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

by Iain Rob Wright

  The elf squeaked in her hands, and sounded like a scared kitten now. Maybe Santa would be mad with it. She tried to look at Santa’s face, but it was covered by shadow. All she could see was the giant, glinting belt buckle around his massive waist.

  There was sudden movement, accompanied by bells jingling, and the elf was snatched out of her hands. A massive gust of wind blew a cloud of snow in her face, despite it not snowing at all this year. She spluttered and wiped her face, and when she could see again, the blinding light had gone. The road outside their house was empty. Overhead, the black sky was turning blue. Christmas morning would soon be here.

  Mia turned and went back inside the house. There, her mother and little brother waited for her. They both gathered her into a hug. Mummy was crying.

  As the sun rose, they gathered Santa’s presents into a bin liner and threw them into the wheelie bin outside. Neither Mia nor Tim wanted them. Mummy made them hot chocolate, and they sat in front of the Christmas tree to open their presents to each other.

  “Mummy,” said Tim as he unwrapped his first gift.

  “Yes, honey?”

  “I don’t like Santa.”

  Mummy laughed. “Me either. Maybe next year we don’t write to him.”

  “Oh, I will write to him,” said Mia. “I’m going to write him a complaint!”

  They all laughed and spent Christmas together without another mention of Santa and his elves.

  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

  2. VLOG LIFE

  Chapter 1

  “Here’s ten bucks, bro. Enjoy!”

  The stinking vagrant peered at Lance in a confused squint. His cracked lips moved wordlessly, forming gobs of foul saliva at the corners of his mouth. A grey beard hung off his chin and seemed to move. Lice.

  Lance waved the note in the hobo's face. “Take it, man. It's yours.”

  The vagrant glanced aside and stared right into the camera. Lance heard the mechanical buzz of the G7 X’s lens as Tom zoomed in on the confused expression.

  “You for real, kid?” Lance beamed. “Yeah, bro!” The hobo snatched the note and squirrelled it away into the folds of his rancid sweatshirt. He returned Lance's wide grin. “Thanks, kid! If only more people were-”

  “Okay cut!” Lance turned away and quickly put a hand against his mouth to keep from gagging. “Come on, man, let’s bounce. This fucker reeks of piss and who knows what.”

  Tom lowered the camera and nodded. “No kidding, bro. Think I’m gonna hurl.”

  The hobo frowned, then appraised himself as if he hadn't before noticed the crust covering his clothing. When he looked back at Lance, he was no longer smiling. “What are you kids up to?”

  Lance could still smell piss, so he took another step away. “What’s it look like we’re doing, idiot? We’re shooting a video.”

  The hobo rose up from his dirty stoop and stared at Lance. It wasn’t an aggressive look, but he had become unfriendly—like a threatened dog. Lance wondered how you could live in the dirt and not feel threatened every second. Lance put a hand out to the hobo. “Back off, bro. You got your ten dollars so go get yourself a six pack on me.”

  The suggestion seemed to light the old man’s fire. He stepped towards Lance, bringing the stink with him, and both of his hands clenched into fists. “Why give me money then insult me? You kids today make no sense. You take no responsibility for yourselves or your actions.”

  Lance smirked. “Coming from an old bum, that's pretty funny. We earn the big bucks, bro. That ten bucks I just gave you is less than I find stuffed down the side of my designer couch. Now take a hike before I kick your ass.”

  The hobo clenched his fists tighter like he was about to take things further, but then he seemed to deflate, and scurried off like a spineless worm. Fuckin' deadbeat.

  “That was gold,” said Tom, patting Lance on the back. “Subscribers will eat this shit up. The last 'feeding the homeless' video got eight-million views. This one could get ten. Fifteen gees, easy.”

  Lance fist bumped his camera man, making the thick gold bracelets on his wrist rattle. It almost covered the sound of his stomach rumbling. “My hunger is roaring fierce, bro. You wanna go get some schwarma, or a burrito or something?”

  “I could go for a burrito, bro, but I got to go pay the meter if we’re hanging.”

