The Peeling Trilogy

by Iain Rob Wright

  Harry thought about it for a moment. According to the news segments throughout the day it had been categorically denied that climate-change could cause such unprecedented weather. Whatever was causing the snow was something else entirely, said the scientists, if only a random occurrence. But whatever the cause, Harry wasn’t about to allow himself to get rattled by media-frenzy and speculation. The freakish weather didn’t concern him – nothing much did anymore – and he knew that if he got into a conversation with Old Graham about it he’d be stuck listening to the wrinkled codger’s piss-n-vinegar all night. It had happened enough times previously for Harry to learn his lesson about lonely pensioners and their penchant for long-windedness.

  Harry swallowed another mouthful of crisp lager and kept his attention on the flickering television screen, but when he looked over again, Old Graham was still gawping at him. Harry sighed and decided to give in and talk to him. “Bet everything will be back to normal this time next week, huh, Graham?”

  “You bet your balls it will.” The old man sidled along the bar towards Harry, arthritic knees clicking with every step. “I’ve lived through worse times than this, lad!”

  Harry rolled his tired eyes. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I used to be married.” With that, the old man howled with laughter until his worn vocal cords seized up in complaint, causing him to cough and hack yellow-green phlegm bubbles across the bar. “Best go shift the crap off me chest, lad,” were Old Graham’s parting words before tottering off toward the pub’s toilets.

  Harry shook his head and turned to face the opposite side of the bar. Steph, the pub’s only barmaid, was smiling at him while clutching a cardboard box full of MALT ‘N’ SALT crisps against her chest. She placed it down on the bar and pulled an old dishrag from the waistband of her jeans. She wiped down the area where Old Graham had coughed. “He bothering you again, Harry?”

  Harry ran a hand through his hair, threading his fingers through the knots and trying to neaten the scruffiness. He sighed. “He’s okay. Just had too much to drink.”

  Steph snorted. “You’re one to talk. What time did you get here today?”

  “Noon.”

  “Exactly, and it’s now…” She glanced at her watch. “Nine in the evening.”

  Harry smirked. “Yeah, but at least I have the decency to pass out when I’m drunk, instead of talking people’s heads off like Old Graham.”

  “I’ll give you that. Although, I’d like to remind you that you puked on my knee-highs last Sunday. I had to throw them out, and they were my favourite pair!”

  Harry stared down at the foamy liquid hissing away in his glass and, for a split-second, felt enough shame that he contemplated not drinking it and going home instead. He quickly let the guilt go and downed the last of the beer, dregs and all. He had enough regret in his life without adding to it. “I must have been a pathetic sight,” he admitted.

  Steph frowned. “You’re not pathetic, Harry. Just unlucky. Things will look up for you one day. You only turned thirty a couple months ago, right? Plenty of time to get back on your feet.” She stopped and looked over at the plate-glass window of the pub. “As long as this dreadful snow doesn’t freeze us all to death first, you’ll be fine. Time heals all wounds.”

  Harry sighed. Steph knew about his past and sometimes it made him uncomfortable. “You really think so?” he asked her.

  “You better hope so, matey, because I’m not putting up with you puking on me every week. Doesn’t matter how handsome you are!”

  They both chuckled and Harry felt his mood lighten a little. It wasn’t often that he heard such things from a young woman nowadays. Not when he looked about ten years older than his actual age (he hadn’t been able to face a mirror in months so maybe now he looked even worse).

  He pushed his empty pint towards Steph and she refilled it diligently. The overflow from the glass slid down over the black heart tattoo on her wrist and made her pale skin wet and glistening. Suddenly, an unprompted desire to lick the beer from her young flesh found its way, unwelcomed, into Harry’s head. He chased the urge away with thoughts of his wife.

  Julie had been gone a long time now, but Harry never stopped considering himself married. Never once did he forget his vow to love her forever.

  Until Death Do Us Part...

