There was a smell in there, the kind he always associated with his grandma dying. She'd been in one of those old people's wards where nobody was ever going to see home again, and the whole ward stank faintly of vomit and piss and mortality, all unsuccessfully masked by cleaning products and industrial-strength deodorant. There was the same smell in twelve, except there was nothing strong enough to really hide it. Phil thought he could detect the residue of Maria's spray, but she might just as well have hung one of those pine tree air deodorizers on a corpse for all the effect it was having.
It's always the smell; the smell hits you first
And as far as smells go, death is damn near the worst
So I followed my nose like a curse til I found the remains
And as far as smells go, death is damn near the worst
So I followed my nose like a curse til I found the remains
—Peter Howland, In Strange Woods
