Number 7G – The Conclusion

One early morning, as Varina Pembroke-Sinclair stepped out of her condominium and into the hallway, an odd odor caught her nose.  She couldn’t quite identify it, for it was the most unusual and jarring odor she ever smelled in the hallway, and that was saying something at Cypress Row!  Sure, Miss Varina had a talent that proved she could pinpoint any of her neighbor’s aromas that emanated from their condominiums, but this stench in the hallway was something else altogether.

Varina shrugged her shoulders, put the key in her lock, secured it, and headed down the hall to the elevator.

The dank funk became a distinctive fusty skunk-like stench as she approached the elevator.  She turned her nose up into the air and gave a deep sniff.  It came from Number 7G, the closest condominium around the corner from the elevator.  The pungent odor clung to the air like an unwelcomed visitor.  The elevator bell chimed twice and the doors slid open.

Varina entered the elevator car.  She thought about 7G.  Not many people really knew the people who lived in 7G, and no one seemed to care enough to try, including Varina.  Yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to the family than their infamous habits.  Rumors had swirled among the neighbors, whispers of strange visitors at odd hours, packages left at the door that were never retrieved, and the eerie glow of a flickering light that seemed to pulse through the windows late at night.    She shrugged her shoulders, took a deep breath, and rode the elevator down in silence.

As she exited the elevator on the ground floor, Varina welcomed the fresh, cool air with no smells, other than the Lysol used by the cleaning lady the evening before.

As Varina walked the long five blocks to work, she resolved to uncover the truth.  She wasn’t one for gossip, but something about 7G gnawed at her curiosity.  Besides, her curiosity seemed to always take precedent.

Over the next few weeks, the smell from 7G only grew worse.  It wasn’t just the musty, skunk-like odor anymore.  It now had an acrid edge, as if something was rotting.  Varina couldn’t stand it, yet no one else on the floor seemed to smell it.  Her curiosity turned into unease, then fear, as the stench began to invade her own condominium.

One night, unable to sleep, Varina decided to talk face-to-face with the family in 7G.  She steeled herself, grabbed her keys, and knocked on their door.  The sound echoed through the silent hallway, but there was no answer.  She knocked again, harder this time, the smell making her gag.

The door creaked open.

The apartment was dark.  A dim light bulb on a table flickered in the corner, casting weird shadows on the walls.  Varina stepped inside, calling out tentatively.  The air was oppressive, heavy with the sickly odor, and the silence was deafening.

As she moved further into the apartment, her foot caught on something.  She looked down and gasped.  Strewn across the floor were piles of ashes, remnants of burned paper, clothes, and belongings.  The flickering light came from a makeshift altar, surrounded by melted candles and strange symbols etched into the walls.

And then she saw them.

The family sat on chairs in a circle, motionless.  Their eyes were wide open, staring at nothing, their bodies slumped as if drained of life.  Varina’s scream stuck in her throat as she realized they weren’t breathing.  Whatever had happened in 7G was far beyond anything she could comprehend.

She stumbled backward, fleeing the apartment, and called the police.  When they arrived, the family was gone along with every trace of the altar.  The room was empty, except for a lingering smell and the faint hum of an unseen presence.  Varina thought she lost her mind.  So did the police, and they left, laughing hysterically.

For weeks afterward, Varina couldn’t sleep.  The police dismissed her story as nonsense, chalking it up to old-fashioned hysteria.  But she knew better.  Something unnatural had taken root in 7G, and she feared it hadn’t left.

In time, the building returned to its routines, and the neighbors forgot the brief commotion around 7G.  Yet Varina knew the quiet was only a disguise.  Some nights, long after midnight, a thin ribbon of that same fetid odor would snake beneath her door, as if reminding her that what she witnessed had not ended; only shifted.  The door to 7G remained shut, its crooked numbers unchanged, yet she sometimes heard a soft rustling inside, like chairs being moved or someone rising slowly from a long, unnatural sleep.  And though she told no one, Varina felt certain the family had never truly left.  Something had been awakened in that condominium, something patient, something watchful, and it was only a matter of time before it sought her out and her sanity again.