  He took his fresh beer, slid off his seat, and moved away from the bar – away from Steph. The worn, tattered padding of the bar stool he’d occupied for the last three hours had sent his backside numb and he now craved the relief of a cushion. He headed towards a bench below the pub’s large front window and, at the same time, saw Old Graham returning from the toilets. There was a small urine stain on the crotch of the old man’s grimy, cotton trousers and Harry was relieved to see the pensioner returning to the bar instead of coming over to join him.

  Thank God for small mercies.

  Harry eased down onto the faded bench cushion and sighed as the blood rushed back to his ass cheeks. He placed his pint down on the chipped wooden table in front of him and picked up the nearest beer mat. There was a picture of a crown on it, along with the slogan: CROWN ALES, FIT FOR A KING. Without pause, Harry began to peel the printed face away from the cardboard. It was a habit Steph was always scolding him for, but for some reason it seemed to halt his thoughts temporarily, keeping back the demons that haunted him. The brief respite allowed Harry to breathe freely again, if only for a while.

  Relaxing further into the creaking backrest, Harry observed the room. The lounge area of The Trumpet was long and slender, with a grimy pair of piss-soaked toilets stinking up an exit corridor at one end while a stone fireplace crisped the air at the other. In the middle of the pub was a dilapidated oak-wood bar that was older than he was, along with several rickety tables and faded patterned chairs. In a backroom was a small, seldom-used dance floor that Harry had only seen once at New Year’s. It was a quiet, rundown pub in a quiet, rundown housing estate – both welcoming and threatening at the same time. Much like the people that drank there.

  Tonight the pub was low on drinkers. It usually was on Tuesdays and Harry preferred it that way. He wasn’t a big fan of company. Of course it helped that the snowfall had stranded most people to within a hundred yards of their homes and blocked up the main roads with deserted, snowbound vehicles. With the weather as bad as it was, getting to the pub, for most people at least, was not worth the risk. For Harry it was, because the alternative was being alone. And that was something he hadn’t been able to face for a long time. He wondered if it was something he ever would be able to face again. So he had braved the snow and made it to the pub in one piece, surrounding himself with people he barely knew.

  But at least I’m not alone.

  Somehow Steph had made it in tonight as well, holding down the fort as she did most evenings. Harry often wondered why she needed all the overtime. She seemed to enjoy her work, but it could’ve just been the barmaid’s code: to be bubbly and polite at all times to all people. Maybe, deep down, she counted each second until she could kick everybody’s drunken-asses out and go home. Whatever the truth, Steph was a good barmaid and she kept good control of the place.

  Even Damien Banks behaved under her watch. Weekdays were usually free of his slimy presence, but tonight was an unfortunate exception. The local thug was sat with his Rockports up on the armrest of the sofa beside the fire, a flashy phone fastened to his ear.

  No doubt controlling his illicit little empire, Harry thought. Probably refers to himself as ‘the Don’.

  From what Harry had heard – from sources he no longer remembered – the degenerate scumbag pushed his gear on the local estate like some wannabe drug lord. No one in the pub liked Damien, not even his so called friends (or entourage as Old Graham would often call them in secret). There were rumours that the shaven-headed bully had once stomped a rival dealer into a coma, then taunted the family afterwards, revelling in the grief he’d caused.

  Harry shook his head. He’s the one who
deserves to be in a coma, instead of lounging around like he owns the place.

  There was one other person in the bar tonight. A greasy-haired, oily-skinned hulk named Nigel. Harry had not spoken to the over-sized man much, but spotted him in the pub at least a couple of nights each month. A lorry driver, from what Harry gathered, and spent a lot of time on the road. Poor guy will probably have to sleep in his cab tonight.

  After Nigel, there was just Old Graham and Harry. Just the five of them, the full set. Tuesday was a lonely night.

  Harry swivelled round on the bench, pulled his right knee sideways onto the cushion, and peered out the pub’s main window. The Trumpet sat upon a hill overlooking a small row of dingy shops and a decrepit mini-supermarket that had steel shutters instead of windows. Steph once told him that the pub was barely surviving on the wafer-thin profits brought in by the lunchtime traffic of the nearby factories and, if it were to rely on its evening drinkers alone, the place would have closed its doors long ago – even before the public smoking ban came in and ruined pubs across the land.

