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

by Iain Rob Wright

  At the top of the stairs, the noise of the television faded away and Jeremy was again met with the eerie silence of the landing. There was every chance that Carol was dead already – part of him wanted that peace for her. If she had passed on, he would sit with her for awhile and hope that, somewhere, someplace, she was still with him. But when he opened the door, he saw that the mercy of death had not yet visited his wife.

  Carol lay on the bed, looking more like a puddle than a human being. Her skin clung to her now only in patches and in many places her bones were showing clearly. But her eyes…her eyes were still flawless. Beautiful.

  He sat down on the bed and went to touch her, but then realised there was nowhere he could do so without causing her pain. “I love you, Carol. I wanted to tell you that one more time.”

  It was an obvious effort for Carol to form words, but she seemed eager to do so all the same. Her voice was a crackling wheeze. “I…love…you…too.”

  “I wish I had more time with you. I wish there was time to make it all okay. I’m going to miss you every minute till the time I join you. I just hope that when I get there, you’ll be waiting for me. If not…I’d understand.”

  Carol’s eyes flickered as if fighting away sleep – or death. Jeremy wasn’t sure if she’d heard the words he’d just spoken, but he hoped so. Eventually she came back to him and managed to speak again. “Please, Jerry…please.”

  “What, sweetheart? What do you want?” But she didn’t need to answer. He knew what she was asking for. He nodded, felt tears well up behind his eyes. “Okay.”

  He leant forward and kissed his wife’s forehead. His lips came away moist and sticky, but he did not care. Trying to be as gentle as possible, he pulled loose one of the pillows beneath his wife’s head. Her eyes stared at him intently and he knew that if she could, she would have been smiling. By doing what he was about to do, Jeremy could show his wife the kindness in death that he could not give her in life. Jeremy put the pillow to his wife’s face and pressed down. It took only a minute for her to die.

  Jeremy sat with Carol for almost a full hour before he left her. He knew that once he exited the bedroom, she would truly be gone forever. Part of him had also been curious to see whether her body would continue to rot away after death. It had not. If he’d obeyed her requests earlier, then her body would have been more intact as it was lying there now. It was just one more regret to add to his list.

  Downstairs, Kara was missing. The television was still switched on and, if he wasn’t mistaken, the volume had increased. Sarah and Tom were still reporting and there was an urgency about them now that he’d never seen before. He looked around the living room, but found only shadows.

  “It has now been categorically proven,” Sarah said on the television, “that the virus is passed on through carriers. While only fifty-percent of those exposed to the infection become symptomatic, it has been discovered that the other fifty-percent are not immune as originally thought. The seemingly unaffected are in fact passing on the virus by becoming highly-infectious carriers. While half of the population is dying, it is the other half who are infecting them. It is for this reason that a nationwide quarantine is now has now been put in effect. Healthy or infected – all will be restrained if found outside their homes at any times. Lethal force will be used if necessary. Through isolation, it is hoped that the infection will reach a saturation point and that non-symptomatic sufferers will remain healthy. There is still hope for a great deal of us, Great Britain, but we must stay calm, and we must stay indoors. Never Stop News is now the official channel for the British Government, along with the BBC, so please leave your television on at all times for further updates. We will be interspersing our regular newsfeed with episodes of Friends and The Simpsons, so sit back and enjoy that as it’s coming up next.”

  “You did this.”

  Jeremy turned his head away from the television and saw Kara moving out from one of the room’s shadowy corners. Her face had peeled away from her skull and her snarling mouth made her look like a vengeful demon.

  “I did what?” Jeremy asked her.

  “You infected Carol and you infected me. You are the one who should be dead.”

  “You don’t know that I have it. You don’t know anything.”

  “Yes, I do. I haven’t been around anyone since this whole thing started – no one, except for you. You fucked me last week.”

  Jeremy thought about earlier in the week when he’d popped round to see Kara at her home – popped round for his weekly booty call and to warn her about the virus. “I’m sorry,” he said, worrying that she could be right, that he could be the one responsible for his wife’s death, and others.

  “Quiet!” Kara stepped further out of the shadows. She was holding a large carving knife from the kitchen. “I don’t want to hear you anymore.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Okay.” He made no move to get away, unsure whether Kara even had it in her to do him harm. In normal circumstances, he thought not, but these were not normal circumstances and she was most certainly not her usual self.

  “You’ve been fucking us both for a long time, but now it seems like you really got the job done. You’re a murderer, Jerry. If Carol and I had never let you near us then we would be okay. We would be healthy.”

  “Half the world has The Peeling, Kara. You would have gotten it anyway, one way or another. Carol is my wife; you really think I would infect her purposefully?”

  Kara came closer with the knife. Still Jeremy did not move. She growled at him, blood spilling from her lips and covering the exposed bone of her lower jaw. “Men like you have been a sickness on women since time began. Women have always suffered because of misogynistic perverts like you.”

  “You’re talking nonsense. The Peeling is killing as many men as women. It’s just luck of the draw who gets infected.”

  Kara came at him with the knife. “Lies! You did this. You killed us!”

