Peter James - Dead Simple

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.'

Later, lying naked in bed with a dozen scented candles burning around them in the room, and Norah Jones singing on the stereo, Ashley lit a cigarette, then held it up to Mark's lips. He took a deep drag.

'Gill's right,' Mark said. 'I don't think you should go to the church, and you definitely should not ahead with the reception.'

Ashley shook her head vigorously. 'We absolutely should. Don't you see? I'll turn up there at the church...' She paused to take a drag, then blew the smoke out slowly, deliriously, towards the ceiling. 'Everyone will see me, the poor abandoned bride, and they'll all feel so sorry for me.'

'I'm not sure I agree; it could backfire.'

'How?'

'Well - they might think you're insensitive, insisting on going ahead - that you're not respecting Pete, Luke, Josh and Robbo. We both need to be seen to be acting as if we care about them.'

'You and I have been in touch with their families. We've both written them all letters, we're doing all the right things there. But we've been discussing the wedding for the past three days. We are going aheacU'We have to pay the bloody caterers whatever we do, so we might as well look after those people who make the effort to turn up. It probably won't be many - but surely that's the least we can do?'

Mark took the cigarette from her and drew hard, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. 'Ashley, people would understand. You've battered me with your logic for three days and you haven't listened to me. I think this is a huge mistake.'

'Trust me,' Ashley said. She gave him a fierce look. 'Don't start wimping out on me now.'

'Christ, I'm not wimping out -1 just--'

'Want to bottle out?'

'This is not about bottling out. Come on, partner, be strong!'

'I am being strong.'

She wormed her way down his body, nuzzling her face in his pubic hairs, his penis limp against her cheek. 'This is not what I call trong,' she said mischievously.

Grace started his weekend the way he liked, with an early-Saturday morning six-mile run along Brighton and Have seafront. Today it was again raining hard, but that did not matter; he wore a baseball cap with the peak pulled down low to shield his face, a lightweight tracksuit and brand new Nike running shoes. Powering along at a good, fast pace, he soon forgot the rain, forgot all his cares, just breathed deep, went from cushioned stride to cushioned stride, a Stevie Wonder song, 'Signed, Sealed, Delivered', playing over in his head, for some reason.

He mouthed the words as he ran past an old man in a trenchcoat walking a poodle on a leash, and then was passed by two Lycra-clad cyclists on mountain bikes. It was low tide. Out on the mudflats a couple of fishermen were digging lugworms for bait.

With the tang of salt on his lips, he ran alongside the promenade railings, on past the burnt-out skeleton of the West Pier, then down a ramp to the edge of the beach itself, where the local fishermen left their day boats dragged up far enough to be safe from the highest of tides. He clocked some of their names - Daisy Lee, Belle of Brighton, Sammy- smelled bursts of paint, tarred rope, putrefying fish as he ran on past the still-closed cafes, amusement arcades and art galleries of the Arches, past a windsurfing club, a boating pond behind a low concrete wall, a paddling pool, then underneath the girdered mass of the Palace Pier - where seventeen years back he and Sandy had had their first kiss, and on, starting to tire a little now, but determined to get to the cliffs of Black Rock before he turned round.