The Peeling Trilogy

by Iain Rob Wright

  As soon as Parker and his men passed through the gate, their host relocked it again anxiously. His hands were visibly shaking.

  “You okay?” Parker asked.

  The man fiddled with his hair and sniffed his nose. “Yeah… I-I’m fine. It’s just… Well, I think I was about to pretty much give up before you guys showed up. That asshole Mack would have finally finished me off this time.”

  “Mack?” asked Parker. “The guy in the bandana? Who is he?”

  “I figured you’d know better than me. Being soldiers and all.”

  “Unfortunately, the British Army is a big group – was a big group, anyway – most soldiers don’t know each other from Adam. I’ve never met the man before.”

  The man with the nail gun unlocked a small door on the supermarket’s loading bay and allowed everyone to funnel inside. “Well,” he said, walking after them. “You can take my word for it that he is a scumbag piece of shit. I wish he’d caught a bullet when you fired on him.”

  “We’ll get the fucker next time,” said Cross.

  Parker disapproved of bad language in front of civilians, but when he saw what relief the show of bravado caused on their host’s face, he decided to let it slide.

  “You guys hungry?” the man asked them. “A lot of stuff spoiled early on, which is part of the reason why the whole place stinks so bad, but there is tons of canned food and other stuff that is just fine. Help yourself to anything you see.”

  “Hell, yes,” said Schumacher.

  Parker put a hand up to shush his men before they became uncontrollably excited. Food was the world’s only important resource nowadays and they had just stumbled upon a goldmine by the sounds of things. They were still soldiers, though, and acting giddy was inappropriate. “We won’t take food from your people,” Parker said. “We will just take whatever you can spare.”

  The man with the nail gun stopped and turned to face Parker. He looked beaten and glum. “Yeah, about that…My people consists of just me. Everyone else is dead. I lied to you before to warn you off.”

  When Parker stepped from the warehouse into the supermarket’s public area, all he could see, all he could smell, was death.”

  ***

  After almost puking at the sight of so many bodies, Parker and the others had slunk back into the warehouse and had followed their host into a comfy staffroom. It was a disconcerting contrast to the horror outside.

  “What the hell happened here, man?” Cross spoke in a tone somewhere between aggression and pleading.

  The man put down his nail gun on the table where he sat and shook his head. His body had slumped so much that he seemed inches shorter. “Lots of things happened. First man to die was a guy named Stephen. He tried to rape one of the woman we had here and…well, I guess the rest of us retaliated. Then Mandy went into a diabetic coma and died as soon as she used up all the Pharmacy’s insulin. Tom and Annie committed suicide; both their sons died of the peeling. Talking of which, there was a second outbreak of the disease. Just when we thought everyone left alive was immune, about a dozen of us came down with it. We tried our best to nurse them, but it was useless. It took weeks for them to rot down to the bone. Then Mack came and finished off the rest of us.”

  “How many were left when Mack came,” Parker asked.

  “There were nine of us. Four woman, five men. When Mack first came, he wanted food, and we gave it to him. We were glad to see him and his men. We were naïve.”

  Parker looked around the room and saw empty wrappers and dog-eared magazines. “You’ve been holing up in this room?”

  “Yeah. I figured it would be unhealthy mixing with all the bodies out there. Plus they were my friends, you know? Besides, I’m just one man. I can’t move three dozen bodies. Got nowhere to take ‘em anyway.”

  “What’s your name?” asked Anderson. There was sympathy in her voice.

  The man looked surprised by the question. It was almost as if the notion of having a name was lost on him. Perhaps it had been a while since he had shared it with anybody. “My name is Dennis. I was a carpenter before all this happened. Hence the nail gun.” He motioned at the power tool on the table. “Gas powered. Thought about using on myself lately.”

  Anderson patted the man on the back. She smiled. “There’s no need to do that now. We can get you out of here.”

  “Screw that,” said Cross. “We should bunker down here. We got food, security-”

  “Security!” Dennis laughed. “Mack and his men have made sure that security is the last thing we have here.”