  Usually Harry could see the shops and supermarket from the window, but tonight his vision faltered after only a few feet, swallowed up by the swirling snow and impeded by a thick condensation that hugged at the window’s glass. For all Harry knew, the darkness outside could have stretched on for eternity, engulfing the world in its clammy embrace and leaving the pub a floating limbo of light in an endless abyss. The image was unsettling.

  Like something out of the Twilight Zone.

  Snow continued to fall as it had nonstop for the past day and night. Fat, sparkling wisps that passed through the velvet background of the night, making the gloom itself seem alive with movement. Harry shivered; the pub’s archaic heating inadequate in defeating the chill. Even the warmth of the fireplace was losing its battle against the encroaching freeze.

  God only knows how I’ll manage the journey home tonight without any taxis running. Maybe Steph will let me bed down till morning? I hope so.

  Harry reached for his pint and pulled it close, resting it on his thigh as he remained sideways on the bench. He traced a finger over his grubby wedding ring and thought about the day he had first put it on. He smiled and felt the warmness of nostalgia wash over him, but then his eyes fell upon the thick, jagged scar that ran across the back of the same hand and the warmness went away. The old wound was shaped like a star and brought back memories far darker than his wedding day. It was something he dared not think about. He drank his beer.

  God bless booze and the oblivion it brings.

  Harry chuckled about how once he had not cared for the taste of lager – white wine had been his tonic of choice – but The Trumpet wasn’t really the type of place where a thirty-year old man could order a nice bottle of Chardonnay without being called a poofter.

  Funny how a person changes, Harry considered. Just wish I’d changed for the better.

  He took another sip of beer and almost spat it out again. In only two minutes since he’d last tasted it, the beer had gone completely and utterly flat, as if something had literally drained the life from it. But before Harry could consider what would cause such a thing, a stranger entered the pub.

  A second later, the lights went out.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Bugger it!” Kath cursed aloud and slapped her palms down on the supermarket’s checkout desk. She’d been two minutes away from finishing the 9pm cash-up and the building’s power had blinked out like someone had flipped a switch.

  Bah! Working at this dump ten hours a day is miserable enough without having to do it in the dark. I must have the words, SHIT HAPPENS, stamped across my forehead.

  “Peter!” She hollered into the darkness. “Check the fuse box, will you!”

  A muffled voice from the nearby stockroom led Kath to believe her order had been received. She sighed and waited as her sight adjusted to the dark, wondering where she could find a torch or some candles (Doesn’t Aisle 6 have some?). The Fire Exit sign above the supermarket’s entrance gave off a small degree of illumination, but not enough to see her acrylic fingernails in front of her face. Kath had other senses, however, and her ears picked up the sound of footsteps echoing down the Bread & Pastries aisle.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  The person was standing close enough that the unexpected volume of their voice made Kath flinch. “It’s me,” said the voice. “Jess.”

  “Jessica? You stupid girl! You gave me a fright.”

  “Sorry, Kathleen. Didn’t mean to, I promise. You know why the lights are out?”

  “No, but I’ve told Peter to check the fuse box.”

  “Good idea. You reckon it’s just us, or the whole area?”

  Kath shrugged in the dark. “How should I know? Walk out the front and see for yourself.”

  “Okay,” said Jess cheerily, before wandering off in one of the gleeful dazes that Kath hated so much. Sometimes Kath was sure the girl was just out to annoy her.

  Like the way she always calls me Kathleen. If it wasn’t so ridiculously hard to fire people these days, that girl would have gotten her marching orders long ago.

  Jess reached the store’s main entrance with a skipping hop and her complexion became ghostly as she entered the pulsing green hue of the glowing Fire Exit sign.

  Kath cleared her throat. “Well? What are you waiting for, girl?”

