The World's Last Breaths: Final Winter, Animal Kingdom, and The Peeling

by Iain Rob Wright

  “I’m starting to worry,” said Steph. She was sitting on a thread-bare footstool and hugging herself tightly. “The snow doesn’t look like stopping and we’re going to freeze without the power on.”

  Harry looked over at the pub’s front window. The large sheet of plate glass was starting to frost over, with icy spider webs creeping from the corners. The snow was falling heavier than ever.

  Harry nestled into the sofa cushions to seek out their warmth, but found none.

  “What’s your drama?” said Damien from his standing spot at the left side of the fire’s mantelpiece. In his thick puffer jacket he looked warmer than the rest of them. “A bit of a chill won’t kill you, luv.”

  “Won’t it?” she asked.

  “Course not, you dopey cow. The power will come back on and the heating will kick on with it, so stop bloody menstruating.”

  Harry snapped, not quite sure why. “Didn’t your father ever teach you to talk to women with respect?”

  Damien was instantly enraged by the comment. “You don’t talk about my father, you hear me? You’re beneath him. What you gunna do about it, anyway? Teach me some manners? You ain’t got the stones.”

  “You think so?” Harry challenged, still wondering what he was getting himself into and why.

  Damien stepped forwards, but Steph halted him in place with a hand on his chest. “Behave!” she scolded. “Harry’s right, you should treat women with respect – especially when they happen to be in charge of the only place with an open fire for miles. You’re welcome to go freeze somewhere else, Damien, if you’d like. I’m not putting up with any of your games tonight. If it comes to having to separate you and Harry, Harry stays, you go.”

  Damien sniggered. “Why don’t you two just shag each other and get it over with.”

  Harry blushed at the remark, but turned the emotion into anger and went to get up out of his seat. Lucas placed a hand on his arm and stopped him. The Irishman shook his head and eased Harry back down onto the sofa.

  “Anyway,” said Lucas, changing the subject. “Besides young Stephanie here – who I know is the world’s finest barmaid – what do the rest of you call an excuse for a living?”

  Stephanie laughed. “You cheeky git! I’m more than a mere barmaid. I plan on starting up a pet grooming business when I’ve saved enough money. Give me another year and I’ll be there.”

  Harry had known Steph since she’d started at the pub a year ago, but he’d never learned about her aspirations. He wished he’d shown more interest in her life, instead of always relying upon her to show interest in his. A wave of guilt rose up in his gullet and stuck in his throat.

  Beside the fireplace, Damien was rubbing at his sore hand and laughing to himself, apparently lacking any appreciation for Stephanie’s ambitions. Lucas, however, seemed more interested. “Pet grooming?” he said, stroking at his chin thoughtfully. “Giving haircuts to rats and baths to squirrels, huh?”

  Steph giggled. “I was thinking more dogs and cats, but, hey, whatever. I love animals and they all smell better after a bath.”

  Damien’s laughter erupted in a mean-spirited snicker that made Harry want to spit at him. “What you want to spend your time washing shit off Rottweilers for?” He winked at Stephanie. “I’ve got ways you can earn some real money, darlin’.”

  Stay calm, Harry told himself. Damien would knife you as much as look at you and violence just makes things worse. You made that mistake once before…

  “So then,” Lucas addressed Damien. “What is it that you do with yourself then, lad?”

  “Don’t ask,” said Nigel from his space on the floor beside the fire.

  “Because if he told you, he’d have to kill you,” added Old Graham beside him.

  “Is that true?” Lucas enquired, eyeing Damien up curiously. “Are you a man of mystery?”

  Damien smirked. “Guess I am. I do a bit of this and a bit of that. Provide certain services and products to my friends and customers.”

  Lucas stroked his chin again. “Interesting. So how did you get into that type of thing, whatever it is exactly?”

  “Family business, innit? Learned from the best – my old man.”

  Lucas nodded agreeably. “Sounds like a generous chap to pass on so much to his boy. Best thing a man can do is see his young ones right.”

