Dead Simple

physics when you were at school?’
    Who was this? Where was he? ‘Davey’, he tried to say, but all that came out was a murmur.
    ‘If you know anything about science, Mike, you’d know about it. Schrödinger’s Cat was inside a box, and was both alive and dead at the same time. That’s like you now, my friend.’
    Michael felt consciousness slipping away. The lift was swaying on ropes now; darkness seemed to be racing past him, round and round. He closed his eyes. Then felt a blast of heat and saw red through his eyelids. He opened his eyes, then immediately squeezed them shut against a blinding glare of light.
    ‘I don’t think you should be going to sleep; you need to keep awake now, Mike. Can’t let you die on me, I went to a lot of trouble. I’ll give you more water and glucose in a while, got to introduce foods to you slowly. I got trained in all this stuff, you’re in good hands. Jungle training. I know how to survive, and help others survive. You’re lucky it was me who came along. Need to keep you awake. We’ll chat to each other for a while, get to know each other a little better – bond a little, OK?’
    Michael tried to speak again. Just a murmur came out. He was trying to remember, the sensation of being lifted from the coffin, of being on something soft in a van – but was that on the stag night? Was this maybe one of his mates? Weren’t they dead? Mark? He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep now.
    Cold water lashed his face, startling him. His eyes sprang open, blinking into watery darkness.
    ‘I’m just keeping you awake, no offence meant, mate.’ The voice sounded more Australian than south London now.
    Michael shivered; the water had sharpened him a fraction. He tried to move his arms, to see if he was still in the coffin, but he couldn’t move them. He tried to move his legs, but they wouldn’t move either; it was as if they were bound together. He tried to raise his head, to touch the lid, but he barely had the strength to raise it a couple of inches.
    ‘Guess you’re wondering who I am and where you are?’
    Michael closed his eyes tightly again as a blast of light dazzled him, hurting his retinas like sunburn. He emitted another grunt.
    ‘It’s OK, Mike, don’t bother to try to talk back. It’s duct tape – hard to say anything through that. I’ll do the talking and you just do the listening – until you’re better, that is. We have a deal?’
    Michael felt bewildered; but at the same time deeply apprehensive. Nothing was making any sense – he wondered if he was dreaming or hallucinating.
    ‘First, Mike, I’m going to give you the house rules. You don’t ask my name and you don’t ask where we are. You got that?’
    Michael grunted again.
    ‘I’ll remind you later, anyway. You ever see that Stephen King film, Misery ?’
    Michael heard the question through his drifting mind, but was unsure whether it was directed at him or someone else. Misery . He seemed to recall it. Kathy Bates. He tried to ask if Kathy Bates was in it, but his damned lips wouldn’t move. ‘Mnhhhh,’ he said.
    ‘That was some movie. Remember, James Caan got caught by his crazy fan, Kathy Bates, who smashed his legs with a sledgehammer so he couldn’t run away? But that wasn’t faithful to the novel, you know, Mike? Did you know that?’
    ‘Mnhhhh.’
    ‘In the novel she actually cut one leg off, then cauterized it with a blow torch. You got to be pretty weird to do that, wouldn’t you think, Mike?’
    Michael stared into the darkness, trying to make out his features, to put a face to the voice, to check if this voice was coming from above him, below him, inside him.
    ‘You would, wouldn’t you, Mike?’
    ‘Mnhhhh.’
    ‘I’ve been listening to you for five days, Mike. You and your buddy, Davey. Figured you were getting pretty frustrated with him – I would have been too, in your shoes.’ The man laughed. ‘I mean, that’s pretty tough shit. You get trapped and the only person in the whole world who knows you’re alive is a fucking moron!’ He was silent for some moments, then he continued. ‘Of course, I was there with you, Mike, as well, but I just didn’t want to interrupt. Breakers’ code, don’t butt in on someone else’s conversation. Well, that’s my code anyway. How you doing?’
    Michael’s head was throbbing, darkness swirling all around him even faster now.
    ‘You’re doing OK. Another twenty-four hours in that grave and you might as well have