Dead Head

by C. J. Skuse

  Everything I had been keeping back, meditating out of my palms for the past few months, it was all gathering again in my head and my chest like storm clouds. It was all coming at me – too much, too much. But I needed it. I had minutes until Paco had moved those books and that bookcase out of the way and found the panel and pressed it only to discover the secret room only had guns in it – no money.

  And that was if Tenoch had left any. Maybe he had taken everything.

  All of those kids were going to die, one by one when he came out of that room. I needed Rhiannon. I needed the Rhiannon I had been in Florence when Ty had been kidnapped. I needed the Rhiannon I had been when I was suffocating the paedophile, Derek Scudd. The Rhiannon who had kept Julia all those months in the back bedroom and sliced off her fingers one by one. The Rhiannon who had watched her grandfather die in agony.

  Because they had hurt children.

  It was my only chance – Rhiannon had to do the unthinkable. And I lay on the floor as flat as I could and reached out with my foot to hook it around the nearest armchair leg. And with some difficulty, pulled it towards me, close enough so I could grab the cushion. I aimed it up at the wall behind me.

  Again. And again. And again.

  I kept missing, at first by a lot. But I did it again, and again, until it touched it, a glancing caress but enough to make it wobble from its hook. I tossed the cushion up again and dislodged it so it dangled precariously above my head like a guillotine. And several attempts later, the remaining machete wobbled violently on its hook and clattered down to the hardwood floor.

  I looked to the door – I could hear Saúl and Mátilda crying in the cupboard. David’s face still unmoving on the floor, metres away from me. A trickle of his blood snaked along the grouting in the floor tiles.

  ‘Está bien, bebés. Está bien,’ I kept saying. It’s all right babies, I’m going to save you. Te voy a salvar.’

  Three more children would die if I didn’t do it. Three more children would die when I could have saved them.

  And as small as I was at Priory Gardens, was as big as I became now. I flooded my head with rage, with the stark awfulness of the situation, and the urgency of getting to Paco before he could get to them. I was their only chance. And I took that machete and I raised it high above my head, lining it up with my wrist. And I swung it out wide.

  And I thought of Priory Gardens.

  And I thought of Ivy.

  And I heard Mátilda scream. And I heard Saúl scream in the cupboard.

  Don’t look, darling. Don’t look back in there.

  And I smashed the machete down. And the pain was immediate. Scorching, endless pain. But it hadn’t worked – it didn’t come away. So I swung it round and smashed it again. And I screamed so loud I could no longer hear the children. I tried every trick in the book to make it hurt less – it was someone else’s wrist, someone else’s blood. It took three attempts. Again. And again. And again. On my own wrist. I sent the pain to Blackstone. I sent it to Grandad. To Derek Scudd, to Gavin White, to the Men in the Blue Van and Troy Shearer and Patrick Edward Fenton, to the two guys who’d attacked us on the beach, to Ming and to Stuzzy.

  And I sent it to Paco.

  And the blade hacked through my skin, flesh, veins, ligaments, bone, and after three excruciating strikes, there was release – my arm came away, gushing blood. It was intense agony but I was free and my ragged, severed hand dropped to the rug, limp in its dangling cuff.

  Sweating hard, vision still swimming, I staggered to my feet and lurched into the kitchen, puking into the sink, before grabbing some tea towels and wrapping them tightly around my horrific stump. The kids were crying in the broom closet, more muffled now. It was my one window of opportunity. I picked up the machete again, heading for the office.

  But I could feel myself slipping away – my eyesight blackening around the edges. White-hot pain scorched up and down the length of my left arm and I felt my blood pump out of me.

  Paco had moved the bookcase away from the wall, still trying to find the parts of the panel to push. He was a bulldozer, going at it with his fists, thumping it all over – he didn’t have the lightness of touch Tenoch had.

  He turned to face me and did a classic double take. Saw the blood-drenched tea towels. The dripping machete in my one remaining hand.

  ‘The fuck?!’

  He backed against the wall – his gun on the floor, closer to me than him and before he could lunge for it, I grabbed it and pointed straight at his groin, firing twice. He flew back against the panel with a roar of pain, sliding down to the carpet, clutching his package, blood streaming through his fingers, screaming obscenities at me. I stood over him, watching him scream.

