Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb!
Luckily, the farmer’s canopy where the bad smell was coming from effectively had only one exit; the sides were lined with plastic tables featuring the foodstuffs now beginning to appear in the PECZ with some frequency. Anybody wanted to get out, they’d have to go through Elizabeth and Janet. Or duck under the tables, Janet thought, but at least then we’d know who to chase.
Janet didn’t have many things left from the Before Times, but ‘cop voice’ was one of them. “Everybody stop!” she shouted. “Council emergency! Possible contrabrand! Nobody move!”
Everybody stopped. Nobody moved. That was good; but everybody in the tent was now looking at each other suspiciously, which could end up being bad. For a lot of people, being in the PECZ felt like winning a lottery where ninety nine out of every hundred entrants died. It made people… territorial.
Contraband, you say? The plot has thickened.
Contraband that has a “bad smell”, but that none of the people *in* the tent had noticed before now (nor were expected to). I’m thinking magical corruption of some sort.