Halfhead by Stuart B. MacBride

Author:Stuart B. MacBride
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: HarperCollins

She snuggles deeper into her little nest of toilet paper, feeding tube in her arm, warm, comfortable, and content. Two kiddiewinks and a pregnant wife. Dr Stephen Bexley, you virile stud you.

Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant…She loves pregnant women—they add such a sparkle to proceedings. Especially when itcomes to the vivisection.

She makes a sound that could be mistaken for a sigh. On Sunday she’ll lie back on an operating table and have her face restored. Her very own face…Of course, the sensible thing to do is take someone else’s face. But she doesn’t want to be sensible. She wants to look in the mirror and recognize the person looking back. She wants to be whole again. Then, when she’s all healed and beautiful, she’ll have to leave the country.

A shame. This city has been good to her—let her hunt its inhabitants for years—but if she remains in Glasgow someone’s going to recognize her. At first they’ll see nothing more than a striking resemblance to the notorious Dr Fiona Westfield, but then they’ll begin to talk. And eventually someone will listen.

They’ll start asking difficult questions. Then someone takes a fingerprint, or a DNA sample and they’ll know she’s not dead. Then they’ll strap her to another operating table…only this time she won’t come back.

She shakes her head and tries to think happy thoughts. But Stephen Bexley and his screaming wife no longer light her candle. All she can see is a long dark tunnel with an operating slab at the end. The sound of bees and broken glass.

Deep breaths.

It’s just paranoia. Nothing to worry about. Don’t let it take control.

Deep breaths.

Kill something.

That’ll make her feel better. Kill something slowly and bathe in the screams.

No.

Deep breaths.

Kill something.

Not yet.

Please.

Focus!

She snaps another ampoule of medicine into her neck and waits for the chemicals’ soothing touch.

Focus.

She can’t risk staying here. Soon as her new face has healed, she’ll leave. Bye-bye Glasgow. Bye-bye Scotland. Well…First she’ll see how her children are getting on and then she’ll leave.

Yes. Somewhere far, far away.

But not before she pays an old friend a visit.

His face doesn’t have the long, winding scar she’d given him anymore, which is a shame. It suited him: raw and painful. He was limping as he ran for the people carrier, bruised and battered, probably fresh from surgery…

Perfect. If he’s had medical treatment he’ll be in the hospital records—she can just waltz up to any terminal and find out what was wrong with him and where he lives.

She stretches in her toilet-paper boudoir like a cat in the sun.

It’s been a long time since she has visited friends.

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