  Jeremy was about to dodge the knife attack, but at the last second he decided to remain in place. He thought about seeing Carol again as the knife entered his chest and forced him back like a punch. He fell backwards onto the sofa, blade jutting out from between his ribs, and ended up facing the television. Joey and Chandler were playing foosball in a world that knew not of such horrors as The Peeling. It was a nice way to go, and by the time Jeremy bled out, he almost managed to kid himself that the world still had a chance.

  THE PEELING: BOOK 2

  (THE STADIUM)

  Brett rummaged through the defrosting contents of the grimy industrial freezer and frowned. The police or the army, or whoever, had finally cut the power in the area and the stacked supplies of cheap burger patties and hotdogs were now starting to thaw. They would go bad in a matter of days. The French fries would fare a while longer, but they wouldn’t last forever either. It made Brett realise that, at some point, the situation would have to change. Birmingham’s BR Football Stadium wouldn’t provide them refuge forever. Eventually he and all the others would have to face the outside world again.

  When The Peeling first hit, people had been content to lock themselves away inside their homes to wait it out. You could see a person with the infection a mile off – rotting skin and blistering flesh pulling back to reveal bone. People assumed that so long as they kept themselves isolated, they would be okay. When news came out that the victims of the plague – those suffering with the rot – were not the contagious ones, things changed. It quickly became public knowledge that the infection was transmitted via random carriers – from among those who displayed no outward symptoms but carried the disease all the same. The healthy population were the ones to be afraid of.

  Brett hadn’t paid much attention to the news back then. He’d decided there were more constructive things to do then to wallow in the misery on television. A local action-group had formed amongst the residents of Smethwick, the Birmingham district where Brett lived, and he had been only too happy to join with them. With the blessing of the local
authorities, the group of concerned citizens had been granted permission to temporarily leave the quarantines of their homes and congregate in a public area. The leader of the committee, Reverend Long, had chosen the BR Stadium – home of the local lower-division football team. The elderly vicar was a big football fan.

  A military escort had accompanied the Reverend whilst he visited the homes of the nearby parish, collecting Christians, Muslims, and atheists alike. Many did not open their doors, for fear of allowing the pestilence inside, but many others did and were relieved at the opportunity to leave. Brett had been one of those people. He’d joined up eagerly with the growing group, glad to once again have company after his parents had died. But even back then, he had been questioning himself about whether it was the right thing to do, leaving his home.

  Along the way to the stadium, the military had been rough with the group of civilians and those seeking to join them. Brett had seen soldiers exercise lethal force several times, especially against any infected people trying to run towards the group. Brett had panicked at the sight of the already-bleeding bodies being ripped apart by automatic rifle-fire, and so had most others in the group, but Reverend Long had raised his hands to address the crowd and endeavoured to keep them calm. He told them their focus needed to be on helping those still within helping. There would be time to mourn the dead and the atrocities committed on them later. Brett had been uneasy around the military ever since.

  “How we doing, Brett?”

  Brett turned around to see Emily, with her bright ginger hair and dorky spectacles. He shrugged at the girl and told her the truth. No point in lying. “The food is all defrosting,” he said. “It’ll go bad eventually. Luckily it’s all processed rubbish and not fresh stuff, or we’d have even less time to eat it. Can’t believe those assholes cut the power. What are they trying to do?”

  Emily adjusted her spectacles and glanced into the freezer behind him. “Perhaps you should shut the door then and keep in the cold as long as we can then. I’m sure everything will work out okay. They’ll probably give us back the power soon.”

  Brett sighed. Emily, like many other people in the group, had not yet grasped the seriousness of their situation. They still thought the squads of riflemen surrounding the stadium were there to keep everybody safe, and that the power cut was due to some sort of technical hiccup. Brett knew the truth, though. The stadium had been quarantined, and any attempt to leave would be met with a bullet. They were just ants now, stuck inside a bottle hoping somebody would take off the lid.

  When the news had broken that the infection passed via the healthy and not the infected, the world’s dynamic had changed. Suddenly, the brief freedom Brett and the others in the group had been granted was eliminated. Suddenly, they were the ones who were dangerous, not the sickly-skinned lunatics rotting away in their homes. An Army officer had informed Reverend Long that his group were to remain inside the stadium until further notice, and make no attempt to leave. It was made clear that the consequences would be severe if anyone made a run for it.

  That had been three days ago. Now, after another horrible night’s sleep on the cement floor of the East Stand kitchen, Brett had been placed in charge of the food reserves. Luckily, the stadium had several snack bars that all backed onto the same kitchen and staff areas. The supplies were allocated to provide for the twenty-thousand football fans that used to fill the stadium every weekend, which meant there was plenty of food for now, but a great part of it was perishable. What made Brett so mad was how people were tearing into chocolate bars and crisp packets like they were having a party. Something about being able to help themselves to bottles of pop and cans of cider made them feel unadulterated. It was the mob mentality of looting, and it seemed to make them happy, but what they didn’t seem to realise was that every mouthful of snack food they ate was a mouthful they wouldn’t have later when they really needed it. They were eating the non-perishable items first and that had to stop. It would have to be cold burgers all around for the next few days.

