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

by Iain Rob Wright

  Tom was shaking his head, but he almost seemed to smirk.

  Lance booted his former-friend in the ribs. “The fuck you smiling at?”

  “You’re on film.”

  “I already told you I can deal with that shit.”

  Tom released a pained chuckle. “We’re live streaming, bro. Give the fans a wave.”

  Lance’s stomach fell to his knees. He looked up at the rafters, directly into one of the cameras and saw the cheap mobile router attached to it. Tom chuckled again weakly, but then expired, that annoying grin still on his face. Outside, the woods lit up as a dozen torches broke through the trees. Lance heard the shouts of police. Someone on the stream had alerted them. Murder was taking place live on the Internet.

  Lance could only imagine the views he would get. At least he'd always be famous.

  3. HEIRLOOMS

  Chapter 1

  “So, I think you’ll agree, all things considered, this house is a bargain, yes?”

  Tammy pinched a ceramic frog from the mahogany side table and fondled it. It was wearing yellow spectacles, and she liked it very much. Before she gave her reply, she glanced at her husband, Andy. From his subtle expression, she could tell he was thinking the same as her. She turned to the estate agent, Gizelle. “All this stuff is really included in the price? What if some of it’s valuable? Isn’t there family who want it?”

  The estate agent shook her head, saddened. “The previous owner was a widow and had no children. A quiet lady according to neighbors. Much of this stuff is antique, but the charity the property went to said to sell it wholesale—cobwebs and all.”

  Andy swiped a hand at the mahogany stair rail, scooping tendrils of spider silk. “Good thing I don’t mind spiders.”

  “Or spooky old paintings,” added Tammy, nodding to an oil portrait halfway up the landing. It depicted a huntsman in traditional red jacket and black hat. The English gentleman stood beside his horse with a pack of foxhounds at his ankles. The dogs had bloody muzzles.

  “So, are you interested in making an offer?” asked the estate agent. She had a pen in her hand but had made no notes during the entire viewing, nor did she carry any paper. Tammy wondered if Gizelle actually knew how to write.

  Or how little she was charging for this house.

  Tammy kept waiting for the penny to drop. The house itself was priced only moderately under market value, due to its rundown nature. The decor needed updating and a new kitchen was sorely needed, but the property sat within their price range, and could one day be worth a lot more. What made it a true bargain was the sheer amount of furniture included. While none of the knick knacks were particularly of Tammy's taste, the imposing dining room table alone must have been worth a grand. It was pure mahogany and heavier than her car! What they wouldn’t keep they could sell. The place had character, perhaps a little too much, but one day they would make it their own. She knew it. The house had an atmosphere she couldn't describe, but it made her tummy warm. Maybe it was the feeling of home. Stupid to shop with her heart, but the way a house made you feel when you walked through the front door was important. Andy would agree.

  “Can we have a minute?” Andy asked Gizelle who seemed more predatory by the second, growing an inch as she leant towards them and showing more teeth in her fixed grin.

  “Of course,” she said. “I shall wait in the dining room, but I’ll need to rush you as we have other viewings later.”

  Tammy rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

  Once Gizelle walked out of earshot, Andy smiled at Tammy. “You like this place, huh?”

  She shrugged, not wanting to seem overeager, even to her husband who might prod her playfully about it. “It has everything we want,” she said. “Three beds, big garden, garage and driveway. Plus it's different. All the other houses we looked at were thrown up like Lego. This house has everything we've been looking for.”

  “Including the ghost of Widow Twanky.”

  She bopped him on the arm. “You like it too, I can tell.”

  “Are you kidding me?” he raised one of his bushy, copper eyebrows. “I freaking love it. There’s a four-poster bed in the master. I can finally be a princess!”

  “And that dining room table; I think it was built in the Dark Ages. The whole downstairs has real wood floors too, no laminate rubbish.”

  “Original thatched roof as well,” Gizelle's voice piped out from the dining room.