  But both my legs buckled from under me and I dropped down too. I couldn’t stand. I reached for the door handle to pull myself up but I couldn’t grab it. I was like a marionette – all strings down. And Paco was getting up.

  ‘Morirás, perra,’ he snarled. ‘Morirás, perra!’ You will die, bitch.

  I was done. The gun was clicking empty. He came for me again, groping across the floor for the machete, and my focus swam so much I couldn’t grab it. It wasn’t in my hand anymore – it had gone. I scrabbled out of the office, into the hall and he slithered after me, spitting venom. I had to get to the broom closet. That’s all I could think. Those kids would not die while I was there, not this time. He would have to cut me into tiny pieces first.

  There was a loud crash upstairs and fast footsteps on the landing. I got to the closet when a hand grasped my ankle. I waited for blade and pain.

  But there were heavy footsteps on the stairs and down them tore Celestina, a blur of red and white. Eyes wild, her face and hands all covered in red. She kicked Paco hard in the face and he rolled away from me, cursing and yelling. And she kept kicking him, his ribs, his spine, stamping on his wrist until he dropped the machete.

  She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t give him a second chance to rise. Her scream tore through the room like an electrical fire as she brought the blade down hard on Paco’s neck, twice before it detached, tumbling to the carpet. He had squealed, only briefly. She kicked the head away and it stopped rolling beside me – face tilted up. Eyes flickering. Mouth still gasping. Blood oozing. Clean, efficient, necessary.

  Even when she held it up by its hair, there was no extraordinary surge of pleasure from seeing his still-blinking eyes and open neck. It was like something had been lifted away from me, like a heavy stone, and thrown clear. God knows how it felt for her. She dropped both head and machete to the floor. I could have sworn I heard the mouth groan.

  ‘My babies?’ she cried, wiping her hands on her formerly white broderie anglaise dress and kneeling, her hands on both my cheeks, slapping me awake. ‘Donde estan mis bebés?’

  I banged my head against the closet door and crawled out of the way. Black spots had appeared in everything I tried to focus on. The tea towels around my stump were sodden through. I could no longer feel the pain of it, I just wanted to sleep. My eyes rolled – I had to stay awake.

  By the time I staggered to my feet, Celestina was consoling Saúl and Mátilda inside the closet. ‘Está bien, está bien. Tu mami esta aqui.’

  ‘How did you get in?’ I said, forcing myself to my feet using the doorframe and swallowing down another urge to puke as I caught sight of my blood-soaked dressing. My left arm was completely numb.

  ‘Climbed up the drainpipe, smashed a window upstairs.’ Her face shone with sweat. She looked down at herself. ‘I don’t know which blood is mine.’

  Through the hallway window, I could make out a body lying on the doorstep. A man with a gun limp in his hand and his throat torn out – Stuzzy, who had gone to ‘quiet the bitch’. I booted Paco’s head into the office and closed the door so the kids wouldn’t see it.

  Celestina and the children ran into the living room where their brother was unmoving on the tiled floor. His mother rubbed his back and smacked his cheek to wake him. ‘Wake up, Davey,
wake up!’ Mátilda yelled.

  ‘Is he dead?’ I said, leaning clumsily on the back of the armchair.

  ‘No, he’s breathing,’ said Celestina, cradling him in her arms. She gave Saúl an order and he ran to the kitchen to get a glass from the cupboard. He filled it at the sink and ran back with it, throwing it over David’s face.

  David stirred, momentarily, but he couldn’t open his eyes. He groaned in pain – he had a head wound, a bad one.

  ‘He’s going to die,’ I said. ‘He’s going to die, isn’t he?’

  Celestina rocked him in her arms and gabbled copious prayers to someone above. ‘No, he will be all right. We will get him help. I will call for help.’

  Both Saúl and Mátilda cuddled their brother’s waking body. I was so weak I couldn’t stand.

  ‘We need to get that on ice,’ said Celestina, gesturing to my stump. She ordered the two little ones to look after their brother and hold up his head to keep taking sips of the remaining water. Her mouth and teeth were red with dried blood.

