Dead of Night

In the dead of night, a bright meteor streaked across the sky, hurtling towards Earth. Inside, the meteor carried an evil gift from the deep dark depths of evil space. It carried with it a a smell so vile, so repugnant, that it defied the very laws of nature. The smell was a fume alien to earth, and one that humanity had no natural olfactory resistance to, not like the life forms on the planet it came from. The smell wanted nothing more then to be a sentient life form, but first it had to find it’s way inside a sentient life form. To posses such creatures, the creature it was going to posses could have no resistance, natural or otherwise. Traveling through space for thousands of years scanning for life forms on other planets with non-immune non-resistant life, it finally came across earth.

The meteor crashed in a remote, heavily forested area on the outskirts of Los Angeles. After smoke cleared and the dust settled, a horrible foetor wafted through the air, permeating it’s surroundings. It was an otherworldly odor, a stench that defied description. Those who caught a whiff of it were overcome by sickness and nausea. It even made the animals sick.

“Ugh, what’s that smell,” Dr. Gabrielle of Homeland security asked after she approached the space rock.

Homeland security thought the unexpected meteor could have been an enemy weapon, or an advanced weapon from space, so they sent a team of elite troops with Dr. Slovensky and Dr. Gabrielle to examine the meteor.

One of the new agents leaned in to touch the meteor and got his hand quickly slapped away.

“Don’t touch that. Let me get a look at it first. It’s obviously toxic, the smell has been making people sick. And check your hazmat suit for leaks Dr. G, that’s not good you can smell it,” Dr. Slovensky said, speaking through her hazmat suit to the team member and Dr. Gabrielle. She walked away to collect samples of the meteor, putting each sample in a separate bag.

“Yes, ma’am, Dr. Slovensky,” Dr. Gabrielle said and saluted.

“I hate when you call me ma’am. It makes me feel old,” Dr. Slovensky said.

“You’re cute when you’re angry,” Dr. Gabrielle said, smiled and put her arm around Dr. Slovensky.

“What are our next steps?” Dr Slovensky asked Dr. Gabrielle. Gabrielle rolled her eyes.

“Cant you show a little affection?” Dr. Gabrielle asked.

“We’re at work,” Dr. Slovensky said coldly. Gabrielle removed her arm from Dr Slovensky, then spoke sounding lugubrious.

“We can test the chemical composition back at the lab. Once we know the chemicals, we will know why they’re driving people crazy and how to properly dispose of this toxic meteor. We might even be able to treat the victims,” Dr. Gabrielle said.

“Let’s work quickly, now I’m smelling the foetar too!” Dr. Slovensky said. Some of the soldiers nodded in agreement.

They brought the samples back to the lab, but it was too late. The smell had dissolved parts of the hazmat suit and found its way in. The smell, being almost sentient itself figured with two smart scientists effected by it, it would be long before it could take over the human population and finally have a physical form.

“What were we doing?” Dr. Gabrielle asked.

“Kissing your cute face! I know longer care that we’re in public,” Dr. Slovensky said.

They started kissing while their brains gradually mutated, becoming completely one with the smell. They stopped kissing, then stared at each other, dead pan, before looking straight ahead.

“We… must… bring… people… too.. the… meteor…” Dr. Gabrielle said, now having no mind of her own.

“Yes. Agree,” Dr. Slovensky said. They walked out of their lab in search for people to drag to the meteor, their team of elite troops following right behind them, having been brainwashed as well.

A couple days had now passed, and the smell had caused more problems. Those who had smelled it’s foul odor started behaving bizarrely. They’d complain during the night that they were tossing and turning in their sleep and having vivid nightmares, and upon awakening they’d run down the streets naked or attack people with knives or baseball bats. Sometimes they’d just run down the street screaming at people, clawing at them with their nails in their gradual descent into madness. They all eventually mutated into hideous creatures, attacking everything in sight.