  Andy frowned and smirked at Tammy. “Okay, I think we’ve made our minds up now, thank you.”

  “Excellent!” Gizelle was back in the room. “Asking price?”

  “Let’s try five below,” said Tammy. “Unless you’re willing to clean out all the cobwebs.”

  “I’ll put forward your offer and try to give you an answer today. This house will be a real gem once polished.”

  Tammy glanced up the stairwell at the portrait oil painting and shuddered, the only thing about the house she didn’t like. And the first thing she would sell.

  Those blood soaked muzzles.

  “Which charity?” said Andy.

  Gizelle frowned. “Sorry?”

  “You said the property was left to a charity. Which charity?”

  “Oh, erm, yes… I believe the late owner left everything to a battered women's shelter. Your purchase will go to a very worthy course.”

  Tammy’s stomach grew hot, and she fingered the knot over her bottom left rib where the bone had thickened and healed. As she walked towards the front door, she leant into Andy and whispered. “I want this house.”

  Chapter 2

  Tammy flopped on the kingsize mattress and winced. “Ouchy! This bed isn’t as comfy as it looks.”

  Andy approached the four-poster bed and clambered on top of her. “Maybe it needs activity to soften it up.”

  Tammy shifted, trying to avoid the painful lumps and knots. “I think the springs are gone. We’ll have to change it. No point having an antique four-poster bed if it feels like lying on potatoes.”

  “I’m trying to come on to you here and you’re talking about potatoes.”

  “Don't potatoes turn you on?”

  He kissed her mouth. “You turn me on!”

  As he bared down on Tammy, a sharp pain stabbed her side. “Ooh. Argh. Get off me. Off off off!”

  Andy leapt up. “You okay? What is it?”

  She pushed herself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “My rib is playing me up. We really do need to get a new mattress. It's too firm for me.”

  “Okay, Tam. I’ll sort it out. You want me to get you some pain pills?”

  She rubbed at the bottom of her ribcage and winced again. Odd that her old injury was nagging her. For so long, the broken rib had faded from memory. Now it flared so badly she could feel the knuckles shattering it all over again. “No, it’s okay. I took some pills earlier. They didn't help.”

  Andy stood there, arms folded, face concerned—no longer horny. She knew the sight of her pain upset him—it was part of the reason she loved this gentle and caring man—but neither of them knew a way to discuss the past without it ruining their future, or at the very least their day. Andy wasn’t jealous in an overt, controlling way. He was jealous in a pained, silent way. Talk of her ex, Jay, was uncomfortable for him, as talk of his past dalliances was painful to her. That was why they both tried to pretend the past did not exist. That was just fine by her.

  Pain subsiding, Tammy got up and gave Andy a hug. “Come on! This is our first night in our new house. Let’s go crack open the wine.”

  They descended the creaking stairs, hand in hand. Tammy made an admission. “I really hate that painting.”

  Andy stopped halfway down and faced the portrait, nose to nose with the smug fox hunter and his pack of bloody hounds. “Yeah, I think I hate it too. I understand the idea of culling animals and hunting and all that, but still… you have to be some kind of asshole to make a sport out of tearing apart terrified animals.”

  “Will you take it down?”

&nb
sp; He placed his hands around either side of the frame. “Right this second.”

  There was a tearing sound like what Tammy imagined the sound of a scab being ripped free would sound like. As the frame pulled away from the wall, cracked, yellowing wallpaper came with it. A large square of bare, dusty wall remained. And a fist-sized hole.

  Andy teetering on the stairs and staring around one size of the large frame in his hands. “Sorry!”

  Tammy stared at the black hole, and a strange feeling descended upon here, like it might suddenly suck her in. “Yeah... It's a real mess.”

  “I’ll get some filler tomorrow and sort it. Right after I order a new mattress, change a dozen lightbulbs, and mow the lawn. Bugger, moving into a house is stressful, huh?”

