Michael sniffed again as he sat upright and set his book down looking strangely at me. The smell was getting stronger. Shit, it's happening again, I thought to myself. I tried to ignore his stare and keep my focus on the paper that I was currently working on. Michael cleared his throat loudly. I looked up innocently from the computer screen.
"Do you smell that?" He asked. He wrinkled his noise and looked around.
We were sitting in his apartment living room at the moment. The sun shone brightly through the large window giving the whole room a warm glow as we both tried to do our homework. It was a Sunday afternoon and everyone at this apartment complex seemed to disappear on this day, either going to church or going to other activities for the day. Post Apocalyptic Sunday is what we called it. I had come over to escape the crazy antics of my roommate and his five boy-crazed girl friends to try and concentrate. But to no avail, there were many distractions...one being the smell that was now even growing stronger and stronger by the second.
I shrugged at him, "Maybe the sewer system got backed up again?" Which was perfectly logical. The systems here were always letting out an acrid odor of feces and rotten eggs across the parking lot and to all four floors of the apartments.
He shook his head and stood up, "No, this smells like…" He paused looking for the right words, "Like a dusty church smell mixed with socks that have been washed with sewer… multiplied by four."
What?
He smelt his armpits and then shook his head, "Not me."
I looked around frantically. My heart was starting to beat faster as I searched for something I could blame the smell on. Shit, shit, shit damn shit. My mind kept replaying those words as my heart was speed beating and my breathing became short and rapid. I stood up quickly thinking I could make it to the door but regretted it as my stomach lurched. It had never felt this bad before. I held my stomach and just stood squeezing my eyes shut shaking my head moaning.
Michael looked at me concerned. "Dude, are you alright?" he asked.
I shook my head and my eyes shot to the bathroom door down the hall.
Too late. I could feel the nausea come instantaneously and my mouth filled with the taste of stomach acid as my sight blurred. My skin felt like bugs were crawling under it and my whole body was shaking uncontrollably as I fell to my knees. I could make out Michael's body crumple to the floor and the walls behind him slowly cracked and curled with green and black edges. Then everything went black.
My name is Apollo Podrir. Eighteen years of age and born of Avid McComrick and Sammuel Podrir. My father was murdered when I was five by the hands of an unknown killer and my mother left the day I turned seven. Left as an orphan, my adoptive mother, Lisa Miller took me in and raised me. I guess I had always been a weird child. Never made friends easily, was always the last picked for the team. Not that I ever cared much. Lisa always gave me things to keep me occupied. Odd shit mostly. She thought herself to be a Wiccan. A witch of some sorts. I was always told to get certain things out of her garden or bugs and spiders with certain patterns and colors to put into her weird shaped vials. But through all her weirdness and rumors that surrounded her, she loved me with all her heart.
When growing up I was always getting sick and viruses spread through my body like a plague very easily. When I was thirteen I was quarantined for a whole year due to a virus that was highly contagious and deadly. Doctors were confused though at how low of a percentile my symptoms were and that I wasn't at the verge of death through that whole year I stayed inside. Ever since my eighteenth birthday I had started giving off this horrible smell. Lisa said that it was my dread locks and I wasn't taking care of them, which is absolutely preposterous, and then she said that it was just puberty again, which we both know is complete bullshit. It only started happening once a month, but then it has started happening more frequently, and now weird things have started happening when it begins. We went to five doctors to see what the hell was going on but no one could explain it other than just really bad B.O. Of course shit like this would happen to me. But really, who the hell gets an incurable sickness where they smell? I don't get it. But I've had to seclude myself and only surround myself with as few of friends as possible. At least those mature enough to handle that I'm still sick. Not that I've told them what the sickness is either, which probably was a mistake on my part. But no one had gotten hurt by it before! It had never been this bad. Never.
I woke up back in my own bed back in my home town of Paradise California. Is this a dream? I looked around. Yup, this was my room. I was in my boxers under my covers. Sunlight filtered through the closed blinds and I could hear those annoying ass birds that usually woke me up every morning when I lived here. I moved a couple of dreads out of my face and sat up. I heard the wooden floorboards creak signaling someone was walking down the hall. I quickly lied back down and pretended to sleep just as someone opened the door. I opened my eyes to slits and watched Lisa come in with another woman who was dressed very similar to Lisa. Mostly flowing clothes that moved every time she took a step, beaded strings wrapped in her head wrap and bright colored jewelry.
"We brought him back right after the accident." She explained, "It's never been this bad. I've tried to keep it under control with the medicine I've been supplying him with."
"Has he actually been drinking it?" The stranger asked. Her voice was almost a drone. Kind of like a high school teacher that didn't want to be teaching on a cold Monday morning.
"Yes!" Lisa sad in a defending whisper, "Well, at least that's what he has told me." She added.
I guess I am to blame for that. I hadn't been drinking the weird drinks Lisa had been mailing me. I was giving them to the cactus that Michael had brought with him from Arizona.
The woman snorted softly and then shook her head, her beads jingling together softly, "It's too risky to leave him here anymore. You of all people should have seen this coming." She hissed, "The Domas of the Ghuttr won't be happy knowing that one of them is loose out here on the surface. Let alone that you've tried to keep him hidden this long." The woman clicked her long finger nails together nervously.
Lisa walked out of my line of vision onto the other side of my room and I heard her let out a long sigh, "I know what they will do with him if I let him leave." Sadness was very apparent in her voice. I wanted to just get up there and then to give her a hug, but alas, I didn't. "His father didn't stand a chance, what makes you think he will?" Lisa looked back at the woman.
My father? What? He was dead last time I recalled. Stabbed twice in the chest and thrice in the back. Unless I was lied to all my miserable life, which wouldn't be a surprise I suppose. But what would Lisa be hiding from me about my father? And what did this woman have to do with him. If she even had any part of it, which seemed highly unlikely due to her stout demeanor. You see, my father liked his women on the leaner side, much like myself.
I guess I had involuntarily made a sound upon hearing this because both women froze and their heads snapped toward me. I tried to pass it off as a snore, but who am I kidding. I never had made out to be a good actor.
"'Pollo?" Lisa walked over toward me and sat on my bed waving the other woman off. She left surprisingly very quietly as I pretended to drowsily awake from my sleep, "Apollo, dear, are you alright?"
I mumbled what I thought was a good morning but it sounded like more of a grunt. I cleared my throat, "'Morning." I croaked.
Lisa laughed, "Cricket, its past three o'clock." Her cute little pet name for me… Cricket. Why she used this is past my knowledge, "Are you feeling better? How is your head?" Pushing my hair out of the way she felt my forehead.
"I'm fine." I sat up, propping myself on my elbow. "What happened? Where's Michael?" As if I had forgotten about it, or maybe it was a dream, questions started to pour into my head about my previous adventure.
Lisa opened her mouth like she was going to say something but the stopped and looked sadly at me. Her lips pursed, which was a monumental sign that she was trying to make up an answer for my question. Pushing a loose strand of hair back into her wrap she took a breath and said quietly, "Michael is dead."