It was dark when Clive woke up. That wasn’t exactly unusual. But this time it was really dark. Usually, the eyes adjust to the distant lanterns and hapless housefires of a city, or to the mottled slivers of moon and starlight in the countryside. Yet this dark was absolute: primordial ink pooling in the hollows of the ocean’s deepest orifices. Usually, Clive did not seal the lid of his coffin completely: he needed to breathe after all, and the bog-standard offering in which he made his bed was no Muldoon Ferryman or Second Chancer. Possibly Jerry, or perhaps the Undertaker himself, had slid the lid shut: cheap jibe, or to further mantle his vision ahead of the final test.

Kept their secrets close as conjurers, those two did.

Clive raised a hand and tested the lid – it did not budge. Strange. He tried again, both hands this time. There was no give. None at all. Not even a creak of wood or hinges. Stranger still. It was as if some great weight had been placed upon the upper surface. What would it be this time? Another dead body? Had Jerry finally indulged his oft-stated ambition to stack the parlour’s coffin stock into a pyramid to rival those of ancient Aegyptus? Was the present position of Clive’s coffin now correspondent to the tombs of those ancient and desiccated god-kings?

Clive tried a third time, this time fully exerting himself (not easy given the necessarily awkward crook of arms within the space). This time the lid did shift – a hiss of something seeping into the coffin. Clive investigated using his sixth sense of touch. Whatever had entered was particular. Taste didn’t help, but smell did. It was earth.

Clive furrowed his brow. Why would Jerry have covered his coffin with dirt?

And then Clive realised the awful truth.

Jerry had piled the coffin high with dirt to simulate a burial. That dirt would make an awful mess on the parlour floor, and who would have to clean it? Dogsbody in chief: Clive, of course. If cleaning up Jerry’s mess was the final exam, it was a strange test of his undertaking prowess.

He heaved again! That was one BIG pile of dirt!

In the limited space, Clive’s breathing was deafeningly loud. But then there came another sound – faint, muffled, distant. Was that... a church bell? St. Magnus the Martyr? It was only a short trot from the parlour, so it was quite possible... odd that he could hear the bell and nothing else...

Unless he wasn’t in the parlour? Clive’s breathing quickened. Surely, they wouldn’t have – Jerry would never have allowed – Phil wouldn’t dream of – Isabella would know if...

Clive’s reasoning was convincing no-one, not even himself (which is saying something). They could – and they would – and Isabella was probably none of the wiser!

Clive’s heart began to galliard...

The final test. Being buried alive was the final test!

But this was just a test, right? They wouldn’t actually let him suffocate down here? It was just a game! Sooner or later there would come the sound of shovel on soil, the lid would be wrenched open, and Jerry’s leering visage would take its place. Right?

But then Clive remembered the Undertaker’s homicidal pressure on his arm, forcing him onto the tightrope, blindfolded. He could have died that day, and perhaps would have, but for the timely intervention of Isabella. Phil’s training was deadly serious, without compromise or safety net, and there would be no Isabella to save him this time...

He was buried alive, and he was on his own. No-one was coming to free him!

Some would have panicked, screamed, banging their fists against the wood panelling, desperate to be free... Clive was not of this type. He went very very still, like a hare in a field chancing upon a scarecrow in the shape of a wolf.

Clive suddenly fancied he could see straight up, through the wood, as if his sight could penetrate any material. Earth piled upon earth, layer upon layer: soil, rocks, pebbles, sand, clay, silt. Worms. How deep? He wished he didn’t know the answer.

But he did.

6 feet under.

Three times the average grave.

The Undertaker’s own exacting prescription.

For safety, the Undertaker had said.

How Clive hated the Undertaker then! If, by some miracle, he got out of here alive, he would be sure to arrange a most fitting end for that tormentor-in-chief Phil Anbury: the man who had, at best, played fast and loose with Clive’s very life, and, at worst, been hellbent on Clive’s absolute destruction.

But first, he had to escape!