  “So what you up to today?” Emily asked him as if they were buddies.

  “I don’t know,” he answered testily. The girl irritated him. “Guess I’ll see if the Reverend needs anything done.”

  Emily giggled at him and bopped him on the arm. “Are you always so work work work? You should let others worry about things for a day. You and me are just teenagers. We should leave it to the adults.”

  “I’m twenty-two, Emily, and this isn’t a game. Things are bad. Those soldiers outside will shoot anyone who tries to leave, which eventually we will be forced to do. Half the country is dead or dying, and we might be infected with the thing that killed them. We’re fucked.”

  Emily winced at his language and adjusted her spectacles. Her freckled cheeks went a shade redder. “No need to speak to me like that. I’m just being friendly.” The girl walked away and, if Brett was honest, he didn’t care. Emily was a pest as far as he was concerned. She needed to get her head in the game. So did everybody else.

  Reverend Long would probably be at his usual place at the centre circle of the football pitch, so Brett headed there now. The football pitch was outside, with the stadium built around it on all sides, comprised of four stands. The snack bar and kitchen was in the East Stand, which also housed a bank of televisions that had kept everyone informed about the ongoing situation until the power had ceased that morning. Last anybody had heard was that the UK’s quarantine procedures had been increased indefinitely until a screening process was put into place.

  Brett took one of the several flights of cement steps leading up to the pitch and the stadium seating. The dull sunshine hit him as he rose to the outside. Birds chirped from the rafters as if all was right with the world. How wrong they were. In the centre of the pitch, Reverend Long conducted one of his regular sermons that were as much about organisation and survival as they were religion. People looked to the holy man as their leader by default, but Brett had his suspicions that the man was out of his depth. People were scared and Reverend Long was doing his best to comfort them, but he wasn’t trained to deal with a situation like this.

  “Ah, young Brett. How are things in the pantry?”

  Brett took the final few steps across the football pitch and placed himself in front of the Reverend so that their conversation was private from the other people gathered around. “We have plenty of food, Reverend, but most of it will go bad in only a few days. The freezer’s still pretty cold at the moment, but with the power off...”

  Reverend Long placed a hand on Brett’s shoulder and gave him a warm smile. “The lord will provide, young Brett. Do not fret.”

  Brett sighed. “So what’s next? Any news from outside?”

  “I spoke with Captain Lewis this morning. His men still won’t allow us to leave – in fact they wouldn’t even let me near the turnstiles. I had to shout out through the entrance like a hooligan.”

  “They can’t keep us in here forever. It’s not right.”

  “I agree. Fortunately, so does Captain Lewis. He has assured me that he is doing everything he can to move things along and get us out of here. We just need to be patient.”

  “Bullshit,” said someone from behind Brett. It was Ethan. Ethan was a pudgy businessman and local property developer. He was well known in the West Midlands and Brett hadn’t liked the man from the moment they’d met.

  “There’s little need for such language, Ethan,” said Reverend Long.

  “Like hell there isn’t. Do you honestly believe that professional thug and his band of mercenaries are ever going to let us out of here? They’ve got every exit covered. Our choices are to starve in here or face a bullet in the chest.”

  “Young Brett here has just assured me that we are perfectly okay, food-wise.”

  Brett frowned. That wasn’t strictly true.

  “For now,” said Ethan. “But we can’t live on dodgy hamburgers forever. We need to get out of here, back to our homes.”

  More like you
r cushy mansion, thought Brett, understanding why the man wanted out, but he couldn’t deny that the businessman’s concerns were on par with his own. It was almost as if Reverend Long had chosen to interpret the food report how he’d wanted.

  “What do you suggest, Ethan?” Brett asked. “If you have a solution, I’d love to hear it.”

  “We fight our way out. There could only be a dozen soldiers out there. There’re almost fifty of us.”

  Brett shook his head and laughed. “That’s ridiculous. They’ll rip us to shreds before we even make it ten feet. And it’s not just the army out there anyway; there’s a load of police as well.”

  “The police aren’t armed. It’s only the soldiers we need to worry about. We can take them, I’m telling you. I’m not the only one who thinks so.”

  Reverend Long placed a hand between them and halted the conversation. “Please, Ethan. Violence will accomplish nothing. We are all men here, inside the stadium and out. We must not fight one another during these trying times.”

  “Oh, stick a sock in it, old man. Jesus isn’t going to save us. Everything is an utter mess and those men outside are only interested in their own wellbeing. We can all die for all they care. There’s been so much death recently that we’d be just another statistic. It’s them or us, Reverend. You can keep your useless God for yourself.”

  “Calm down,” said Brett. “If it’s them or us, then perhaps you should stop turning people against each other. I agree with the Reverend: the time for violence is a long way off yet.”

  “Perhaps, but believe me, before we know it, it will be the only option left.” With that Ethan walked away and reintegrated with the throng of people that covered the halfway point of the pitch.

  “Asshole!”

  “Forgive him, young Brett,” Reverend Long soothed. “Worry makes men mask their fear with anger.”

  Brett shrugged. “Maybe, but we don’t need people like him right now. Things are bad enough. We all need to stick together.”