Coco didn’t notice that Rudy was awake until he landed on her nose. She could almost hear his small fuzzy smile as he said “Something smells exquisite!”

She wanted to believe him. He sounded so pleased with what he smelled. Whatever was creeping into her own nostrils made her eyes water. It smelled like the alley behind the club where Coco danced—the one that was shared with a butcher shop. She was glad, more than glad—relieved—that it was nearing dusk. She could only imagine what it must smell like around here at high-noon.

Coco stopped in her tracks. “What is that smell?”

Rudy pressed on, salivating. “We must be close to the Oracle now.”

“The who?”

“This old woman. She can read your fortune. She’s a strange old bat, but they say she sees things. Then they happen.” Rudy shrugged four shoulders. “But they say a lot of things, don’t they? For all I know she’s just an old lady in a meat hut.”

“MEAT hut?”

“She might be able to help you. It’s worth a shot. Maybe we could even spend the night there!” Rudy’s already globular eyes widened. He drooled.

“I don’t know that I want to stay in anything called a meat hut.” Coco winced.

Rudy looked back at her as he followed the enticing stench. “Said the stripper who did what exactly with sausage?”

“Brautwurst.” Coco scowled. She knew she shouldn’t have told him that.

She followed him reluctantly, feeling insulted. As they neared the Oracle, Coco continued to ponder what in the hell a meat hut could possibly be. And the stench got stronger.

By the time they could see the hut, the smell was unbearable. Coco’s stomach lurched. Rudy was leaving an alarmingly obvious trail of slobber in his wake. It dropped into the air after him and landed like a fine mist across Coco’s forearm as she walked behind him. She kept trying to switch sides, or just walk a bit slower or faster, but Rudy never flew in a straight line. He made loops and swirls and zig-zags, all the while intoxicated by the vile aroma.

Coco and Rudy stopped in front of the house. Coco tried to pinch her nose to avoid smelling it, but breathing through her mouth she could almost TASTE it; rotting meat. She cupped a hand over her nose and mouth in an attempt to find some happy medium and walked up to the front door.

The hut was a small aluminum structure bent into a roundish shape and bound with baling wire. The roof of the hut was shingled with thick slabs of decaying meat, writhing and squirming with maggots. There were black patches vibrating with the buzz of flies.

Rudy quickly scanned the crowd and ducked back into Coco’s mangled mane.

“Friends? Enemies? Ex-lovers?” Coco laughed as she shook a finger through her tangled hair where Rudy hid, mocking him.

“Shut up.” Rudy hissed.

“Why not go say hello?” Coco pried.

“I don’t want them to know that I am dying. They can’t know how sick I am,” he whispered.

“This illness you have,” Coco said, through her fingers “It isn’t contagious, is it?”

“I don’t think so. When the Queen banished the flies, we all came here. I slipped inside to visit the Oracle one day. She took one look at me and said ‘You’re going to die in a week.’ When I asked her what kind of illness I had, or what was going to happen to me, all she said was ‘This is the way these things happen.’”

“Great.” Coco dropped the subject as Rudy had already been living in her hair and on parts of her face for the bulk of the day.

Coco reached the front step and gagged. In place of a door was a curtain made from the intestines of some small animal. They were nailed to the wooden door frame, and hung like a beaded curtain—only instead of beads, ropes of thick, vein-riddled, rotting guts swayed in the putrid wind. Coco’s stomach lurched.

Coco knocked on the wooden door frame with her free hand. The wood was soft and damp with rotting intestinal fluid that had rubbed into the wood. She smeared her hand against the side of her leg trying to wipe away the wetness. Since her dress was made of plastic bags, most of the gunk just smeared across the back of her hand and wrist.

“Ugh. Hello?” Coco called through her hands. She heard the creak of a chair shifting underneath someone’s weight, followed by soft shuffling footsteps.

Knobby skeleton fingers wrapped in thin, paper-white skin slid through the gut curtain. They curled around a piece of the draped entrails and pulled it aside, leaving a gap barely large enough for someone to peer outside. Only the hand could be seen beyond the shadows of the meat hut.

“What?” croaked a voice through the stench.

Coco was not sure how much more of the odor she could tolerate. She tried to breathe through the gaps between her fingers to filter the smell, but when she inhaled it attacked her senses full force. “I seem to be lost,” Coco said, trying not to gag.

“Seems so,” croaked the voice, “no one comes around here on purpose.”

“I can see why.”

“But folks end up here for a reason. So you may as well come in. I’ll see what they have to say about you.”

Coco was confused. “They?”

“Come on in. I’ll make some tea.” Bony fingers curled under stained shirt-sleeves, hanging like potato sacks around dainty, frail wrists, gesturing for her to come inside.

Coco could only imagine what could possibly be inside the meat hut. The stench was tremendously appalling outside, even at a distance. She’d already nearly vomited at least three times. Inside the hut? She thought she might revisit the trail mix she’d eaten. And it wasn’t exactly delectable the first time.