The Peeling: Book 1 (Jeremy's Choice) (4 page)

Jeremy
thought about his wife.  Would he return home to find that she had been
rounded up, too?  Rotted away and thrown on a fire?  The thought made
his foot stamp down harder on the accelerator.  Once he was home he would
stay there until the very end, until it was all over.  What he would do
then, he did not know.  His life would go on whilst his wife’s would not. 
In many ways he envied her.  The world going on around him was not one he
wanted to be a part of anymore.  In less than twenty-four hours things had
gotten so bad that he dreaded to think about what just one more day would
bring.

***

The military presence reduced
as he left the town centre and headed into the residential areas.  By the
time he reached his house, it had been almost ten minutes without seeing
another soul other than stray dogs and feral cats.  His home was dark, the
windows shaded by closed curtains.  The light had started to hurt his
wife’s eyes and the lamps had all been left off since the night before. 
Her condition had been in the early stages then.  He worried what she would be
like now.  The virus worked fast, a destructive force akin to an invading
army.  The body’s skin and muscle cells got obliterated, one by one,
helplessly succumbing to infection until they were nothing more than soup.

Jeremy
parked the car up on the curb and turned off the engine.  He stepped out
and pressed the key fob, locking the car.  Then he started up his path and
headed for his front door.  Before he got there, though, it opened from
the other side.

“Hey,
honey.  I’ve been waiting for you to get home.  It’s been lonely
without you.”

Kara
hopped off of the doorstep and took Jeremy by surprise, planting a kiss on his
mouth and slipping in her tongue in. 

He
pushed her away.

“What’s
wrong?” she asked.

“Everything,”
he said, stepping through into the house while she followed.  “Have you
looked outside the window lately?”

“No. 
I don’t want to know what’s going on out there.  It’s too
frightening.  Is it bad?”

Jeremy
stared at her.  “You have no idea.”

Kara
approached him and put her arms around his shoulder and planted another kiss on
his cheek.  “Well, as long as we still have each other.”

Jeremy
pushed her away again and sighed.  “Kara, what are you doing here? 
Where’s your sister?”

“In
bed.  She wasn’t feeling good, so she went to sleep.”

Jeremy
thought about his wife, alone upstairs and suffering.  He felt outraged at
Kara.  Did she not even care?  It was her sister, for Christ’s
sake.  He took a deep breath and fought to remain calm.  “How is
she?” he asked.  “Is it bad?”

“What
do you think?  Hasn’t that news station of yours found a cure yet?”

Jeremy
huffed.  “They’re journalists, not doctors.  And to answer your
question,
no
.  There is no cure.  It’s killing everyone who
has it.”

Kara
slumped down on the sofa and finally seemed to get a little more serious as concern
etched itself across her face.  Perhaps she did care about her sister
after all.  “There’s really nothing anyone can do?” she asked.

Jeremy
shook his head.  “That’s why we need to look after your sister – my
wife.  Carol needs our love and support.  We can’t fool around behind
her back anymore.  I’m done behaving like that.”

Kara
did not reply.  She stared at the blank television screen as though the
glass were a portal to something more interesting.  Jeremy didn’t care to
console her.  He’d had enough of his wife’s younger sister.  Once
Carol passed on, she could leave, go back to her own place, and they should
never speak again.  If he was honest with himself, his wife was the only
woman he had ever truly loved and, once she was gone, he was giving up women
for good.

Jeremy
didn’t want to waste any more time.  The value of each second had
increased exponentially since The Peeling found its first victim – whoever that
unlucky person may have been.  He placed his foot on the first step of the
staircase and looked up.  The second floor seemed like a mile away;
another world, filled with horrors and regret.  He began to climb,
dreading what he would find upstairs.  What pain would Carol be in? 
Would she cry out when he entered, or would she remain silent like that woman
gunned down in the road?  He was about to find out.

Reaching
the top of the stairs, Jeremy headed across the landing to the master
bedroom.  He placed an ear against the door and listened. 

Silence. 

Without
even realising it, his hand had gone to the handle and begun to turn it. 
A moment later, his legs carried him through into the bedroom.

Carol
was asleep in their double bed, the duvet kicked down to the bottom of the
mattress.  She was hot, the heat of her fever filling the room with a
sweaty aroma.  Her body was pale and smooth, but still healthy.  Her
face however…

Jesus
Christ!

…her
face was little more than a sinewy skull.  Her jaw and teeth were utterly
exposed, making it seem like she was grinning constantly.  Her cheeks had
worn away, leaving her eyeballs sunken beneath the thin, translucent scraps of
her eyelids.  Beautiful brunette hair lay disembodied on the pillow, no
longer attached to her head.  She looked like a corpse. 

Yet
she breathed.

“Sweetheart?” 
Jeremy approached cautiously, not wanting to startle her.  If she was in
pain, then it was probably cruel of him to bother her at all.  But he
needed to talk to her.  It was time to confess his sins.

Slowly,
the tissue-like skin of her eyelids rose.  Beneath them, his wife’s eyes
were as they’d always been: green and sparkly – full of life.

“J-Jerry?”

“Yes,
sweetheart.  It’s me.  How are you feeling?”

Despite
the mess that was her face, Carol managed a weak laugh.  “My face felt
like it was on fire earlier, but now I can’t feel anything at all. 
It’s…nice.”

Jeremy
placed himself down on the bed.  The sheets were damp and bloody.  He
noticed that a patch of skin, the size of a hockey puck, had begun to rot away
on her side.  The smell was sweet, intoxicating.

“I’m
going to be here for you now, my love.  I’m not going back to work.”

“I…I
thought you’d been ordered to?”

“Screw
their orders.  Besides, I don’t think they’ll be any orders left this time
tomorrow.”

