How To Stitch An Open Wound: New Flash Fiction By Tom Leins

1. If you encounter excessive blood flow, apply a compression bandage and seek urgent medical assistance.

Dennis Cafferty isn’t decrepit, but he carries with him the stench of death. His most recent facelift went badly wrong and he now has a permanently haunted expression. His left eye twitches – as far as the taut skin allows. Too much booze and too little sleep. I know that feeling.

“You have plenty of men on your payroll, Cafferty. Why me?”

He shrugs.

“Those boys would walk through the flames for me, but I need subtlety.”

“Like last time?”

He scratches at the livid patch of razor-rash on his throat.

“Yeah, like last time.”

Maybe his faculties are deserting him: last time I did a job for him I was about as subtle as a house-brick in the teeth.

“Just find the bastard who set fire to my daughter, Rey.”

I nod.

2. Wash your hands, and remove any debris from the wound with water – or risk gangrene, necrosis or amputation.

Gary Maguire is a bad man, deep in the grind. He used to work for Cafferty, until he started cutting his boss’s smack with fentanyl – and putting people in the morgue.

When he found out, Cafferty threw him out of a second-floor window.

Maguire waited a year. Picked up Cafferty’s 17-year-old daughter, Denise, at a club. Promised her the world, then took her to a dirty-arse trap-house. When Maguire was done with Denise, he splashed Hennessy on her back and tried to set fire to her.

After Maguire’s boys stomped out the burning, Denise smashed the Hennessy bottle, and jabbed it into his gut. Crawled out of the trap-house naked – left the broken bottle embedded in Maguire’s midriff.

By the time Cafferty arrived, Maguire was long gone – leaving nothing behind except porno on the flatscreen, a pool of blood on the ratty mattress and a cadaverous pair of junkie squatters.

Itchy and Scratchy didn’t know shit, but Cafferty brutalised them anyway. Dumped their smashed bones in a skip two streets away.

3. Sterilise the utensils you intend to use and soak the wound with a disinfectant solution. If disinfectant is unavailable, you can use high-proof alcohol.

Back-street surgeons in Paignton are usually alcoholic animal doctors or struck-off GPs. Maybe the occasional ghoulish hobbyist. Men with liver-spotted hands and rusted equipment. Unclean rooms and unclean thoughts. Marwood is no exception.

His overgrown front garden stinks of burned plastic patio chairs. There’s an old Toyota on the grass – its roof dented like it has been used as a trampoline.

Marwood is taking a sip of coffee liqueur to tame his maniac tremble when I kick the door off its hinges. He waves his scalpel at me, and I slap it out of his claw-like hand.

I drag Maguire off the viscera-splattered kitchen table by his ankles.

“Careful – his stitches won’t hold!”

Maguire groans as his ruptured flesh snags on the exposed floorboards, leaving a thick smear of ooze in the hallway.

4. Penetrate the sub-dermal layer of skin with your needle and sew away from yourself. The edge of the wound will be numb, and can be pierced with minimal discomfort.

We’re in an anonymous room in an abandoned office block. It’s neither up for sale, nor scheduled for demolition, so there’s no reason for anyone to disturb us.

There’s a thick fug of cigarette smoke, and a juicy body odour tang, and I suspect that Cafferty has used this place before.

Even soaked in blood and viscera, his clothing looks expensive. Black leather jacket, polo-neck jumper, smart slacks and designer plimsolls.

At his feet, Maguire’s face has already been reduced to a splintered mess of bone.

“Are you not curious to see how this plays out?” Cafferty asks me.

I glance down at the contents of his dented metal tool-box, which have been laid on a plastic sheet in order of pain management potential.

“I’ll read about it in the Herald Express – like everybody else.”

He shrugs.

“Have a nice life, Rey.”

“Life is just different ways of not dying, Cafferty.”

He grunts, and I leave without another word.

5. Zig-zag your way across the open wound and tie it off with a strong knot.

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