HE WOULDN’T LEAVE THE CASKET—NOT UNTIL HE COULD SMELL THE TRUTH
~1000 words
The church was quiet, too quiet. The kind of silence that made your skin prickle, like the air itself held its breath. The scent of lilies filled the room, thick and sweet, masking something that didn’t sit right with Jonah.
He stood by the casket, hands clenched into fists, jaw tight. Everyone else had already taken their seat or wandered into the hallway to murmur condolences and whisper small-town gossip behind cupped hands. But Jonah? He stayed. He wouldn’t leave the side of his brother’s casket—not until he could smell the truth.
They said Caleb died in a car crash. Lost control on a wet road, slammed into a tree. Open-and-shut. But Jonah knew better. Caleb was a mechanic, damn near obsessive about maintenance, and the roads that night had been dry. Nothing about it added up. Not the crash. Not the timing. Not the look on Caleb’s face when they pulled him from the wreck.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t pain. It was something else—something closer to betrayal.
Jonah had seen it himself in the funeral home’s back room before the formal viewing. The undertaker had let him in early, after some argument. The man said, “You won’t like what you see.” But Jonah had to look. And what he saw haunted him. Caleb’s fingernails were broken and bloodied—scraped raw like he’d clawed at something, or someone. There was a bruise, faint but visible, across his neck, as if someone had pressed down hard, just enough to leave a mark.
And there was the smell.
Under the perfume, beneath the floral arrangements, below the embalming fluid… something rancid clung to the body. Jonah couldn’t explain it. Not rot, not exactly. It was like… fear and gasoline.
He pressed his palm against the polished lid of the casket, staring down at the face of the man he’d grown up with. The man who once took a beating for him in high school. The man who stayed behind in their dying hometown when Jonah left for college, only to end up with grease-stained hands and too many debts.
Caleb had secrets. Jonah knew that. Everyone in town knew that. But whatever he’d been tangled in—Jonah was sure it had killed him.
“Sir,” a soft voice broke the silence. A funeral home attendant stood at a respectful distance. “We’re about to begin the service. Would you like to sit?”
Jonah didn’t even look up. “I’ll stay here.”
The attendant hesitated, then stepped back.
Jonah leaned down, breathing in through his nose. It was subtle, but still there—that strange, oily scent. He moved closer. He didn’t care if he looked insane. If no one else would admit this death didn’t make sense, he would bear the weight of finding the truth alone.
He remembered a conversation with Caleb three weeks earlier. Late at night, Caleb had called out of the blue.
“Jonah, if something happens to me, don’t believe it’s an accident.”
Jonah had laughed it off at the time. “What are you talking about?”
But Caleb’s voice had been flat. “Just promise me you’ll look deeper.”
And now here he was, his brother laid out in a box, and Jonah looking deeper.
He slipped a gloved hand into the casket, under the silk lining near the hip. If Caleb had hidden something, a message maybe, this was the kind of paranoid thing he’d do.
There. Something hard. Thin. Jonah’s fingers closed around it—paper. He palmed it quickly, tucked it into his coat. His heart pounded like a drum in a war movie.
No one saw.
The priest began the service. Words about peace, about resting easy, about God’s plan. Jonah stood silent by the casket, unmoved. He didn’t need comfort. He needed answers.
After the service, people filed out. A few offered pats on the shoulder, quick hugs, apologies that sounded rehearsed. Jonah nodded through it all, eyes glazed, waiting until the room cleared.
Only then did he pull out the folded piece of paper from his pocket. It was a receipt. Dated the night Caleb died. A gas station on the edge of town. 11:17 p.m.
The time of the crash was reported as 11:45.
Too tight a window.
Jonah drove there immediately. The clerk, a young woman with tired eyes and chipped nail polish, confirmed that Caleb had been there—nervous, agitated. He bought a can of fuel, two protein bars, and asked if anyone had been asking about him.
“He seemed scared,” she said. “Kept looking over his shoulder.”
Jonah left with his stomach twisted. He retraced Caleb’s route, driving slowly down the stretch of highway between the gas station and the crash site. And that’s when he saw it.
Tire marks. Two sets. One leading off the road where Caleb’s car had landed. The other—smaller, angled—pulling away fast, like someone had stopped, then sped off.
Jonah parked and stepped out into the humid evening air. He walked the tree line until he found something half-buried in the dirt. A piece of broken glass. Not from Caleb’s car.
And then—another smell. Faint but familiar.
Gasoline.
He called the sheriff the next day, demanding an official investigation. At first, they resisted. Called it grief. Paranoia. But then he showed them the gas station footage, the tire marks, the bruises. Reluctantly, they reopened the case.
Three weeks later, the truth emerged.
Caleb had discovered a smuggling ring operating through the town’s abandoned rail yards—guns, stolen parts, sometimes drugs. He’d been fixing up their cars unknowingly, and when he tried to pull away, they warned him. He didn’t listen.
The night he died, someone followed him. Forced him off the road. The crash was staged. Caleb had been alive afterward—long enough to know they were going to finish the job.
But Jonah never let them bury him in silence.
Back at the cemetery, months later, Jonah stood by the grave—this time in peace. The air was still. The flowers were fresh. The casket was long buried, but the memory still sharp.
Jonah lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly.
“You were right, Caleb. And I kept my promise.”
He tapped ash into the wind.
“Smelled it from the beginning.”
