Scary Urban Legends

I can smell death

It started at the age of 9, sitting in the living room with my brother Casey. I remember it being a dreary day, the kind of day where you sit inside on the plush, shag carpeting playing board games with not nearly the amount of gusto.

The weather man predicted a clear day- not one that was warm, but sunny enough for the beginning of spring. Enough where, as a child, you want nothing more than to be out in it, dirtying the knees of your jeans with grass stains.

It rained that day instead. So Casey and I played Monopoly. Casey had just landed on Park Avenue for the second time, groaning as he forked over the pastel colored money he owed me. That's when it hit me.

"Eugh Casey , stop farting!" I shouted in disgust, punching him in the arm. "Ow! I'm not- l did not!" He shouted back, rubbing his arm. "Right", I replied, rolling my eyes, "That's exactly what someone who farted would say". "I did not!" Casey repeated, his lower lip starting to tremble. "Casey, stop yelling. Caroline, leave your brother alone," my mother called from her office.?

My mother was busy a lot back then. She never had a day off, but was lucky enough to be able to work from home on weekends.

"Whatever" I hissed in my younger brothers ear, " I know you did".

Casey didn't even deny the accusation again, only swept his arm across the board, sending paper and plastic scattering onto the carpet.

"I don't want to play anymore", He mumbled, sulking away into the corner to play with his G.I Joe action figures instead.

Casey and I quickly forgot our spat, as kids are won't to do, but as the weeks went on, I was no longer just centered around Casey, either-though it was stronger and closer I was to him.

It came to a point where I could categorize it as not one singular stench, but a stench that was made up of two mini-stenches. The first, which hung in the air of my house at all hours of the day, was a stench that I first associated with farts; thick, phosphorus. I imagined I could almost see the swamp green of it.

The second, the one that clung to Casey specifically, was sickly sweet. I had never smelled rot before, but I came to learn that's what it was. It smelled like the deepest, darkest parts of the earth. Soil and mold and wet things I didn't want to think about.

I was scared, but didn't know what to do, didn't know what to say.

My father worked at a psychiatric hospital. Much to my mother's chagrin, he would sit me and Casey down and tell us the worst things he had ever seen and the worst things he had ever heard. My brother and I insisted

that we wanted to hear it, promised we wouldn't be too scared to sleep at night after the door to our shared room was closed. Of course we always were, and sometimes Casey liked to slip into my bed with me when he had nightmares.

When the smell came into my life, I imagined that if I ever tried to tell anyone about it, I'd end up as one of the crazy people at my dad's hospital. At the time, I thought that was a fate worse than death.

Casey would still sleep in my bed from time to time, his small, chubby fingers interlaced with mine. I tried as hard as I could not to breath through my nose- silently praying for it to go away.

And then it happened.

It was another rainy Saturday as it often was during April. My mother was at home in her office as usual, editing manuscript with a strict deadline.

Casey wanted to go play in the rain with the neighborhood kids, whose favorite pastime during storms was to pedal their bikes as fast as they could, spraying through puddles and creating small geysers with their tires.

"Caroline, won't you go out with him?"She called, zipping my brothers red rain slicker up to his chin. "Can't, I have math homework to correct" I lied.

The truth was, I wanted to be away from my brother. I wanted a moment away from the cloying smell that surrounded him.

"Well, alright", my mother sighed. "Please promise me you'll be careful, bud." "I will, mommy!" Casey assured. But he was already out the door, pushing his trike down the sidewalk.

That was the last time I saw him alive.

They said it was a freak accident, that Casey was in the wrong place at the wrong time, that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't raining, if the man behind the wheel hadn't been going so fast. Their explanations didn't matter to my parents. Or to me.

My mother blamed herself. She was sure that if she hadn't been so busy, she could have been watching him. My father, on the other hand, thought it was his fault for having terrible erratic shifts at the hospital. If he had just been around to be the dad Casey needed, he'd be alive.

I alone knew the answer. If I had just said something about the smell, we could have stopped it. But even as I watched my parents grieve, all the while silently grieving myself, I couldn't bring myself to tell a soul.

So, I kept quite. The smell of decay was gone because Casey was gone. But the slight smell of rotten eggs followed me wherever I went.

I finished high school at the top of my class. In the years after Casey's death, I had become studious, not only doing everything I could to keep myself busy, but keep myself isolated. The smell was on everyone. I had come to realize what it meant: varying degrees of death. Everyone gets closer to kicking the bucket every second- we die as we live. But the closer we are to it, the more we stink, as our bodies are turning to mush but our minds can't recognize it.

I applied to a university across the country. Expensive, elite. My scholarships covered the tuition I couldn't afford and my parents couldn't help me with. It was just as well. I didn't want them to feel as if they owed me a thing. I couldn't bear the thought of them coming to visit, looking around at my single occupancy dorm room and thinking about how Casey would never go to college. Plus, grief had a way of making the smell worse.

I went through college much the same way as I went through highschool. I didn't make friends, shied away from invitations to frat parties and study groups. It was hard enough for me to enter lecture halls filled to the brim with students that smelled awful, unbearable stench.

The first time I went to a professor's office to ask for help was also the last. Dr. Hope was a brilliant woman. She was tall, her cropped blonde hair streaked with gray. She had a light, friendly demeanor. Her lectures were almost enough to make me forget about what I was going through. When she leaned in to shake my hand, however, the putrid smell coming off her hand made my stomach turn and a light sweat break out across my forehead. While she spoke, I could only speculate how long she had left. It couldn't be more than a week or two.

I was wrong. That very same night, Dr. Hope died in her sleep. A stroke, they said. The class got together to plan a candlelit vigil in her honor that I couldn't bring myself to attend.

I didn't participate in commencement. Instead, I left as quickly and quietly as possible, degree rolled up and neatly stored in the glove department of my car.

For the past six years, I've done everything alone.

I live alone, work alone, eat, sleep, breathe, alone. It's the only way I've been able to find some peace in the world. The smell has never assaulted me when nobody else is around. That is, until this morning.

I awoke with a strange feeling-a feeling of deja vu. It didn't come to me right away. I went through the motions, showering, making coffee, sitting in front of my laptop for work. One particular piece of code had been giving me trouble. I stretched. Yawned. Took of my glasses to rub my eyes.

Suddenly a familiar smell wafted over me. The smell of an animal carcass that's been baking into the cement all day. I could only feel disbelief at first. Now, I feel fear.

Throughout the day, the smell has gotten worse.

I couldn't think of anywhere else to go, anyone who I could tell.

I don't know how long I have left.

Sorry for the late update!! been really busy at school