The months passed in a strange, uneasy blur for Varina Pembroke‑Sinclair.  Though she tried to resume her routines with her morning walks, her evening chamomile tea, her habit of identifying neighbors by scent, something in her had shifted, and yet the building would not let her forget.

Then it subtly reemerged, that faint skunk‑rot odor drifting through the vents at dawn, a soft scratching behind her bedroom wall, a flicker of light beneath her door at 3:17 AM.

Varina told herself it was her imagination, or trauma, or even stress.  She told herself anything but the truth, but the truth had a way of insisting on its position.

One evening, as she returned home from work, she found a small envelope taped to her door.  No stamp nor handwriting.  Just a greasy smudge across the front.  She opened the envelope flap.  Inside was a single scrap of paper, torn from a notebook, with a message scrawled in pencil:

“YOU LEFT US.”

Varina’s breath caught, and she dropped the note as if it burned her fingers.  She forced herself to look down the hallway.  It was empty and silent.  She paused and sniffed the air.  The stench was there again, stronger than ever, curling around her like smoke.

She reported the strange note to the building superintendent, who chuckled and suggested teenagers were playing pranks.  But Varina knew better because teenagers didn’t smell like death.  So that night, she slept with the lights on.

The next morning, at 5:30 AM she woke to the sound of the elevator chiming on her floor.  She froze.  No one used the elevator this early.  She peeked out from her door and looked down the hallway.  A mist drifted around, thick and gray, carrying that unmistakable stink.  Varina backed away, heart pounding as the mist curled toward her, tendrils reaching, searching.

Then she saw four silhouettes in the hallway.  It was the family from 7G.  Their eyes glowed like dying embers.  Their mouths hung open, as if mid‑breath, mid‑scream, mid‑ritual.  They did not move nor blink.

Varina stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet back into her condo and slammed the door shut.  Her hands shook as she locked the deadbolt, then the chain.  The air was deathly silent.  Then came a knock on her door, soft, rhythmic, and patient.

Varina pressed her ear to the door.  A whisper seeped through the wood, thin and cold: “We never left.”

She screamed as the smell flooded under the door.

Varina eventually convinced herself to investigate 7G again, but this time with the building superintendent.  When they opened the door to 7G, the apartment was spotless, with fresh paint, new carpeting, and no symbols, ashes, or smells.  The superintendent excused himself to take a call on his cell phone and moved into another room.

A handyman appeared behind Varina and asked, “Oh, you’re the new tenant?”

Varina spun around and blinked.  “New tenant?  Huh?”

He nodded.  “Someone moved in last night.”

Varina’s stomach dropped.  She stepped into the apartment, scanning every corner, but it was empty.  Then she noticed the bedroom door was closed.  “Is someone in there?” she whispered.

The handyman shrugged. “Eh.  Probably the new guy.”

Varina reached for the knob, and the handyman grabbed her wrist hard.

“You shouldn’t open that,” he warned.  His voice had changed to a rougher and lower quality.

Varina looked up.  His eyes were wrong.  They were too dark and too deep.  Then that smell hit her again, that skunk‑rot, thick and suffocating with a hint of mildew.

The handyman leaned in close.  “We’ve been waiting for you,” he growled.  Behind him, the bedroom door creaked open and some thing stepped out.  The lights flickered.

From behind Varina, a voice whispered:  “Welcome home, Varina.  Welcome home, baby.”

Varina froze, every instinct screaming to run, yet her legs rooted to the floor as the shadows thickened around her.  The air pulsed slow and deliberate like the house itself was breathing.  And in that breathing, she understood, with a clarity that hollowed her out, that whatever waited here had not found her by accident.  It had called her back.  Every sin she committed passed before her eyes.

The lights went out, and she didn’t finish her scream before the darkness swallowed it.  Something demonic tore through her body, ripping away everything that made her her, until only an empty shriveled shell remained where her moist, plump, and life-filled body had been.

And in the darkness, the building exhaled, as demons wont.