R/Nosleep (Get Spooked)

All I Can Smell Is Cigarette Smoke

By: u/Stay-Au79

Warning: child abuse, suicide.

I had quite a traumatic childhood. My Father passed away not long after my 2nd birthday due to a heart attack. My mother told me he was a good man who was overworked trying to provide for us. In our town jobs were few and far between, the area was under developed and offered little to no prospects for single parents. So my mother and I were forced to live with my grandparents. My grandmother was a pleasant lady. She was a highlight of my younger years. She would read me a story every night and tuck me in, and would always take care of me when I was sick or if my mother was out at work. However underneath her warm exterior she held a sadness.

See my grandfather was a bitter, spiteful old man. Tall and broad, as a child he would tower over me. The man lived with a permanent scowl, always peering out from the shadow of his brow. He was a coal miner when he was a young man and was later drafted for WW2 where he would help dig tunnels and trenches. On occasional nights where my grandmother was absent, he would stumble into my bedroom in a cloud of alcoholic stench and mutter horror stories from the war.

One story was burnt into my mind. He told me of a time he was underground digging a flank tunnel beneath a German frontline. They had begun digging through an old Polish coal mine. When one of his squad mates triggered a landmine. The ground above flooded the tunnel with shrapnel and debris, crushing his friend from the waist down. His howls and cries echoed through the tunnel. There was no choice but to end his suffering. My grandfather told me that after ending his friends life and returning to a safe spot in the tunnel to rest for a while, he could hear his friend sob from the darkness and it echoed quietly through the old mine shaft.

This story terrified me and he knew it. He always told me they would help me be more headstrong, but they just rooted my fear of him. My grandfather was as cruel as he could be. I later discovered the reasons for my grandmother's absence was that he beat her and locked her in their room when he drank too much. This is a man that claimed to be religious, he swore by God for getting him out of the tunnels but he was nothing short of unholy. Eventually my grandmother hit a breaking point and chose to end her life. She had hanged herself one night after reading me a story and tucking me in.

After that my grandfather took his self made grief out on my mother and sometimes me. He had grown evermore vindictive and manipulative. He would act like a community man, made friends in the police force, helped out in the local area. Then come home to drink as much as he smoked, smoke as much as he hit me and my mother. At this point the house was in disarray. The walls and ceilings were dyed yellow from the smoke and bottles piled high in the kitchen. My mother carried the same sadness as her mother but worked as much as she could to avoid him.

This went on for years. Until I started working myself. I would work 12 hour shifts into the night delivering firewood. My grandfather's habits caught up to him and he was now a pale, sickly drunk that could barely stand. My mother and I knew that he didn't have long left. But that didn't stop him from hurling verbal abuse at us. Still we made sure his basic needs were met, knowing we wouldn't have to deal with him much longer. Looking back now I can never forget the last conversation I had with him. How could I?

I was ready to leave for work and was making sure he had what he needed by his bedside. A small sandwich in a tub for lunch. A glass of water and his cigarettes. As I placed his cigarette box on the nightstand he grabbed my wrist with as much strength as he could muster. He croaked "They had better all be in there or else". I replied "or else what?". He took offence to this and spat at me so I stepped back towards the door. At this moment he had picked up the glass and hurled it at me, it smashed against the wall not far from my head. "The sooner you die the better" I sneered. He coughed back "If I do I'll take you and your bitch mother with me". I left for work.

I sat in the work truck stewing on his words. Night had just fallen and wind pelted the side of the truck as I clambered down dark country lanes. My nose began to fill with the familiar pungent stink of cigarette smoke. As if somebody had lit one up in the seat next to me. I shrugged it off, maybe I was overthinking it. Although there would definitely be no soul out here smoking. I arrived at my delivery in a small town. As I exit the truck I hear the nearby church bells chime 10 times. It was late, I was tired and had a near 2 hour drive back. The yard I delivered to was empty and lit with a few floodlights that swayed in the wind. I was the only man there working as everyone had clocked out earlier in the day. This yard had no security just a gate with a thick chain and padlock for which I had the only other key besides the foreman.

I dropped off the firewood, turned off the floodlights and got back into the truck. The wind subsided for a brief moment and a sound crept into the cab. Heavy broken breathing. Choking, almost gargling. Nobody else was here. I rolled down my window and called out to double check. The sound emerged louder and more violent. I frantically grabbed for my flashlight and aimed it out the window. Nothing. I still had to leave the yard and lock the gate behind me. I had no choice but to roll up the window and get the truck moving. I turned on the engine and the breathing stopped. The wind picked up speed and once I had driven out of the yard I plucked up the courage to get out and lock the gate. Flashlight clenched firmly in my hand.

With my work done for the night I began to drive home. I got maybe 2-3 miles up the road when the thick smell of smoke came crawling back. The radio turned to static and the blood curdling breathing was among the sound. The radio allowed an ear piercing cough to come through, as if at max volume. It made me jump from my skin. At the same moment the wind had ripped a tree from its roots and into the road a few metres ahead of me. Already distracted I failed to come to a stop and I collided with the tree at high speed.

My next memory is waking in agony on a hospital bed. 2 police officers sitting beside me. I knew their faces, friends of my grandfather. They explained that he died last night at 10pm, he had coughed up blood and choked on it. They then went on to explain that my mother had also died shortly after. Suicide. Hanged. Covered in bruises.

The strangest part is there was no chair in the room where she hanged. No way she could have hoisted herself up into the makeshift noose.

I can't even visit her grave, every time I get close to her headstone, all I can smell is cigarette smoke.