Dead Simple

'Four of these boys are dead,' Glenn Branson said, riled by the man's attitude. 'They were killed in a traffic accident on Tuesday night.'

'And you walk in here with your big swinging dicks, looking for some poor sodding landlord to blame for plying them with drink?'

T didn't say that,' Grace replied. 'No, I'm not. I'm looking for this lad who was with them.' He pointed at Michael's photograph.

The landlord shook his head. 'Not in here,' he said.

Looking up at the walls, Branson asked, 'Do you have CCTVT

'That meant to be a joke? Like I have money to buy fancy

security gizmos? You know the CCTVI use?' He pointed at his own eyes. 'These. They come free when you're born. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a barrel to change.'

Neither of them bothered to reply.

31

Michael shivered. Something was crawling through his hair. It was progressing steadily, determinedly, towards his forehead. It felt like a spider.

In panic, dropping the belt buckle, he jerked his hands up, sweeping furiously at his hair, fingers raw and bloody from scraping away at the lid.

Then it was on his face, crossing his cheek, mouth, chin.

'Jesus, get off, you fuckwit!' He smacked at his face with both hands, then felt something small and sticky. It was dead, whatever it had been. He wiped what remains he could feel off the thick, itchy growth of his stubble.

He had always been fine with most creatures, but not spiders. When he was a kid, he'd read a story in the local newspaper about a greengrocer who got bitten by a tarantula that was concealed in a bunch of bananas and had nearly died.

The beam of the torch was very faint now, giving a dark amber glow to the interior of the coffin. He was having to hold his head up to stop the rising water washing over his cheeks and into his eyes and mouth. Something else had bitten him on the ankle a while back, some insect, and it was stinging.

He shook the torch. For a moment the bulb died altogether. Then a tiny strip of filament glowed for a few seconds.

He was freezing cold. Working away at the lid was the only thing stopping him from getting even colder. He still hadn't broken through. He had to, had to, before the water - he tried to shut the unthinkable from his mind, but he couldn't. The water kept rising, it covered his legs and part of his chest. With one hand he was having to cradle the walkie-talkie in the gap between his chest and the lid to prevent it from getting immersed.

Despair, like the water, was steadily enveloping him. Davey's words went round and round inside his mind.

There was one guy sticking right out through the windshield, half his head missing. Jeez, could see his brains coming out. Knew right away he was a goner. Only one survivor, but he died too.

A Transit van in a smash at a time and place that fitted. Pete, Luke, Josh, Robbo - could they really all be dead? And that was the reason no one had come to find him? But Mark must have known what they were planning, he was his best man, for Christ's sake! Surely Mark was out there, leading a team looking for him? Unless, he thought bleakly, something had happened to him, too. Maybe he'd joined them at the next pub and been in the van with them?

It was ten past four, Friday afternoon. He tried to imagine what was happening right now. What was Ashley doing? His mother? Was everything still going forward for tomorrow as planned?

He raised his head, so his mouth was up a few precious inches closer to the lid, and shouted, as he did regularly, 'Help! Help me! Help!'

Nothing but numbing silence.

I have to get out.

There was a fizz, then a crackle that for a moment Michael thought was splintering wood, until he heard the familiar hiss of static. Then a disembodied Southern drawclass="underline" 'You mean that, what you said, 'bout me being on television?'

'Davey?'

'Hey pal, we just got back - that was a real wreck, boy! You didn't want to be in that automobile, I tell you. Took 'em two hours to cut the driver out, he was in pretty bad shape. Better shape than the woman in the other car, though, you know what I'm saying?'

'Yes I do,' Michael said, trying the tack of humouring him.

'Not sure about that. I'm saying she's dead. Y'all understand?'

'Dead? Yes, I understand that.'

'You can tell y'know, just by looking, who the dead ones are and who the ones gonna survive are. Not all the time. But wow, I'm tellin' you something!'

'Davey, that wreck you went to on Tuesday night, can you remember how many young men were in it?'

After some moments of silence, Davey said, 'Just counting the

ambulances. Bad accidents you get one ambulance for each person. There was one leaving when we arrived, one still there.'

'Davey, you don't by any chance know the names of the victims?'

Almost instantly, surprising Michael, Davey rattled them off to him. 'Josh Walker, Luke Gearing, Peter Waring, Robert Houlihan.'

'You have a good memory, Davey,' Michael said, trying to encourage him. 'Was there anyone else? Was someone called Mark Warren in that wreck, also?'

Davey laughed. 'Never forget a name. If Mark Warren had been in that wreck, I'd have known about it. Remember every name I ever heard, remember where I heard it, and the time. Ain't ever been a shitload of use.'

'Must have been good for history at school.'

'Mebbe,' he said noncommittally.

Michael fought the temptation to shout at him from sheer frustration. Instead, keeping his patience, he said, 'Do you remember where the accident happened?'

'A26. Two point four miles south of Crowborough.'

Michael felt a ray of hope brightening inside him. 'I don't think I'm very far from there. Can you drive, Davey?'

'You mean like an automobile?'

'Yup, that's exactly what I mean.'

'Guess that would depend on how you define drive.'

Michael closed his eyes for some moments. There had to be some way to connect properly with this character. How? 'Davey, I need help, really badly. Do you like games?'

'You mean like computer games? Yeah! Do you have a Play Station-2?'

'No not here, not actually with me.'

'We could connect online maybe?'

Water slopped into Michael's mouth. He spat it out, panicking. Christ it was rising quickly now. 'Davey, if I give you a phone number, could you dial it for me? I need you to tell someone where I am. Could you get someone on the line while you are talking to me?'

'Houston, we have a problem.'

'Tell me the problem?'

'The phone's in my dad's house, you see. He doesn't know I have this walkie-talkie -1 shouldn't have it. It's our secret.'

'It's OK, I can keep a secret.'

'My dad would be pretty mad at me.'

'Don't you think he'd get even madder if he knew you could have saved my life and you let me die? I think you might be the only person in the world who knows where I am.'

'It's OK, I won't tell anyone.'

More water lapped into Michael's mouth; filthy, muddy, brackish water. He spat it out, his arms, shoulders, neck muscles all aching from trying to keep his head clear of the rising level. 'Davey, I'm going to die if you don't help me. You could be a hero. Do you want to be a hero?'

'I'm going to have to go,' Davey said. 'I can see my dad outside he needs me.'

Michael lost it, and screamed at him. 'No! Davey, you are not fucking going anywhere. You have to help. YOU HAVE TO FUCKING HELP ME.'

There was another silence, a very long one this time, and Michael worried he'd pushed too far. 'Davey?' he said, more gently. 'Are you still there, Davey?'

'I'm still here.' Davey's voice had changed. His voice suddenly was meek, chastised. He sounded like a small, apologetic boy.

'Davey, I'm going to give you a phone number. Will you write this down and make the call for me? Will you tell them that they need to speak to me on your walkie-talkie - and that it is very, very urgent. Will you do that for me?'

'OK. Tell them it's very, very urgent.'

Michael gave him the number. Davey told him he would go and make the call then radio him back.