  Jess pushed open the door and exposed the stark white night outside. Immediately a chill entered the building, rushing quickly to all corners like a horde of fleeing rats. Kath waited impatiently as Jess popped her head out of the door and looked left and right, then left and right again, before finally stepping back and pulling closed door. When the girl turned back around to face Kath, her company-supplied fleece was peppered with snow.

  “The weather out there is craaaaaazeee!” said Jess. “With a capitol zee”

  Kath sighed at the girl’s childish tone. “What about the lights? Are anybody else’s on? What about The Trumpet across the road?”

  “No,” Jess replied. “I can’t even see the pub it’s so dark. I can’t make out Blue Rays Video Rentals or any of the other shops either.”

  “Wonderful!” Kath shook her head and felt a migraine coming on. If the whole area was out then she would be forced to sit and wait for the electricity company to get off their overpaid be-hinds and do something about it.

  …and God only knows how long that will take. Two minutes? Two hours?

  Either way, until she could cash up Kath couldn’t set the alarms and go home. Not that she had plans, besides catching up on the episodes of Eastenders she’d recorded, but staying at a dingy council-estate mini-mart on the coldest night of the year wasn’t her idea of fun.

  How did my life turn out so wrong? To think I spent four years at university… I make one little mistake and I’m condemned to a life of pointless mediocrity. Kath breathed in deeply then let the cold air out through her nostrils. What a wretched waste of intellect!

  “It’ll be back on in a jiffy,” said Jess, still standing by the fire exit. “It never takes long, Kathleen. Tell you what, I’ll take a little walk over to the pub and see if anyone knows anything, okay?”

  Without pausing for an answer, Jess slid out through the exit and was immediately swallowed by the shifting snow and darkness. A second later it was as if the girl had never even been there.

  Kath sighed, leaned back into the torn-padding of the cashier-desk stool, and rubbed at her aching forehead. Shivers ran up and down her spine and made her think about the store’s heating. With the power off, so too would be the store’s electric fan heaters. It was Britain’s worst winter in history and she was stuck in a building with no warmth.

  Just gets better! Probably why the power went off in the first place. All those lazy slobs, cosy at home in front of their fan-heater, over-taxing the grid while people like me, who have shown some commitment to work, suffer.

  Well screw this, Kath decided. She’d give her manager
, Mr Campbell, a call and see if there was any chance he’d allow her to cash up in the morning. She slid her fingertips along the icy surface of the shop’s counter and searched for the phone, but at first found only a stapler and some biros. Eventually the side of her hand found what it was looking for; knocking the receiver from its cradle and off of the desk. It swung on its coiled cord, jerking up and down like a bungee. After a couple of swipes at knee-level, Kath caught the handset and pulled it up to her ear. She tapped at the buttons on the phone’s cradle, waited a beat, and then tapped them some more. No dial tone. Perturbed, she placed the handset back down onto its cradle, before picking it up and trying to ring out once more.

  Nothing.

  “Please, for the love of God!” Kath patted down the pockets of her work shirt and located her mobile phone. She plucked it out and slid up the illuminated screen to expose the keypad. Then, from memory, she entered Mr Campbell’s number and pressed the green CALL button. She put the phone to her ear and waited.

  Ten seconds passed and Kath pulled the phone away from her head to look at the display. She could barely contain her frustration when she saw NO NETWORK COVERAGE scrolled across the top of the screen.

  For crying out loud. What the hell is going on tonight?

  Before she could put her next thoughts in order, Kath was interrupted by a voice in the darkness. It was male. “Ms Hollister?”

  The voice had a Polish twang and there was only one person at the supermarket that ever called her by surname. “Peter,” she said, more calmly than she felt. “Have you checked the fuses?”

  “Yes, Ms Hollister. I need show something to you. Come.”

  Speak properly, for God’s sake. If you’re going to come here then at least learn the language. And show me what exactly? Bah, I’m never going to get home at this rate!

  Reluctant, Kath followed the boy down to the back of the store, ducking through the strips of clear plastic that separated the cramped warehouse from the shop floor.