"I didn’t actually use the phrase ‘putrid corpse’, but that’s the best description of the image fixed in my mind. I didn’t just suspect it, either, I KNEW it. It’s true that every dead person I have ever spent time around has been thoroughly pre-soaked with formaldehyde. But I also read ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ in High School. I knew this was the smell of the dead and unfound. There are lots of old, lonely people in our building, after all."

Mysterious Smells and Hyperactive Gag Reflexes in a story by Michael Eckblad