Hector arrived, hair swept back by the salty sea and sweat. Extremely out of breath and far too unprepared to handle anything but a triple shot crappacino from the town cafe. He stared at the horde of villagers as a séance gathered in the middle of some dark, dangerous forest—despite the sun blaring hello and bouncing off the white, sandy, pebbled beach and hitting his eyes. He shaded his eyes with his hands and trudged down the dunes towards the crowd, gathered around something peculiar on the beach.

Maybe this really isn't a joke?

"Let me through." He pushed into the crowd with his hands clasped together like a diver ready to break water. It seemed every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Harriets were out here this morning to see the phenomenally uncommon sight of some dead body washing ashore.

On their run here, Hunter had filled him in on what was happening on the beach. His commentary had reminded Hector of static coming over a long-distance radio as the two of them ran side by side.

"A body ... ashore ... must have ... last ... night ... she looks swollen ... to me ... "

"Excuse me! Excuse me!" Hector shoved his shoulders against the wall of townsfolk then, trying to part that sea of onlookers. Fuck ... it must be gruesome ... this body ... that's why they are all out here this morning, like vultures. He even spied the reclusive eighty-year-old widow, Mrs Tait, wrapped up in her fluffy robe and shivering, despite it being December, among the herd. "Let me see"—he finally broke through the crowd and braced himself as he came clear of the throng and fell through the air, desperately trying to regain his balance before he face-planted onto the beach—"the bodyyyyy."

There, on the said pristine beach, if by pristine he meant riddled with broken shells, pebbles, and a crapload of dead seaweed, lay a body. A purple kaftan-wearing body decked out with jewellery worth more than the entire town's yearly salary. She was bruised and bleeding; parts of her arms and legs were bent at impossible angles that Hector had to quail nausea hurtling up his oesophagus. It would do him and the village no good to see their only inspector lose his dinner at the sight.

Hector cleared his throat and tried to clear his mind. HOLY FUCK! That is a fucking body ... that is a bo–body. Ah ... try not to panic. Try not to panic ... but when his breath hitched higher and his heart thumped at an irregular beat, his thoughts went something like this ... GET IT TOGETHER, MAN! Be tough!

"See!" Behind him, Hunter clamoured through, his gangly arms resting on his even ganglier, knobby knees. "I told you! A body!" He pointed briskly at the figure lying face down on the beach, the early morning wind blowing its vibrant material as if a flag. Help me. Help me. And Hector wished he knew how to help, except this was his first year as an inspector, at his first posting, in the small police station in his small, sleepy town, barely four hundred people strong. But more than anything, this was his first actual crime.

Inspector Hector Juan Martinez was a virgin. A crime virgin, that is. But cops had stomachs of iron, no? So he put on a brave face, though he doubted he looked brave at all. He could feel his face contorting in uncomfortable angles, much like the woman's arms.

Again, the bile rose to his throat.

Why did it have to be murder? He eyed the odd-looking knife sticking out of the victim's shoulder blade, like a pole planted at some macabre peak someone had conquered last night.

Hector stared at the body, completely unaware of who it was, and thereby what it entailed for his little town, his little career, and his contained, little boring life.

For the body was none other than that of a stern and dour crime novelist who had just celebrated her forty-fifth birthday on a fancy yacht out to sea, hardly expecting to fall victim to some knife-wielding maniac intent on her early departure, befitting a plot for one of her world-famous novels.

Grumpy Gavin, the only one who dared to approach the body before Hector's arrival, stood over the poor woman, prodding her body with his cane again. Part of its rubber end disappeared into her ample curves, and the old man grunted as if pondering something.

"So?" Hector asked, stepping up to Gavin with his head held high and his chest puffed out like sheriffs in many western movies he'd seen. All show. All a fucking show. Inside, he was shitting his pants.

"So?" Grumpy Gavin grunted. "So what?"

Hector's brows knitted together. What else could he be asking other than, "Is she alive?"

Gavin shrugged his shoulders and dipped the end of his walking stick back into the body's stomach. "Feels dead to me. Dead as a doornail."

Yet, from deep within the dead-as-a-doornail woman's bowel, an unearthly sound rumbled, like a giant stirring awake.

The whole séance circle gasped and scampered back as if spooked by a deadly ghost, rising from the depths of hell itself. Melodramatic much.

"Did it make a sound?" Ms Vani clung to the closest person to her, Grumpy Gavin.

Hector wished he knew. "Sometimes dead bodies release gas," he said as confidently as he could, recalling some of his training.

"And that's a big body. It swallowed a lot of the sea." Gavin grunted again, aiming his weapon at the body's cavity. "I could poke it again and see?"

"Poke me again, old man, and I'll fucking break your stick ... as soon as I can feel my arms and legs," said the dead body, turning her head, all Exorcist-like. Her one dark bloodshot eye, draped by the dark, wet curtain of her hair, opened a fraction before it shut again.

The séance circle moved back another step with another audible gasp. Huh.

"Is she dead?" Ms Vani nearly climbed up Gavin's bent back, shaking like a leaf. Her mother's old cardigan flapping frantically against the gale-force wind.

"Ugh. Where the fucking hell am I?" the body asked; her voice, as sandy as the beach.

"The woman speaks." Gavin's voice was dry as pumice. "Dead bodies don't speak, Manju, and stand up straight. It's only a rude woman lying there."

"Yes, daddy."

Oh, thank God! Hector eyed the woman lying on the beach before him, his knees ready to buckle beneath him in relief. She's not dead!

