NOVEMBER - A few years before the world went to shit!

On the darkest night, in the darkest hour, on a moody beach of a sleepy coastal town of Mystery Cove—once known as Mutton Fish Cove—Australia, waves churned, dark as oil and spat out oddities upon the pebbled, horrid shore: a bottle there, a deflated jellyfish, seashells, seaweed, and tangled among it, a body.

Round. Grotesque. Broken. Hair like Medusa's snakes. Clad in an expensive kaftan and bejewelled to the nine. Its caramel skin, already tinged with death. One blue, braided leather sandal adorned its bloated left foot. A chorus of bangles glinted about the wrists.

Hours later, the sun rose, and the seagulls squawked. The chill South Pacific breeze blew harder, stirring up a nasty-looking storm offshore.

The now dry, tattered purple kaftan fluttered over the grim body like a flag—look at me, you fools. See me. Over here!

A dozen town folks gathered soon thereafter, gawking at the grotesque sight, despite the chill wind etching into their shivering bones. Some stared in horror. Others, in morbid curiosity. Scandalous whispers flew about earnestly.

"Where did she come from?"

"Who do you think is it? Maybe someone we know?"

"Could she be a local? We've had new folks move here the last few years—dear God, I hope it's not Mrs Waterford. She loves purple and wears odd things all the time ... I mean, look at those mismatched bangles."

"I'm not dead, Manjula."

All heads swiftly turned to Mrs Waterford, an old lady in her eighties, fit enough to start her own 'let's get physical' videos if she only moved to a town with broadband and knew how to work her damn phone.

"So, it is you. Still alive. Sorry, Mrs Waterford."

A seventy-two-year-old man dubbed Grumpy Gavin grunted, prodding the deceased with his cane gently. His spine, curvier than a dog's tail from years of hunching over shearing sheep. "She's dressed like an outsider. She is. The hippie kind."

He wedged his walking stick deeper into the body's belly; hardly expecting to hear noises escape the woman lying there, nearly face down on the beach, immobile.

"Ah. Is she alive?" screeched the village's one and only decent, yet highly dramatic forty-three-year-old drama teacher and theatre actress, Ms Manjula Vani. Rumour had it she missed her one chance at Broadway fame, too busy getting knocked up out of wedlock to answer the audition call back, way back when answering machines were all the rave.

"Dead bodies fart and burp all the time." Grumpy Gavin retrieved his stick from the body. "Gases."

"Hunter, dear, be a doll and get Inspector Hector for us!" Mrs Waterford snatched at a teen running past them, out on his daily torture, aka a one K run, courtesy of his drill sergeant—also known around the village as the child's father, the Postman. Off duty today, what with it being Saturday and all.

Upon realizing why the perpetually done-up and Lycra-clad old woman had tripped him, the fourteen-year-old teen couldn't decide whether he wanted to scream or throw up. Either this was the coolest moment in his young life—seeing a dead body ashore—or the scariest. His knees were knocking loud enough for the others to hear.

It wasn't every day a human body washed up on one of their sleepy beaches. Neither was it ever this clear that this was no ordinary death.

It was murder.

MURDER!

The village's first, ever. Known one, at least.

They concluded this easily, and with no input from the inspector. For an intricate ceremonial dagger jutted out of a shoulder bone, nauseating the small crowd that gathered, growing from five to ten, to twenty. Pretty soon, the entire town gathered to gawk and gossip.

"Quick, Hunter. Go grab Hector!" Ms Vani grabbed the teen's arm, causing a fright. "Tell him there's a body on the beach."

"Yes, yes! Call Hector. Run!"

The chorus of the spectators had the boy sprint as fast as his scrawny legs would let him, making his dad proud as a peanut.

He ran past the small post office, the only cafe; past the small country knick-knack store, the world's smallest grocery store, towards the tiny building next to the hall big enough to fit only fifty. To the world's smallest Police Station, that is.

Then, Hunter ran right past the front entrance, straight for the tiny flat on the second floor, that had been and likely always would be an Inspector's living quarters, chanting, "There's a body on the beach," as if it was something he'd struggle to remember.