  Damien beamed. “Old man taught me everything I know.”

  “So, where is this great man now?” asked Lucas, a knowing smile on his face that made it seem as though he already knew the answer. “I bet he’s some great success, yeah? Sat back in luxury, watching his boy carry on the family trade? Am I right?”

  Damien’s face turned sour – not angry, but defensive and dangerous – like a cornered feline. “Not exactly,” he said. “He’s away at the moment.”

  “Vacation?”

  Harry smiled as Damien squirmed against the wall and tried to merge with the peeling paintwork. He was rubbing his injured hand rapidly with rhythmic strokes. “Yeah,” he finally said. “He’s on a fucking cruise, innit. What’s it to do with you?”

  “Some cruise.” Old Graham piped up from his space by the fire, but quickly turned his gaze to the floor when he was met by Damien’s warning stare.

  Harry wasn’t sure if he wanted Lucas to shut up or carry on, unsure if it was a conversation the group of them should be having. Lucas seemed to have a tendency to ask personal questions.

  Lucas stood up unexpectedly. “A vacation, you say? Well, I hope he returns soon. Anyone for a beer?”

  Talk about taking it to the brink, Harry thought, relieved that the conversation had altered course just as it neared an emotional minefield. It left Harry wondering what exactly had happened to make Damien so defensive about his father. Old Graham looked as if he knew, but when Harry glanced over at the old man, the pensioner looked away.

  Steph’s voice came over from behind the bar. She moved away from the fireplace and entered the flickering lights of the candles on the bar. “I think we have a problem, guys.”

  “What?” They all asked in unison.

  Steph held an opened bottle of beer in her right hand and turned it upside down.

  Nothing poured out.

  “Jesus, no!” Old Graham cried, throwing his hands up at the sky as he realised what he was seeing. “The bloody beer’s frozen.”

  Harry eye’s widened.

  Was it really that cold?

  9

  “Dude, what are you doing?”

  The banging at the door got more frantic.

  Ben glanced over his shoulder at Jerry. “What you think I’m doing? I’m opening the door.”

  “No way! It’s like The Thing out there. If someone starts hammering on the door, trying to get in – you lock it, tight! Then you board it up with planks and nails.”

  Ben didn’t have time for this. He let out a long sigh. “Do you have any planks and nails, because I don’t. Movies aren’t real, and this isn’t a George Romero flick.”

  Jerry winced.

  The banging continued. A silhouette flittered against the pure white backdrop of the snow outside the door. Ben was just about to open up when something occurred to him, making him pause. “Hey, who’s there? Stop your banging, okay?”

  Sure enough the banging stopped at his command.

  “I said who’s there?”

  Jerry tapped his foot nervously. “Dude, I swear, if you let the Lost Boys in here, I’ll never forgive you.”

  Ben shook his head again, certain that his friend had smoked one of his funny fags at some point during the last few hours.

  “My name’s Jess,” said a girl. “I work at the supermarket. Please let me in.”

  Jerry leapt up and punched the air. “Dude! That’s the girl I was just talking about. The blonde fitty!”

  Ben grinned. “Pity we can’t let her in, just in case she’s a zombie or a vampire?”

  “Dude, stop fooling. Let her in!”

  Ben couldn’t help but laugh as he tur
ned back to the door. The girl’s silhouette continued to dance frantically against the snowy backdrop. Ben wondered what on earth had gotten her so worked up.

  “Jess,” he said calmly.

  “Yes, let me in.”

  “The door isn’t locked,” Ben cleared his throat and waited for a reply.

  There was silence, followed by a “Huh?”

  “The door isn’t locked. It opens outwards. You keep bashing on it, but you need to pull it towards you.”

  After a further moment’s silence, the door started to open slowly. The cold air rushed inside through the slowly widening gap. The girl that stepped inside looked very embarrassed.