  The lights flickered on and off for a second, but Tammy still focused on the hole. “I think it was there before you moved the portrait.”

  “The painting was put there to cover the hole? Makes sense. Maybe I should put it back?”

  Tammy snapped. “No! I hate it.”

  “Okay okay. I’ll put it outside with the rest of the rubbish. I hope we don’t find any more damage. Last thing we need is a money pit.”

  Tammy blinked and pulled herself away from the hole. “It’s not a pit, honey. I’ll start Ebaying stuff tomorrow. We’ll make a fortune, I’m sure of it.”

  The painting's weight seemed to increase in Andy’s arms, because he stumbled down the last steps and quickly lowered it to the wooden floor of the hallway. His hands were dusty, and when he wiped them on his t-shirt, he left gray smears against the pastel blue cotton. “You sure you want to sell it all?” He picked up a jar with a brass horse head on the lid. When he yanked the lid up, the jar spat out metal spikes in a circle. “This thing is pretty cool, whatever it is.”

  Tammy smiled. “It’s a cigarette dispenser. You put a cigarette in each of the spokes and pull up the handle when you want one. My dad used to have one.”

  “Okay, so where do you put your spare vape canisters?”

  “Don’t be a doofus. Put it down. Might be worth a few quid.”

  Andy placed it back on the side table next to the ceramic frog she had fondled when she’d first viewed the house. The bespectacled frog could stay, but the horse dispenser was an ugly, archaic thing that made her think of yellowing wallpaper and ash covered coffee tables. Her childhood wasn’t bad, but the smoky atmosphere of her family’s living room wasn’t something she missed at all. Even the memory was acrid and stung the back of her throat.

  Andy hoisted the oil painting again and heaved as though it weighed a tonne. Her husband was handy, but not strong. “I’ll go stick this outside,” he said, “so we don’t have to look at it. You pour the wine.”

  “That I can do.” She smiled, but as the lights flickered again, she raised an eyebrow at her husband.

  “Yeah, yeah, faulty electrics. I’ll add it to the list. Money pit, I’m telling you.”

  “Our beautiful family home, I’m telling you.”

  He gave her a cheeky wink. “Maybe later, we can start on the family bit.”

  She kicked him up the butt as he stomped down the hallway. “Maybe you can fix the holes in the wall before you go poking around mine!”

  “I've got filler for both,” he said as he went out the front door.

  Chapter 3

  By nine o'clock Tammy had drunk enough wine to feel dizzy, but it was the nice kind of dizzy. They were sitting on a dead lady’s sofa, watching a documentary on a bulky 32inch television one of Andy’s friend had given them, and now had a mortgage to pay every month, but it really felt like the start of something new. Their life together had begun this day. That alone was dizzying. The wine just expedited matters.

  “I think I need to go to bed,” Tammy admitted a little shamefully. It was very early in the evening to admit defeat.

  Andy sipped the last of the wine in his glass and nodded. “Me too. I have a long list of stuff to do tomorrow, and I can do without a bad head.”

  “Gonna fix that hole?”

  “After I fix yours.”

  Tammy laughed. “I know I started this hole reference thing, but it’s actually pretty unsexy.”

  “Okay, what if I call it your-”

  She put her hand over his mouth. “Let’s just go upstairs.”

  Both a tad unsteady on their feet, they clambered up the creaking stairs, bumping into both wall and bannister. Eventually, they found their way to the bed where Andy eagerly threw Tammy down.

  “Ouchy! This bloody mattress is digging into me again.”

  Andy smirked. “Just deal with it while I dig into you.”

  “We really need to work on our dirty talk.”

  “I’ll add it to my list.”

  They tore at each other’s clothes, and before long they were making love. And it was love, for in that moment, Tammy felt so close to this man who would never hurt her, that she knew in here heart she would grow old by his side. This man with whom she now owned a house. A home. A future. Once upon a time, the days ahead were dark and occluded. Jay had stomped away her future and replaced it with fear. That she was now free and happy was enough to make her cry. Coming out the other end of darkness and stepping naked into the light was like a rebirth, and it only made her appreciate her new life even more.