  “What happened to the nine of you that were left when Mack arrived?” Parker enquired.

  “After we fed him and his men, they came back, but this time they didn’t want food.”

  “They wanted the woman,” said Anderson, looking sick to her stomach.

  Dennis nodded and looked sick himself. “We wouldn’t give them up, of course. So Mack and his men assaulted the supermarket. We were unarmed and were going to kill us all. Once they got inside. My wife offered to go with them as long as they left the supermarket. Then the other woman showed their support and stood beside her. The women sacrificed themselves so that the men would be safe. Mack just laughed about the whole thing, like it was a game or something. He took the woman and they drove off, but, before he left, he told us to be gone by morning; that the supermarket was his.

  “But you’re still here,” said Cross.

  Dennis nodded. “When Mack left, we decided to barricade the supermarket. They had taken everything from us and we were damned if we were going to let them take this place.”

  “So what did you do?” Parker asked.

  “Got the trucks up against the entrance, used the hardware supplies in the warehouse to nail the windows and doors shut. Found the biggest padlock we could and secured the access gate. Made some firebombs from whiskey and lighter fluid. It didn’t protect us, though. Soon as we put up resistance, Mack brought out the woman. They were tied up like animals, bleeding and crying. I have nightmares about what they must have gone through. When Mack started executing them one after the other, the men I was with surrendered. They went outside to give themselves up. Mack shot them all.”

  “Why didn’t you go out there with them?” Anderson asked.

  “Because I was a coward. I was too frightened to go outside, so I locked myself in this staffroom while the other men went outside.”

  “Well, being a coward is probably the only reason you’re still alive,” Parker said.

  “When I had the guts to come out, I saw the dead woman and the dead men and I realised that there was no way out of this. Mack would kill me eventually, my wife, Stella, too. The only purpose I had left was to make it as hard on him and his barbarians as I could. I decided to keep fighting until a bullet found me. I would have finally given up today if you hadn’t been here.”

  “That woman was your wife,” Parker surmised. The woman Mack executed in front of the building was your wife.”

  Dennis nodded and a tear spilled from his eye. “I thought she was already dead. When I saw her, I thought maybe there was a chance Mack would give her back to me if I just stopped fighting and left. But he shot her before I even had chance to say anything to her. They’ve had her for weeks. I barely recognised her. Even though she was alive, her eyes…her eyes were dead. I’m glad she passed on. I hate thinking it, but she could never have gotten through what they did to her. I just wanted to be dead too, to go wherever she was. Then you started firing on Mack’s men and here we are.”

  “Where are they based?” Parker asked. “Are they nearby?”

  Dennis shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. The nearby woods aren’t massive but I figure it a good place to set up camp. It won’t be long before they come back.”

  “You’re sure they will come back?” Cross asked.

  Dennis nodded adamantly. “Mack won’t let this go. He doesn’t accept the word, no. He’ll be irate that you took out one of his men. I guarantee you that he w
ill be back.”

  Parker nodded and began to think. “Then, we make sure we’re ready for him.”

  ***

  Parker spent the next two hours directing Dennis and his men in various tasks designed to increase their tactical advantage should another attack occur. They stockpiled as many food and supplies from the supermarket floor back into the warehouse as they could. Then they undertook the unenviable task of stacking the heavy freezer units, shelving stacks, and till desks up against the front of the building where the plate glass windows could potentially be breached. The task was unenviable due to the rotting, foul-smelling corpses that littered the area. Some were mottled grey skeletons – victims of the peeling, while others featured gunshot wounds no doubt delivered by Mack’s men. The odour of death was something they were all used to by now, but this amount of death so close together was still enough to turn their stomachs. Parker forced a grin onto his face; it was a proven technique to fight off the urge to retch. He just hoped Dennis did not misinterpret it as disrespect.

  The current task that occupied them all was the search for viable weaponry. Dennis had his nail gun and Parker’s men had their rifles, but their ammunition was low after the previous fire fight. They needed alternative means of arming themselves in case Mack’s resources outlasted theirs.