  It took almost fifteen minutes for Ben to calm Jess down. Once he’d let her inside and locked the door – she insisted on it – the girl had started to catch her breath. The three of them stood now by the entrance, where they could just about make each other out under the moon’s faltering glow and the green pulse of the fire exit sign.

  “You’re lucky,” Ben said, patting her on the back. Her entire body was trembling. “We were just about to leave.”

  The girl glanced over her shoulder at the door behind her, as though she expected something to burst through at any moment. The wind was picking up outside and flakes of snow were whirling up and settling against the glass.

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “What exactly happened to you out there?”

  “Yeah,” Jerry added. “Something give you the heebie jeebies, or what?”

  Jess giggled, but it was a nervous sound. “I guess you could say something like that, but I’m probably just being silly. Least I hope so.”

  “You got us a bit freaked out,” Ben said. “Banging on the door like that!”

  “Sorry. I was just in a panic.”

  “Why though?” Ben wanted to get to the point quickly, disconcertingly aware of the fact that they would all have to get out of there soon. It was getting far too cold to hang around any longer.

  “I left the supermarket to see if anybody knew why the power had gone out,” Jess explained, “and to get away from my cow of a manageress. She drives me insane, but I just act really happy around her because I know it drives her insane.”

  Ben got Jess back on track. “Then what happened?”

  “Oh right, well, it’s the weirdest thing. I got lost!”

  Ben and Jerry spoke in unison: “Lost?”

  “Yeah, literally like ten steps out of the doorway. I couldn’t find my way back at all. Every time I changed direction it felt like I was going round in circles. I couldn’t see anything other than snow all around me. That’s when I started to get, you know, a bit scared, so I got my phone out to call someone at the supermarket to come and get me, but my phone was all messed up. I totally freaked out and started calling out for help. That’s when I saw it…”

  Ben swallowed. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what it was the girl saw – especially the bit about how her phone was all messed up the same as his and Jerry’s. The last thing they needed was to be freaked out right now, but he asked the question anyway. It felt like he needed to. “What did you see?”

  Jess shook her head and shrugged, her bleach-blonde hair glinting in the white light coming from outside. “I… I really don’t know, but it had a face, you know? It was a man, I guess. A tall man.”

  “Like Phantasm? Dude!” Jerry left it at that. Sometimes Dude said enough.

  Ben wasn’t quite so impressed, though. “A face? You just bumped into someone, that’s all.”

  Jess nodded. “Except the only thing I could make out on this person’s face were his eyes – big, glowy white ones inside of a hood.”

  “A hood?” Another one of Jerry’s fantasies took a hold of him. “What kind of hood?”

  Jess shook her head, a blank expression on her face. “I don’t know what any of that means, but it was like a priest’s robe or something. I didn’t see anything else – just the face – and I ran. Then I ended up at your door. Thank God!”

  Jerry put an arm around the girl’s waist and squeezed tightly. “Amen to that!”

  Ben’s common sense was telling him to dismiss the girl’s story as paranoid nonsense, but part of him couldn’t help but wonder…

  Was something out there in the snow?

  10

  Damien had separated himself from the group and was now standing by the window in his bulbous puffer jacket, staring intently at the world outside. Harry and the other drinkers had remained around the sofa, a row of beers at their feet thawing in front of the fire. A couple were cracked due to the change in temperature, but most seemed to be returning to their more natural state of crisp, bubbling liquid.

  Damien stared out into the night.

  What is it with this weather? It just came out of freaking nowhere.

  The cold was enough to freeze your eyelashes – not to mention the beer. If he was honest – which he rarely was if he could help it – he was worried. If the power didn’t come back on soon, would it get even colder? Would he freeze to death? It seemed an absurd thought in this day and age, but he wasn’t so certain. The ghost-white blanket swirling outside the window made him even less sure. It was like the whole world was freezing.

