Stench From The Basement

Andy and Juliet Springfield were newly weds and they wanted a brand new, shiny house to start their new and happy life together. They were Americans living in California, so they had lots of sunny, beautiful places to pick from. The couple searched for months and months and months, looking desperately for a good house to settle down into. Yet, most places were far too expensive and the sacrifices they'd have to make simply weren't worth it. As Spring became Summer and Summer became Autumn which soon entered Winter, the choices they had were getting more and more expensive and risky. That was until they stumbled across a deal of a lifetime. They found a beautiful three story house that sat by a creek far away from the rustle and bustle of the city, and deep within the lush, rich and gorgeous American countryside. It was perfect, so why was it so bloody cheap? Andy dared to ask about the humongous elephant in the room and the salesman took a deep long sigh; "the previous family disappeared." He said.
"Without a trace?" Andy asked.
"Yes." He winced, "but ghost stories don't exist." He smiled weakly, "perhaps they just up and left, in the middle of the night."
"Strange." Andy shivered.
"I guess you're no longer interested then?" Sighed the salesman.
"No!" Juliet interjected, "it's not like the family were murdered."
"Definitely not!" The salesman grinned.
"How do you know?" Andy asked, suspiciously.
"No blood, no bodies. Nothing. They just up and left. The locals like to spread silly ghost stories and won't buy the place-"
"Which is why it's so cheap?" Andy interrupted.
"Yes." The salesman nodded, "but it's all just lies."
"I don't know..." Andy grumbled.
"Excuse us!" Juliet apologised, before pulling her husband into a separate room, "we can't afford to keep looking!" She snapped, "we've searched for eleven months now and I'm sick of that apartment in LA and that fucking landlord, ain't you?!"
"Yeah bu-"
"No buts!" She barked, "so what if the family vanished? People leave without saying a word all the time. Maybe they just... I don't know, won the lottery and fucked off or something. Anything could have happened, that doesn't mean the house is haunted or anything stupid like that!"
"All right..." Andy sighed, "it is a good deal."
"Yes, it is a good deal!" Juliet cried, "I think we should get it!"
"Ok, you're right." He nodded, "we ain't getting anywhere cheaper." Andy shrugged, "I guess this is the spot."
"Thanks Andy!" She kissed her lover, "come on, let's tell him the good news!"

The couple moved into the house three months later, it was the end of Winter by the time they hit their new home. It was lovely at first, but there was a small scent of something horrid in the basement. At first they thought it was simply mould, but the smell got worse. It became something like rot.
"It's just an old house." Andy argued with his wife one night.
"No, no, it ain't just mould, something's died down there!"
"What? Like a rat?"
"Yeah!"
"Well... It will decompose eventually, right?"
"Oh, that's just gross!" She snorted, "it's been getting worse for weeks now and it's driving me mad! Mad I tell you! I can't sleep at night!"
"It's all the way downstairs in the basement!" He rolled his eyes.
"Sometimes I can smell it in the bedroom and the kitchen, it's making me feel ill. Like my stomach is always in a knot and I can't even write anymore!"
"Not like that was ever really profitable!" Andy grumbled.
"I don't care about the money!" She roared, "just get a shovel down there and dig around already?! There must be a dead rat hiding under all that garbage we keep in there."
"What, you mean my vintage comics, vinyls and books?!"
"Yes, it's all garbage, Andy! And it must be stinking up the joint, real bad. Real fucking bad."
"It's not my collectibles!" He barked.
"You better go down there and sort it out, or I'm burning all those things with or without your say so!"
"All right, fine!" Andy stormed downstairs into the basement. It was dark and musty in there, the stench was so horrendous he almost puked! It didn't stink of mould or rot anymore, it was like sewage water full of dead fish. It stank like hell itself. Andy got mad and began searching frantically for the origin of the terrible, terrible smell. Eventually he noticed the ground in the far right corner of the basement was hollow beneath the wooden floor boards. His feet echoed louder on that spot and the wood actually bent slightly under his weight. So Andy began prying the floorboards open, and what he found underneath was something he'd never, ever forget. Never in a million years. A rotting human skull. Andy jumped back in fright and vomited all over himself.
"You ok, honey?!" Juliet's voice called from above him.
"C- c- call the police!" He stuttered.
"What?!"
"CALL THE POLICE!"

The police came and they searched the basement, they all wore surgical masks to combat the foul stench, the couple were told to wait outside as the cops and forensics inside began their sweep. They found three bodies buried under the basement floor, they had been rotting under there for months and months, almost a whole year before Andy and Juliet even moved in. The mother, son and daughter of the previous family were all murdered, evidence of bullet and stab wounds were all over their rotting corpses. It seemed the husband had killed his whole family, then buried them under the floorboards and just left, never to be seen or heard from ever again.

Andy and Juliet Springfield stayed in the house, after the corpses were unearthed and given proper burials in a nearby local cemetery. Despite the removal of their bodies, the couple still had nightmares about the dead family. Even in the day, they started hallucinating the family still in the house, like ghosts. Of course, these visions were just their own imaginations playing tricks on them. The mind can be a strange and cruel organ, making you think and see things that aren't even there. They would claim the house was haunted and left a month later in Spring. Then the house hunt began yet again, they weren't going to take any chances this time.