I Smelled It

© Shells Walter

I smelled it. It was burning my stomach more than the rotting flesh that used to be my intestines. In the corner a woman waited for me. The cowering action of her movements made her smell more distinctive. I wanted her flesh. The hunger was excruciating.

I watched as the others made their way through the destroyed city. It would only be a matter of time before they smelled the woman. I moved closer. Her eyes darted back and forth in fear of something like me. I waited and watched her; then made my move as quickly as the rotting parts of me left could manage.

"No, please no!" Her scream enticed me more. I grabbed her arm.

At first she tried to pull her arm away. I just grabbed harder. It was then that the light in her eyes died and she went limp. She didn't die, but passed out due to fear. It worked for me. I was able to move her arm to my mouth with ease.

The flesh, her flesh, tasted sweet, tasted like distant memories of other women before I became what I am now. Oh the life was so grand back then, but it's not so bad now. I still get to do what I did when I was human; if you wanted to call me human. I'm not walking with many limbs in tact now, but I taste the flesh like I used to.

She squirmed when she regained consciousness. Her voice was no longer functioning, probably out of fear. My teeth were enjoying the bits of her skin getting stuck in the small crevices. Her blood oozed down my throat. I gnawed the rest of the way through her arm hitting bone. The bone snapped under my firm grasp.

I stopped biting and spit the bone fragments out. The bones I lacked interest in and didn't give me the same satisfaction as the flesh. The woman had lost a lot of blood during my feeding frenzy. She fell back against the cement column of the old grocery store. I shoved her over to the side where no one could see her, my hunger taken care of for now.

I watched blurry figures chase a man down the road leaving a trail of their body parts as they climbed over each other to get to their prey. My vision was not as it used to be with one eye left. A short while later, a group of humans came. Their military vehicles roared down the broken road, shouting and gun fire along side. Competition for humans was fierce amongst my kind; humans trying to get rid of us, even worse.

I tried to focus on the other street off to the right. The trees blocked some of my view. I knew one of these days they would catch me, put a bullet in my head like they did the others. Finding a way to escape was something I was used to, even when I was human. Times were a bit different and I was different now, at least physically. Escaping a human's grasp became challenging.

When I was human things were so enjoyable. I could move about without care. Killing was something I enjoyed as much as living. I learned to escape and be hidden, taking care of the women and finding a place of solitude. Then as if punishment for my crimes, a virus came, just one person takes a combination of DNA, producing the end of the world. Me? I was one of the first to get bitten by one of my victims in the early stages.

I had assumed when I was taking my knife to slit her throat that she was just another prostitute with some disease. I was wrong. Now I've become something that moves slow, that disturbs my way of doing things.

I turned to look at the woman again; her face now pale. She was dying. Even in the condition I was in, I felt a sense of greatness. I had killed again. The woman had deserved it. I was once again free of my hunger, my need to destroy the creatures that have destroyed this Earth. Perhaps the others just strived to fill their need. I did that too, but I had my other reasons. Those women needed to die.

As I turned back to the main road, I wondered if the detective that was after me when I was human was amongst the crowd of the living or one of my kind. It was hard back then to avoid him, but I did. Now? Now I don't know if I'm even a twinkle in his eyes. And if I was would he even recognize me?

It didn't matter now as I needed to move away from this area. The military had broken through the gates into this city, devouring all of my kind with a simple firing of one of their guns. It would be hard enough to get past them. I didn't need to think about what old detective Henry was doing. The woman would have to stay here. I wouldn't be able to carry her and move fast, what fast was considered for me now.

Moving across the grassy area was a bit rough for me; my legs dragging as if they were behind me instead of barely attached to my body. I heard shouting nearby and knew the humans were close. If I didn't rush this I would be the next dead thing on the ground.

I looked around at the buildings now present. They were not the same as I remembered so long ago. People were not the same. Technology still advanced with even a small amount of humans on the Earth. My kind advanced too. We were thinking creatures that fooled humans. The humans thought we were dumb and just grunted. We allowed them to believe that. It helped us to sneak up on them better.

