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

by Iain Rob Wright

  The figure did not move. The torch kept shining directly in Lance's face.

  Lance glanced back out the doorway into the dark woods. “I need help. Do you have a phone?”

  The stranger did not move.

  “Please! Get that light out of my face. I need help, bro.”

  The light faded gradually, inch by inch. The corona coiled in on itself like an imploding star.

  Then the stranger came into view.

  Lance saw the balaclava covering the stranger's face before he saw anything else. His mouth realised what was going on before his brain did, and he spat out one word before it was too late. “Fuck!”

  Hard and vicious, something struck the back of his skull and he was falling again. This time, he was asleep by the time he hit the floor.

  Chapter 4

  When Lance woke, he was smiling. Smiling because his mind had taken him to that big house with the indoor pool he'd been planning to buy. In his dream he was sunning himself with a beer. Now he returned to reality, and reality was grim.

  He was sitting in that strange, out-of-place office chair. When he tried to move, he found, to his dismay, that duct tape bound his wrists to the arm rests. He could think of no scenario where that was not extremely bad.

  At least his mouth wasn’t taped. “What the fuck is your problem? Who the Hell are you guys?”

  He saw no one in the room in front of him, but he knew his abductors must be near, and sure enough, a tall figure in a balaclava soon stepped into the space before him. Heavy boots clunked on the rotting floorboards and the stranger asked, “Are you comfortable?”

  “No! I’m strapped to a goddamn chair. Let me go.”

  “Are you Prankstar?”

  “W-what?”

  “Are you Prankstar?”

  “Yes!”

  The stranger took another step closer to him, near enough to reach out and strike him if he chose to. It made Lance tingle with anticipation, fearful of a blow that might fall any second. The back of his head throbbed from the previous attack.

  “Your YouTube video, BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER, received 14 million views. In this video, you offered to sell cheap, illegal firearms to black men on the street. An overwhelming majority were seen accepting the offer. Your closing comments suggested gun violence is predominately caused by black people, and that they do not value their own lives. Do you disagree with what I have just said?”

  Lance frowned, strained at his bonds. The stranger waited for his answer. “I… yes, I made that video.”

  “A social experiment?”

  “Yes!”

  “Was it fake?”

  “What? No?”

  The stranger pulled out a phone. It was Lance’s phone. The contacts screen was open, centred on the C’s. “Christopher Kazas is a stage actor. Why is his number on your phone?”

  “I have hundreds of people on my phone, dawg.”

  The stranger nodded. “Yes, you do. Many are paid actors. Christoper Kazas was one of the black men in your video agreeing to purchase illegal firearms. Did you hire him? Was the video faked?”

  “No way, bro.”

  There was a scuffle at the back of the room. Lance tried to turn around but his seat was secured to the floor. Several moments passed before a second stranger appeared at the front of the cabin. It was the man with a beard beneath his balaclava. He held a struggling body in front of him, applying a chokehold.

  Lance fought his restraints, veins bulging in his forehead, when he recognised the person being thottled. “Tom! Tom, who are these guys, what do they want?”

  The stranger shoved Tom onto his knees. His face was awash with tears and snot. Sobs competed with words as he spoke. “J-Just do what they tell you, Lance. They’re fucking crazy.”

  Tom wailed as the handle of a knife struck him in the back of the head. The stranger without a beard now stood behind Tom and he turned his gaze to Lance. Dark brown eyes peered out from the twin holes in the thick black fabric. He asked a question. “Are you Prankstar?”

  “Yes! You know I am.”

  “Do you make fake videos?”

  Lance shook his head. “No way, bro.”

  The stranger nodded to his bearded colleague who pulled a dark cloth from the back of his trousers. He shook it out and revealed it to be a hood. He shoved it over Tom’s screaming face. The stranger holding Tom down stared harder at Lance. “Do you make fake videos? Do you misrepresent black people? Do you exploit the homeless to make money? Are you creating false evidence with biased social experiments?”

  “Just tell them!” Tom sobbed beneath the hood. “Lance, they're not kidding around.”