He felt around quickly for a lazarus cord. If this was a Second Chancer, all he had to do was pull the cord and the topside bell would begin to jingle, hopefully summoning aid. But there was nothing. A thin sheen of sweat was forming on Clive’s top lip. What if this was a Lockdown, sealed and fastened with a key in Jerry’s pocket? It sure as hell wasn’t a Ferryman – no oars, no erectoscope... Jerry could at least have given him a Ferryman! A flash flood was always a slim possibility, after all!

Air.

Clive blinked. How much air did he have left? Regrettably, he knew the answer to this too: Jerry had schooled him well.

Five hours.

Five hours for a full fresh coffin of air. But how long had Clive been asleep? He had no way to know. His breathing would have slowed in slumber, but his heart was beating plenty fast now. He could have hours, or mere minutes, and he had absolutely no way of knowing! He closed his eyes, and tried to calm his breathing.

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Wait! The church bells! They rang thrice daily to call the faithful to prayer – at 9am, 12pm and 3pm. Presuming Jerry had buried Clive in the early morning, say around 6am, then what Clive had just heard had presumably been the 9am bell, and Clive still had 2 hours of air left, give or take. Were it the 12pm bell, Clive would already be dead. But, he had no real way of knowing when he had been buried...

The final test. A test. To the death, certainly, but not a death sentence!149 There had to be a way out of this, a way to pass.

Think! Remember!

Jerry had been preparing him for this: Clive had been too busy thinking about Isabella and the damned final exam to pay attention, but Jerry had been trying, you had to give him that. Clive felt a strange and unexpected upswell of affection for the lanky rogue: despite it all, he’d been on Clive’s side from the start.

What was it Jerry had said about coffins... Coffin: a little basket. Hexagonal. Shaped to the body. Clive wiggled about him with all four limbs.

This was not a coffin.

It was a casket. Another of Jerry’s little innovations. A more human form of death, he had said. Rectangular, untapered. Room to stretch out.

A fighting chance.

“Gawd bless ya, Jerry!” Clive breathed quietly, mimicking Milly’s accent, for some reason.

He felt down his side to his pocket in his undertaker’s long coat. There it was: 7 inches and hard as steel, just the way he liked it! His little trowel! He lifted it up before his eyes. He could not see it, but he kissed its warm surface. This was his token out of here!

Shifting onto his side, he raised the tip of the trowel to the wood ceiling above him, to the centre where the wood was weakest, and began to screw the trowel right and left, clockwise and anticlockwise. The point he was drilling at was above his chest: when the dirt came, it would not smother his face. Chips of wood were beginning to fall. The Undertaker had insisted he kept the trowel well sharpened, and Clive’s strict training regime had given him hitherto unthinkable strength. He was making short work of the lid. Clive wondered what kind of wood Jerry had used? A softer variety, Scots pine, most likely. Again, Jerry seemed to be doing everything he could to aid Clive, short of actually cheating.

A hiss of dirt fell into the casket. He was through! But the most dangerous part was yet to come... Above him, was 6 feet of soil, heavy enough to crush a man’s chest. His only hope lay in evening the odds.

Quickly, banging his elbows on the sides, Clive squirmed about, wiggling free of the long coat. His shirt came off next. The shirt he wrapped over his face and head: it would keep some of the dirt away from his precious breathing orifices. The long coat he twined around his fist: it would need all the protection it could get as he punched through the wood, and it would double as a kind of scoop for the soil as it fell into the coffin.

He resumed his drilling action with the trowel. The hole widened. He heard, and felt, more soil draining into the casket. A trickle became a stream. He took the trowel away. The soil fell off his shoulder and sloughed to the floor of the casket. He began to scoop it away, kicking it down towards the bottom of the casket with his feet.

More! He needed more!

