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

by Iain Rob Wright

  Somehow he managed to walk out of the hospital without incident. He’d just killed a man and no one noticed a thing.

  Harry went home and drank for seven days straight. Later he sold his furniture business, as well as his house and car. The sales left him with just over half-a-million-pounds with which to drink himself to death.

  A year later, he was responsible for the extinction of mankind.

  “Bullshit!” he said finally. “This is bullshit.”

  Lucas put his hands up. “Hey, I don’t disagree, fella. I don’t want the world to end any more than you do. I like it here. I like crispy duck pancakes and ice cream sundaes. I like Manchester Utd and Strictly Come Dancing. I like a lot of stuff down here, but it’s not my call. And it’s not yours.”

  “There’s nothing we can do?” Kath pleaded.

  Lucas shook his head. “Unless you can convince the big man to change his mind – but I don’t think he’s listening. You can hold the choir off for a while with objects of depravity like the porno mags. Same reason they can’t enter the pub: it’s a den of iniquity and they can’t set their holy toes in it.”

  “How do you know so much?” Harry demanded. The snow was sapping his strength and he needed more answers before he was too tired to ask for anymore. “How do you know so much about angels?

  “Because I used to be one, laddie. Long time ago.”

  “What? You used to be….” Harry suddenly understood. It came to him in a flash of inspiration. “They called you Wormwood.”

  “That they did, but I prefer my rightful name, the name given to me by my lord.”

  “And what’s that?” Kath asked, obviously not yet understanding what Harry had come to realise.

  Lucas turned to Kath and grinned, his pointy teeth shining. “Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Lucifer, the Prince of Hell. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  Harry should have been shouting the word ‘bullshit’, but somehow he knew it was true. The reality of the situation just could not be denied. He was trudging through the snow with the Devil, pursued by murderous angels. There was just one more thing that didn’t make sense. “Why the whole Irish jig then, Lucas Fergus?”

  “Would you prefer I had horns and a red suit? Let’s just say that Ireland is close to my heart. Good, fun-loving, people that know a good time. I can take many forms, and appear however I wish, but Irish is my favourite. Plus, ladies like the accent.”

  “Why are you here? Are you helping the angels?”

  Lucas shook his head vehemently, snow falling from his hair. “Those righteous do-gooders? They may be my brothers, but we parted ways long ago, and for good reason. A few members of the choir, the ones who were any fun, joined me in Hell. It’s the place to be, as long as you haven’t been sent there for, you know…treatment, as it were.”

  “So, we’re all going to Heaven or Hell after this?” Kath sounded hopeful. She obviously thought she was destined for Heaven.

  “Afraid not, luv. After the final sin was committed, He gave up on you all. You’re all coming downstairs with me to whichever level you deserve.”

  “Level we deserve?” Kath sounded worried.

  Lucas seemed to be getting a bit impatient now as they continued through the snow. “The different levels dish out appropriate punishment. A murderer gets murdered. Over and over. Forever. A rapist gets raped. A bully gets beaten. You get the general idea, right?”

  “Yeah, I get it.” Kath shut up and stayed that way, seemingly lost in disturbing thoughts.

  “That just leaves you,” said Harry. “You still haven’t told us what part you have to play in all this. You’re the Devil, which means you’re evil and can’t be trusted…doesn’t it?”

  Before Lucas had chance to reply, Harry realised that, once again, they were surrounded.

  34

  “They’re not going to give up are they?”

  “No,” Lucas confirmed. “Not until they have you.”

  Harry raised the broom in front of him, hoping it would work as well as last time. “What will they do to me?”

  “Send you to Hell.”

  Harry nodded. “Thought so.” He eyed up the line of angels, wondering which one he should go for first. He decided to do as he did last time and aim for the middle of the crowd.

  Before he had the chance, a pillar of fire zigzagged towards him, sending him into a sideways dive. The snow cushioned his fall but was still jarring enough to knock the broom from his grasp.

