The Thirteenth

The plate on the thirteenth door says XIII. The keyhole is a hexagon with three lines meeting at its center.

Your pick goes in anyway. Six pins, and each has two places that give early and light, with nothing under the thunk. You slip on three of them, and the pins fall back, and you begin again from the first. Looking has stopped helping, so you shut your eyes. You lean on the cylinder with the heel of your other hand, and go by the weight.

It gives with the lowest thunk of the thirteen.

From the street the house was dark brick. In here it is narrow and white, plaster, one room, with a single window where a door should be. The window glows the color of lantern paper. A refrigerator hums in the corner with a radio on top of it, hissing. A black cat stands on the sill and looks at the air just behind your shoulder. You count to nineteen. Then he steps out through the window.

You move to one side of the door you came in by, to leave room.