  Lance checked his watch—early evening. Cleveland’s night scene would begin its tune any minute, and it was calling to him. Friday night and he was feeling pretty dope. This week alone, he and Tom had brought in twenty gees from ad revenue alone, and that didn't even include the t-shirt sales. New videos included a prank involving Trump supporters failing to help an old Mexican lady lying in the street (it was fake as shit, but the liberals ate it up), and a social experiment asking young sluts (actually paid actresses) if they would give Lance a blowjob in public for $1000—they all said yes. The channel was blowing up, yo.

  “Okay, Tom, I’ll meet you at the Chub-n-Tuck for some eats, then I wanna find a club and get laid.”

  Tom laughed. “Didn’t you get laid last night?”

  “And the night before. What’s your point, bro?”

  Tom shrugged. “Let me feed the meter and I’ll meet you there. Get a Papa Bless Big Burrito for me.”

  CALORIE ALERT. Lance winced. “Those things are as big as my arm, bro. You gonna get fat.”

  “Long as we keep bringing in the cheddar, I don’t give a shit.”

  “Word!”

  Lance stood on the sidewalk for a while, watching his buddy disappear around the corner. It was a balmy night and life was awesome. Just breathing Cleveland's breeze was invigorating. He was alive tonight. Totally alive.

  He was Prankstar.

  Time to dab.

  As Lance broke loose in the street, he heard a delightful sound. Two giggling girls strolled his way, and they squawked even louder when he gave them his trademark wink. They looked a little underage, so he’d have to give them a miss, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun.

  “Like my moves, ladies?”

  Both girls were blonde, but one of them had dark eyeliner on, making her the sexier of the two. It was her who spoke. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just celebrating being rich and famous. Sometimes a playa got to dance!”

  “You’re famous?”

  He nodded. “And rich. I’m Prankstar.”

  Both girls looked at each other and giggled again. Dark-eyes raised a thin eyebrow at Lance. That gesture alone made him want to screw her right there on the sidewalk. “Never heard of you,” she said.

  Lance smirked. “You will soon, baby. My YouTube channel is the 17th most viewed this year. I get three-million views a day. My shit is blowing up.”

  “And that makes you famous?”

  “And rich.”

  Dark-eyes was going for it. The corners of her mouth narrowed as she pouted. “How rich?”

  “Let’s say I could go buy us a house to screw in with the spare cash in my bank account.”

  Both blondes gasped, but dark eyes was only feigning shock. “You’re terrible.”

  “So make me behave. How old are you, sweetheart?”

  “Seventeen.” Bullshit. Lance would be surprised if she’d even hit sixteen. Still, girl had it going on, for sure. “Okay, fuck it. Meet me at the I-Dubz club at nine o’clock and we’ll have some fun. I’ll get us into VIP and have drinks sent to us all night. It's just across the river. You know it?”

  Both blondes looked at each other and grinned. Dark eyes looked back at him. “Yeah, we know it. Are you for real?”

  Lance took her chin between his finger and thumb and looked into her eyes. “Honey, you say you don’t know who I am? After tonight, you’ll never forget me. I'm fucking Prankstar.”

  Chapter 2

  Lance gave the two blondes a twenty so they could get a taxi home and put on something appropriately slutty. Once he saw them off, he tried to check in with Tom, who had been gone a while, but got his voicemail. He c
rossed the road and headed for Chub-n-Tucks, deciding that Tom might already be there. The diner was a total dive, but the food was pretty dope. Six months ago, before YouTube pranks, a greasy burrito was all Lance could’ve afforded. His mom was a struggling waitress. His fuckwit father was down in Florida with his bitch girlfriend. It had been Lance and his mom on their own for six years now, living in a shit hole apartment and eating nothing but fast food. His mom had ridden him hard about the pranks at first, but she kept her mouth shut now that the cheddar was coming in. She had stayed out of his hair ever since that first YouTube check for twelve thousand dollars.

  Your boy's a star, mom. Deal with it.