  Harry looked up just in time to see another wall of flames rising in his direction. He rolled over, barely managing to dodge the burning death, but found himself even further away from his only weapon. “Lucas,” he shouted. “The broom.”

  Lucas nodded, located the broom, and then went for it. He was too slow though and Kath got to it first.

  “Great,” said Harry. “Throw it here, Kath.”

  Kath drew her arm back and looked as though she was going to hurl the broom in his direction, but she didn’t release it. Instead she held it in front of herself and examined it. “Without this, you have no way of defending yourself, right?”

  “Yes,” said Harry. “That’s why I need it.”

  Kath walked away from him and started making her way over to the choir of angels. She approached the tallest in the centre. “You just want Harry, right? What will you do for me if I give him to you?”

  She waited for an answer, but received none.

  The monolithic remained still and silent beneath its robes.

  Kath jabbed and wiggled the broom in the angel’s face, not getting close enough to make contact, but making her willingness to do so clear enough. “I asked you a question, so have some manners. Remove your hood and answer me!”

  Incredibly, the angel obliged. He reached up and lowered his hood.

  Beneath the old, grey cloth was something unexpected. The angel’s golden hair spilled over his shoulders beneath a beautiful face with an exquisite complexion. His sparkling eyes were breathtaking cyan, and they were studying Kath curiously.

  Lucas moved up beside Harry and whispered. “That would be Lord Michael himself.”

  Harry considered for a moment. “You mean from the bible?”

  “No, I mean from real life. That is God’s Field General himself, Archangel Michael. My brother, the Angel of death.”

  “If he’s your brother can’t you make him stop? Talk to him?”

  “You really don’t understand family do you, Harry boy? One thing about Michael is that the only person he listens to is his dear daddy. That’s why he was always favourite. Bloody eejit!”

  Something was happening up ahead. The angel standing in front of Kath – the Archangel Michael. Jeez! – produced something from within his cloak. Something long and metallic that ignited in flames as soon as it hit the air.

  “There she is,” said Lucas. “The beauty herself. You know, back in the day, that sword belonged to me. Michael took it from me during the Holy War. It looks better on him, anyway.”

  Harry shook his head. “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  “The fiery sword of damnation. The sword that turned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes.”

  Harry rubbed at his face with ice-cold fingers. This was really it. The end of the world. God had called last orders on mankind and there was only enough time to get one last drink in.

  Michael raised his fiery sword, singeing the cold air and creating acrid smoke. Kath stood before him, mesmerised. All of her earlier bluster had evaporated and she was nothing more than a puny human standing before a giant.

  Michael brought down his flaming sword with a brutal slash. The blade hissed and spat as Kath’s blood instantly congealed on its shaft, turning to black powder and peppering the snow. It had cut through her like a scalpel through cheese.

  Kath turned around and faced Harry and Lucas. For a moment it looked like she was okay. Then her head started to tilt forward, independent of the rest of her body. Harry winced as Kath’
s headless body fell forward into the snow, turning it red.

  Harry ran, leaving Lucas behind; not seeing any reason to ask him to follow. He ploughed through the snow with all his energy, kicking and clawing with only one thing on his mind: Steph! He had no idea where he was going and only hoped that it was towards The Trumpet. With the apocalyptic freeze, as well as an army of flawless Angels trying to send him to Hell, Harry knew that the rest of his life was measured in minutes rather than hours or days. For so long he had wanted nothing but to die, to leave the world and all its pain behind him, but, right now, staying alive long enough to reach Steph was his only motivation.

  The snowfall seemed to increase with every second. It was up to Harry’s waist now and still rising. Before long, there would be no world left. No buildings, no roads, no rivers. Nothing. Just unending snow, rising. Rising. Rising.

  Harry struggled onwards, each step seizing up his calves, stabbing the tender muscle with icy daggers. If only he could go back and do the right thing. He’d known killing Thomas Morris was wrong. Had known it for sure when he saw the regret and the sorrow in the man’s eyes just before he died. Thomas Morris had killed Harry’s family, but at the moment of his death, he had been deeply sorry. Harry knew that because Thomas never struggled.

