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

by Iain Rob Wright

  “Stop walking away,” Amanda shouted after him.

  He did so, turning to look at her. He tried to stay calm. “Look, honey, I’m sorry if I upset you. I don’t want to fight. I’m just worried about Jess.”

  Amanda huffed. “You needn’t be.”

  Something about the way she had just said that raised the hackles on John’s neck. He felt a sudden stone of dread in his guts. “What do you mean by that?”

  Amanda laughed and walked away. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No,” said John, following back after her. “What are you talking about? Why would I not worry about my own goddamn daughter?”

  Amanda spun around and looked at him with a hatred that John hadn’t realised she’d had for him. Their marriage really was over, he realised. The suffocating sadness that he felt was lessened slightly by the relief that also took root inside of him. He didn’t care about any of that right now though. He wanted to know what Amanda had meant. She told him.

  “She’s not even your daughter,” she shouted at him. “She never has been. I was shagging one of the neighbours when we lived in Burnley.”

  They’d lived in Burnley at the start of their marriage, almost twenty years ago and left five years later. Jess was seventeen. Amanda sat back down on the sofa and stared at the television as though she hadn’t said anything. John felt a loathing for his wife now that was almost boundless.

  He stood in front of her, blocking the television. “Say that again, and if you’re lying…”

  Amanda scowled upwards at him. “If I’m lying, what? What you going to do about it? Just get out of this house and don’t come back. Jess isn’t your daughter so you’ve got no reason to be here.”

  Rage took ahold of John as if his entire body was merely a marionette on a flimsy set of strings. Without thinking about it, or even realising he was about to do it, John picked up the half-full bottle of red wine and walloped it over his wife’s head. Amanda fell back, stunned, blood already seeping from a crack on her forehead. The bottle had not broken, so John swung it again, hitting her in the temple. The shock left Amanda’s face and was replaced by a look of bewilderment. Still the bottle did not break. Infected with an unbridled rage, down to his very soul, John swung one last time with all his might. This time the bottle shattered, smashing off Amanda’s forehead with an almighty crack!

  John had never seen a dead body before, but he knew he was looking at one right now. He was glad. Now his wife would not become the full-blown monster she was threatening to become. The decaying rot of her spirit had been halted by death and she would pass on with her memory intact. A tear escaped John’s eye as he realised he would get to remember his wife as the woman he had loved for so long.

  John picked up the wine-soaked dead body from the sofa and started dragging it to the front door. The plan was to dump her somewhere, close by, on the estate. Later he’d call the police and claim she hadn’t come home. Until then, he would dump the body and return, sit back and wait for his daughter to get home. He looked forward to raising Jess alone.

  When Hell Freezes Over

  The snow was really falling now. A nervous person might even say that the weather had become unnatural. With every minute that passed, the temperature dropped and water froze. The cold was enough to kill a man stone dead – but not the man that currently stood beneath a blinking streetlight on a desolate council estate.

  Although, in all honesty, he wasn’t really a man.

  Lucas looked up at the moon and saw that it was full. There was something happening tonight, that much was clear. He just hoped it wasn’t the thing he was starting to suspect. Four-thousand years of existence was a long time, but Lucas wasn’t ready for it to end yet.

  I haven’t watched the latest series of Dexter, for one.

  Lucas walked forward, feet resting on the surface of the snow as if he were weightless. He’d never visited this particular town, it was without any notable history, but there was a lot of supernatural energy suddenly leaked into the world and he had traced it to here. Now he just needed to find out the source.

  It wasn’t long before he found it. Lucas stopped walking across the snow and turned around. Behind him was an old friend, from long long ago.

  “Gabriel?” Lucas raised an eyebrow. “I take your being here to be a bad sign.”

  The Angel Gabriel stepped forward to approach Lucas and shook his head. “On the contrary, Lucifer. I would say that my presence is an extremely good sign. It signals the end of the decadent cesspool of this humanity. The Lord’s patience has worn thin and He has sent forth his armies to-”

  “Still towing the company line, huh?” Lucas interrupted without his Irish accent. It was unnecessary in the current company. “You don’t seriously buy into the whole apocalypse thingy-majig, do you?”

  “It is His will.”

  Lucas sighed. “So it’s really happening then? I’d worried as much.”

  “The scales have tipped. A sinner was chosen and failed to redeem himself…and therefore his species.”

  Lucas took another step towards Gabriel. It wasn’t confrontational – the war between Angels was a one-time event never to be repeated – he just wanted to read the other Angel’s expression. “I always hated that contingency – from the very day Michael dreamt it up. It’s perverse to pin the world’s hopes on a single individual. So who is it anyway?”

  Gabriel took in a breath that he didn’t need. “The sinner? Harry Jobson.”

  Lucas closed his eyes and summoned knowledge – one of the few talents he still retained from his days in Heaven. Harry Jobson was a good man turned bad by events beyond his control, not from any taint of his soul. “That’s not fair!” Lucas said, and was aware of how whiny he sounded, but carried on anyway. “If anything, the revenge he took on the man that killed his family only proves the capacity of love he had for them in the first place. If man wasn’t capable of great compassion and loyalty, then revenge would be of no interest to them. That’s how He made them, so why should they suffer?”