  Cleveland's traffic was dying down, the everyday lull between the work day and evening play. That was what made him look to his right as he crossed the road and heard a revving engine. At the side of the street, a black van pulled off from the curb and headed in his direction. It was speeding up fast…

  “What the Hell” Lance picked up pace, not wanting to get in the idiot's way. But the van veered towards him. Right fucking towards him. “Hey! Hey, what the Hell?” The van sped up. Its engine roared. Lance threw himself onto the sidewalk avoiding the screeching tyres by inches. As the van sped away, he lay there on the ground, wondering what the Hell had just happened. Lunatic tried to mow me down!

  “Whoa, dude, are you okay?” a kid in a red beanie hat came hurrying down the sidewalk towards him. “That guy almost took you out!”

  Lance patted himself down and winced when he realised he'd skinned his elbow. He cursed as he got back to his feet. “Motherfucker better hope I never see him again, or I'll sue him down to his shit-stained underwear.”

  The kid looked him up and down, a hand out but not quite touching him. “Wait, don’t I know you?” He took off his beanie hat and unveiled a mess of brown hair, scratched at his scalp. “You’re Prankstar?”

  Lance rubbed his palms together, expelling the dirt from the sidewalk. He offered his right hand for a shake. “You a fan?”

  The kid nodded profusely—that star-struck look in his eye that Lance loved so much. “Yeah, man. I love all that shit you do. That social experiment you did when you dressed up as a woman to see if transgendered people get hassled when they go into public toilets was dope, yo.”

  Lance smiled, remembering the skit well. It was one of his best, and he had looked hella good as a chick. “Thanks, bro.”

  The kid fiddled with his beanie hat, reaching a hand inside of it. “No problem. It’s all fake as shit though, right?”

  Lance frowned. It wasn’t the first accusation he had received, but the kid hadn't seemed like a doubter. He was about to defend his content as real—the company line—when he saw the kid pluck something from inside his beanie hat. It was bright yellow and plastic. And it gave off a buzzing sound.

  “Don't taze me, bro!” Lance’s limbs turned to jelly, and he was suddenly falling towards the pavement. He was fully aware as he lay paralysed on his back, staring up at the darkening sky. He was fully aware of the black van returning and screeching up alongside the curb, the side door sliding open. He was fully aware as two men leapt out and bundled him into the back before driving away.

  Lance was fully aware that he could be about to die.

  Chapter 3

  At first, Lance could not speak. Every time he tried, his lips quivered uncontrollably. But eventually, he could focus enough to get a few words out. “H-help! W-who are you?”

  At the front of the van, both the driver and his companion glanced back at Lance. Both of them wore balaclavas. Both men said nothing.

  Lance groaned. Pain in his testicles made him groan. Had he been tasered in the nuts? Screw that shit! “Just let me go, dawg. I have money.”

  The two men stayed silent. Lance tried to think. People were supposed to listen to the road for clues, or try to sense direction in situations like this, right? Okay, okay. Just stay calm and work this shit through. It felt as though the van had sped up, maybe on the freeway. Where were they taking him? Who were they?

  He had no idea what direction they were travelling in. All he heard was the road beneath the tyres. “Please, just let me go. What did I do to you?”

  He tried to give his question an answer. Someone I pranked? It has to be.

  “Are you the guy we pretended to rob in the alleyway? The gun was fake, bro. You signed a disclaimer, remember? Is it money? You want to get paid? Fine. How’s five-gees sound?”

  The two men kept their attention on the road, ignoring Lance completely. They were both average build, but they had a menacing aura, like they would watch him bleed to death without an ounce of compassion. The man in the passenger seat looked like he had a beard tucked beneath his balaclava, but there was nothing else about either man he could identify.

  Lance freaked out. He kicked both legs at the van's side panel. When that didn’t work, he searched for a lock or handle, which led him to discover that the van’s rear windows were thickly tinted, and that the interior handles, along with all the seats, had been removed. It was a full on rape wagon.

  What the hell is going to happen to me?

  With escape not an option, Lance's only choice was to attack. He got to his feet and rushed the two men up front, terror rising in him and escaping his lungs in an almighty yell. It was too cramped in the van’s interior to throw a punch, so he grabbed the front passenger’s neck and tried to throttle him. When the man reacted in surprise, Lance thought he had a good chance of fighting his way out of this, but then his face exploded in agony and he crumpled backwards into the van's rear. His vision turned a million different ways and liquid gushed down his shirt.

