The Scent of Silence

Part 1: The Corpse Next Door

Chapter 1: The Invisible Man

Moving to the suburbs of Connecticut was supposed to be my reset button. I, Jonathan Hale, was a thirty-year-old crime novelist suffering from a severe case of writer’s block. I needed quiet. I needed boredom. I needed a place where the most exciting event of the week was garbage day.

I rented a small, charming bungalow on Elm Street. The neighborhood was a postcard of American domesticity: manicured lawns, white picket fences, and neighbors who waved with aggressive friendliness.

Except for the house next door.

Number 42.

It was a Victorian relic, painted a dark, peeling gray that stood in stark contrast to the cheerful pastels of the rest of the street. The blinds were always drawn. The mail piled up in the box until the mailman shoved it into a rubber-banded brick on the porch. The grass was overgrown, a jungle of dandelions and crabgrass fighting for dominance.

In the month I had lived there, I had never seen the occupant.

“Who lives there?” I asked Mrs. Gable, the neighborhood gossip, as she watered her hydrangeas one morning.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Blackwood,” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Odd fellow. Keeps to himself. Travels for ‘business’, he says. But between you and me? I think he’s in Witness Protection. Or maybe the CIA.”

“Is he home?”

“Haven’t seen him in weeks,” Mrs. Gable sniffed. “Probably off on a mission.”

I stared at the gray house. It looked like a skull staring back at me. As a writer of murder mysteries, my mind immediately filled in the blanks.

A spy? A hitman? Or maybe… a victim?

The first week was quiet. Too quiet.

The second week, the heatwave hit.

It was July in New England. The humidity was 90%. The air was thick enough to chew. And that was when the smell started.

Chapter 2: The Odor

It began as a faint whiff.

I was sitting on my back porch, trying to force words onto my laptop screen, when I caught it. A sweet, cloying scent carried on the heavy breeze.

At first, I thought it was a dead raccoon under the deck. Or maybe garbage that hadn’t been collected.

I checked my bins. Empty. I checked under the deck. Nothing.

By the third week, the smell had graduated from “unpleasant” to “nauseating.”

It was the smell of decay. Organic, wet, and heavy. It permeated everything. I couldn’t open my windows. I couldn’t sit outside. It seeped through the cracks of my house, settling into the curtains.

And it was coming from Number 42.

I stood at the fence, peering into Mr. Blackwood’s backyard. It was a tangle of weeds. But near the back door… there was a swarm.

Flies.

Big, black, buzzing flies. They were clustering around the kitchen window and the back vent.

My heart started to race. I had done research for my books. I knew what flies meant. I knew what that smell meant.

Decomposition.

“He’s dead,” I whispered to myself. “He’s in there.”

My writer’s brain spun a narrative instantly. Mr. Blackwood, the spy, had been compromised. An assassin had slipped in, silenced him, and left him to rot in the summer heat. Or maybe a heart attack? A lonely death in a lonely house.

I started watching the house obsessively. I bought binoculars.

No lights at night. No movement. Just the flies. And the smell, growing stronger every day as the temperature climbed to 95 degrees.

I saw Mrs. Gable walking her dog on the other side of the street. She crossed quickly, holding a scented handkerchief to her nose.

“It’s awful, isn’t it?” I called out.

“It’s a health hazard!” she shouted back. “Someone should call the city!”

“I think it’s worse than a hazard, Mrs. Gable,” I said grimly. “I think it’s a crime scene.”

Chapter 3: The Call

Day 29.

I couldn’t take it anymore. The smell was now a physical presence in my living room. I was burning scented candles, spraying Febreze, but nothing could mask the stench of death.

I paced my kitchen. I had to do something. If there was a body next door, it was disrespectful to let it rot. And if it was a murder…

I picked up my phone. I dialed the non-emergency line.

“local precinct, Sergeant Miller speaking.”

“Hi,” I said, my voice tight with tension. “This is Jonathan Hale. I live on Elm Street. I… I think I need to report a welfare check.”

“Reason for the check, Sir?”

“My neighbor. Mr. Blackwood. No one has seen him in a month. The mail is piling up. And… well, there’s a smell.”