  After they were done writhing around, they lay on their backs, panting and staring up at the ceiling through the gap in the four poster bed.

  Her post-sex daze faded and thoughts began to refill her head. “How do you think her husband died?”

  Andy turned his head to look at her. “What?”

  “The widow who owned this house. How you think her husband died?”

  “How on earth am I supposed to know?”

  Tammy let out a sigh, running her fingertips over her own naked tummy. “I think he was abusive.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “She left the house to a battered woman’s shelter. Why else would she do that?”

  “Doesn’t mean her husband abused her. Could have been a previous relationship, like with you.”

  Tammy closed her eyes and missed a breath.

  Andy turned onto his side and lay his head against her shoulder. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

  “No, it’s okay. Jayne made my life a living hell, but it’s over now. It finally feels over. This house… When I heard our money would go to a battered woman’s charity, it just felt… I dunno.”

  “Right?” Andy ventured.

  “Yes! Almost like my life had gone full circle and I could finally get closure. I don’t know why, but I think the woman who lived in this house survived abuse too. I know what it's like to be with someone who thinks they own you, who treats you like love is an unbreakable obligation that can't be broken even if you act like shit. I know what it's like to be terrified of the person you love beating you senseless.”

  “She’s probably glad this place went to you,” Andy said softly.

  “I think so. That's what I feel.”

  “Doesn’t mean her husband abused her though. You’re just a man-hating ex-lesbian.”

  She punched him on the arm, but then climbed on top of him, straddling him cowgirl. “Maybe I’m still a lesbian, and the only think keeping me straight is your cock.”

  “Which is ironic seeing as it bends to the left.”

  She slid his hardening member back inside her. “It hits the spot.”

  Andy ran his hands over her stomach to her breasts. Her lower rib flared with pain again, but it only reminded her of how much her life had changed. And how much she loved this man between her thighs. They made love again and fell to sleep

  Chapter 4

  Tammy awoke in pain. Her rib roared like a chainsaw and for a moment she had no idea where she was. She sat bolt upright, naked and sweating. Andy was right up beside her.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  She looked around. “I… nothing. Just didn’t know where I was for a moment.” />
  Andy rubbed the sleep from his eyes and hugged her. “You’re dripping, honey! Everything is okay. This is home.”

  She kissed him on the mouth and smiled. “I know. It's fine. Gonna take a shower.”

  “That would be wise, honey. You feel like a slice of cod.”

  “Gee, thanks!”

  She climbed stiffly out of bed and padded across the threadbare carpet—another thing they would need to replace—then went into the bathroom across the landing. The suite was old, but not in the plastic avocado style you sometimes saw in dated houses. This bathroom was classical. The wash basin balanced on a delicate ceramic pedestal, and the toilet was large and round. Most modern toilets were barely big enough to contain a decent-sized shit. Andy had proven that to her time and time again over the years. The stuff you forgave when you were in love.

  She laughed at her own gross thoughts and was smiling as she splashed water on her face from the cold tap. It felt good to cleanse the sweat from her forehead. Why had she got so hot? She didn’t feel ill. Perhaps she'd had a nightmare, although she felt no after-effects of one.

  Just getting used to a new environment, she decided. I don’t think I slept well. Noises and smells I’m not familiar with.

  The shower danced against its fixing as it summoned water from the depths of the house, and it was several seconds before a stream burst forth from the large brass head. It came out hot—too hot—and Tammy swore as it burnt the backs of her shoulders. Slowly, she and the water negotiated and found a lower temperature to agree on. Then heaven.

  Despite the house—and therefore its pipework—being old, the water came out fierce and fresh. It slapped at her skin and pulled away the sweat and dirt. The heat found its way inside of her and made her entire body refreshed. It was a great way to start the day.