Deep Black

40

He looked down at his bride and couldn’t stop sobbing. There was a huge rip in her face. Her cheek had been split almost as far as her ear, making her mouth twice its original size. I couldn’t tell if she was dead or alive.

I pushed him into my room.

He resisted. He didn’t know what I was saying. I grabbed hold of the woman.

Jerry was still hanging over the balcony. ‘Get in here – I need you!’

The husband screamed and tried to prise her off me as I backed into my room.

I put her down on the carpet, shouting at him, ’The lights, get the fucking lights on!’

Of course he didn’t understand. I jumped up and pushed him out of the way. He fell on his arse on the bed as Jerry came in. I pushed him towards the husband. ‘Shut this fucker up!’

The main lights didn’t come on. I hit the bedside lamp. It didn’t do much, but it was better than nothing.

I knelt down beside her, my face nearly touching the bloody mess that was hers. I couldn’t feel any breath on my skin. Her chest wasn’t moving. I lifted one of her eyelids. No pupil reaction. Nothing anywhere to show she was alive.

I turned her on to her side, opened her lips and dug my fingers into her mouth. I scooped out a couple of broken teeth, then a big plug of mucus and blood that was blocking her airway. Fuck wasting time finding out if she had a pulse. I needed to breathe for her, fill her lungs with air. Even if her heart was still pumping, it was doing nothing without oxygen.

I rolled her on to her back again, tilting her head back to open the airway. The poor bastard jumped up and grabbed my wrist, pulling it away from his wife. ‘Jerry! Get him back on the bed. Tell him she’ll die if he doesn’t stop fucking about!’

She was warm, but that didn’t mean much. She was probably already dead, but I had to try. The only real dead body is a cold one.

I freed my arm, then eased her head back to open the airway once more. I pinched her nose shut with my right hand and held together the rip in her cheek with my left. Her husband hollered: he was so distressed he still didn’t understand what was going on. Jerry tried making soothing noises.

I filled my lungs and put my mouth over what was left of hers, tasting the metallic tang of her blood. I breathed into her – I could feel some of it leaking through the rip in her cheek, but her chest rose a fraction. I tried again, but it was no good. My left hand was slipping on her blood-drenched skin. I couldn’t keep a good enough seal. Her blood spat out of my mouth as I yelled at Jerry. ‘Get over here! Keep this fucking rip together.’

He came and knelt beside her and gripped the rip with both hands. I took a breath, got a seal, exhaled.

Her chest rose. She was taking in oxygen. I breathed into her again.

The husband started tearing at me. Fuck knows what he thought I was doing.

I jumped up, grabbed him by the ears, and headbutted him hard. I didn’t have a choice. My head spun and my eyes watered as he fell back, arms flailing, on to the bed. Blood poured from his nose. I shoved Jerry in his direction before dropping back down on the floor. ‘Jump on the fucker. Keep him down.’

Tilting her head back, I pinched her nose and gripped a handful of ripped cheek as best I could, forcing the air in harder now. Ten big breaths to get her inflated, spitting out her blood between each one. I could still feel air leaking through her cheek, but it was working. My head was swimming. Jerry and the husband screamed at each other above me, somewhere in the distance. My brain was crying out for oxygen too.

Ten done. I checked for a pulse. Jamming two fingers into the side of her neck, I checked her carotid. Nothing. She was still only getting oxygen from me, and her heart wasn’t pumping any of that oxygenated blood around her body.

Shit.

I hoped nothing was fractured in her chest area, because if it was, what I was going to do next might finish her off.