Paul Russo's Short Story: Fast Food

The call had come at noon, cutting short lunches. A few of the guys had simply packed up their meals and brought them along. They now stood just beyond the established perimeter, finishing them off. A few looked pissed. The others resigned. Paul Russo surveyed the scene as he came upon it with the last piece of his burger being chewed in his mouth. Murder victims had no sense of timing at all. The scent of the food hung heavily in the common laundry room of the apartment complex, and with perverse enjoyment Paul imagined the management staff holding their noses in outrage and offended sensibilities. A stiff was one thing; fast food was quite another.

Several people nodded in his direction as she stepped into the room. He returned their greetings and started toward the body, his feet sinking into thick, putty-colored carpeting. The variety of laundry detergent and fabric softeners couldn’t compete with the scent of death. The body sometimes voided with the cessation of life, particularly when the end came suddenly and violently. Paul wrinkled his nose, though he didn’t try to avoid the smell, a common mistake of rookies. Within a few minutes, as his olfactory glands fatigued, he would become accustomed to the smell. …show more content…
The smell of those corpses inundated everything, even the hair shafts. Everyone back at the station kept lemon shampoo and a change of clothes in their locker in case it was one of those