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

by Iain Rob Wright

  It was crazy, but Mary was certain that the little blonde bitch had something to do with what was happening. She kept going on about serial killers, like they were some sort of heroes or something. The girl was small, sure, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t stab someone to death.

  And maybe she has an accomplice. Maybe I’m surrounded by bloody killers.

  “That’s three people dead,” said Wallace.

  “We’re dropping like flies,” said Kelly.

  “God help us,” said Father Pitt. “Let me head into the vestry and try to get a call through to 999. The police need to get here right away.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Mary. “I don’t want to stay out here.”

  “Fair enough,” said Father Pitt. “Come along then.”

  The two of them disappeared into the shadows, their candles bobbing along through the darkness. A shiver rushed along Mary’s spine as she realised she was now more alone than she had been. There was still a handful of people gathered in the church, but how could she trust any of them?

  She gathered a candle in each of her hands and then went and followed Father Pitt. Inside her little cocoon of flickering light, she felt as if she might just make it. She just wished it was not so cold. It was as if the snow was never going stop falling and they would be trapped there forever.

  Father Pitt had been gone for several minutes and Wallace was getting anxious. As a Doctor he was expected to be one of society’s wardens, in the same way as a teacher or police officer. It would not do for him to show his fear at the situation. People would be looking to him as some sort of authority. The priest, too – which was making him wonder where Father Pitt had gotten to.

  “Is everybody okay?” he asked the group. “I’m just going to find out what Father Pitt is doing.”

  No one said anything so Wallace felt it safe to sneak away for a few moments. He headed down towards the altar and then turned right into a small side door. Through it was a small antechamber that had been turned into an office of some kind. Lying on the floor, dead, was the older woman, Mary. A few feet away from her body an old swivel chair lay. Slumped over it, and also dead, was Father Pitt.

  Wallace raced back out into the church. “They’re dead,” he shouted. “The priest and the woman are both dead. We need to get out of here right now.”

  It was finally too much and the group lost it completely. Everyone began swarming around, heading for the nearest windows and doors. Wallace headed back to the church’s front entrance and pulled open the door again. Just like before, the snow piled in and covered the carpet; only this time it was higher than the doorway. He was faced with a sheer face of packed snow. Against all rationality, he lunged forwards anyway. He shoved both arms into the snow and succeeded only in getting his hands and wrists through before it compacted and became utterly solid. It would take a tonne of pressure to clear the doorway.

  They were trapped.

  And to make matters worse, someone back inside the church was screaming loudly. And then the scream suddenly stopped.

  Kelly was about to shit a brick. Another person was dead; gutted just like the others. Even with a group of people huddled together, someone was managing to pick them off one by one. If only it wasn’t for the dark.

  The latest dead person was an older gentleman who had kept to himself since entering the church. His wife had found him propped up against a large wooden cross at the side of the church. A playing card hung from his lips: a Jack of Hearts.

  Now there were only a handful of the group left and Kelly wasn’t about to trust any of them. The main suspect in her eyes was the Doctor, but it could have been anyone. She had to keep her distance.

  The wife of the dead man had now joined forces with a teenage boy in trying to smash through one of the stained glass windows. It held strong, braced by the snow against its other side.

  The Doctor was sitting by the front door, slumped on the floor. It seemed like he had finally lost it, too, but it could have been an act. Then there was a middle-aged man and another woman who was likely his wife. That was all that was left of the group of strangers.

  To think we all came here for safety. What’s the worst that could happen in a church?

  Kelly wanted to be alone until she knew it was safe. There were bodies everywhere, which is why she decided that the church’s small side office would be as good as anywhere. At least it had a door she could close. She quickly headed there before the killer attacked anybody else.

  Inside the office, the smell of blood and guts was strong, but she would have to bare it. She turned around and started to close the door. The pain she felt when the knife went into her guts was excruciating.

  Wallace sat on the floor and shook his head. He stared into the flickering flame of his candle and asked himself over and over if he was dreaming. Half a dozen people murdered in less than an hour, and there was no escape. No way to find help.

  As he sat there, Wallace’s mind began turning to maudlin thoughts; regrets of not having a family and instead choosing to be a slave to his work. What did any of it matter really? Curing people was a worthwhile pursuit for one’s lifetime, but it was a selfless task that brought a man no true happiness – not in the way a family did. Wallace had only come here tonight because he had nowhere else.

  Why am I thinking things like that? I still have decades left. I am not going to die in this godforsaken church.

  Wallace hopped up from the floor and headed out of the church’s exit corridor. The church’s interior was quiet. There were only a few people still alive inside, but right now they were making no noise and he could not see their candle-light.

  “Hello!” Wallace spoke out, not knowing what else to say. “Where is everybody?”

  “They are all dead,” said a voice from the front of the church.”

  Wallace gulped and tried to force down an air bubble trapped in his throat. He knew who was speaking to him. Could hardly believe it, but he knew. “Jack the Raper?”

