'One ... two ... three!' Robbo counted.
'Fuck, this is heavy!' Luke said, taking the strain and lifting.
Slowly, jerkily, listing like a stricken ship, the coffin sank down into the deep hole.
When it reached the bottom they could barely see it in the darkness. Pete held the flashlight. In the beam they could make out the breathing tube sticking limply out of the drinking-straw-sized hole that had been cut in the lid.
Robbo grabbed the walkie-talkie. 'Hey, Michael, your dick's sticking out. Are you enjoying the magazine?'
'OK, joke over. Now let me out!'
'We're off to a pole-dancing club. Too bad you can't join us!' Robbo switched off the radio before Michael could reply. Then, pocketing it, he picked up a spade and began shovelling earth over the edge of the grave and roared with laughter as it rattled down on the roof of the coffin.
With a loud whoop Pete grabbed another shovel and joined in. For some moments both of them worked hard until only a few bald
patches of coffin showed through the earth. Then these were covered. Both of them continued, the drink fuelling their work into a frenzy, until there was a good couple of feet of earth piled on top of the coffin. The breathing tube barely showed above it.
'Hey!' Luke said. 'Hey, stop that! The more you shovel on the more we're going to have to dig back out again in two hours' time.'
'It's a grave!' Robbo said. 'That's what you do with a grave, you cover the coffin!'
Luke grabbed the spade from him. 'Enough!' he said, firmly. 'I want to spend the evening drinking, not bloody digging, OK?'
Robbo nodded, never wanting to upset anyone in the group. Pete, sweating heavily, threw his spade down. 'Don't think I'll take this up as a career,' he said.
They pulled the corrugated iron sheet over the top, then stood back in silence for some moments. Rain pinged on the metal.
'OK,' Pete said. 'We're outta here.'
Luke dug his hands into his coat pocket, dubiously. 'Are we really sure about this?'
'We agreed we were going to teach him a lesson,' Robbo said.
'What if he chokes on his vomit, or something?'
'He'll be fine, he's not that drunk,' Josh said. 'Let's go.'
Josh climbed into the rear of the van, and Luke shut the doors. Then Pete, Luke and Robbo squeezed into the front, and Robbo started the engine. They drove back down the track for half a mile, then made a right turn onto the main road.
Then he switched on the walkie-talkie. 'How you doing, Michael?'
'Guys, listen, I'm really not enjoying this joke.'
'Really?' Robbo said. 'We are!'
Luke took the radio. 'This is what's known as pure vanilla revenge, Michael!'
All four of them in the van roared with laughter. Now it was Josh's turn. 'Hey, Michael, we're going to this fantastic club, they have the most beautiful women, butt naked, sliding their bodies up and down poles. You're going to be really pissed you're missing out on this!'
Michael's voice slurred back, just a tad plaintive. 'Can we stop this now, please? I'm really not enjoying this.'
8
Through the windscreen Robbo could see roadworks ahead, with green light. He accelerated.
Luke shouted over Josh's shoulder, 'Hey, Michael, just relax, we'll be back in a couple of hours!'
'What do you mean, a couple ofhoursV
The light turned red. Not enough time to stop. Robbo accelerated Stwen harder and shot through. 'Gimme the thing,' he said, grabbing tile radio and steering one-handed around a long curve. He peered pdown in the ambient glow of the dash and hit the talk button.
'Hey, Michael--'
'ROBBO!' Luke's voice, screaming.
Headlights above them, coming straight at them.
Blinding them.
Then the blare of a horn, deep, heavy duty, ferocious.
ROBBBBBBBBOOOOOOO!' screamed Luke.
Robbo stamped in panic on the brake pedal and dropped the walkie-talkie. The wheel yawed in his hands as he looked, desperately, for somewhere to go. Trees to his right, a JCB to his left, headlights burning through the windscreen, searing his eyes, coming at him out of the teeming rain, like a train.
Michael, his head swimming, heard shouting, then a sharp thud, as if someone had dropped the walkietalkie.