  Lance swallowed, but the lump in his throat remained. The fuck did these guys want? The more he stared at those dark brown eyes beneath the balaclava, the surer he became that his attacker was black. This was all just about hurt feelings. “I’m sorry,” Lance spewed. “If I've done something you think is racist, I apologise. Let's talk about it. But it’s not my fault if black people all want to carry guns. The videos are real, bro. I have nothing against black people. So fuck you!” Tom groaned. Lance was trembling. What the Hell was he doing? Why was he antagonising these psychos? Fuck them! I ain't some bitch they can scare. Except I'm about to piss myself.

  Lance tried to redress his angry outburst. “This is crazy. You've made your point, but the videos are real. It sucks, I know.” The stranger nodded slowly, like he was about to admit to this all being a giant misunderstanding.

  He placed his knife against Tom’s throat and pulled it hard like he was starting a mower.

  Blood spatted the floorboards. Tom squirmed. A crimson jet arced into the air and ruined Lance’s dirty white jeans. Lance gagged, but through his vomit choked vocal chords he yelled, “You fuckers! Tom! Tom! You crazy bastards!”

  Tom fell face first against the rotting floorboards. His body twitched a few times, but then went still. The monster who had killed him stepped forward and wiped his bloody knife on Lance’s shirt, looking him in the eye as he did so. Lance tried to move away, but the chair held him tight.

  Yet one of his wrists seemed to move a little more.

  His bonds were loosening. Just a little.

  Have to get the fuck out of here. Just need a little time.

  “What do you want? Why are you doing this?”

  The man with the knife pointed the blade’s tip at Lance's face, hovering above his right eye. “Are you Prankstar?”

  “YES!”

  “Do you post fake videos?”

  Lance strained at his bonds, but tried not to show it on his face. He needed more time. “Yes, okay! The videos are all fake. It’s all about the views, bro. People like hearing black people are criminals so I give 'em what they want. Welcome to the Internet, bro.”

  He rotated his wrists over and over, the adhesive tearing the fine hairs from his skin. Every twist made it a little further. The duct tape stretched and warped. He was almost free.

  Just a little longer. “Thank you, Prankstar. You have admitted you are a fraud, a charlatan, a trickster. Your messages are toxic. Your influence is toxic. It is time for you to retire.”

  Holding the bloody knife in one hand, Tom's killer reached up with the other and clutched the top of his balaclava. He pulled it up over his face. Slowly, like a magician revealing a trick.

  Lance’s heart stopped. If the guy was ready to show his face, this would not end well. They’d already killed Tom. Lance was next.

  No witnesses, bro.

  Come on… He pulled harder at his restraints, no longer trying to disguise it. Just a little more!

  The murderer in front of him was still steadily removing his balaclava. It was just up past his nose when Lance finally got his arms loose. The sudden jolt of excitement, the thrill of being free, launched Lance forward like a spring. He collided with Tom's killer while the balaclava was bunched over his eyes. He cried out in surprise when Lance’s shoulder punched the air from his belly.

  The tw
o of them ended up on the floor in a pile.

  Immediately, the murderer’s bearded associate came for Lance, swearing beneath his own balaclava. Lance spotted the man out the corner of his eye and panicked. With both hands busy restraining Tom's killer, he had no way to fend off an attack.

  Something glinted on the floorboards, lit by the swinging light bulb overhead.

  Without thinking, Lance picked up the knife and swivelled around. He buried it right in the guts of his rushing attacker. The man made no sound, but he doubled over and changed direction, travelling backwards on his heels. Trembling hands went to his belly, and clumsy fingers wrapped around the knife handle jutting out of his middle. The eyes beneath the balaclava were wide and shocked and went even wider when he yanked the knife free with a sickening squelch.

  Blood drenched the floor between the stabbed man's legs, like red waters breaking. He slumped to the ground in a position so awkward he could only be dead.

  Tom's killer went still and stopped fighting. The balaclava still covered his eyes but his mouth sucked at the air. “W-what did you do? What’s happening?”

  Adrenaline-stoked fury in his veins, Lance landed a punch right in the guy’s mouth. “Shut it!”

