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

by Iain Rob Wright

  Steph shrugged. “You’re not pathetic, Harry. Just a bit tragic. Things will look up for you one day, but you got to get a hold of yourself. I know life’s been pretty damn shitty to you, but you only turned forty a couple months ago, right? Plenty of time to get back on your feet and start a new life.” She stopped and looked over at the large plate-glass window that lined one side of the pub. “As long as this wretched snow don’t freeze us all to death first, you’ll be fine. You just gotta get a grip.”

  “You really think so?” he asked her with a sigh.

  “You better hope so, matey, because I’m not putting up with you spewing on me again. Don’t matter how handsome you are!”

  They both chuckled and Harry felt his mood lighten a little. It wasn’t often he heard such things from a younger woman. Not when the mirror showed him a man that looked closer to fifty than his actual age. Grief had been hard on his face.

  Harry pushed his empty pint towards Steph and she refilled it diligently. The overflow from the glass slid down over the black Foo Fighters tattoo on her wrist and made her pale skin glisten. Harry was ashamed to feel a stirring in his loins as he looked at her.

  Harry’s wife, Julie, had been gone a long time now, but he never stopped considering himself a husband. Never once forgot his vow to love her forever.

  Harry moved away from the bar, and away from Steph. The tattered padding of the bar stool he’d occupied for the last several hours had sent his backside numb and he craved the relief of a cushion. He headed towards the bench by the pub’s front window. At the same time, Old Graham returned from the toilets. There was a small urine stain on the pensioner’s crotch and Harry was relieved when the old man headed back to the bar instead of coming over to join him.

  Harry eased down onto the worn bench and sighed pleasurably. 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 kings. 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 for a while and kept back some of the demons in his head.

  Relaxing further into the creaking backrest, Harry observed the room he knew so well. 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 and a stone fireplace crisping the air at the other. A dilapidated oak-wood bar took up the centre of the pub, probably older than he was. Several rickety tables and faded patterned chairs made up the rest of the floor space.

  In the pub’s backroom, a small, seldom-used dance floor collected dust. Harry had only seen it once, at New Year’s.

  The Trumpet 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, as it typically was on a Tuesday. Harry wasn’t a big fan of company and preferred the quiet nights. Of course it helped that the snow had confined most people to within a hundred yards of their homes, clogging the main roads with abandoned snowbound vehicles.

  Somehow Steph had made it in, holding down the fort as she did most evenings. Harry often wondered why she needed all the overtime she worked. 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, Steph really counted each second until she could kick everybody’s drunken arses out. Whatever the truth, Steph was a good barmaid and she kept control of the place.

  Even Damien Banks behaved on 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, iPhone fastened to his ear.

  Harry had heard – from sources he no longer remembered – that the young thug 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. Rumour had it that the shaven-headed bully once stomped a rival dealer into a coma, taunting the family afterwards by revelling in the grief he’d caused.

  Harry shook his head in silent derision. He hated the way Damien lounged around like he owned the place.

  There was one other person in the bar tonight. A greasy-haired hulk named Nigel. A lorry driver, from what Harry had gathered over time, the man spent a lot of time on the road. The poor guy would probably have to sleep in his cab tonight.

  Just the five of them. Tuesday was a quiet night.

  Harry pulled his right knee up onto the bench and peered out of the pub’s main window behind him. The Trumpet sat upon a hill overlooking a small row of dingy shops and a mini-supermarket with steel shutters over the windows. Steph once told Harry the pub just about survived on the wafer-thin profits brought in by the lunchtime traffic of the nearby factories, but 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 had come in and crippled local pubs across the land.

  On a normal night, Harry could see the shops and supermarket from the pub’s window, but tonight his vision faltered at several feet, the view swallowed up by swirling snow. Thick condensation hugged the glass and made everything foggy. For all Harry knew, the darkness outside could have stretched on forever, engulfing the world in its clammy embrace and leaving the pub floating in an inky abyss. The image was unsettling. Like something from the Outer Limits TV show.