  “That is what they call me. The unwashed, sinners. They read their papers, enjoy their trash, and scurry about their rancid little lives with utter disdain for the gifts they were given.”

  Wallace took slow steps forward. “By God?”

  “Of course,” the voice almost spat the words. “Who else? All of you came here tonight for selfish reasons. You seek his comfort when it suits you, but when do you give back anything of yourselves.”

  Wallace stepped up before the altar and was surprised by who he saw. He shook his head. “But, you were dead.”

  “Did you check my body?” Father Pitt asked. “Perhaps you should have. Now everybody is dead. And you will follow. The Lord has rained down an icy death upon us all, but you are not worthy to die by his majestic hand. I will do his bidding until my time is nigh. I will slice out your life like I have so many before. I will violate your sinful orifices and revel as your soul descends to Hell.”

  “You’re a fruitcake.”

  “No,” said Father Pitt, leaping forward like a man half his age. He drove a long thin blade into Wallace’s guts and looked him right in the eyes, smiling. “I am God’s will. And soon I will join him in the Kingdom of Heaven. Goodbye Doctor. Give my regard to the serpent king.”

  Dr Wallace hit the floor, dead. The final victim of the man they called Jack the Raper.

  Winter Before Last

  The drive had been a long one. Bristol was a long way from Stoke and the Boxing Day journey had been slow and cautious, the roads slippery with ice and slushed snow. Harry hated winter, hated the cold. In the summer, people came together – BBQs, festivals, zoos, and theme parks – but in the winter people stayed away from each other, wrapped up warm and ignored the outside world. Winter was the season of isolation and loneliness. Yet, out of all the dreary winters of Harry’s life, this one had been the best. Sure it was damp, icy, and grey; sure he had spent the last week with his wife’s condescending parents; and sure he was itching to get back to work, but
this winter was great for one reason: Toby.

  Of course he had spent several Christmases with his son already, but those had been interspersed with work and commitments. This year his furniture business was successful enough that he had been able to leave the running of it to his cousin and take a massive ten days off to spend with Toby and his wife, Julie. It had been total bliss to watch his son open his presents on Christmas morning, ripping open the packaging on his new bike and then moving on to the wrapped-up Nintendo DS beneath Julie’s parent’s tree. He’d never seen his son so happy, and he had never been so happy himself. What Julie had gone on to tell him that night had only made the day even more special.

  He still couldn’t believe she was pregnant.

  “You paying attention?” asked Julie, sitting on the passenger seat beside him.

  Harry turned to her and smiled. “Yeah, sorry. I’m just so happy. Life is pretty good, huh?”

  Julie smirked and shook her head at him. “I think you had a better Christmas than little man.”

  Harry glanced back at his sleeping son on the back seat and agreed. In fact, he may have had a better Christmas than anyone.

  “Anyway,” said Julie, “you should have come off at junction 16. You just missed it.”

  Harry shook his head, annoyed with himself. “Bugger it. Okay, I’ll come off at the next one.”

  Julie mumbled something under her breath and Harry just about heard her.

  “Did you just call me a fish head?”

  Julie shrugged. “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

  Harry huffed. “Oh, really? Well it sounded like you called me a fish head.”

  “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s rich, coming from a dog head.”

  Julie hit Harry in the arm, causing him to swerve slightly. “Cheeky sod.”

  “Whoa! Watch it, woman, you’ll have me in a ditch.”

  Julie laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to endanger your perfect driving record.”

  “Always pays to be safe. Baby on-board.”

  Julie looked back at her son and smiled. She was so beautiful as a mother. There was something about her now, that Harry loved, which had not been there before Toby’s birth. It was something unexplainable to anyone without a child of their own.

  Harry was just about to say, I love you, when something caught his attention from the corner of his eye. The sight was followed by a lot of chaotic noise.

  “Shit!” Harry saw the vehicle on the opposite side of the motorway swerve. It careened across several lanes and came crashing up against the central reservation several yards ahead. His stomach fluttered and he thanked God for the near-escape, but then the speeding vehicle cartwheeled into the air, flipping the balustrade upon impact and hurtling, end over end, down the other side of the motorway; the lane that Harry was occupying. Harry would have liked more time to react, but before he even thought to swerve out of the vehicle’s path, his entire being seemed to shudder as his consciousness was battered from his body.

  Harry opened his eyes and then closed them again. A light had burned his eyes and he had to flutter his eyelids until the dull aching went away. He found himself staring at a blank white ceiling with a small, tinted window looking out at star-filled sky. It was a vehicle; the back of a van perhaps. When a paramedic appeared in his field of view, Harry realised he was lay in the back of an ambulance.

  The woman’s name badge read: Penelope. “Hey there,” she said. “Everything is okay. You’ve just been in an accident.”

  Harry shot up on the stretcher. “My son…my wife?”

  The paramedic tried to ease him back down but he resisted. “There are people trying to help them right now.”

  “Help them? What do you mean?”

