“Spontaneous human combustion.” Kelly said the words aloud, letting them settle into her mind through her ears, as though trying on a new dress to see how it fit. At least it was a unique idea. She reread the article from a new perspective.

As the switch for the electric chair was thrown, there was a power failure in the prison. When the lights came back on seconds later, Templeton had vanished. The room was thoroughly examined afterward and it was determined, without a doubt, that he could not have escaped.

What was left behind in the chair had several people calling it spontaneous human combustion. Officially, Templeton’s total incineration was regarded as an accident due to an unexplained surge of electrical power, probably due to lightning.

Perhaps she had been approaching her creative problem from the wrong angle. Instead of starting with a motivation for murder as she always had in the past, what if she started with an unusual means? It was quite obvious by now that her usual method of developing a story idea had not been working.

So, what if she started with a death that appeared to be caused by spontaneous human combustion but was actually murder? How could that be accomplished?

Kelly turned on her laptop computer, waited an interminable time to connect with the internet and called up her favorite search engine. She was a little surprised at how much information was available on spontaneous human combustion, which was apparently common enough to be referred to by only its initials, SHC.

To her surprise, since the 1600s a number of fiery deaths had been attributed to SHC for lack of better explanation. Authors like Charles Dickens, Mark Twain and Herman Melville had used it to dispose of particularly unsavory characters. She figured if it was good enough for those guys, it was worth considering.

Abruptly, her feeble internet connection was lost, which was quite normal there, but it was the first time she felt frustrated by it. If she was going to use SHC as a method of murder, she would have to do a lot more research to find out how it could be imitated and she couldn’t do that from where she was presently sitting.

Charming’s old town hall doubled as a community center with a card room, minimal library that boasted a set of encyclopedias published in the last century, a pay phone and an antiquated desktop computer equipped to provide internet access for a small fee. There only seemed to be one employee, the Town Clerk, who was proud to say she had held that position for nearly thirty years. That elderly lady was always so glad to see Kelly that she was fairly sure no one used any of the amenities but her.

The conviction that her dry spell was over energized Kelly. Minutes later, she had changed into a more presentable outfit of jeans and a loose, short-sleeved shirt, tucked her hair up under a baseball cap and was driving to Charming.

* * * * *

Mark slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. Only one thing was certain. This could not be hell. But was it heaven? There were no fluffy white clouds or pearly gates or winged angels waiting to look up his name in The Great Book.

Actually, he could see a couple wispy spots in the light blue sky. Other than that and the fact it seemed to be a peaceful place, nothing else seemed very heavenly. On the contrary, his surroundings were quite Earthly, with dirt beneath his bare feet and trees and plants all around him. He even heard a bird chirping and felt the hot sun blazing down on him through the branches overhead.

He touched his face, his chest, his thighs. Why did he still have a physical body? And why was he naked? Shouldn’t he have been issued a robe or something? And shouldn’t someone have been here to greet him? At least to explain his rank or situation? Should he stand there until someone came for him or go exploring on his own?

Suddenly his stomach growled, reminding him that it had been a long time since— He stopped his train of thought as he realized that he shouldn’t be hungry. He shouldn’t be anything. He was dead!

But not only did his stomach feel empty, his bladder felt incredibly full. Hoping he wasn’t desecrating a holy place, he relieved himself of the last of the bottle of wine he’d consumed last night. As he stood there, trying to decide a course of action, he distinctly heard what sounded like a car engine. There was no path, so he simply began walking toward the source of the sound.

Some of the prickly plants along the way looked like poison ivy, not the sort one expected to find in heaven. He was eyeing the plants so cautiously, he stepped on a twig and got a splinter in his big toe. The sliver pulled out easily but he lost his balance in the process and ended up falling into the bushes he was trying so hard to avoid.