“A smell?”

“A bad smell, Sergeant. Like… something died. And there are flies. Thousands of them.”

There was a pause on the line. The Sergeant knew what that meant.

“Okay, Mr. Hale. We’ll send a unit over. Sit tight.”

I hung up. I felt a mix of dread and excitement. This was it. I was living inside one of my own plots.

Twenty minutes later, a cruiser pulled up.

Officer Tate stepped out. He was young, looked like he was fresh out of the academy. He wrinkled his nose the moment he stepped onto the sidewalk.

“You the caller?” Tate asked, walking up my driveway.

“Yes. Jonathan Hale.”

“That smell…” Tate gagged slightly. “Yeah. That’s ripe.”

“It’s coming from next door,” I pointed. “Number 42.”

Tate walked to the front door of the gray house. He knocked.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

“Police! Welfare check! Open up!”

Silence.

He knocked again. Nothing.

Tate walked around the side of the house. I followed, keeping a respectful distance. As we got closer to the back, the smell hit us like a wall. It was thick, sweet, and putrid.

Tate covered his nose and mouth with his hand. “Jesus.”

He looked at the kitchen window. It was black with flies on the inside.

“Okay,” Tate muttered into his radio. “Dispatch, this is Unit 4. I have a probable 10-54 at 42 Elm. Strong odor of decomposition. Flies visible. Requesting permission to breach.”

“Copy that, Unit 4. Proceed with caution.”

Tate looked at me. “Sir, you need to stay back. This is going to be ugly.”

“I understand,” I said. “Do you think…?”

“I think someone’s been dead in there for a while,” Tate said grimly.

He drew his baton. He didn’t draw his gun. You don’t need a gun for a corpse.

He tried the back door. Locked.

He used the baton to break a small pane of glass near the handle. He reached in and unlocked the deadbolt.

He pushed the door open.

Chapter 4: The Breach

A wave of hot, fetid air rolled out of the house. It was so strong I actually retched, stumbling back into the weeds.

Tate coughed, pulling his shirt up over his nose. He turned on his flashlight and stepped into the darkness.

“Police! Anyone here?”

I waited by the door, my heart pounding in my throat. I expected him to shout “Clear!” or “Coroner!”

Instead, I heard a strange sound.

Squish. Squish.

Tate was walking on something wet.

“What the hell?” Tate’s voice echoed from the kitchen.

He shined his light around.

I couldn’t help myself. I stepped into the doorway, covering my face with my shirt.

The kitchen was a horror show.

The floor was covered in a dark, sticky liquid that had pooled and spread into the hallway. Maggots were everywhere—writhing on the linoleum, climbing the cabinets.

The source of the liquid—and the smell—was a large, chest freezer in the corner.

It was a massive industrial unit. The lid was closed, but the liquid was oozing out from the seal, dripping down the sides.

Tate pointed his light at the wall.

The plug.

The heavy black cord of the freezer was lying on the floor, unplugged.

“Power’s off,” Tate muttered. “Or it was pulled.”

He looked at the freezer. This was where the body was. The killer had unplugged it to accelerate the decomposition, or maybe it was an accident? Or maybe the victim had tried to climb out?

“I have to open it,” Tate said. He looked pale. He was dreading this.

“Do you want me to call backup?” I asked.

“No. Just… stay there.”

Tate Holstered his baton. He grabbed the handle of the freezer. He took a deep breath of the tainted air.

He threw the lid open.

The smell exploded. It was a physical force.

Tate shined the light inside.

I braced myself for the sight of a human hand. A face. A gruesome murder scene that would haunt my nightmares and fuel my next three bestsellers.

Tate stared into the freezer.

He blinked.

He leaned closer.

Then, he let out a long, confused sigh.

“Is it a body?” I whispered.

“Well,” Tate said, his voice flat. “It was a body. Once.”

He reached in with a gloved hand and pulled out a package. It was dripping, slimy, and gray.

But it wasn’t human.

It was wrapped in butcher paper. The label, soggy but legible, read:

PREMIUM OMAHA STEAKS – RIBEYE.

Tate shined the light deeper.

