There is something else responsible for it. What could be it? Maybe some junk lying nearby?
Or maybe there are some rotten dead corpses. Come on girl, you should stop watching those murder documentaries late in the night" Martha rebuked herself for stooping so low for finding out the cause of the smell.
The smell has already entered in the car cabin and now annoying Martha's nostrils to the core! "I need to get out!" Martha exclaimed.
"But that wouldn't be a wise idea to step outside the car while both my parents are inside the house.
Maybe I should reach out to them. No! I need to wait till daddy comes for me. I cannot enter by myself there.
But at the same time, I cannot stay in this car.
I need to get out of here.
What about that wild creature? What if he has been keeping an eye on me so whenever I step out of the car, it will attack me? No, had it been keeping an eye, it wouldn't be observing just me but the three of us altogether and mommy and daddy comfortably went into that house.
We must have just encountered it by chance there. I should get out now" Martha decided.
She reached out for the door handle and pulled it so to open the door.
The door was open besides her and she began to examine her decision.
"Would that be right or not? Anyway, Daddy told me not to enter the house and I am not. Let's just roam outside a bit.
I will quickly get inside the car after a couple of minutes" She provided reassurance to her decision.
She stepped out of the car and on setting the first foot on that land, she thought, "That wasn't a wolf" – Upon setting the other foot, she added – "That wasn't a human either".
She shut the door behind and took a few steps away from the car.
She walked to the left of the car where her parents had walked a few minutes ago.
Although walking parallel to the front of the house, she kept her eyes fixated on the door her parents had used to get into the eyes and didn't watch what was in front of her.
She walked a few steps more but then reminded by her survival instinct not to walk too far away from the car.
She took her steps back and began to walk towards the motor car. The wind made a whooshing sound and was cold.
"Despite the scarcity of trees in this open space, the cold atmosphere remains at its best" she just thought and didn't actually say.
She felt it better to create minimal noise so to not wake some wild animals from their sleep,
"if there were any" she thought. One peculiar thing she noticed was that while walking from the car to her left, the air smelt relatively better than when she smelt it while walking towards the car.
"It is the same pungent smell that was tormenting me inside the car" She reluctantly walked towards the car since she could not take that smell any longer and chose to not smell the air before she reached the door handle.
She stride towards the car and reached for the door handle.
She quickly opened the door and made her way into the car. She was about to close the door when it struck to her to find out the source of this pungent smell.
"What's causing such a horrible smell? Why not just find it out.
Else the curiosity would kill me way before the smell would" She opened the door fully which was held ajar a while ago by Martha.
Martha stepped out of the car and kept the door open rather than closing it so in case if something uneventful happens, she could quickly rush into the car and lock herself in.
She went to her right to find out the cause of this smell.
The intensity grew to such a level that she had to cover her nose in order to move further towards that smell.
Her pace of steps slowed down as the intensity of the smell kept on growing.
"First of all, this is not some smell that the walls could possess.
This is something terrible" Every step she took further made her reconsider the decision of taking another step ahead. Anyway, she kept advancing.
Something inside her wanted to seek it. At the same time, she kept getting anxious which she couldn't help.
"I have resolved to step out of the car only to find out the cause of this and now when I might come across it anytime, I shouldn't step back. Girl, stepping back in a situation could be sometimes better.
Not here but" Martha appeared in a dilemma but sorted it out and chose to progress further.
She tried to look around her to find out the source of this smell since looking around was the most plausible thing to do.
The smell was all over and it was nearly impossible to smell it in order to reach the source since fatality was possible in doing so.
The moon too did not seem to get along with Martha's plans as it hid behind the clouds and therefore, would be visible infrequently.
Martha was roaming here and there and trying to spot things in this pitch black scene.
She wandered a bit, trying to figure out her surroundings, looking for something she could label as the source of the smell when she stumbled upon something.
It came into her way and she didn't know at all what it was.
Leave alone find out what this object was, she couldn't even tell if somebody is present even a couple of meters away from her.
It, although, was something as small as a pebble but not as hard as a pebble is.
She bent forward and rummaged her hand on the ground in hope of getting her hand on what came in her way. She finally found it.
The texture of this object was soft. Martha scanned this item with her hands. The item in her hand was somewhat furry, if not soft.
She kept scanning this item from the road until she could make a solid opinion out of it.
She wondered, "Is this" – Martha couldn't come up with the word she could explain this item with but finally did – "skin?" She wanted to reassure what she had concluded about this item and brought it closer to her eyesight very reluctantly.
Once she got a better view of it, she understood it was the portion of a limb of some animal which has been ripped off through sharp teeth.