  Snow continued to fall as it had done 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 wedding ring and thought about the day Julie first placed it on his finger. He smiled and felt the warmth of nostalgia wash over him, but then his eyes fell upon the thick, jagged scar that ran across the back of that same hand and the joyful sensation evaporated. The old wound was shaped like a star and brought back memories far darker than Harry’s wedding day. It was something he dared not think about.

  He took another swig of his beer and almost spat it out. In only two minutes since he’d last tasted it, the lager had gone utterly flat, as if something had literally drained the life from it. Before Harry could consider what that meant, a stranger entered the pub.

  A second later, the lights went out.

  2

  “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 blinked out like somebody had flipped a switch. “Peter!” she hollered into the darkness. “Check the damned fuse box, will you!”

  A muffled voice from the nearby stockroom let Kath know her order had been received. She sighed and waited for her vision to adjust, 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 faint green glow too weak to even highlight her acrylic fingernails in front of her face.

  Kath heard footsteps echoing down the Bread & Pastries aisle.

  “Who’s there?” she called out.

  The unexpected proximity of the voice made Kath flinch. “It’s me,” said the voice. “Jess.”

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

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

  “No. 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 towards the store’s main entrance with a skipping hop. Her complexion became ghostly as she entered the pulsing green glow of the Fire Exit sign.

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

  Jess pushed open the door. A howling chill entered the supermarket, rushing to all corners like a horde of squealing rats. The weather outside was so bad that it was like opening the gates to hell.

  Kath waited impatiently while Jess gingerly poked her head out of the door and looked left and right, then left and right again. Finally, she leant back inside and closed the door. When she turned back to Kath, the girl’s work fleece was peppered with snow.

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

  Kath sighed. “What about the lights? Are anybody else’s on? What about The Trumpet?” The dingy pub was set opposite, up the hill.

  “I can’t even see the pub,” said Jess. “I can’t make out Blue Rays or any of the other shops either. The snow is coming down like it’s the end of the world.”

  “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 behinds and do something about it.

  …and God knew how long that would take. Two minutes? Two hours?

  Kath couldn’t set the alarms and go home until she cashed up the tills, and she couldn’t do that without power. She breathed in deep, before letting the cold air out through her nostrils. What a wretched waste of intellect, she thought, being stuck in this wretched place ten hours a day.

  “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 outside.

  A second later it was as if the girl had never even been there.

  Kath sighed, leant back into the torn-padding of the cashier’s stool, and rubbed at her aching forehead. Shivers ran up and down her spine and made her clutch at herself. It was Britain’s worst winter in history and she was stuck in a building with no power. Before long the place would become freezing.

  “Screw this,” Kath decided. She’d give Mr Campbell a call and see if there was any chance he’d allow her to cash up in the morning. He should have been thanking her for even turning up at all in this weather. She slid her fingertips along the icy surface of the cashier’s desk and groped for the phone. At first she found only a stapler and some biros, but eventually the side of her hand found what it was looking for and knocked the receiver from its cradle. It fell from the desk swung by its cord. After a couple of half-blind swipes, Kath caught the receiver and pulled it up to her ear. She tapped at the buttons on the phone’s cradle, waited a beat, then tapped them again.

  No dial tone.

  Perturbed, Kath 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. She selected Mr Campbell’s number from the phone’s memory and pressed the green CALL button, before putting the phone to her ear and waiting.

  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!”

  Before Kath could put her thoughts in order, a male voice echoed in the darkness. “Ms Hollister?”

  The voice had a Polish twang.

  “Peter,” Kath said, more calmly than she felt. “Have you checked the fuses?”

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

  Kath rolled her eyes. Speak properly, for God’s sake. If you’re going to come here, at least learn the language.

  Reluctantly, she 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. “So, what is it that’s so important, Peter?” she asked.

  “I will show to you.”

  Peter turned a corner in the cramped warehouse. Kath stayed close behind, lighting her way with her mobile phone. It didn’t work particularly well, but it at least illuminated any over-stacked boxes she would otherwise bump into.

  Kath was getting impatient. “Come on now, Peter, I need to find a way to call Mr Campbell, so we can all go home tonight. Unless you want to spend the night sleeping in the staff room?”