Vehicles that now had something called wheels on them, military that drove even bigger things with guns that could hold several others. It was a disturbing site but one I got used to over time. The one advantage is these vehicles were very loud, alerting me to their coming, and I needed all the help I could get.

My kind didn't talk a lot to each other. Some of that was because we didn't have many limbs left, some because they wanted to be left alone in their own personal hell. It was all fine by me. I always have worked alone, better that way. There was no one who could tell me what I couldn't do, well, they tried. As one of these creatures it seems the most I can do is get by, especially since I'm so selective on what I chose to eat. It seems ridiculous, but that's who I was and am now even in this state.

I finally made it through the grassy area. I sniffed around for any humans, but there was none, safe for the time being. A house stood a few feet away. It looked like an old wooden shack. I looked at my clothes, a worn and torn coat from so many years of use, my pants that used to be black, and my shirt that use to be white, but now was black with blood spots. It amazed me they were still hanging on my body. As a human I was so much cleaner than this.

The door of the house had no lock on it so I shoved my shoulder against it. It flew open with ease. Inside the house was a few bowls filled with water, a towel, table and chairs. It looked like an old bath house, perhaps for servants or even rent for those vile women that worked at night.

I walked inside and shut the door. It would be soon that I would need to feed again and finding women of that nature was becoming easier. Every human was struggling to live and eat. Women were selling themselves in trade for food or water, even shelter. It was easy for me to spot these women. I could smell them. Their fear was even more desirable as I heard them scream.

I waited patiently. I assumed I was one of the few of my kind who did. Listening to the noise outside, I only hoped they would pass soon. The firing and the vehicles became louder. I knew it wasn't possible they had any idea I was in here. And if they did I would for the first time experience fear.

"You over there, now!" One of the men shouted.

I could hear the sounds of more of my kind coming and the shots being fired killing them. If I still had breath I would be holding it now, waiting and anticipating when those humans would fly through the door. I went to one of the corners of the room trying to see outside the small window in the house. My one eye strained to look through the murky glass. I only saw faint figures moving around the house.

"Anyone in here?" One of the men said. He pounded on the door.

I remained as quite as I could. He could have a gun. I didn't want my ending to be in this horrible house. The door creaked open. The man walked in and looked around. I was hidden in a dark corner and out of view of the man. He moved closer to where I was. I noticed he had no gun. He would be out of my taste group, but walking around still was something I valued more.

I took his arm.

"No!" The man yelled as he noticed I was there.

I couldn't reply to him, but could smell his fear. I moved his arm into my teeth that barely stayed in my mouth. The flesh tasted different and not to my liking. The smell of his fear made it more interesting. I ripped apart his flesh on his arm and swallowed that piece whole. He screamed more.

I gnawed most of his arm down to the bone and took it with my hand, ripping it out of the man's socket. The man became limp after that. I had my hunger met for the time being and just let the man fall down to the floor. The relief coursed through my body, allowing me to try and venture outside of the house.

I moved around the man and pushed open the door. The noises had died down. I looked around. The images were a bit blurry, but I knew I could get past any humans still around. Then the smell came again. A woman standing by a tree smoking puffs of smoke coming out of her cigarette.

She was waiting.

I waited by the tree looking to see if any more humans were around her. There was no one. If I could smile still there would have been a huge one creeping across my face at the sight of this woman. Now, I just have the smell that drives me to move closer to her.

She didn't see me approaching her, didn't even know I was this close to her. If I could I would've laughed on how easy this was. I dragged my right foot forward that was crushed during an episode with one vile woman and a shovel. The woman still stood there, smoking and smiling as if her next customer would be coming soon. If only she knew that the next visitor would be me.

The woman just happened to turn around to look at the street behind me. She screamed. I grabbed the first thing in my reach, her hair. In her panic she put her cigarette in my arm. What was left of the flesh started to burn. She screamed louder as she watched the bubbles start to form in my skin. I felt no pain. It only made me want her more smelling her fear.

I started with her neck. It tasted sweeter than the last woman I had. The flesh came off in chunks. I swallowed some whole, while others I chewed. One of my bites hit her jugular vein, blood spurting everywhere. I showered my rotting tongue with her blood's juices. The redness made me think back to the strawberries I used to love when I was human.