  The woman looked him in the eye for a moment but could not hold the gaze. Something seemed to trouble her. Harry didn’t feel like getting information about his family second hand from someone else. He pushed the woman aside forcefully and stumbled off of the bed. His legs felt like jelly as he hit the tarmac outside the ambulance. His breathing was painful too, but none of that mattered. He needed to find his family.

  There were flashing lights all around him and fluorescent white jackets flitting to and fro. The motorway had been closed off, probably by sideways police cars at the entrance to each junction. Harry staggered forward. There was a huge fire truck up ahead and it blocked his view any further down the road. People seemed to be congregating in that area and he headed towards them, as fast as his confused feet would take him.

  “Excuse me, sir?” A police officer walked up to Harry with a palm raised. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Harry swiped at the hand in his face and snarled. “Where is my family?”

  The officer stepped towards Harry, but backed off when he saw that there was no chance of his authority holding any weight. The man tried a different tact. “They’re being rescued now.”

  “Rescued from what?”

  The police officer sighed. “My name is Officer Tonks. Why don’t you come and sit down with me and we’ll have a chat about what is going on.”

  Harry looked at the man and saw genuine compassion, but that didn’t change the fact that Harry didn’t want a conversation with anyone but his wife. He turned away from the officer and hurried towards the fire truck. The man did not give chase.

  Once Harry reached the bright red vehicle, he saw the wreckage beyond. His brand new Mercedes was a ball of twisted steel and a mangled truck seemed to be entwined with it. Before he knew it, Harry was vomiting all over the floor. Maybe he had a concussion, but he was pretty sure it was purely because of what he was seeing.

  Despite his injuries, Harry ran forward, dodging past anybody that tried to stand in his way. Over at the pile of compacted vehicles, two firemen worked at the steel with heavy cutters. When they saw Harry coming at them, wild-eyed, they stepped aside with concern.

  It was then that Harry saw what was left of his family. He could make out Julie’s crushed face, squashed beneath the Mercedes window strut. One of her eyes seemed to bulge from her socket. Harry fell to his knees and tried to reach out to her, but he could not. As he tried to crawl his way into the car, he saw the mess that had been his son. Toby’s body no longer resembled human form. If it were not for bloody scraps of clothing and puckered flesh and protruding bones, Harry would not have even known it was his son.

  Harry screamed out, loud enough to reach the moon. Someone pulled him back by the armpits and he kicked out and struggled. The person turned out to be Tonks and the officer was no longer willing to stand by. He controlled Harry’s body with a well-trained grasp of how joints and pressure points worked. Harry was forced by his twisted elbow to walk away from the scene.

  “Why?” Harry cried out. “Why are they dead and not me. Why am I fine?”

  “I’d say because you’re lucky,” said Tonks, “but I think you’d probably hit me. You were thrown free from the car upon impact. So was the driver of the other car. Your family…well they didn’t have the luck that you did. I’m sorry, Harry, I really am.”

  Harry felt weak and struggled to keep his legs from folding like accordions. “How do you know my name?”

  “Paramedics found your driver’s license in your wallet. Would you like me to contact anyone?”

  Harry shook his head. “…No. I-I will do it later. I want to see my family. I want them out of there.”

  Tonks nodded. “I know you do. They’re working on it. Let’s just get you to the hospital for now. There’s no way to deal with something as terrible as this, so don’t try.”

  Any fight Harry might ever have possessed was gone from him now. He allowed the officer to take him by the arm towards the ambulance and he would also let them take him to the hospital too. There was no reason to resist now, no reason to fight…no reason to care. Harry’s life was without purpose and always would be from now on.

  As he neared the ambulance, Harry noticed something up
ahead. There were two other police officers standing with a weary-looking man. They were breathalysing him. Harry’s own breath caught in his chest and the only way he could let it out again was by talking. “Is that the other driver?”

  Tonks seemed to stiffen then and started leading Harry at a slightly different angle, putting distance between them and the other officers. “Yes,” he said. “He says he doesn’t know what happened. He’ll be taken in for questioning once the paramedics clear him.”

  “Why are they breathalysing him?”

  “Standard procedure,” said Tonks without missing a beat.

  Harry nodded and let the officer think he was satisfied with the answer. Really, he was taking one last, long look at the man that had just murdered his family, and committing his face to memory. Harry realised that, in actual fact, his life still did have a purpose: to take the life of the man that took his.

  Enjoy what’s left of your life, whoever you are, thought Harry, because I promise that this will be your Final Winter.

  The Peeling

  & Other Terrifying Tales

  The Peeling

  An author’s word

  The Peeling was one of the first stories I ever published. It was a novella set in a world where a flesh eating virus was on the loose. Readers liked it. They found it disturbing. And because people liked it, I wrote several more novellas about The Peeling. Each book featured a different character and a different story that added to an overall narrative. The problem was, that after the first book, I didn’t have any idea where to take the story. I was writing for market rather than writing for myself, and as a consequence it has never been a series I am happy with. I think the final book ‘The Lights’ reveals that I had run out of ideas.