  Cross was busy, emptying bottles of bleach and detergent onto the floor of several aisles, while Schumacher and Anderson attempted to block the adjacent aisles with pallets, cardboard boxes, and household stock items. The plan was to create a bottleneck, and funnel Mack’s men into one or two individual aisles, creating a kill zone. The cleaning fluids on the floor would hopefully cause one or two of their attackers to slip and fall, and would, at the very least, slow them down as they were forced to step carefully. The fumes coming up off the floor may also have the added benefit of blinding Mack’s men.

  Dennis was busy super-gluing nails to the floor and shelving units. It seemed absurd, but if he could secure as many nails in an upright position as he could, there was every chance that one of Mack’s men would plant a foot down on one of them. Every time Dennis covered a small area with nails, he would drape flat pieces of cardboard over the top, obscuring the hazard. Somehow the supermarket, that would once have been the epitome of mundane, civilised life, was now more akin to the booby-trapped expanses of 60’s Vietnam. The world was a battleground and all were warriors.

  “Hey, Sarge, take this,” Anderson came over and handed him a large chef’s knife.

  “He frowned. I already have a knife.” He pointed to the army-issue blade on his belt.

  “I know. But I thought we could use a spare to throw if the fighting goes close-quarters.”

  Parker laughed. “I think that only works in the movies, but I’ll take it just in case.” He took the brand-new tungsten blade and slid it into his belt. It wouldn’t hurt to have too many knives.

  It was time to wrap things up, bunker in. “Okay, everyone,” said Parker. “Let’s fall back to the warehouse. Dennis? How do you get up to the roof? It wouldn’t hurt to have someone posted up there on watch.”

  “There’s a ladder at the back of the warehouse,” Dennis explained. “Leads up to a walkway and the roof hatch.”

  “Okay,” said Parker, heading through to the back. “Anderson, you take first watch. Cover up with whatever you can and keep your eyes on the treeline.”

  “Roger that,” she said, double-timing it deeper into the warehouse.

  “What should the rest of us do?” Dennis asked.

  “We wait,” said Parker.

  ***

  Parker was about to fall asleep on the one of the staffroom couches when something caused his mind to snap back to full alertness. He looked around the unlit room and could see the soft shapes of his comrades sleeping. He could hear their gentle snores.

  Parker stood up from the sofa and listened out. He was groggy and unsure of what he had heard, but somehow he knew something was up. After years of being in the Armed Services, Parker had a sixth sense for danger.

  Parker picked up his rifle from where it was propped up against the wall and wrapped the strap around his neck. Then he slid out of the room and into the pitch-black darkness of the warehouse. There was complete silence in the building, but Parker didn’t trust it. He headed for the ladder at the back of the area; the one that led up to Anderson’s position on the roof. Parker listened out but could make out no sound from up above.

  He placed his hands on the rungs of the ladder and raised his foot onto the first step. He climbed slowly, cautiously. With each rung he rose up, he became more and more certain that things were wrong. Anderson was an alert sentry and should be aware of his approach. She should have called out to him by now.

  He pushed open the roof hatch and slowly rose up to see over the top. Anderson’s was lying prone against the far edge, covered by cardboard and some old tarpaulin. If he hadn’t expected to see her, he may have missed her completely. She was well camouflaged.

  “Anderson!” He called out in a hush. “Anderson, what’s your status?”

  No answer.

  Goddamn it. Parker shook his head and prayed she was just asleep. He would bollock the shit out of her for neglecting her post but it would be a relief all the same. He hoisted himself up onto the roof and kept low to the ground, shuffling forward on his elbows and knees.

  As he got closer, Anderson still did not move. She was like part of the building, completely still.

  He reached her and spoke out again. “Anderson, wake the fuck up!”

  He clenched his hand around her ankle, expecting her to flinch and wake up with a start. But she did nothing. He shook her leg and was dismayed to find no response. He crawled up closer.

  Then he saw that it was not Anderson.