  ‘What did you do to Stuzzy?’ I asked.

  ‘Tore out his throat,’ she said, sitting me down on a cushionless chair and grabbing some clean tea towels from a kitchen drawer.

  ‘With your teeth?’

  ‘He gave me no choice. I had to get to my babies.’ It was then she saw my dangling hand still in the cuff on the fender.

  ‘I’m going to faint,’ I said as some feeling came back into my arm.

  She wrapped my stump tightly. ‘Hold that on tight, don’t let it go. I can’t believe he did this to you. Un puto gilipollas! He chain you up to cut it off?’

  ‘No, I cut it off. I had to get to him before he got to them.’

  ‘You did it to yourself?’

  ‘He was going to kill them.’

  She cupped my cheek, briefly, then sniffed. ‘Ugh, that animal. OK, we need to get you out of here.’ She went to get my hand. ‘We put this on ice, they may be able to stitch it back on for you. How long has it been—’

  ‘I really think I am gonna faint.’

  ‘Come on,’ she said, helping me to my feet. ‘You need some air. You’ve lost a lot of blood.’

  Outside, colours were so much brighter. The air was easier to breathe and the sun was beginning to dip in the sky, a violent orange glow that bathed everything beneath it in gold. I walked towards my flower beds. I’d almost reached the salvia when my legs went from under me and I thumped down to the grass. There was no way I was ever getting back up. I was dead weight.

  Celestina knelt beside me. ‘You are a mother too? I can tell.’ She tilted the glass of water to my mouth. The intoxicating scent of the cempasuchil swirled around my head like a choir. ‘We are given a super strength when we become mothers. A strength we don’t even know we have until we need it.’

  Mátilda brought me out a blanket and covered me with it – it was a hot day but I was cold, close to shivering. My eyes opened, momentarily, and I saw their faces. The two children, leaning down, crying. Asking if I was OK.

  ‘David?’ I said. ‘Is David all right?’

  ‘Mama is putting a bandage on his head,’ said Saúl.

  ‘Is he awake?’

  ‘Yeah, he’s awake now,’ said Mátilda.

  The adrenaline had begun to leave me, along with a fair amount of blood. I kept counting them – one, two, three, one, two, three, and their mother. All alive. Definitely all still alive.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s all OK now,’ I whispered.

  I tried hard to stay awake, forcing my eyes open to see the vast blue sky, mosquitoes dancing across it. Children’s faces. Snatches of conversation – Spanish and English. Voices. Children. Men. A woman. Three men.

  Someone saying my name, my new name. Again and again and again.

  Fuck, they cut off her hand? Jesus Christ—

  Policía. Did you call them? Call them…

  Where is it? Don’t lose that bag.

  It’s here. Are we gonna make it?

  We will if I drive.

  I felt the ground leave me – I was being moved. In my mind I thought this was death. This was what happened – you were scooped up by an angel or something. Your brain activity still registers stuff – voices, last confessions, the life support machine being turned off. You have a vague sense of what’s happening but you’re down the tunnel and you can’t turn back. I couldn’t see. Couldn’t open my mouth to speak. I heard Nico’s voice, Raf’s brother.

  ‘Hospital, vamos. Yo manejare.’

  ‘Stay with me, baby. Please stay with me. I can’t lose her!’

  That was the voice I’d needed to hear. We were moving – in a car. My head in Raf’s lap. I still couldn’t open my eyes. But I found my voice.

  ‘Is it still there?’

  ‘What did you say, honey?’ said Raf, stroking my head. ‘She’s awake!’

  ‘Is it still attached?’

  ‘Is what attached, baby?’

  ‘My head,’ I said.

  ‘She’s not making sense.’ I felt his kiss light on my head. He snivelled.

  ‘Why are you crying?’

  ‘Shit, she’s so cold. Try and stay awake, baby. Keep looking at me. It’s gonna be OK. I’m not going to leave you. I got you now, I got you.’

  It was the last thing I remember hearing. But it was all I needed to hear.

  Wednesday, 19 June – St Christopher’s Hospital, Colonia Centro, San Jose del Cabo

  Raf’s face was the first I saw when I opened my eyes. I was lying in a bed and he was asleep in a chair beside me. It was night outside. I didn’t know where we were, I was just glad he was with me.