PORK CHOPS. VENISON – DEER SEASON 2023. SALMON FILLETS. TURKEY.

The freezer was packed to the brim with meat. Hundreds of pounds of expensive, high-quality meat.

And it had been sitting in an unplugged, airtight box in 90-degree heat for a month.

It wasn’t a murder scene. It was a barbecue gone wrong.

“It’s… it’s meat,” I stammered.

“It’s soup now,” Tate corrected, dropping the steak back into the slurry. “The power cord must have gotten kicked out, or maybe a fuse blew on this circuit. Everything melted. Then it rotted. Then it liquefied.”

I started to laugh. It was a hysterical, relieved laugh.

“No body?”

“Just a cow, a pig, and maybe a deer,” Tate said, wiping his gloved hands on his pants. “Christ, what a waste.”

Chapter 5: The Return

We walked out of the house, gasping for fresh air. Tate radioed dispatch to cancel the coroner.

“False alarm,” he said. “Code 4. Just a broken freezer.”

As we stood on the lawn, trying to get the smell out of our clothes, a taxi pulled up to the curb.

The back door opened. A man stepped out.

He was tall, wearing a sharp business suit and carrying a briefcase. He looked tanned, rested, and completely out of place next to the police cruiser.

It was Mr. Blackwood. Or who I assumed was Mr. Blackwood.

He looked at the police car. He looked at Officer Tate. He looked at me. Then he looked at his open front door.

“What is going on?” he asked. His voice was deep and authoritative.

“Mr. Blackwood?” Tate asked.

“Yes. I just got back from the airport. Is my house on fire?”

“No, Sir,” Tate said. “But we received a welfare check request due to a… severe odor.”

“Odor?” Blackwood frowned. He sniffed the air.

His face changed. The tan drained away. His eyes went wide with a specific kind of horror that only a homeowner can feel.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

He dropped his briefcase. He ran toward the house.

“Wait, Sir!” Tate called. “You don’t want to go in there!”

Blackwood ignored him. He ran into the foyer.

We heard a gagging sound. Then a moan of despair.

He walked back out a minute later. He looked like he had seen a ghost.

“The freezer,” he choked out. “The breaker… I flipped the wrong breaker.”

He looked at me.

“I was going to Europe,” he explained, his voice trembling. “For a month. Business. I wanted to save electricity. I turned off the breakers for the guest rooms. I must have… I must have flipped the kitchen circuit by mistake.”

I looked at the spy. The hitman. The mysterious recluse.

He was just a guy who wanted to save fifty bucks on his electric bill.

“I had three hundred dollars worth of Wagyu beef in there,” Blackwood mourned. “And the venison… I hunted that myself.”

I couldn’t help it. I extended my hand.

“I’m Jonathan,” I said. “Your neighbor. I called the cops. I thought you were dead.”

Blackwood shook my hand. “I wish I was,” he muttered, looking at his house. “How am I going to clean that?”

“With a hazmat suit and a lot of bleach,” Tate suggested helpfully. “Have a good day, gentlemen.”

The officer drove away.

I stood on the lawn with my neighbor. The mystery was solved. The thriller was over. It was a comedy of errors.

But as I looked at Blackwood—a man who was clearly devastated by the loss of his steaks—I felt a pang of sympathy.

“You can’t stay there tonight,” I said. “The smell… it’s toxic.”

“I know,” he sighed. “I’ll go to a hotel.”

“Or,” I said, surprising myself. “I have a guest room. It smells like lemon pledge. And I have a bottle of bourbon. I think you need it.”

Blackwood looked at me. The suspicion I had projected onto him for a month vanished. He was just a tired traveler with a rotten house.

“Bourbon sounds good,” he said. “I’m Elias. Elias Blackwood.”

“Nice to meet you, Elias.”

We walked to my house.

I thought the story ended there. A funny anecdote for my next dinner party. The time my neighbor turned his house into a soup of rotten meat.

But I was wrong.

Because later that night, after three glasses of bourbon, Elias told me why he had so much meat in the freezer. And why he had been in Europe for a month.

And that story… that story was far more interesting than a dead body.

End of Part 1