31 Short Horror Stories for Halloween

Scent

Death has a smell and you never forget it.

It's very distinct and you can tell right away that it isn't just fruit going bad, or perhaps cheese left out of the fridge. Like most smells, you can trap it; close the door, shut the cabinet, put a plastic bag around it, and the smell can be contained. The problem with this particular type of smell is finding out where it's coming from.

I have smelled death. I have smelled it often; in the morgue when I went to identify my best friend's body, in the hospital when my gran died, and of course all over the cemetery when we buried my wife and the two dead twins inside her. It is a smell that I am well acquainted with so when it became omnipresent in my life, killing my loved ones left and right, I began to wonder where it was coming from.

I sniffed around my house trying to find it. The smell was definitely there. I recognized it more easily than I did my own cologne. It's very distinct. I followed it like a bloodhound; through the yard, in through the back door, left to the kitchen, and there I was standing at the sink gagging at that putrid stench of rot and decay. I bent down to open the cabinets and the smell hit me hard. Death sat there, skin matted black and peeling, smiling a gaping grin.