Carol’s
eyelids fluttered and it seemed like she was going back to sleep.  Jeremy
was prepared to let her, but was surprised when her eyes opened wide again and
seemed even more awake.

“My…sister
was here.”

“Kara? 
She’s downstairs.  Did you want to speak with her?”

She
shook her head gently.  “No.  No.  Just tell her…I forgive the
both of you.  I don’t want to die angry at anybody.”

Jeremy
throat clammed up and for a second he thought he might choke.  She knew
all along, about him and her sister – and perhaps all the other women,
too.  Would she know that he had been planning to tell her
everything?  Had the absolution of confession been taken away from
him?  Would it have even counted anyway?  To tell somebody something
on their death bed was not brave.  In fact, it was downright cowardly.

“I’m
sorry.  How did you know?”

“She’s
not exactly subtle, my sister – always here, sniffing around you.  Doesn’t
matter now, though.  You can be together.”

“That’s
not what I want.  I don’t care about her, or anyone else.  The only
woman I love is you.”

She
patted him on the hand.  Her skin was soft, mushy.  “I know.  I
know none of those women were anything other than sex to you.  You
disgusted me for years, but eventually I accepted that it was just your nature
to be so…weak.  I…I had my own fun in the end.”

Jeremy
stood up from the bed.  “What?”

Carol
smiled.  “I’ve probably fucked around…more than you, the last few years.”

“You
goddamn whore?”

“I’m
not ashamed of it, Jerry.  It was fun.  You should know.”

Jeremy
backed away, towards the door.  He could barely believe that the grinning
skull on the bed was the woman he’d been married to for twenty years. 
“W-why are you telling me all this?”

“Because
I don’t want to die with secrets, and…and despite everything I always loved
you.  None of it really matters anymore, other than the fact we loved each
other in our own way.”

Jeremy
lowered his shoulders and took a few breaths while he digested what he’d just
heard.  His stomach ached and he felt sick – but Carol was right. 
None of it mattered.  He loved this woman and he wanted to be with
her.  He sat back down on the bed.

“Can I
do anything to help?”

Carol
took a long, laboured breath and a sliver of skin fell from her neck, sliding
away onto the bed sheets.  “I don’t want to die…”

“I
know that, sweetheart.  I know.”

“…later. 
I want to die…now.”

Jeremy
looked at his wife, deep into her eyes – the only part of her that was still
the same as when he’d married her.  “What?”

“I
don’t want to lie here rotting.  I don’t want to feel the pain when my
body begins to…bleed.  I’ve said all I needed to say.  I’m ready.”

“Honey,
no.  You can’t ask me to-”

“You
owe me.”  She said the words forcefully, suddenly full of vitality – but
it only lasted a minute before she seemed to deflate again.

She
was right, Jeremy told himself.  He owed her many things.  Their
whole marriage had been marred by him abusing her integrity and violating her
trust.  What she was asking for now was dignity – a simple thing. 
The dignity of refusing to let the virus defile her body in the same ways that
he had defiled their marriage for so many years.  But he couldn’t kill
her.  No way.

“I’m
sorry.  I won’t.”

Carol
stared at him.  Jeremy couldn’t tell if she was angry or not.  The
facial muscles that would usually form expressions were all gone from her
face.  “I understand,” she whispered.  “Leave me alone.”

“What
do you mean?”

“If I
have to go through this, then I want to do it alone.  I don’t want anyone
watching while I die.  If you won’t help me, then at least give me some
privacy.”

The
last thing Jeremy wanted was to leave his wife alone.  To die with no one
around would be a lonely, helpless demise.  But it was Carol’s choice, not
his.  He stood up from the bed.

“I’ll
check on you later.”

“No,
don’t.  There’s nothing you can do for me.”

Jeremy’s
heart felt like a weight in his chest and it was difficult to drag his body
away from his wife’s bedside.  They may never talk again, he realised. 
This was probably goodbye. 

He
left the room without another word.  Anything he’d of said wouldn’t have
been enough.

Downstairs,
Kara was still sitting on the living room sofa.  She had switched on the
television and was watching it intently.  She showed no interest in his
presence and did not ask about the state of her sister.

“Carol
is in a bad way, in case you were wondering.”

Kara
turned her head away from the television and looked at him.  “Should I go
see her?”

Jeremy
sat down on the sofa beside her, making sure to stay as far away on the
cushions as possible.  “She wants to be left alone.”

“Okay.” 
Kara went back to watching the television.

“Do
you even care?”

“Of
course I do.  She’s my sister.  But there’s nothing I can do.  I
don’t want to watch while she rots away.”

“Then
why are you even here?”

She
stared at him again and this time seemed very sad.  “To be with you. 
I thought you cared about me.”

Jeremy
sighed.  “I…I do.  You know I do.  But Carol is dying and it’s
not right anymore.  I’m sick of hating myself.”

“Exactly. 
She’s dying.  We can be together.”

“I’m
sorry, but I don’t want that.  The world is a mess.  The last thing I
can concentrate on right now is a relationship.”

Kara
stood up from the sofa and shook her head.  She’d suddenly become very
emotional.  “You really want to be alone while the world dies around
you?  We need to look after each other.  You need to look after me.”

“What
do you mean?  You can look after yourself?”

Kara
wouldn’t look at him then.  She averted her eyes and stared at the wall.

“Kara? 
What is it?”

“What
do you care?  You’ve made your feelings clear enough.”

Jeremy
sighed and lifted himself off the coach.  He went over and put his palm
against her back.  “Tell me what’s really wrong.  You’re not this
upset because of me.”

She
broke down in tears and buried her head against his chest.  It was then
that he smelt the same sweet odour that had come from Carol’s rotting
flesh.  He eased her away so that he could look at her.  “You have
it, don’t you?”