Free Flesh Wounds by Chris Brookmyre

eyes on the bird, and in a practised movement drew it up and decisively down, severing the head completely. A streak of red violated the purity of the frost, and she let a little more spill in a deliberate arc before bringing the twitching bird into place above the bucket. She stared at the spray and the arc, like some runic symbol whose meaning she could not read, all the while continuing to hold the bleeding carcass over the bucket. She admired the rune’s grace and simplicity, imagining herself the keeper of something truly ancient that was sacred to this spot and this act, unchanging over centuries.
    She could feel the bird buck and spasm, the muscle reflexes pulsing against her grip, and as she looked at the crimson pattern stark against the whiteness, she felt a small burning echo of shame. She recalled with guilt the time something truly was imparted to her from a previous generation, when her father taught her and Lisa how to do this.
    Lisa had been eight and a half, she seven. There was never any question of her waiting until she was Lisa’s age for her chance to be taught or even permitted to do anything: she always had to have a go at the same time, compelled from as young as she could remember to prove she was as big, as fast, as strong, as clever as her older sister.
    Dad hadn’t expected either of them to manage it by themselves, but he knew it was important to make them part of this, so that they would be prepared when that time did come. What he clearly didn’t expect was their reaction. She had insisted on going first, as usual, and had been accommodated, as usual, by a father happy to follow the path of least resistance and an older sister who was in no rush to be at the front of this particular queue. Dad made her grip the bird in both hands, showing her how to hold it against the block and very carefully ensuring both bird and daughter were steady before bringing down the blade.
    She recalled a pulse of tense anticipation as he swung, her hands squeezing reflexively tighter, and of jolting fright as the impact seemed to pass through her, from the ground at her feet and the warm body in her grip, then a relieved kind of elation mixed with a brief feeling of achievement. She remembered giggling a little, nervously, in the stillness of the moment. Then the bird jerked back to life in her hands and she lost her hold in her startlement, allowing it to drop to the ground, where it proceeded to hare off in the direction of the stables.
    Dad was trying to inoculate them against the horror and instil a solemn sense of purpose to the act. However, he was a bit late: they must have seen their mum do it a hundred times, initially paying fascinated attention as they stopped to stare, later merely aware it was going on in the background of whatever game they were playing.
    She remembered that the first time she saw a chicken’s head severed and roll off the block, she had felt much as she did when she was shown a magic trick: a mixture of surprised delight and confusion as she tried to reconstruct the action and the outcome. But once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it. They were already inured to the blood, albeit there remained something incredible about the speed of the transformation from living state to dead, side by side, bright realm, shadow realm.
    Dead chickens running around with their heads off was altogether new, and, for a while at least, hilariously so. She and Lisa went charging delightedly after it, shrieking with laughter and excitement as it veered erratically across the grass. Between them they signally failed to corner the fugitive, which only came to a stop when it ran full-tilt into the side of the stables, a conclusion to the chase that precipitated further hysterics from its two pursuers.
    The laughter stopped abruptly when they turned around and saw the thunderous glower across their father’s face. He didn’t need to say anything: in that moment, they understood immediately that what they