She died almost immediately. I was thrilled about this as it gave me time to devour all the flesh I could of her. That's when I heard the noises, the loud noises, they were back. I dropped the woman, pieces of her flesh still hanging from my mouth. The shouting and vehicles again, humans were here.

I looked to my right and left. My one eye trying to focus as best as it could at the streets. The military had brought with them more civilians. They drove in any vehicle they could find. I was actually starting to panic, one thing I've never done when I was human.

I started dragging my legs to the nearest tree and hoped that they wouldn't see me. The woman's body would be evidence my kind was nearby. The men would check around her. This could be my last day, the day I'm finally caught. Could it be after all these years my final demise is a simple bullet from someone firing a gun for the first time?

The vehicles stopped. A few men got out of them and stepped forward. They looked around holding their guns up. I started to get worried. I hated this feeling. The men approached the woman's body.

"Yup, looks like one of them things already took out Besty," One of the men said.

I saw the others have a disgusted look on their faces. There were a few men in the vehicles yet, but I couldn't make out their faces. I stood still behind the tree and kept listening to the men discussing what they would be doing. I made sure not to turn around in case they would see me. If they did, my legs may not move fast enough to beat a bullet.

The men started to look around, but it was not where I stood, but further across the road. I started to get hopeful. I slowly turned my head to get a view of what the men were doing. Each one held their gun high and shouted at one another if they found one of my kind. Shots began to ring through the air and I saw some of my kind fall to the ground, swishing about with their last few minutes left.

I began to have another feeling I didn't have when I was human, sadness. The others like me just killed and shoved aside like waste. They weren't even as bad as those wretched women I so often killed. Some of them could even have been proper citizens at one time. It started to disgust me.

The men started to laugh as more shots were fired. It now seemed like a game to them to kill as many of my kind as they could. I wanted to go out there and stop them, chew on their flesh and spit them out. I knew I couldn't. The first sign of me and they would shoot. I'd be gone in a matter of four minutes, if that long. So I waited.

Some of the men went into the house I was at, slamming open the door and shooting without looking first. They must have found the man I chewed on earlier because I heard more yelling and more men running to the house. It was becoming clear that my time would be up soon.

I looked over at the woman now left alone. Her skin stained with her blood. Her neck opened by my jaws. The blood had stopped gushing out and a huge puddle was on the side of her body. She had tasted good. I felt good knowing my last meal was of something such as her, ridding the Earth of her was my greatest accomplishment.

It wouldn't be long now before they'd find me. I could only wait. After so many years of being this creature, so many years killing as a human, I was not surprised now that it would end like this. It almost seemed like some kind of justice. As if the victims of my human days were finally getting what they wanted. If that was true, then they must be laughing even in their deaths.

The men took a look at a car abandoned by the house. One I apparently didn't see. They started ripping apart the door and trashing the inside to see if they could find anything. I heard some sighs of annoyance. They didn't find anything. That was disappointing to me because I knew then their attention would be focused on my kind again.

They moved away from the car and I started to worry again. If I could still sweat I'd be certain pools of it would be falling off my forehead. I gathered up all I could. If I didn't move I'd be gone. If I did move I'd be gone. My idea was that I was going to get as many of those humans I could before they shot me.

I paced myself. It was going to be me against at least thirty and I knew that would be my ending. It was all I could do but stand there to get my courage up. Finally, to what seemed like hours but really only a few seconds, I made a run as fast as I could across the street. The men must have heard me and the shouting started.

I dragged my legs as quickly as I could to get to the people in the car. I heard some screaming and the gun shots started. In the one car were seated two men and a woman. The woman screamed some more. I went to her first. I did manage to get a taste of her arm before I felt the rupture in my head and fell down.

I had some time left and during that time I faintly heard the conversation two men were having.

"No, I'm sorry detective, it's 1919 there is no way that's him," the one man said.

"I'm sorry. I knew who it was back then. I just couldn't catch him. Seems like justice that I could this way," the other man replied.

"And because of the way this world is, detective, no one will ever know that we just shot Jack the Ripper."