mentioned “too many unanswered questions,” but the unanswered questions in this story are part of its mystique. I enjoyed the tale.
March 25th, 2009 at 9:50 am
I was plenty worried. Nothing scarier for a kid than a dark basement. The step-by-step pacing was perfect. I could feel the tension. By “I think someone’s down here” I had goosebumps and with “I hear breathing” I was holding my breath. Well done.
March 25th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Under her breath. Breathe is a verb.
Loved the idea, but the execution didn’t quite rise to it.
March 25th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Agree with the first two readers: strong concept, execution left much to be desired. Rod Sterling asks “Imagine if you will…” and then he lets the characters tell the story. Here purpose in the basement kept shifting slightly enough to be noticible: was she supposed to change the fuse or flip the breaker? These two things are not interchangeable.
Would enjoy seeing this redone with an eye toward more story telling and less story showing in the beginning and end.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
This seemed like a cliche horror movie without much if a twist to make it interesting.
March 25th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Once again, agree with JohnOBX. Also, the title gives too much away–I wasn’t nearly as surprised as I would have liked.
March 25th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Screenplay smeenplay. I think the characters are developed enough in the dialog, and, IMO, nothing moves a story along better than good dialog. In the end, I was left feeling for the dad and the girl. I would have liked to see the perspective stick with the dad instead of shifting, but otherwise the story was pretty tight. It would also be a nice one to keep going with.
March 25th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I liked it! I think it might have been stronger if there was less filler DL in the middle, it felt a little long, but overall I love the concept and I ended up thinking about the ending the whole day at work. B-) Thanks for the read!
March 26th, 2009 at 1:52 am
Spooky story, with good visual effect. Enjoyed it.
March 26th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Making it long enough to cover the tense and thrill would have added spice to it. Still a good work with a nice backdrop. Liked it.
March 26th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Engaging and well-done flash.
March 26th, 2009 at 5:02 am
Loved it..good concept…great twist..
March 26th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Erin –
Thanks for the explication (cell phone idiosyncratics.) I thought it referred tangentially to other kinds of connections.
March 26th, 2009 at 11:25 am
This story is very creepy, with good dramatic pacing, though somewhat rushed at the end. Overall, I enjoyed it.
March 26th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
This is a well told tale. I think naming the characters would have strengthened it, but the dialogue rounded them out just fine. I too, would have stayed with dad’s pov at the end, but overall I think the story got where the author intended it to go.
–dj
March 27th, 2009 at 12:27 am
That was terrifying. I’m glad I read it early morning.
March 27th, 2009 at 7:44 am
You’ve got something of a glaring error. You have to make up your mind if she’s ‘changing a fuse’ or ‘resetting a breaker’. You use the two interchangeably throughout the story.
“Then it’s a blown fuse. All you need to do flip the main breaker.” isn’t possible by any stretch of the imagination. For future technical reference, a fuse ‘blows’ and must be replaced a breaker ‘trips’ and only needs to be re-set or ‘flipped’.
The electrical hardware anomaly aside, I liked it. A good, quick piece of horror. I think a dark basement will always tug at the roots of people’s fears. It’s just a basically scary place and will always spawn ticklings of unease in the back of people’s imagination.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:45 am
I’ve seen a short movie with the same plot – however the girl kept counting stairs till credits rolled.