(666) The Vacancy No More

Making their way home from the cafe just down the street, John and Sara met the
night watchman at the front door of their apartment building. Exchanging hellos, he
let them in and accompanied them to the elevator lobby where he exchanged
goodbyes and disappeared down the hall. "Well, we made it through doomsday,
didn't we? asked Sara. "Yes we did", replied John, "Yes we did, with no Anti-Christs,
no chaos, and no trouble!" They laughed and hugged, and as the elevator doors
whisked open, they stepped in together and pressed the button for the seventh
floor. The doors closed and they felt the floor lift them rapidly upwards.
Exiting the elevator, they walked down the hallway to their door. As soon as John
had unlocked the door, Sara was kicking off her shoes and heading for the kitchen
to make a late snack for the two of them. John entered the living room and drew
the curtains back to reveal an exquisite view of their neighborhood. "I do love this
place honey" he hollered out into the kitchen, "There's really no place like home."
"Me too" was all he was able to hear back from Sara.
John sat on the couch and began to make his "nightly rounds", checking out the street seven floors below, then working his way up, from building to building,
looking for anything unusual or out of the ordinary. Satisfied, he leaned back on the couch and dozed off.
" 666 my ass " Sara loudly put in, startling him awake from some dream that he
never seemed to remember anyway. She sat down beside him, putting a tray with
two glasses of red rose wine, some cheese wedges, and some fresh
strawberries on the coffee table. He thanked her for the food and they kissed.
"You're right Sara, all this BS about 666 is just that, BS!" "What a hoax!"
They began to eat and watch the neighborhood.
A little later, John was washing down some cheese with a big gulp of wine when he
noticed a car pull up in front of the building across the street. Six men got out of
the vehicle, heading for the lobby door. Two entered first, then one, then the last
three. John watched as the six entered a glass exterior elevator and began to ascend. He watched as the elevator rose up the side of the building to the sixth
floor. And that was unusual. He and Sara had lived here for two years and had never seen that elevator stop on the sixth floor. Never. Ever. They had thought of
it as vacant. ( Their hobby, watching, had begun with good intentions. A neigh-
borhood watch program they told themselves. Lately however, they did sometimes
feel like they were perverse, as in peeping-tomitis.) He nudged Sara. She too
began to pay closer attention to the building across the street.
The group of six men arrived on the sixth floor, but only one left the elevator.
The others descended to the lobby, walked to their car, and left. John and Sara
found themselves staring at the lone individual left on the sixth floor across from
them. The individual turned slowly in their direction, and even though John was
almost certain that he and Sara couldn't be seen, he didn't feel entirely
invisible anymore, and his skin began to crawl. Sara began to shudder and shake.
They moved closer together.
The building across the street began to hemorrhage! Floor by floor, lights went off.
All lights went out on the first floor, then the second floor, then the third, the
fourth, and the fifth. The whole sixth floor suddenly lit up brilliantly!
The seventh through the tenth floors (the top), went dark just as suddenly. The man across from them turned and walked back into the light. As he sat, the lights
dimmed around him until only the chair he was sitting in was visible. Sara was
going to ask what was going on over there when all of the lights went out in
their apartment, and she screamed. The whole neighborhood followed, going
completely black. She screamed again, badly scaring John.
( continued )