He hacked at the hole with the trowel – all finesse abandoned now! The stream became a deluge... He kicked harder, compacting the soil at his feet. The stack of earth above the hole would be cratering into the casket. But the space was fast running out, and he was beginning to lose the battle to push the earth away before it covered the floor next to him. Even lying on his side like this, it would eventually rise so much that he would be trapped in this position. Any moment now he would have to make his move...

He took a deep breath and lay flat on his back. The earth pattered onto his chest like hissing rain. It was starting to fall upon his improvised mask too.

It was time.

He sat up, dirt spilling from him, so that his head was in the hole. He placed his scoop arm against the edge, and began to hammer upwards. Once. The wood splintered. Twice, it lifted a little... Thrice – it bent! Definitely pine!

He pushed upwards – his shoulders were now squeezing through the hole. He felt the jagged wood tear and clutch at his naked shoulders – but he cared not! The pain was invigorating, a reminder he was still alive! The earth was falling freely around him now – a waterfall in which he could not breathe!

Time was running out! The earth would not fall forever – once the area below was filled, the weight would settle upon him and he would be stuck fast like a fly in amber: he had to get his legs under him before that happened! Wiggling and scrabbling, he pushed upwards, the trowel arm held above him – a prospecting tip – and the scoop arm levering him through against the casket lid.

Push dammit!

He shifted sideways, and one leg haunched under his body. Shift the other way – the second leg... was stuck! He tried again... but there was too much earth around his lower body – one leg would have to do!

Now for the Atlas!

He heaved with all his might – one legged... up, up! His focus was the trowel – he was the trowel, and the trowel was Clive! Everything else would follow! The hiss of earth was beginning to subside... in a moment, he would be stuck fast and unable to breathe! The weight on his head and shoulders was horrendous! His leg muscles were on fire! His breath would not last much longer...

Then – something shifted! His leg! He was rising! Inch by inch, the one free leg was straightening... and now, yes... the other was free! The second joined the first, and together, they began to push in tandem! A squat from hell towards the unseen light!

He wiggled the trowel, keeping the earth about it loose. He was rising, almost erect now. Six feet under, another 2 to the bottom of the coffin – eight feet to Clive’s five something... how much had the earth subsided? He kicked up, trying to tramp down onto the earth in the casket, and did the same with his scoop arm, trying to find purchase against a wall that was moulded to his body. The earth shifted again – it was loosening. Kick, wiggle!

His breath could not last – he was beginning to asphyxiate... He coughed out, and breathed in dirt...

And suddenly, he felt the resistance end! The trowel: it was through! He wriggled more and his hand broke the surface! He tossed the trowel aside, and grabbed at the dirt like a ledge, and heaved! He stepped and pushed, swimming through the ground, and a moment later his arm was free up to his elbow. Now he had some real leverage! He laid his arm flat to the ground and winged at it with all his strength!

His head popped out with a spray of silt and an almighty gasp! Air! He could breathe!

He could not immediately see. The darkness had been so absolute, his eyes took a moment to adjust to the grey. It was day, clearly... and he felt light rain upon his cheek. It must have just started, or the soil would have been even heavier. The square tower of St. Magnus the Martyr swam into clarity; a square cloister ran around the edge of the cemetery; the gravestone at the head of his grave was blessedly unmarked. After a moment’s rest, Clive began to heave himself out of the ground. It took a moment to realise he was not alone...

A family was standing next to a small cruciform headstone next to his. A widow and two young children. Flowers had been placed. All three of them were gaping at him with the white of absolute terror in their eyes.

Covered head to toe in gravedirt, half-naked, his skin torn and bleeding, Clive hardly looked human, much less himself. He felt he should say something:

“Don’t mind me! Just your friendly neighbourhood undertaker looking for...” – he had it! – “looking for his trowel!” He brandished the implement triumphantly and grinned!

That did it. The family fled screaming before the snarling undead revenant waving a strange knife at them!

Clive pulled himself free, and dusted himself down as best he could. He unwrapped the filthy torn long coat from his fist, and flung it on, before marching towards the gate, trowel still in hand.

The parlour was not far, and it was time for a reckoning!