  Blood. “You bwoke my dose! You bastard!”

  The passenger turned to him and snarled through the holes in his balaclava. His voice was raspy, like a heavy drinker's. “Sit down before I break something else, kid!”

  Lance swallowed his next words and made no more noise. Blood flowed down his face and his nose burned with agony. He was in big trouble here.

  These guys mean business. But at least they had their faces covered. No point doing that if they weren't going to let him go eventually, right? I’m just gonna get my ass handed to me, but I can take a beating. I’ll come through this. Maybe I’ll make the news and get even more views. Hell, the sympathy factor will be a goldmine if I play this right.

  What the fuck am I thinking about? I need to get the fuck out of here.

  “Please let me go. I’m sorry. You’re scaring me. Just let me go!”

  The van screeched to a stop, so suddenly Lance tumbled head over heels towards the front.

  “Okay,” the passenger with the raspy voice barked. “Get the fuck out, kid!”

  Lance swallowed, his throat thick with nose-blood. “W-what?”

  There was an audible click as the driver reached forward and pulled something under the dashboard. Lance felt a draft behind him and realised the van’s sliding door had fell ajar.

  “Get the fuck out, kid!”

  Lance didn’t need telling again. He wrapped his fingers around the sliding door and threw it open so hard it almost bounced back and sliced him in two. Night had fallen and the balmy breeze met him. His feet hit the ground and he was running.

  Running through the woods.

  “Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Where the Hell am I?”

  Lance didn’t know of any woods in Cleveland, but he supposed the suburbs would have a few. If that was true, then there must be houses nearby—someone who could help.

  Or I can call someone!

  Still running as fast as he could, Lance yanked his cellphone from his jeans and dialled 911. The screen lit the darkness in front of him, but made it harder to see ahead. Several times, he stumbled to avoid going head over heels into a bush, or caving his skull open on a low hanging branch. Wherever he was, there was no well-walked trail he could see. Just wilderness. In fucking Cleveland?

  Dead air filled his eardrums when his phone failed to connect. He glanced a
t the screen and saw he had no service. Where were all the houses? Where was he?

  “HERE PIGGY PIGGY!” Lance looked back and saw only darkness behind him.

  “THERE’S NOWHERE TO RUN, PIGGY!”

  “SCREW YOU!” he shouted back. “I’m gonna brain you fuckers.”

  He tried his phone again, but it was still out of service. Eventually, he put it back in his pocket because it was slowing him down. Once the light from the screen was out of his face, his night vision returned and he could see ahead more clearly. He dodged between trees and picked up speed. The blood in his airways left him out of breath within seconds. But he had to keep going.

  Something lay ahead.

  A house!

  No, a cabin.

  Lance screamed. “HELP! SOMEBODY, PLEASE!”

  A light came on in the cabin. Even though his heart was beating a mile a minute, the sudden hope of rescue sped it up to a flat out sprint. He knew the moment he stopped running he would keel over and vomit, but he kept going. Unable to slow down in time, he hurtled into the cabin’s front door and shook the wood in its frame. The racket was so loud that there was no need to knock and announce his presence, so he turned around and faced the woods, waiting for someone to let him in. Were they still out there, following him?

  Why had they abducted him just to let him go? It made no sense.

  Had they changed their mind? Or were they just out to scare him? Were they done? Please let them be done.

  The door at his back creaked and began to open. As he was leaning against it, Lance tumbled backwards through the doorway. He exited the darkness of the woods and entered the light of the cabin.

  “Help me!” he begged, searching for whoever had let him in. But the cabin was empty, save for a single office chair in the middle of the main room. A single, naked bulb swung overhead casting shadows. Lance was shaking, he held back the vomit. He managed to control himself enough to cry out for someone. “Is... is anybody here?” Someone stepped out of the darkness at the back of the room, obscured by a blinding corona of light. Lance shielded his face. “I can’t see you. Can you get that light out of my eyes?”