  “Jesus fuck! Carp?”

  Carp’s face was a caved-in mess of blood and gristle, but the thick black hair was a dead giveaway. Before Parker could even speculate on what had happened to the Private, a bullet shattered the cement two inched in front of him, sending stabbing shards of masonry into his eyes.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!” Parker rolled away, sliding his body back towards the roof hatch. Mack’s men had a hotshot, someone who’d been able to take Carp out without him even seeing them. The attack had begun. It was time for battle stations.

  ***

  Parker kicked open the door to the staffroom and shouted at the top of his lungs. “Hands on socks, off cocks! We’re under siege.”

  His men were immediately on their feet, well-drilled by years of midnight inspections. Dennis was a little slower, but also impressively alert. Parker spotted Anderson grabbing her rifle and approached her. “Anderson, what the fuck happened? Why is Carp up on the roof, dead?”

  Her face dropped. Behind her Cross and Schumacher cursed. “Carp is dead?”

  “As a fuckin’ doornail. Why was he up there?”

  “He said he couldn’t sleep. Came up to relieve me. I was beat so I saw no reason to argue.”

  Parker nodded. It didn’t really matter. Carp was dead and nothing would change that. He was a good man, but too many good men had been lost to mourn each one.

  “Shit, it should have been me up there,” said Anderson. “I should be dead, not Carp. It’s such a waste.”

  “Beat yourself up later,” said Parker. “Mack’s men are out there, right now. We have to take up positions.”

  Anderson nodded and headed out the room, back in full-on professional mode. Cross and Schumacher followed after her. Dennis looked at Parker with fear in his eyes.

  “You ready,” Parker asked the man.

  He nodded. “Everyone gotta die sometime. I just hope I take as many of Mack’s men with us as we can.”

  Parker put a hand on the man’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “We’ll get them all, Dennis. They aren’t getting this supermarket. You have my word.”

  Dennis nodded and ran out of the staffroom.

  Two minutes later, everyone had spread out
at the back of the store, focusing their fire into the bottleneck they had created in the centre aisles. Parker currently crouched behind a heavy, glass and steel deli counter. Cross had taken position in the alcove of the supermarket’s bakery, aiming his rifle through the bread shelves. Dennis, Anderson, and Schumacher held positions behind a barricade made from plastic-wrapped pallets of tinned goods: beans, spaghetti hoops, and other assorted sundries.

  The supermarket was silent as they waited. Mack’s men were not hasty or impatient. No help would arrive to help Parker, no reinforcements or nearby units. There was no reason for Mack not to take his time. He was no doubt out there, right now, planning his next move.

  Parker held his breath and listened harder. What was the holdup, though? Taking your time was one thing, but the longer Mack took, the longer it gave his enemy to prepare. He should have been attacking by now.

  “Hey,” Cross hissed from over by the bakery. “D’you hear that?”

  Parker did hear it. A far away humming, getting louder. A mechanical sound. Almost like a…

  Parker hit the floor and shouted, “Get down!” The explosion rocked the store at its very foundations, and glass, debris, and bloody chunks from the piled-up corpses from the front of the store filled the air and landed with the pattering sound of hailstorms and rain.

  “What the fuck!” shouted Cross.

  “They rigged a goddamn car with explosives; rammed it into the barricades outside.”

  “Explosives? Where the hell did they get ordinance from?”

  “Who knows,” said Parker. “It’s there for the taking for anyone who knows where to look. It doesn’t matter. Just get ready to return fire.”

  Mack’s men started firing their weapons before Parker even managed to spot one of them. The glass of the deli counter splinted but did not break – otherwise a bullet or two may have found its way into Parker’s chest. He clambered across to the side of the counter and blind-fired into the supermarket, hoping to buy his own men the briefest chance to set themselves against their attackers.

  Parker heard someone cry out at the front of the store and he couldn’t tell if it was from a bullet or if they had trodden on one of Dennis’s hidden nails. Dust filled the air and obscured vision beyond a few feet. Parker fired into the mist.