The initial signs of changing were sometimes subtle. A person would have a nervous twitch or they’d drop dishes or other light items they could usually carry. But as time went on, the victims' became worse, their transformation becoming nightmarish as they slowly turned into monsters. Their bodies contorted, their skin warped and blistered, all as they mutated into what can only be described as monstrosities no longer human. Their minds, once coherent, deteriorated into a maddening abyss of primal instincts, causing them to become violent and erratic. The same thing had happened to Dr. Gabrielle and Dr. Slovensky. They were some of the first people to turn into monsters. Within a few hours, most of Los Angeles was infected.

The infected, driven by an insatiable hunger, a need for violence, and a desire to turn any normal human into a fellow meteor monsters, attacked anyone unfortunate enough to cross their path. Then they would attempt to bring their victims closer to the smell. The streets of Los Angeles became a hunting grounds for them, and was now filled with the chaos and terror of anyone not effected and trying to escape. Innocent bystanders who refused to get closer to the smell and be turned into monsters were torn apart, ripped asunder, their blood staining the pavement red while the howls of the deranged, mutated maniacs filled the air.

“I love turning people,” Dr. Slovensky said.

Dr. Gabrielle nodded in agreement.

“Please, stop. I don’t want to become one of you. Can’t you just let me go? I promise I won’t say anything,” a young girl that Dr. Slovensky was dragging screamed. Both of the doctors just smiled.

“I love it when they struggle,” Dr. Slovensky said. Dr. Gabrielle just continued to smile.

Desperate attempts were made to contain the outbreak, but the smell was defiant and continued to spread. In addition, those already effected brought people outside the smells already large perimeter closer to the crash site for a deadly, transformative whiff. No quarantine or medical intervention could halt the horrifying transformation, especially with Dr. Slovensky and Dr. Gabrielle working fervently to make the smell stronger and more effective.

Los Angeles and all surrounding cities descended into anarchy, a bleak hell-scape where survival was no longer an option. Everyone had either turned monstrous, died or would turn monstrous or die. There were now enough meteor monsters to have the city of Los Angeles completely barricaded.

The city collapsed, and eventually the smell had spread throughout California and neighboring Nevada, Arizona, Oregon. It even went across the border and taken over Baja, California. It was now satisfied with its army of humans and claimed the territory it wanted, but any new travelers unwittingly crossing into these areas were quickly turned into ravenous, eldritch monstrosities.

Another four meteors with the same evil smell crashed in four distant cities. Washington D.C., Moscow, Tehran, and Beijing. The stench of evil, the same vile scent, seeped into the air, starting the beginning of a new nightmare. The same cycle of madness and mutation repeated itself, as the inhabitants of the second, third and fourth city succumbed to the insidious force from outer space.

Across the globe, one by one, cities fell into despair as more and more smelly meteors hit the earth. The smell spread like a plague, sparing no one from its clutches. Society crumbled, reduced to carnage. The world became a breeding ground for abominations, grotesque creatures born from what was once humanity. Humans were never a peaceful species, but this smell seemed to compound our natural violence and make it a hundred times worse.

In the end, there was no escape, no respite from the horror that had came to earth from outer space. Humans thought if they were conquered by something from space, it would be an army of evil aliens, not a smell. But that’s what happened, a smell conquered earth. The smell from outer space had conquered us all, reducing mankind to nightmarish abominations, forever.

The Earth became an empty wasteland, all because of the the foetor from space, that horrible disgusting smell emitting from the meteor that had crashed upon its surface. There were no heroes to save the day, no survivors left on earth. Now there were only monsters. Monsters and the remains of a once-thriving civilization, all because of the stench of the meteor. Humanity was entirely transformed, all turned into horrible monsters, all because of a smell from space.

“We’re the two smartest mutants,” Dr. Gabrielle said.

“If we declared ourselves queens of earth, they’d believe us,” Dr. Slovensky said.

Dr. Gabrielle and Dr. Slovensky smiled at each other with their hideously deformed faces, laughed maniacally at their new plan, then kissed as if they were trying to eat each others faces. Soon, they thought, they would rule the world, whatever little was left of it!