The previously thought-to-be-dead body groaned through her gritted teeth. "Fuck. Where am I? Idiotville? Someone call me a fucking ambulance! I can't move or did you not hear, you numbskulls?!"

That jolted the dazed inspector into action. "Yes, ma'am, right away." He crouched low to observe her better. "Hunter, go fetch the ambulance from the hospital. Double-quick. Tell them it's an emergency."

"What else could it be?" The strange, mangled woman peered up at him with her swollen eye.

True. Hector smiled meekly as Hunter sprinted away from the beach for the second time that morning. "Try not to move."

"Is that boy runnin' to fetch?" The woman eyed the teen disappearing up the dune. "Don't you have mobile phones?" she groaned, wrinkling her nose uncomfortably as the wind swept her hair into her mouth. She tried to spit it out, but it clung.

Mrs Tait, his old history teacher, asked, "What are mobile phones?" as she gave Hector a stink eye, sneering at his crumpled-up police uniform.

"They are personal phones, Mrs Tait." Hector recalled how strict his old history teacher had been about uniforms, and turned away from Mrs Tait. He removed the matted hair from the beached woman, afraid she was going to snap at his fingers with her teeth. "And, lady, we still haven't caught up with the nineties. Does it look like we've entered the two thousand yet? But it's good to see you have a sense of humour, considering everything ... " He scanned her from head to toe. How the fuck are you still alive?

"That bad?" She peered up at him with her haunting eyes, grimacing in pain. Her eye darted towards the dune with longing. Hector could read her like the book lying on the floor in his apartment. He knew that look—that staring into the horizon, longing for something more, something different, something that made him feel ... alive.

"Hold my hand, please," she begged.

When Hector eyed her hands, looking like they belonged to a broken ventriloquist doll, bile rose to his throat again. Iron stomach. Iron stomach. He reached out and grabbed her nearest hand, trying not to move her at all. She winced and her hand clasped down on his with animalistic might. "That ambulance of yours far? I don't feel—" her words and her grip loosened as she suddenly convulsed before him.

The crowd gasped louder, jumping another step away from the scene.

"Oh dear god, the woman is dying!" someone in the crowd yelled. Vani fainted. Gavin crumpled beneath his middle-aged adoptive daughter's weight. Someone at the back of the melee threw up on the sand. The sound caused Hector to dry retch, but he felt guilty as he held the poor woman's hand, trying to comfort her somewhat.

But Mrs Tait slipped her robe off and approached Hector and the woman. "Here, slip this below her head and let her convulsion finish, so she doesn't hurt herself anymore."

"Thanks." Hector tried to sound hopeful, though he cursed himself. Hunter, for once, why the hell are you slow? I should have gone myself. Just as the pathetic ambulance, a.k.a rusty old white van with an 'Ambulance' sticker pasted to its side, careened into view, spewing up white sand into the air, sand the wind blew onto all those who gathered as if punishing them for watching the scene unfold.

Many spluttered and coughed, shielding their eyes from the sight.

Hector threw himself in front of the woman, trying to protect her from at least that one small assault.

And over the many coughs about him, he shouted, "Hurry!" He could hear the panic in his own voice. He had not been prepared for a body at the beach this morning when Hunter had fetched him, but now, half an hour later, he was watching someone possibly die while they held his hand. "For fuck's sake, even Gavin can move faster than that!" he yelled at the two figures running down the dune with a primitive stretcher in hand.

"Hey, I resent that!" Gavin huffed as they threw the stretcher down onto the sand and the medical professionals pounced on the woman.

"Geez, she doesn't look too good. Where did she come from?" one asked.

While the other asked a more relevant question. "How long has she been convulsing?" Dr Chen asked, her pearly facade not even breaking a sweat, unlike Hector's. As she spoke, perspiration rolled down Hector's face as if there was a heat wave in town. But now, as he handed over the woman to the pros, he shivered against the wind, close to chattering his teeth.

"Hector? How long has she been convulsing?" Dr Chen asked, tugging at his pant leg while he was doing everything to hold on to his poise.

"She just started." He gently let go of the woman's swollen hand and moved aside, rising to his shaky feet. "Will she be okay?" Cause he didn't want a dead body on his hand.

"It's hard to say." The doctor peered up at him while listening to the patient's heartbeat with her stethoscope. "You okay? You're looking a little pale."

"I've never–" Hector eyed the town's people gawking at them as if they were the biggest highlight of the day. "Go on, go about your business. Nothing to see here but a woman who is dying. Haven't y'all got better things to do? Go pray for her or something."

He made a pouncing move towards them, and the crowd jolted out of their stupor and dissipated—at least from their sight.

As they eased the stranger onto the stretcher, her limbs straightened with care and strapped—again, Hector suppressed his nausea.

Dr Hilde Chen eyed him. "Go home, Hector. There's nothing you can do right now. Go shower. You look ... " She eyed him up and down, lingering a moment too long at his crotch. He could tell exactly why she eyed him so. When the good doctor first arrived in town, some months ago, Hector had had his first one-night stand—not that he'd ever tell her this. Since then, he'd avoided her out of embarrassment, though she was turning his head and his heart whenever he saw her.

She'd never truly go for me. Hector watched Hilde slip into the back with the woman being loaded into the van. As they disappeared down the straight road, driving into the sunshine, he curled over the blades of tall grass and lost his stomach's content.

Thus, ladies and gentlemen began this story, with a dead body that wasn't quite dead, and an inspector who didn't quite have an iron stomach for such cases, despite his love of Agatha Christie's mysteries, which he devoured like nothing else.

Inspector Hector truly wasn't ready for any of this.