The hunger had gone away some hours ago, but now it was back with a vengeance. His stomach burned as if the acids had now turned on the lining for want of anything else to break down. His mouth was parched. He put a hand out and scooped water into his mouth, but despite his thirst it was an effort to drink it.
Osmosis!
'OSMOSIS!' in a burst of elation he shouted the word out at the top of his voice, repeating it over and over. 'Osmosis! Gotcha! Osmosis!'
Then suddenly he was hot again. Perspiring. 'Someone turn the thermostat down!' he shouted out in the darkness. 'For Christ's sake, we're all boiling down here; what do you think we are, lobsters?'
He started giggling at his remark. Then, right above his face, the lid of the coffin began to open. Slowly, steadily, noiselessly, until he
could see the night sky, alive with comets racing across it. A beam of light shone out from him, dust motes drifted lazily through it, and he realized all the stars in the firmament were projected there from the light. The sky was his screen! Then he saw a face drift across, through the beam, through the dust motes. Ashley. As if he were looking up at her from the bottom of a swimming pool, and she was drifting face-down over him.
Then another face drifted over - his mother. Then Early, his kid sister. Then his father, in the sharp brown suit, cream shirt and red silk tie that Michael remembered him in best. Michael did not understand how his father could be in the pool but his clothes were dry.
'You're dying, son,' Tom Harrison said. 'You'll be with us soon now.'
'I don't think I'm ready yet, Dad.'
His father gave a wry smile. 'That's the thing, son, who is?'
'I found that word I was looking for,' Michael said. 'Osmosis.'
'That's a good word, son.'
'How are you, Dad?'
'There are good deals to be had up here, son. Terrific deals. Heck of a lot better. You don't have to fart around trying to hide your money in the Cayman Islands up here. What you make is what you keep - like the sound of that?'
'Yes, Dad--'
Except it wasn't his father any more he was talking to, but the vicar, Reverend Somping, a short, supercilious man in his late fifties, with greying wavy hair and a beard that only partially masked the ruddy complexion of his cheeks - ruddy not from a healthy outdoors lifestyle, but from broken veins from years of heavy boozing.
'You're going to be very late, Michael, if you don't haul yourself out of there. You do realize that if you don't reach the church by sunset, I cannot marry you, by law?'
'I didn't, no -1--'
He reached up to touch the vicar, to seize his hand, but he struck hard, impenetrable teak.
Darkness.
The slosh of water as he moved.
Then he noticed something. Checking with his hands, the water was no longer up to his cheeks, it had subsided, to the top of his neck. 'I'm wearing it like a tie,' he said. 'Can you wear water like a tie?'
Then the shivers gripped him, clenched his arms so that his elbows banged against his ribs, his feet knocked, his breathing got faster, faster until he was hyperventilating.
I'm going to die, I'm going to die, here, alone, on my wedding day. They are coming for me, the spirits, they are coming down here into the box and--
He put his jerking hands together over his face. He could not remember the last time he had prayed - it was sometime long before his dad had died. Tom Harrison's death had been the final confirmation to him that there was no God. But now the words of the Lord's Prayer poured into his head and he whispered them into his hands, as if not wanting to be overheard.
A crackle of static broke his concentration. Then a burst of twangy country and western music. Followed by a voice. 'Well, good morning, sports fans, this is WNEB Buffalo bringing you the latest in sports, news and weather on this rainy ole Saturday morning! Now last night in the play-offs ...'
Frantically, Michael fumbled for the walkie-talkie. He knocked it off his chest and into the water. 'Oh shit, no, oh shit, shit shit!'
He fished it out, shook it as best he could, found the talk button and pressed it. 'Davey? Davey, is that you?'
Another hiss and crackle. 'Hey, dude! You the dude with the friends in the wreck on Tuesday, right?'
'Yes.'
'Hey, good to talk to you again!'
'Davey, I really need you to do something for me. Then you could make a big announcement on your radio station.'
'Depends what other news there is on the day,' Davey said, dismissively. 'OK.' Michael fought the urge to snap at him. 'I need you either
I to get someone on the phone that I can speak with via your walkieJ Ulkie, or for you and your dad to come and rescue me.'
'I guess that would depend on whether y'all are in an area we fcover, know what I'm saying?'
'I do, Davey. I know exactly what you are saying.'
