Excerpt of Waking Up Dead by Skye Savoy

"What in Sam hell?" I muttered in confusion as I stood over what was without a doubt my body clad in a ratty, hot pink, "Put Some South in Your Mouth," oversized T-shirt. This has got to be a dream. I leaned in and looked closer at my sleeping body twisted in the sheets. Good Lord! I had no idea there was so much cellulite on the back of my legs.

Boy, did I have things bass-ackwards. Three years of freedom from my philandering ex-husband, Craig, and I let myself go to pot. I kept everything plucked and dimple free during my thirty-two years of indentured servitude to the fool who left me for a phone book rep half his age.

That's it. I'm making an appointment for a body wrap and mani-pedi at Beverly's Salon and Bargain Boutique as soon as I wake up.

I sat down beside myself on the bed. Who'd a thought that finishing off those leftovers from the party last night would lead to an out-of-body experience? It must have been those shitake mushrooms. I knew better than to cook something everybody at Senator Bubba Thorsen's re-election campaign fundraiser would joke about! ‘Shit' this, ‘Shit' that. Those people had all the money in town, but, like Big Mama always said, money can't buy manners.

A horrible thought jolted me off the bed and sent me pacing around the room. What if all the people who ate the meal I catered were having the same disembodied experience?

Reverend Jeremiah Warren is going to personally erase my name from the First Baptist Church Charter Member Roster.

I expected Senator Thorsen's campaign fundraiser to elevate me from my six-year career of catering small family reunions and children's birthday parties. A mind-altering mushroom did not figure into my plans. The shitake's sure to hit the fan when my competition, the surgically-enhanced Nina Blackstone, gets wind of it and blackballs me out of the catering business.

Damage control starts with getting back into my body right now. I inhaled a deep, cleansing breath.

Where's my Third Eye when I need it? At least I remembered a couple of things from those yoga classes my sister forced me to take when I wanted to wallow in post-divorce depression.

Relax and hurry up about it. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Rrr. Why do I keep seeing myself in those stupid yoga pants Kitty found and made me wear? I can't visualize floating back into my body very well in those things. Minutes trudged by. I opened one eye and realized I sat in the very same spot.

Damn. I'm too fat to levitate. I sighed and turned to study my body more closely. Hunh. Why is there a pillow over my face? The only time I ever slept with a pillow over my head was when Craig snored louder than a chain saw after a drunken bender.

Dread bubbled up. I slammed a lid on it. Any minute now I am going to wake-up, completely skip Beverly's salon and immediately make an appointment with a plastic surgeon for liposuction and treatment for those new spider veins on the back of my lower legs.

I gingerly reached and poked at one of the veins on my body. Icy flesh met my touch. I drew my hand away instantly. Oh, Jesus! There's no way I can be…

Somewhere between denial and disgust, I gathered enough courage to snatch the pillow off my head. I stifled a scream with my hands.

Blood shot eyes peered at me from a purplish-black face enlarged to grotesque proportions. Even through my worst hangover or bought with the flu, I never looked this bad.

Dry heaves racked my ethereal body. I didn't throw-up like I really wanted. I screamed and propelled myself away from the horrible sight of my undeniably dead body.

A man materialized right before my eyes and directly in my path. I couldn't stop the momentum. I ran smack into him, knocking both of us onto the floor with a giant thud.

I sort of remembered straddling a man. It was like riding a bike, only most bicycles hurt after a while. In this case, some very physical feelings erupted in an area conditioned to respond to battery-operated stimulation.

"Never, in centuries of collecting souls have I been mowed down by one," he said with his head cocked to the side, "and a very unhappy one at that."

"Didn't anybody ever teach you to knock? What the hell are you doing in my house?"

He wiggled to get out from under my weight. "Why are you so solid? You are supposed to be dead."

"Solid? You never, ever tell a woman she's solid!" I pushed him into the carpet as I tried to hoist myself up without doing what I really wanted to do—grind my knee into his groin.

"Wait. What do you mean I'm supposed to be dead?"

The answer slapped me right between the eyes. He killed me and returned to make sure he hadn't left anything behind. I screamed loud enough for the folks in the next county to hear and threw myself away from him.

"You humans are all alike, dead or alive." He jumped to his feet. "Look, if you do not stop screeching, the devil himself is going to come looking for you."

I screamed some more as I crawled to the far corner of the room, hesitating as I fumbled over clothing and miscellaneous items strewn on the floor.

I looked behind me to see the stranger's hands pressed firmly against his ears and a menacing glare in his black eyes.

"Devil himself? You—you murderer. You are the devil."

He dropped his hands and stared at me. A smile crossed his dark face. My heart hammered loudly in my ears.

"Astonishing. You think I killed you?"

I jumped up from my crouching position by the dresser and scrounged through its open drawers for the Glock Kitty gave me when Craig moved out. It probably helped someone rob a convenience store since it came from a dumpster.

My fingers wrapped around something cool and cylindrical. I slid the safety off. Zzz. My hand and the contents of the drawer vibrated. My "Battery Operated Boyfriend" buzzed away on its highest setting. Can you vibrate someone to death? Nah. I didn't bother to turn it off and kept hunting.

I finally found the handle of the gun, plucked off the big white pair of underwear snagged on the barrel, and aimed it at the mystery man. "B-b-back off, buddy! I know how to use this thing!"

His lips twitched and he pointed his finger at the gun as I squeezed the trigger.

I expected a backlash like I felt at the city dump where Kitty took me to practice before she got distracted by some metal clothing racks she jammed in her SUV. My nails dug into my skin. "Where the hell did the gun go!"

"You really didn't want to shoot me," he said in a smug tone, his tight, sculpted body against the bedpost. "It would take your small town sheriff years to figure out what really happened to you."

He reached into his pocket, and I ran for the bedroom door. A rush of air slammed into my face as the door shut with a bang. The force almost knocked me on my butt. My patience snapped. I whirled to face my evil captor and found him calmly typing away on a Smart phone.

"Look here, mister," I said and shook my finger at him. "Didn't your mother ever tell you it's just plain rude to make things disappear then slam the door in someone's face? If you aren't the one who killed me, for no good reason I might add, then you'd better have a hell of a good reason for being here."

"I am not the person who killed you," he said without looking up from his phone. "I am here to collect you."