  Now the whole world was accepting punishment for what Harry had done. He imagined the billions of people who had already frozen to death. He wondered how many people were still alive, trying to convince their children that the snow would stop soon and that everything would be okay, that it was just bad weather. Harry started to weep, but wiped the tears away before they froze. He had to keep going, didn’t deserve time to stop and cry. When the angels finally sent him to Hell he would welcome it, because that was where he belonged. But not now. Not yet.

  Ahead, Harry saw the dark rectangle of a building up on a hill. It had to be The Trumpet. With renewed vigour, he began to dive and leap through the snow, sinking and climbing with every step. He was moving at a snail’s pace, but gradually, slowly, the building came into view. And it was indeed a pub.

  “Thank God. Actually…screw that. Fuck God.”

  He reached the bottom of the hill and looked up. The pub was dark, deserted. Lifeless. A dead building in a dead world.

  As he climbed the hill, Harry felt the angels nearby. “Damn you,” he shouted back at them. They stood at the bottom of the hill, each of them now with their hoods down, exposing their beautiful faces and gossamer hair. Harry knew they brought only death and misery. “Damn you,” he shouted again. “Just let me see her.”

  Lucas had said that angels could not set foot inside a den of iniquity. That meant Steph might still be safe inside.

  He was nearly there, only a few more metres to the doorway.

  Harry stopped in his tracks, falling into the snow and looking up at the figure blocking his way. He’d been so close. “Okay, you got me. Just get it over with.”

  “Get what over with, Harry Boy?”

  Harry looked up. “Lucas!”

  “Aye,” Lucas offered out his hand and helped Harry to his feet. “I thought you were never going to get here, fella. Took your sweet time.”

  Harry smiled, happy to see the Devil. But he wasted no time in pushing passed and barging at the pub’s door.

  It was frozen shut.

  Harry was about to howl out in defeat when Lucas strolled up beside him.

  “Keep your hair on, lad.” He placed a hand on the door. Steam came from his touch and the frost began to melt. Lucas banged his fist once, twice, and the door swung open slowly. He looked at Harry and grinned. “Three millennium in the Hellzone Boy Scouts.”

  “No shit?” Harry made his way inside and headed straight for the bar, the sudden feeling of an even, solid floor disorientating his weary legs. The room was in darkness with the flickering flame of only a single candle left, but Harry had been there enough times to know where he was going blind. He made it to the bar in six memorised steps and was shocked to find Peter’s dead body on the floor. There was no time to fret about it now, though.

  Grabbing the remaining candle, Harry made his way behind the bar and into the corridor. Immediately, the freezing temperature told him something was wrong. Earlier the corridor had acted as a flume for the warm air of the fire in the cellar below, but now the air was frigid. That meant the fire was out.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” Harry took the steps two at a time, lucky to make it down to the bottom without tripping. As his feet planted on the cellar floor, he moved the candle in a quick semi-circle. The room smelt heavily of smoke, but the dustbin fire was unlit. Next to it was the unmoving form of Old Graham. Harry felt his gorge rise, the fear and sickness taking a hold of him as his mind screamed out with grief. He turned around slowly, illuminating the dark corners of the cellar, searching desperately…

  He found Damien first. The lad was slumped in the corner. Harry knelt down to feel the lad’s cheek and quickly realised he was dead. Damien’s mid-section was covered in blood from some kind of deep wound. Was it the work of Nigel? Despite the freezing cold, Damien was without his thick puffer jacket.

  Harry found it nearby, wrapped around Jess. She was dead too. Harry shone the candle light over her face and saw her lips and frosted eyelids. She had finally succumbed to the cold. Had she taken Damien’s jacket after he had died? Or had he offered it to her before?

  The third body wrapped beneath the blankets made Harry feel faint, paralysed with fear.