  Then Lance leapt to his feet, empowered by the sudden role-reversal. Now these fucking clowns were the ones in trouble. He marched across the floorboards to retrieve the knife. When he saw what he had done, he took a moment. A man was dead because of him.

  I was just defending myself.

  Still just killed a man, though. Shit!

  Shit!

  The amount of blood on the floorboards could have filled a bathtub, and the body already smelt bad, like an open sewer. His stomach turned and his neck bulged. How had he not puked yet? “Shit, Lance, what did you do? You are so fucked.”

  At the sound of his friend’s voice, Lance spun around in shock. That Tom was back on his feet was surprising enough, but that he gawped at Lance like he was the one who had done something wrong was even more bizarre.

  “T-Tom? I…” Lance raced forward and held his friend tightly. “Shit, bro. I thought I'd lost you.”

  The remaining abductor removed his balaclava and backed off into the corner. He was a black dude, and his brown eyes fixed on his dead partner.

  Lance left Tom and faced the other man down, backing him further into the corner. “Who the fuck are you? I swear I know you!”

  The guy nodded hysterically. “Y-y-yeah, bro! I-I-I’m PrankStorm.”

  More fury spiked Lance’s veins, and a snarl took over his lips. “You fucker! This was all over YouTube? You want to take me on?”

  The guy swallowed, wavered on the spot like he was about to fall down. “It was just a prank, bro. Just a prank.”

  “I’ll fucking kill you!” Lance raised his fists, but Tom yanked him away. “Chill, dude. We got to figure this shit out.”

  PrankStorm laughed, a fraught, high-pitched sound. “We can’t figure this shit out, bro. We’re all fucked, yo!”

  Lance looked at Tom, and at last noticed the slash across his friend's throat. The wound was peeling away at the corner and flapping. “Tom… what's happening? I don’t understand. You were pretending to be dead? Why?”

  “It was all fake, Lance. A set-up.”

  “But why? Why prank me?”

  Tom raised an eyebrow as if the answer were obvious. “Because you’re a fucking asshole.”

  Lance stumbled as if hit by a rock. “You don't mean that. We’re bros! Partners!”

  “Nah, bro. You keep most of the money and it’s your face on camera most the time. I'm just your helper and you only see yourself as the star. I’m tired of your shit. PrankStorm wanted to take you down—expose your shit as fake and ruin you. Him and me are gonna start a new channel, yo. Better than any of the lame-ass bullshit you come up with. Now you screwed it all up. Screwed yourself more than we ever intended.”

  Lance frowned. His head threatened to split with the ache he had coming on. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you get it, Lance? We filmed all this shit. We got your confession on camera that all your videos are fake. Then you straight off killed a guy. You’re fucked, Lance. Totally fucked.”

  Lance felt tears coming to his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them spill. Fuck Tom. He had made Tom rich, and this was how he showed his appreciation? “They were our videos, bro. If our channel is a turd, then you stepped in it too.”

  PrankStorm spoke up from the corner. “We were just screwing around, Lance. You took it too far.”

  Lance stomped his foot, making both men flinch. “I thought I was gonna get whacked and dumped in the woods. I thought my best friend had just bled to death at my feet. They won’t blame me for any of this shit, yo. It’s you two who will fry. Manslaughter or whatever. Who the fuck did I kill, anyway?”

  He marched across the floorboards and bent down next to the stinking corpse. He reached out and yanked the balaclava away. The astonishment knocked him back a full three feet. “The homeless dude? What the fuck?”

  “It was him who told us about this place,” explained Tom. “He and some of his buddies crash here sometimes.”

  Lance looked around at the cabin, saw that the rotting floorboards and moulding walls were only fit for the desperate. “Where is here exactly?”

  “The woods behind the golf club. The cabin used to belong to a groundskeeper or something.”

  “I still don’t get it. Why the Hell did this old hobo have a problem with me?”

  Tom huffed. “Why you think, bro? You’ve been scamming the homeless for months. His name was Eric, by the way, and one of your pranks involved his girlfriend—or fuck buddy or whatever. I dunno if homeless people have girlfriends.”