  Gabriel was silent and for a moment and almost performed a gesture approaching a shrug. There was a sadness to the Angel that Lucas could sense; like fumes from a petrol can.

  “You don’t agree with this either,” Lucas stated.

  Gabriel shook his head futilely. “My opinion is of no consequence.”

  “No being should accept slavery as a birth right, neither Angel nor Man. To be created is not an obligation to servitude. We have the right to our own opinions. You should have joined me long ago, brother.”

  Gabriel swiped a hand through the air and fried the falling snowflakes that were unlucky enough to touch him. “Blasphemy! Your unrighteous war sought to enslave man. Now you speak to me of such things as free will?”

  Lucas shrugged and resumed his Irish accent. He no longer felt like showing reverence of respect. He was more human than Angel. “Well, a fella can change his mind now, can’t he? In fact the almighty father changes his own every five minutes so it seems.”

  “He is your father too and you will speak ill of him no more. The time for wrath has arrived and you are summoned to be its witness. Your hand in Armageddon is such that you deserve a front row seat.”

  Lucas wasn’t about to accept any more of this pious nonsense. “Look, Gabriel. I know you spend your weekends at Vegas, counting cards and downing Amaretto cocktails like you’re trying to put out a fire in your belly, so why don’t you cut the bull and start speaking a wee bit of the truth. How can I stop this?”

  Gabriel seemed to think for a moment before letting out a sigh that seemed to signal his walls coming down slightly. “Brother, you cannot. While my own fondness of humanity, and its vices, is something I admit to, I will not defy my Lord. Not all can have your strength of rebellion – and not all would even want it. It is done. A concordant has been met and at this very moment a plague of Angels descends to the Earth like you once did – thousands of falling stars ready for retribution. All life
will be extinguished.”

  Lucas couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was this lack of rational compromise that turned him against Heaven in the first place. He didn’t miss it. “There are…loop holes?”

  “Perhaps,” said Gabriel, already turning to walk away. “But can you remember them?”

  Lucas shook his head. “I can’t, it was too long ago. Gabriel stop, I need answers.”

  Gabriel turned back around. “I cannot remain here, Lucifer. I have…duties. If you need answers, perhaps you will find them in there.”

  The Angel pointed and Lucas spun around. Behind him, on that hill, was a pub called The Trumpet. Lucas smiled to himself.

  A drink sounds like a bloody good idea right about now.

  News And Weather

  “This is Jane Hamilton, signing off for Midlands-UK News.” Jane handed her microphone to a production assistant and let out a shiver. She was wearing a huge pink ski-jacket but the cold was still getting through. “Was that okay, Steve?”

  Her cameraman, Steve, gave her a thumbs up. “Perfect. There might have been a slight issue with snow on the lens, but nothing we could do with things the way they are. “

  “I know, it’s crazy, right?” Jane looked down from the motorway bridge and examined the tipped-over transit van. She had no idea what the contents were, spilled all over the snow, and each second only shrouded them further in layers of fine white powder. As a professional news reporter, Rule One was always to remain unaffected by the stories she was reporting, but this one gave her the willies. All of the meteorologists back at the studio were flummoxed by the recent weather – a few went so far as to say it was impossible. She took their expert opinions very seriously and had some serious anxiety about what the coming days would bring. People had already started dying and she couldn’t help but worry that the toll would continue to rise substantially.

  “You okay, Jane?”

  She let out a breath and watched it steam in front of her face. “Yeah, Steve. Thanks. I just don’t like this cold.”

  “You want me to get one of the guys to fetch you a coffee from the van? There’s still a bit left in the Thermos.”

  Jane cringed at the thought of the stale taste of lukewarm coffee from a flask. “No, thanks, that’s okay. I just want to get back to the studio. There’s going to be other things to report before the night is through, I can feel it.”

  “You’re probably right,” agreed Steve. “We’ll get going in a few minutes. Mike and Tony are just trying to dig the van loose.”

  Jane’s eyes widened. “What?”

  Steve tutted. “Hard to believe, but in the short time you were reporting, the snow was heavy enough to cover the wheels.”

  “Oh, hell!”

  Steve waved a hand. “Don’t worry about it, Kitten. We’ll be gone in a jiffy.”

  Jane narrowed her eyes. “I told you to stop calling me that. We’re not together anymore.”

  “Pity,” said Steve. “You look hot in that ski-jacket.”

  Jane laughed and decided to head for the van. The snow was beginning to melt through her boots and her thick socks were becoming soaked. It was hard to walk and, after only a few steps, her calves began to ache. She wanted nothing more than to wrap up warm at home with a DVD and her cat, Thompson, but she knew the night would be long. At times like this it was all hands on deck. The freak weather conditions would keep every news channel in the world busy until its cause was known.

  “Hey, Mike, how’s it going?”

  Mike was kneeling next to the van, mini-shovel in hand. “My hands are so numb you could put them on a pair of tits and I wouldn’t even know.”

  “Charming,” said Jane, laughing. “I guess I should stay out of the van until you’re done. My weight would probably make it harder to get the van free?”