  How did I get stuck in this dump on a night like tonight? The one Tuesday where I have serious business to attend to and this happens – and that fuckface Jimmy hasn’t even turned up. I should be making plans for my future right now, but no, I’m stuck here with a bunch of deadbeats. Steph isn’t so bad, but the others deserve a slap. Especially that fucking waste of space, Harry. Acts like he’s better than me, but he’s the biggest degenerate here.

  Damien had noticed plenty of times how Harry turned his nose up whenever he and his mates were in the pub. Damien would have done something about it before now, but the guy wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, despite his superior attitude, Harry pretty much kept to himself, and it was a bad move to pick fights with people who kept to themselves. People told tales when you started victimising innocent people.

  Still, the geezer best wind his neck in, because Damien would put him down if he kept getting in his face. The thick Mick would get his, too, if he wasn’t careful. Damien was sick of people treating him like a worthless thug, thinking they know all about him. They didn’t know shit.

  For some reason, when Damien thought about Lucas it stoked an anxious fire in his belly. It wasn’t because he was scared of the man, but for some reason Lucas made Damien uneasy. Especially after the guy had damn-near busted his hand.

  Damien shuddered as a cold breeze from under the pub’s rear door made it all the way inside his collar. It was time to get back in front of that fire. He was freezing his nutsack off! He turned away from the window and saw Lucas staring at him from across the room.

  Speak of the Devil!

  Damien glowered at the man, who smiled back at him benignly like they were old buddies or something. The fire in Damien’s belly grew hotter.

  Damien took a lightly-frosted beer from Lucas and Harry wondered if he saw nervousness in the lad’s eyes. Damien seemed to be getting less and less sure of himself as the night went by, as though some finely-oiled veneer of toughness was slowly starting to crack and peel. Harry took a swig of his own beer and cringed as the icy liquid passed over his teeth, making them ache a little. Think I would actually prefer a steaming mug of coffee about now. When was the last time I felt like that?

  Lucas ended a conversation he was having with Steph and headed off towards the toilets. Suddenly alone, Steph took a seat beside Harry on the sofa. He could feel the warmth of her thigh against his as she settled into the cushions.

  “You got anywhere you’re supposed to be tonight, Harry?” she asked him.

  He laughed. “You know me! When do I ever have any place to be other than here?”

  “True,” she said. “But I don’t know why it is that you come here every night. It can’t just be the drink? You could stay at home and pass out on your own floor if you wanted to.” />
  Harry laughed again. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t be there to pick me up afterwards.”

  Steph shook her head as though she didn’t accept his answer. “I’m serious! Why do you come here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess it’s because misery loves company. I think I come here to be among the living dead.”

  Steph raised one of her neatly-shaped eyebrow. “I don’t follow.”

  “How can I explain it? On the weekends you get the kids in having fun, but during the weekdays you have guys like Nigel who sit at the end of the bar without saying a word to anybody all night, or guys like Old Graham who live in the past because they don’t know where they fit in during the present.” Harry took a swig of his beer and then looked Steph in the eyes. They looked to him like glistening pearls and, for a few seconds, he stopped speaking, just staring into them. Frightened that the pause might become awkward, Harry carried on with what he was saying. “I come here because it reminds me that there are other people who have nothing left in their lives except regret. If I stayed at home I’d lose sight of the fact that I’m not alone in misery – that I’m not the world’s unluckiest man. It’s strange, but sometimes that’s the only thing that keeps me going. Doesn’t matter how much I hate my life, I’m not unique and my pain isn’t special. I’m never alone because I’m part of a club. The Living Dead Club. To be a member you have to stop living. You can walk around like a person, but really you’re just a memory of who you used to be.”

  Steph rubbed a hand against her forehead. The various rings on her fingers glinted in the fire glow. “God, you’re depressing. That’s just about the most melodramatic thing I’ve ever heard. Have you always been like this?”

  “No.” Harry said, but did not elaborate. Once he’d been a positive, upbeat person, but now he wasn’t – and that was that. The death of his wife, Julie, and his son, Toby, had left a charred, sucking wound where his heart had been. All he was left with was a star-shaped scar on the back of his hand.