  A short nurse with thick calf muscles came in and drew the curtains.

  ‘Hey, you’re awake!’ she said spryly. Her badge said María del Carmen. She knew what I was thinking. ‘The doctor will be in to see you soon. I’ll let you come round a little first.’ She looked across at Raf, still sleeping. ‘He’s barely left that chair in three days. He must like you a lot.’

  I went to speak but no words came out.

  ‘It’ll be a while before we know if the operation has worked. You might not feel anything in your fingers immediately but that’s normal. You’re going to need some rehabilitation but there’s every chance it will function again. You were lucky it went on ice so quickly.’

  I stared at my left arm, resting in an elevated stirrup, all bandaged up and nowhere to go. Last time I’d seen it, it had been dangling in the cuff in front of Tenoch’s fireplace. My sides ached and I couldn’t move my fingers – they wouldn’t respond to any command but it was there. I didn’t know how but it was there.

  ‘Yeah, you got some cracked ribs too. They did quite a number on you, hun. But you’re here, and you’re gonna be all right. Can I get you anything?’

  I willed her to read my mind that I needed a wee. And again, she just knew.

  ‘You’ve got your bag all connected up so don’t you worry about getting up and going to the bathroom.’

  Fucking hell, I thought. She really was a mind reader. I willed my mouth to speak but the words were lost, somewhere between my brain and my face. She walked over to Raf’s side and flicked on the light. That woke him up.

  He immediately roused himself and looked over to me. ‘Hey, baby, there you are,’ he said, forcing his eyes open wider. ‘How are you doing?’

  I couldn’t even smile at him. I could blink, that was about it.

  He frowned and looked up at the nurse. ‘She’s still a little woozy with all the pain meds so give her time,’ she said.

  This had happened before, me waking up in hospital and not being able to speak except this time, my mum and dad weren’t there. Seren wasn’t there. And I wasn’t in England. I was a million miles away from everything, including parts of my own body. I could move both my feet – that was something. I could wiggle my toes – I could slide my foot back and forth across under the sheet. And I could hold Raf’s hand with my right hand and I could squeeze it. But my left hand w
as useless. And I couldn’t remember how to speak.

  ‘Her eyes look … different.’

  ‘We had to take out her contacts,’ said María del Carmen. ‘They’re right there.’ She pointed to a little pot on the bedside cabinet.

  The nurse explained to Raf what she’d explained to me in a hushed voice, like I couldn’t hear. I was ‘probably in delayed shock’ because I’d ‘experienced a massive trauma’ and I ‘had a lot of medication’ in my system. Raf held my head against his own, stroking my cheek. He smelled of coffee and fabric conditioner. I wanted to go to back to sleep in his arms.

  When she had gone, he sat there looking at me.

  ‘Hey, you. You scared the crap out of me. When you didn’t show up at the hotel I went on up to the house to find you. And boy did I find you.’

  I looked at him, willing him to read my mind.

  ‘I can’t believe what they did to you, mi niña hermosa.’ He kissed my face. ‘Can you remember anything? Me, Dad and Nico found you. And that woman, Celestina and her kids. She put your hand on ice. She saved it.’

  I blinked, hoping he’d read my mind again, like the nurse had.

  ‘You gotta be real careful with it for a few weeks. You were in surgery for a whole day. Celestina said you saved her kids from that guy Paco? Was it him who chained you up? Are you in any pain? He beat you up pretty good. Did he make you wear coloured contacts? Was it like LA Confidential and you had to dress up like … How the hell did you even get involved with a cartel?’

  I closed my eyes and nuzzled into his neck.

  ‘I’m sorry. You don’t have to talk about all this now, I’m sorry.’ He kissed me all over my face. ‘You’re safe, that’s the main thing.’

  My throat was so dry and I looked behind him at the cabinet where there was a water jug and a cup. I reached out to it and he poured me some. I drank two whole glasses before he spoke again.

  ‘Hey, I found this little guy in your bag when I was looking for your MediCare papers.’ He reached down and handed me the little yarn gatita that I’d bought for Tenoch. ‘Do you want it?’