The Smell of Death

Formaldehyde. It was no lie to say that it stank—even someone lacking their sense of smell could detect it. The pain, searing the back of one’s eyelids and scorching their throat, stinging their nostrils even as they flared wider. The other sensations—the dizzying weakness, the oppressive weight, the foreboding.

It was the smell of death, and well Avery Winston knew it. Fifteen years as a forensic nurse, a long childhood as the daughter of a mortician—or, as her father was more commonly known, “Dr. Dead”—and countless visits to the funeral home had instilled a chief detective’s awareness in her.

The stench leaked in through her mask, tugged at the elastic straps and jerked at the edges, as though the chemical had fingers and intended to use them. It burned a thick layer over her visible skin—her collarbone and cheeks, the line of her brow, the lobes of her ears, her pale forearms—whatever the mask, her scrubs, and her gloves didn’t cover. She could still feel the scars it had left twenty years ago, when one open door had led her into a lifetime of pain.

Daddy had never been a softie, despite his upturned lips and sagging waistline. His career had hardened him, left him hollow and devoid of the life he rarely ever saw as he spent day after day embalming the dead of McDonough. But seeing him hunched over the table that day, normally steady hands trembling like a drunkard’s, countenance crumpling until his usually smiling mouth quivered, eyes fixed upon the body he’d just been delivered.

He hadn’t been prepared. Neither had she.

Avery was supposed to have gone straight to her apartment in downtown Atlanta that day, to celebrate her success with her roommate and boyfriend. She was supposed to have gotten drunk, passed out, forgotten all about the test she’d passed, and not gotten the news until the next afternoon.

Instead, something had taken the wheel of her Hyundai and driven her down to McDonough, forty minutes away from the comfort of her home. She could have called them, relayed the good news over the phone sometime that weekend. She should have called them.

Instead, she had driven to the morgue, where she knew her dad would be. She had stepped up to the front desk, easily caught Stacey’s attention, and been solemnly directed to the back room.

The smell had never been so strong. It had always lingered on Daddy’s clothes, of course, and hung heavy in the funeral homes and the morgue. But walking into that room...it had more than lingered; it had clung with a vengeance, wrapping onto her every limb, seizing her fingers and her eyelids, her lungs and her heart, rendering her emotionless.

She hadn’t heard the indistinct call of her name from behind, in the high-pitched voice of her father’s assistant, hadn’t heard the warning...not until it was too late.

Her own hands shook, palms grew clammy, phone slipped and fell with a clatter to the linoleum floor, as she edged over the threshold. A warning siren sounded in the back of her mind, reminding her that she didn’t need to be back here, that the sights and smells of death would only make her sick. That there could only be one reason for her father to show such signs of grief.

It wasn’t just anyone on the surgical table. It wasn’t just another nameless face, another careless addict, another texting driver, another heart attack victim.

How could it be? How could it be anyone else, when no one had curls so thick and luscious, eyes so wide and luminous, skin so fair and flawless, as her mother?

It wasn’t possible, her mind screamed, along with a thousand curses and rebuttals, a million cries, each one shriller and sharper than the last. And yet...wasn’t that what everyone else said? No! Why? It can’t be!

But it was. It was over.

Her mother lay there dead, her father bent over her lifeless form in silent weeping.

Bile rose to coat her throat as formaldehyde and tears pierced her eyes. Shudders shook her shoulders, sobs wracked her frame.

Avery could see it as clearly as if she had been standing there, watching herself that day.

She had slowly moved to Daddy’s side, dropped to her knees before Mama’s dangling feet. She had cupped his hand, gripping his pen until his knuckles whitened, and stretched it out flat. A whimper had left his ashen lips then, breaking the stiff silence and triggering a tidal wave of emotion. They’d cried there together.

Two years later, her career as a forensic nurse had begun. Daddy had been there, the week of her graduation, the year she’d spent interning, the day she finally got the job. He’d said Mama would be proud. He’d said he was too.

They never found out how or why Mama had died, how she’d ended up there, then. That was why she’d kept on going, even though the opportunity to live out her girlhood dream as an interior designer had presented itself several times. It wasn’t about duty or expectations anymore, not when people like Mama died everyday and no one knew why.

Daddy had been there every step of the way, like Mama would have been.

Daddy was her lifeline now.

The fingers pinched her skin, picked at the scars until they became scabs again. Then they opened and began gushing blood like fresh wounds. The formaldehyde burned, blazing a path to the pit of Avery’s stomach as she strode into the room with purpose, determined not to show any sign of weakness—not when she was on call. Not when another person was dead.

In the distance, Dr. Rayne called her name, the smooth cadence of his voice not quite enough to drag her away from her job, nor wrench out away from the fringes of her memories—her nightmares. His footsteps, growing quicker and lighter by the second, made their way into earshot as Avery realized he was coming closer, coming to her.

But why? The patient was already dead and, if she’d been informed, then he certainly knew.

“Avery!” His voice was in her ear now, his gloved hand on her shoulder.

She shrugged him off, gave him a cursory glance and a reassuring nod before she waved him away and, with little bravado, threw back the curtain.

The stench assailed her, each breath a pinprick in her nose and lungs—and then the sight met her eyes.

His hands, normally steady but always moving, were completely still. The quirk of his mouth—gone, leaving in its wake an even frown. His eyes, concentrated and clear at all times, were glassy and hollow, floating in an abyss.

Daddy?

Dr. Rayne’s arm encased her shoulders and tucked her into his side, preventing her from turning and running, while he whispered the customary condolences and rattled off “this procedure that” and “twenty mLs of such-and-such.”

It’d never worked. She’d watched it—for Pete’s sake, she’d used it—on grieving family and friends for years, and she knew it did no good. For the doctors and nurses, maybe. But to the one hearing it?

Never.

She hadn’t been prepared for this, regardless of the smell of death. One could never be prepared.