Free Nails In A Coffin (Demi Reynolds Book 1) by Luis Samways

if I’ll suffocate?” she found herself saying under her breath.
    As soon as she came to the realization that she might actually suffocate in there, she decided to refrain from hyperventilating. She needed to keep a cool head. She couldn’t afford to panic. It wouldn’t get her anywhere, anytime soon. She was stuck there, and she knew it.
    It was time to reflect on her life. Reflect on the decisions she’d made…the good ones and the bad ones.
    “I need to get right with fate,” she said under her breath once again.
    She wasn’t a religious being, but she did believe in something other than herself. She’d never had the time to entertain religion, but now that she was cooped up in a coffin, being driven around by her maniac boss, she thought she had plenty of time to reflect on what got her there.
    The early years, so to speak. The years before she became what most would consider evil.
    “Good a time as any,” she said, a little louder this time.
    She closed her eyes and relaxed. She wanted to savor her last moments on earth. She wanted to remember everything that ever happened to her. Maybe come to some conclusion about her lifestyle.
    She’d killed many men in her time. The one thing she realized when it came to their last moments on this planet was that they all looked as if they wanted a little more time. Which was natural. Who wouldn’t want a little more time? But Demi was lucky in one sense. She had some time. A little time. And she wanted to savor it.
    Before it was all gone.

Sixteen
     
    Hamish looked at his watch. It was a quarter past ten. The pub was locked. The beer garden smelt of stale beer and cigarettes. He sat on one of the benches to the side of the garden, the railings surrounding the drinking hole encasing him and the empty lot of chairs and beer kegs. He looked at his watch once again. The time was still a quarter past ten. The little hand and the big hand were moving very slowly. He tapped on the face of his Hugo Boss watch and listened for a response. It still ticked the same slow way. Maybe that was what time was like? Slow and jaded. Not moving one minute, and then fast the next.
    He remained seated on the bench. An ashtray sat in the middle of the table, and he stared at the black tarry residue that laced the glass ashtray. He could smell last night’s smoke. It hung in the air like an unwelcome odor. Hamish coughed a few times and moved the ashtray a little to the left away from his nose. In the morning, he was a particular man, a man who didn’t like smelling certain smells or witnessing certain things. He was easily made queasy in the a.m., so he was used to avoiding things that made him feel ill.
    The cold air clung to his face as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile. The screen displayed the time as 10:18. He quickly raised his watch arm and looked at the face. The exact same time, just in analogue.
    The day was already dragging, and that wasn’t a good sign. Usually Hamish knew when he’d have a good day or a bad day. The good days would fly by, but the bad ones would stick around like relatives on Boxing Day.
    He placed his mobile on the cold wooden picnic-style table and reached in his jacket for a Wrigley’s Extra. He took one out and started chewing. He was about to nod off when his mobile rang. The Crazy Frog ringtone sounded off. He was one of the only people in Britain, probably even the whole world, who still had that ringtone. His mobile was an old-school WAP color phone. No smart apps or cameras for him. Just polyphonic ringtones and 32-bit-depth screens.
    He quickly grabbed his ringing mobile and pressed the green button. He popped the cheap phone to his ear and answered.
    “Yes, boss?” he said, immediately recognizing the voice. He hadn’t caught a look at the caller ID. He always forgot to do that. The excitement of a ringing phone was a little too much for poor Hamish to remember such a crucial thing as checking who was calling