  PrankStorm spoke up again, regaining some of his senses and now sounding far less rattled. “You gave her that fake money order for ten-thousand dollars.”

  Lance had almost forgotten the prank. The money order had been fake, of course, but his viewers didn’t know that. They thought Lance was the most generous guy on the planet, and his subscriber count had shot up.

  Tom continued. “The old girl tried to cash the cheque and got laughed right out of the bank. Eric said she overdosed after that. Guess it was the last bit of humiliation she could take. Eric tracked me down using the computers in the library. When he found out I was already planning on taking you down, we joined forces. Before Eric could go through with it though, he wanted to see one last time how much of an asshole you were. Needed to confirm it once and for all.”

  Lance groaned. “The prank earlier tonight?”

  Tom nodded. “That was our go ahead. Eric raced off and met up with PrankStorm to tell him he was in, then they came and snatched you in the van. We paid some kid to taze you and I drove up to the woods in my van to meet everyone here.”

  “I thought you were my friend, Tom.”

  He shrugged. “Just business. Now Prankstar is finished. You’re going to jail. This cabin is hooked up with six cameras.”

  Lance decided to verify the fact, and it didn’t take him long to see the tiny lenses peeking out from the rafters. He also spotted one hidden below a pile of rotting cardboard in a corner of the floor. For a moment, he just stood there, struggling to understand quite what had happened. His best friend and biggest competitor had joined forces to take him down. They had only been intending to ruin him—expose him as a fake—but the fact he had murdered a hobo was down to them. The courts would probably make an example of them all though. Some judge would lump them all together and label them a bunch of privileged jackasses before throwing the book at them. Manslaughter charges all around. Tom and PrankStorm were right. He was screwed. They had screwed him.

  Fuck you, both. This is nothing but jealousy. I made a success of myself. I don’t need to be sorry. How dare they try to ruin me!

  Lance ground his teeth, clenched his fists. Without a word, he knelt beside the dead hobo.

  “Just get away from him, Lance,” said Tom. “
I'm calling the police, so just stay away from the body.” Lance picked the knife up off the ground, but kept it close against himself as he rose again. He approached Tom, his former-friend now busy unlocking his phone, and shook his head. “Nobody is calling anybody.”

  PrankStorm stepped in front of Lance and held up a hand. “Just chill, bro. This shit got out of hand, but we need to end it now.”

  “I agree!” Lance slashed the air and two of Prankstorm’s fingers clonked against the floorboards. The 3rd-rate vlogger screamed as blood spurted up in twin jets from his stumps. Nothing like the movies. So much more visceral. Almost enjoyable as he plunged the knife into his enemy's guts and twisted it hard both ways, burrowing the blade deeper. PrankStorm fell back against the cabin wall and slid down onto his butt, leaving behind a bloody slither like a diseased slug. Tom dropped his phone in shock. “Lance, stop!”

  Lance was cackling like a chimp, and he didn’t know why. He spoke through a manic grin. “Why, bro? I’m already on the hook for one murder, so what’s the big deal?”

  Tom had both hands up in front of him. He had gone white as a sheet and was shaking. “The first was an accident. You have to stop!”

  “This is on you, dawg. You could have just spoken to me, Tom!”

  “I know, I’m sorry.”

  Lance shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Forget about it. At least now, you’ve got a chance to spill your guts.”

  Tom frowned. Lance buried the knife in his former-friend’s guts, looking him in the eye as he slumped to his knees. “L-Lance…”

  “Shut your mouth. I was gonna make you a millionaire, but instead you pull this shit. I’m fucking PrankStar, bro. I’m a video God.

  Tom was swallowing hard and blinking rapidly. He held both hands on the handle of the blade, but didn't try to pull it out. “Y-you… you’re on camera, bro.”

  Lance sneered. “So what? I’ll find the cameras and wreck 'em. I’ll burn this place down and nobody will ever know I was ever here. Tell the cops you and PrankStorm were off filming somewhere and that I haven’t heard from you in a few days. It’ll look like some kind of prank gone wrong, bro. Looks like the day you crossed Prankstar was your last.”