  Peter stopped at the far wall and pointed upwards, just above the height of his shoulder. Kath glanced at the area a few inches away from the boy’s outstretched finger. She didn’t understand and felt her patience thin even more. “What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?”

  Peter rolled his eyes in the faint glow of her phone display and then pointed more emphatically at what he wanted her to see.

  “The fuse box? Yes, very impressive.”

  Peter rolled his eyes again and she was about to scold him for it when she spotted what he wanted her to see. It was the fuse box alright – at least it had been in a former life – but now it was a black, melted decay of wires and bubbling plastic. The green metal box that housed the circuits was untouched, but inside it looked like it’d been subjected to a hellish blaze. The acrid stench of singed rubber lingered in the cold, crisp air, but it wasn’t as strong as she would expect after an electrical fire. “I don’t understand. What could cause this?”

  Peter shrugged. “I no sure. Fire maybe?”

  “Obviously not, Peter. There hasn’t been a fire because the alarms would’ve gone off. Not to mention it would have spread. This place is full of cardboard and paper.”

  “Vandalism?”

  Kath considered Peter’s wild suggestion, her thoughts wandering off into the dark, insidious alleyways of her mind. Could someone have really taken a welder’s torch to the fuses or doused them in petrol? Was someone lurking in the shadows intending to have their way with her in the dark? Had some hairy beast of a man been watching her for months, planning something just like this? It was certainly an opportune time. The police would never make it in this weather, even if she managed to call them. It seemed ridiculous but, for a moment, so plausible in her anxious state of mind that Kath actually started to believe that someone was intending to murder her. It was like something straight out of that Richard Laymon novel she once read by mistake, thinking it was something milder. Horrible, disgusting book full of rapists and monsters.

  “Ridiculous,” Kath made herself say. “They have no power at the pub either. Same with Blue Rays on the corner.”

  Pete shrugged his shoulders and walked off. Nothing ever seemed to concern the boy from Poland.

  Suddenly alone, Kath tried to make sense of the situation. Was some deranged madman really stalking the neighbourhood, cutting off everyone’s electricity? Or was her biggest threat freezing to death on the coldest night of the year? Neither outcome was appealing. All Kath knew for sure was that the fuse box hadn’t destroyed itself and that the real cause was yet to make itself known.

  She shivered, the chill in the air thickening suddenly and constricting the gristle on her bones. There was no way she could stay there any longer. Not without power. Not in the dark. She made a decision. “Right! Peter, where are you?”

  A scuffling sound from the far corner of the warehouse. “I’m here, by the beer crates.”

  “Well, make sure you’re careful. You break anything, you pay for
it.”

  Peter didn’t respond, but Kath was certain she heard the boy sigh. She enjoyed getting under people’s skin and let loose a smile as crude as the oil-slick darkness that surrounded her. Suddenly she felt more in charge, more like herself. “Peter,” she shouted. “Place some pallets against the back shutter. We’re going to call it a night, but we need to secure the building as best we can before we leave.”

  “Okay, I will do, but where is Jess? She help me.”

  “She’s wandered off somewhere.” Kath snorted. “Least of my worries right now, so go do as I’ve said – and make sure you’re careful.”

  Peter scurried away, mumbling something in Polish. At least Kath imagined it was Polish. Could be Russian or Hungarian, or whatever it is all these Eastern Europeans spoke – ugly, primitive language that hurt her ears to listen to. How had Britain become so weak? There was a time when it had invaded third-rate nations, but now it seemed more interested in letting them all in and keeping them fed and warm. It made her stomach turn to think her government cared more about benefit-seeking immigrants than educated citizens like her. Where was her assistance?

  Kath left the warehouse and re-entered the supermarket, listening to the loud scraping noises of Peter struggling to shift the pallets in the warehouse. The thought of him blindly bumping around on his own made her smirk as she marched towards the building’s exit.

  When she reached the glass fire door, she opened it up and glanced outside. There was little she could do to secure the building tonight – not without the electric shutter – but she could at least lock up with her keys. She didn’t expect anyone would be desperate enough to brave the current weather just to steal a few groceries anyway. At least she hoped so...

  3

  “B’jaysus, it’s nice to be in the warm again. Cold as a nun’s pussy out there, so it is.”