  “Dunno,” said Mike, “but don’t worry about it. I’ll manage.”

  “You’re a dear,” said Jane. She patted him on the head and stepped into the van via the side door, then slid it shut after her. The van was slightly warmer than outside, but was still uncomfortably chilly. A bank of blinking monitors lined one side and she sat on the stool in front of them. The monitor on the left showed the studio feed that was currently going out live to the nation. The monitor on the right showed the feed from Steve’s camera outside – the images were still streaming but were not being recorded. Back at the studio, one of her colleagues was interviewing an ecology expert. He was currently refuting claims that a damaged Ozone layer could be the cause of all the snow.

  Something caught her attention on the other monitor. The camera mounted on a tripod outside had picked up the image of Tony, the other production assistant. He was currently taking a piss off the top of the bridge to the deserted road below.

  “Nice,” Jane commented, shaking her head. Steve was in the picture too, speaking on his phone. He was probably checking in with the studio to confirm it was okay to come in. Beyond both men was something else: a dark shape in the background, partly out of focus and obscured by the snowfall.

  What is that?

  The shape seemed to be coming closer, heading towards Steve and Mike at the centre of the bridge. Jane leant closer to the screen to try and make out some further details. The dark shadow didn’t seem like another person. It was closer to a small vehicle than anything else – perhaps a motorcycle.

  As Jane continued watching, the shadow continued getting closer. Inch by inch, the shape revealed itself. When it became clearer, Jane was even more confused.

  “What the…?”

  It appeared to be an animal of some kind; a huge dog maybe – but too big and too hairy. It was creeping up slowly behind Tony, who was still taking a leak.

  Jesus, is that guy part-camel or what?

  Jane kept waiting for Tony or Steve to notice the creature, but they did not. She tried urging them through the monitor to look around, but of course she knew it was hopeless – she wasn’t telepathic. Just when she was about to lean out of the van and shout for their attention, the creature made itself known to the two men outside.

  The over-sized hound pounced at Tony from behind, crushing him up against the bridge’s railings. The monitor didn’t give out sound but Jane could hear his startled cries from inside the van anyway. The bloodcurdling screams that followed were unpleasant enough, but twinned with the disturbing images on the feed monitor they were horrifying. The beast outside had pinned Tony to the ground and was ripping and tearing at his back. The snow turned red all around.

  Steve realised the situation and made a run for it, most likely heading for the van. He exited the view of the camera and Jane was left wondering how close by he was. A second later her stomach turned as she watched the hound-beast leaving the mutilated corpse of Tony behind to give chase to Steve.

  Jane stared at the monitor and tried to control her breathing. Steve’s screams were coming closer and it wasn’t long before she heard Mike’s join them. Outside of the van the two men were being attacked by something she couldn’t describe – something unnatural.

  Banging at the van door.

  “Jane, let me in. Open the door.” It was Steve.

  Jane stared at the door handle and found herself unable to move from her seat. Every part of her mind screamed at her to let Steve in, but every fibre of her nerve-endings refused to let her move. Steve continued to scream as ripping sounds began. Whatever was out there was ripping him to shreds. Mike was probably already dead, and here she was, hiding like a coward while it all happened only inches away from her.

  I just report the news. I don’t take part in it.

  Steve’s screams finally stopped and Jane sat in silence, listening only to the sounds of her own panting breath. She turned back around to face the monitors. The live feed from the studio had gone black, but the camera outside was still recording. On it she could see the snarling face of a jagged-toothed demon appear from off-camera. Then she saw its jaws gape wide and the video feed was no more.

 
; Jane waited in terror for what seemed like an eternity, hoping against all hope that the beast would go away. But it didn’t.

  The van began to rock as the creature attacked it, trying to get at the prize inside. Jane Hamilton cowered in the rear of the vehicle, knowing it was only a matter of minutes until she joined the recent death toll.

  Cloud Cover

  Quinton Barstow was worried. Flying an airliner was nothing new to him; he was more nervous driving a car in actual fact. In a car you have to trust in the driving skills of other people, and trust that people are even paying attention, but in a plane it’s just you and the clouds; nothing to crash into and nothing that could go wrong in the engines – there were just far too many ground checks to miss anything. Piloting an airliner was almost fully-automated and pretty plain sailing – or flying to be more accurate, and excuse the pun. Yet he was worried all the same.

  All of the above only applied, however, when the aircraft’s electrical systems were responding correctly. This evening they were not, and Quinton could think of no reason why. Any errors with the plane’s on-board computers should have been rectified by a quick reset, but he had tried that several times now to no avail. He needed those systems to compensate for what his eyes could not see. The current weather was making his natural vision near-useless.

  “I can’t believe they cleared us to fly in this,” said Quinton’s co-pilot, James.

  “They didn’t see it coming,” replied Quinton. “The weather reports for the week ahead were mostly clear. All of this cloud cover doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You think we should bring her down at the nearest airport?”

  Quinton looked at his dials and meters. The spindles spun and flickered without any sense of reason. They were flying blind. “I’m beginning to think so.”

  “Okay,” said James. “I’ll try and contact ground support at Paris. They should be able to receive us.”