55

Jay slowly shook his throbbing head. It was pitch-black; he couldn’t see anything. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious and no idea where he was. Pain seared through him, making him feel weak and sick. He felt as if his body were covered in bruises: which, after what he had endured from Ryan, it probably was.

Trying to sit, he whacked his head on something hard and fell straight back down into a lying position. Reaching to feel where he was, he seemed to be inside a box: a small, solid, wooden box. Pushing the sides, he began to panic, he wasn’t good at being closed in at the best of times and the feeling of claustrophobia was making him feel physically sick with fear.

Shouting for help, he wondered where the hell Billy had put him; he prayed that someone, somewhere, would hear his cries. Clawing his fingers across the top of the box, splinters from the wood piercing his skin, he tried to see if he could climb out; he tried to use his whole body by turning onto his stomach and putting his back behind the top of the box as he tried to force his way out, but he could barely get off the floor, it was stuck solid.

He figured that he had been in there for a long time, as he now noticed the lack of oxygen he had, and was sure that he would run out quite soon. Fear and panic made his breathing erratic, and the air was gradually dwindling.

Frantically, he kicked and hit the walls but nothing gave. He was trapped. He started to cry. It was a sign of weakness, he knew, but there was no-one to see his tears or witness how low he had sunk. There was no-one to help him, this was it for him. Billy had caught up with him, and he was going to end his days buried alive.

Jay thought about all the people he had done wrong to and all the shit he had gone through in his life. He had wanted so much more than this for he had had. He had always said that he would do better than his old man, and for a while he thought that he had. But he was no better; in fact, he was worse. Billy had been right, nobody would give a shit if he was dead or alive. Stupidly, he had let Tanya get one over on him. He was sure that he would have got away with it if it hadn’t been for her damn greed. He had had no idea how callous she was. She was a cold-hearted bitch that one. It was ironic though, he thought, that he had used woman all his life and the first woman he had ever loved, the first women he had ever trusted, had done nothing but use him back: although none of that mattered now.

It’s funny the thoughts that pop into your head as you die; he remembered hearing about how a person’s life flashes before their eyes when they’re dying: a slideshow of photos and video clips kept in the subconscious. Memories you shared, the faces of people you loved and that loved you. He waited for the slideshow, but all he saw was darkness.

He could taste the salt of his tears, and he could smell that he had soiled himself. It wasn’t the  exit that he had imagined he would have from this life. He had often wondered if he would have died from a beating or a stab wound. The kind of dealings he had been involved in, knives and guns were never far away. A bit more fitting for him, he felt, would have been to go out in a blaze of glory. This was something else altogether.

He was alone, crying like a baby and scared, and as he struggled to gulp his last few mouthfuls of air, he could almost feel his lungs explode with the struggle.

The face that flashed before Jay Shaw’s eyes as he slipped out of this life minutes later was that of a smug-looking Billy O’Connell.