Alex Six

by Vince Taplin

  I punched one-one-three-zero into the elevator and took it to her floor. When the doors opened, it wasn’t as it usually looked. Once a pristine hallway, adorned with freshly waxed marble and wood stain so dark it looked English, now looked like a construction site. Her door was propped open with a crumpled soda can and plastic sheets lined the tile, protecting the flooring from the all-night event of gruff movers. Nothing was left inside her place. Literally nothing, not even the appliances. All of her belongings are gone. All of her furniture, gone. Those bottles of red wine, gone. Her old place is now a shell of who she once was. Just like her, I suppose.

  In a big, brown trash barrel I found a few remnants of the room, the creepy room with the number on the door. Some torn-up pictures and a few computer screens. Turns out the guys listened to me after all. The computers had been crushed and tossed into this barrel. My old jacket, some odd knickknacks I didn’t recognize — everything. The windows were exposed now, too. No more foil covering, protecting her peculiar room from sunlight. It’s a nice, quaint office space now. I bet the next owner will put a desk over there and have cocktails while they pay their bills or surf porn like a normal person. I pulled the number six off one of two nails on the door and threw it into the waste bin.

  I checked the other rooms, too. Utterly and relievingly empty. The bedroom, where we shared one good time and many terrifying ones, was just a few scratches and furniture dents in the floor. Only the smell of her perfume lingered. I felt an odd jolt of terror and arousal. I checked the living room, office, kitchen, and closet. All barren. All of her shit is in a box truck, doing sixty-five mph on the interstate by now, headed to auction. These guys must have spent all night pulling down pictures and carrying sofas to the elevator. Pictures… gross. Pictures of me.

  I did one last pass through the apartment before I locked the door. The cupboards were empty, silverware gone. These guys even threw out the toilet paper. The apartment will go on the market tomorrow. My realtor should have already taken pictures and prepped the listing. I could sell it myself, but I’d rather leave it to a professional and be done with this turd.

  I stop into her shrine room one last time. I flick out the light with my left hand and close the door. In that moment before the light emptied from the room, I saw something. Something far under the desk in the corner, a brownish yellow-tinged curiosity. I turned the light back on and crouch beneath the built-in desk. I stretch an arm under the longest corner and grab what I initially thought to be a tiny liquor bottle. But it wasn’t. It’s not booze at all. It’s a new, sealed, bottle of vanilla extract. Strange place for some cooking ingredient to live, but whatever. I walk out of the room that once had a six on the door, turn off all the lights in her apartment, lock the front door, and slide the vanilla into my pocket.

  I’ll keep the vanilla. It’s Saturday night and Kraya has cookies to bake.