  Steph lay, swaddled up to the eyeballs by layer upon layer of sheets and blankets. She looked as delicate and as beautiful as Harry had ever seen her and he finally allowed himself to cry. He reached out and touched her face. Like the other’s it was ice cold. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry that I caused all this and that I never got to say goodbye. I used to think I came here every night to get drunk and forget about the past, but tonight I’ve realised I kept coming back to see you. You were the only person who allowed me to see tomorrow and know that it would be easier than today. It was you that took away my pain, not the booze.”

  “…Harry?”

  The word was barely a whisper. A few moments passed and Harry started to think that his crippled mind was playing tricks on him.

  “Harry,” Steph whispered again, louder this time.

  “Steph! Steph, yes it’s me, Harry?”

  It didn’t seem like she could, but she knew he was there. It was obvious by the look in her eyes. “Harry…I was worried about you.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t make it back sooner.”

  “It’s…okay. I knew you’d come back. You’re a good man, Harry.”

  Harry bit his lip so hard that he tasted blood in his mouth. “I wish that were true, but I let everyone down. This is all my fault.”

  Steph shook her head, eyes still closed as though she were reciting a dream. “No, Harry. The only person you ever let down was y-yourself. It’s not your fault what happened...what happened…to you.”

  Harry wiped tears and snot from his face. “You know what I wish, Steph?”

  “No, Harry. What do you…wish?”

  “I wish that instead of killing Thomas Morris that night, I’d have met you instead. Maybe you could have saved me. If God is going to judge us all, then he should have tested someone like you, not a loser like me. God stacked the deck against us all when he took my family and left me to be the judge.”

  Steph’s face lit up in a smile that stuck for a moment before falling away. She went very still and did not reply.

  “Steph,” Harry said softly, but it was no use. She was gone.

  Harry moved forward and kissed Steph on her lips. He wanted nothing more than for her to be alive a moment longer so that she could kiss him back, but was thankful that he at least got to say goodbye.

  Harry left the cellar and went back upstairs into the pub. He lit the way with the last dying candle. Lucas was already waiting for him, propped up at the bar with a beer in his hand.

  “Harry
Boy, how about one for the road.” He offered Harry a bottle, who took it from him silently. His sobriety didn’t matter much anymore. There would be no opportunity for him to clean himself up and make amends.

  “It’s time isn’t it?” he said after sipping down some of the beer.

  Lucas nodded. “Up to you, lad. To be honest I’m only here tonight because I’m duty-bound. The apocalypse and all that, you know? It’s kind of traditional that I be here. It would be like having a party without cake if the Devil didn’t turn up at the End.”

  Harry took another sip of beer, before disagreeing. “That can’t be the only reason. You didn’t have to turn up at the pub tonight. You didn’t have to try and help.”

  Lucas laughed his charming Irishman laugh. “Aye, that much is true. Michael summoned me here to watch the destruction of mankind as a kind of punishment. I suppose he thinks I had a hand in bringing down the ceiling – leading men astray and all that hokum.”

  Harry shrugged. “Didn’t you?”

  Lucas swigged his beer down to the bottom third. “Well, yes and no. When I fell from Heaven I hated you all with a fury unrivalled – God’s most prized creation and the keepers of freewill, yada yada yada. I sought to corrupt you all, to bring you down into the dirt so that God would see how lowly you little fellas were. You know what I learned, though?”

  “What?”

  “I realised that I was wasting my time. Man was doing a fine thing of fucking things up on their own. I had a hand, here and there, sure; but Hitler, Bin Laden, that plucky fella Ted Bundy, the nuclear-feckin-bomb? All that wickedness was on you. The worst, most corrupt men who ever lived are mostly men I’ve never met. I may be the Devil, but you lot are evil.”

  “Then why does Heaven blame you? Why have they brought you here to watch us die?”

  “Because I fell in love with humanity. I rebelled against God because I wanted to live by my own rules. After a few hundred years I realised that humanity was no different. I realised that man wasn’t in God’s image, but in mine. Men have spent hundreds of years fighting for their freedom, the same way I did in Heaven. Eventually I stopped trying to destroy you and started living amongst you. I buried my anger with God and stopped being the bogeyman you write books about. The only reason I’m here is so that Michael can make a point.”