Excerpt: Aggie and the Zombies (working title)

With the aplomb of a farmer's wife disemboweling a chicken, Lady Agatha Carmichael plunged her hands into the cavernous wound in the cadaver's abdomen and chest. Her hands closed on...nothing. No heart. No lungs. The corpse sighed and she chuckled, the sound a ribald explosion of relieved giggling. The exhalation was normal—a build-up of gases. The giggles were not. She was not prone to giggling or other girlish endeavors and airs.

“Bloody hell.” She brushed an errant strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. Baffled, she probed the dead man’s chest some more. No surgeon had cleanly removed his innards. The bits and pieces left behind were shredded like the cabbage Cook was so fond of serving on Sunday. She stepped back for a moment to contemplate. While gaping, the wound wasn’t ragged. She puffed out a frustrated breath and the curl on her forehead danced. What in the world had eviscerated this poor soul?

A loud bang clanged in the hallway and Aggie jumped, her heart pounding so hard she couldn’t hear for a moment. She gulped, swallowing hard, and then filled her lungs with a slow, steadying breath.

“Who's there?” Her voice sounded breathless but squeaked at the same time. She cocked her head, listening. No one answered. Off in the distance, Big Ben chimed and she listened. Half-past something. As late as it was, she should be the only one in the morgue. She turned back to the body on the slab. A slight rustling teased the threshold of her hearing. Someone...or something snuffled just outside in the hallway. She watched as a shadow darkened the space at the bottom of the door before it flitted away.