The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (13 page)

“
Tony!
” His father rushed to his
bedside, hands and arms extended, pulling covers back to see if he
was all right.

Anthony’s pajama covered
legs were exposed to the cold air within the house.
“Dad, Dad, I’m cool! It was a nightmare, Dad,”
rushed the boy, trying to get his father to calm down, pulling the
blankets back over himself.
Damn, it’s
cold tonight!

“
A… what...?” asked his
father, wiping his hand across his forehead. It was beaded with
sweat. He stood there next to Anthony’s bed, in his boxer shorts
and t-shirt with the arms cut off, “Viva Las Vegas!” written across
the bottom. There was a cartoon-like version of Elvis emblazoned
about the entire front of the ancient looking garment.

“
It was a…a
nightmare.”

“
Jesus Christ, Anthony, I
thought you were being chopped in half or something,” replied his
father still panting and looking about the room to see if there was
anything else amiss. His hands were on his hips, rubbing at his
briefs, then tugging nervously at the hem of his shirt.

“
It was just a nightmare,”
explained the boy, clutching at his head as a headache began to
rise.

“
Well, it sounded like you
were getting crushed by an airplane engine like that Donny Dimwit
kid.” His father glanced toward the bedroom door, as Anthony’s
mother appeared in the doorway, in her robe. Elena wasn’t far
behind in her old - worn out at the knees - Strawberry Shortcake
Pajama’s.

“
Darko, Dad,” corrected
Anthony. “The kids name was Donny Darko. He was the one who got
-.”

“
What?” said his father,
interrupting him, though he wasn’t actually paying any attention to
him. He wanted silence, so he could think.

“
Is everything ok?” asked
his mother tentatively, still unsure what was going on.

“
Donny Dimwit here had a
nightmare,” replied his father, still sort of breathing
heavily.

Anthony and Elena both
chuckled at his error.

“
Oh,” his mother inhaled
abruptly. “It must have been a bad one, then, huh?” she asked
coming into his room, but didn’t walk near his bed, as had his
father.

“
I’m okay, mom. I just
have a headache that’s all,” explained Anthony, already getting
uncomfortable at having so many people in his room, at one
time.

“
Alright, I’ll get you
some Tylenol for the pain, so we can all go back to bed,” stated
his mother, already putting the incident behind her. She left for
the bathroom.

“
Where’s Mikalah?” asked
his father, turning, speaking to Elena now.

She merely shrugged and
said, “Still asleep.”

“
Typical,” was all their father said, heading for the door.
“Try not to have another nightmare, okay son? I don’t think I can
take another scare like that in the same night and
not
have a heart
attack.” He’d turned back toward Anthony, eyebrows arched,
imploring him.

“
I’ll try,
Dad.”

Anthony’s mom returned
with the Tylenol and a water bottle, while his father gathered up
Elena intent on putting her back to bed. Anthony took the pills and
chugged them along with a healthy gulp of water.

“
Now try and get some
sleep, mijo. It’s late,” uttered his mother as she stood up,
leaving the water bottle on the nightstand, next to his digital
clock and made for the light switch.

“
I
will,” mumbled Anthony, as his room returned to darkness. The door
closed quietly. He lay there, silently thinking about the dream,
feeling the rapid-release of the medicine reduce the pressure
inside his head.
That was some trippy
dream,
he thought and turned on side right
side. Outside, he could hear the wind blow through the trees
surrounding their house. Maybe, there was a storm
coming.

Maybe there was more than
one…

It was an errant thought,
but it stuck with him, having come from somewhere deep
within
.
As if to
reply in kind, he felt a silent “pop”, in the hallow fo his chest
and within the very core of his brain. He felt them together, as if
they’d occurred in the same place. It was a vibration more than
anything else, a quick quivering, there one instant, gone the next.
It was followed, immediately, by… nothing. It was as if something
sprung open and loosed itself upon the world, but there was no
after effect.

He waited anxiously to see
what would happen next, but nothing more followed – absolutely
nothing.

What the heck?
he thought…

*****

…
At the same moment,
within the very same heartbeat, over the ridge, separating Highland
Park from Eagle Rock, Joaquin’s eyes popped open. So suddenly, he
wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not. He glanced around uncertain.
Should he be scared? Should he be looking for the huge Samoan dude
he’s been dreaming of wrestling, in the sand, at Santa Monica
Beach, seconds earlier?

Then, he realized, he was
back in his room. He was in his queen-sized bed, though his head
was pounding, hurting, for no reason. It was intense. He could only
ascertain it was painful and no more.

It was no longer than a
single exhalation when the words began to come to him – strange and
foreign groupings of letters, unlike anything he could
fathom.
Where they even words to begin
with?
These weren’t his ideas. They
weren’t concepts of he’d created. He hadn’t thought of them. He
didn’t know them, understand them. It was as if someone else had
placed them there, in his mind, at the very forefront of himself.
He was unable to ignore them. He was forced to place them above the
mountainous morass of his own thoughts. Had someone opened his head
and shoved them in…?

Joaquin’s eyes widened for
an instant, thoughts washing over him like a brook becoming a
stream with the spring thaw, rolling, tumbling, growing into a
realization so startling, he almost sat up in bed once
again.
Had something placed these words
within him on purpose? Unfamiliar words like Jötun, Nixae,
Isighund, Swûreg, and Fenris. They were shouting in his head, and
wouldn’t stop. Could it be true? Had it really happened? Had
something happened... to him… in a cave?

No, that wasn’t me. That
was him.
Him. HIM!!!

He burrowed deeper into
his pillow as the number of words began to expand exponentially,
flashing through his mind, meaningless and without form. They were
explanations of thought devoid of import, empty and hallow –
hundreds upon hundreds, then thousands, tens of thousands.
Was it a language? Was it many languages or maybe
the same language over a vast period in time?

With so many questions and
absolutely no answers, Joaquin peered around his room, completely
lost in trains of thought he couldn’t comprehend. A slight buzzing
began to sound in his ear. It was the buzzing of silence, utter
stillness, beyond the words. Cloaked in the shadows of his bedroom,
of his mind, the very space about him became strange and unreal,
the play of the moonlight and the darkness of the night. They were
all made foreign. Simple objects became otherworldly, bizarre, and
then… alien.
They are not of this
world
, he said, speaking to a detached
portion of himself, though hadn’t spoken aloud. His voice was lost.
His objections were overruled. And, all the while, the words
continued to stream before his mind’s eye.

What was happening?
He shouted from within as the numbness of
oblivion began to change, to twist into something more tangible,
more real. It was an emotion he could understand and express –
fear. It descended mercilessly and without warning, piercing and
cold, as if the devil himself had suddenly manifested in his
bedroom.

Of their own volition,
Joaquin’s eyes began to dart back and forth. He brought his
comforter under his chin for the false protection he knew didn’t
exist, but couldn’t help hide underneath. All kids did this right?
It didn’t matter that he was seventeen years old.
Why am I acting this way?!?
He wasn’t seven anymore.

He searched the immediate
vicinity for the source of this fright, but found he couldn’t
center it upon a single, defining notion. Yet, the fright
persisted, deepening, paralyzing him.

A second later, the
multitude of meaningless words stopped abruptly.

No, a few began to boil to
the surface of his mind as if stuck:
Niveus; Nixeus; Metohkangmi; Yeti; Big-Head; Nihhus; Nicor;
Nivis; Isig-Halförd.

These new words were
different from the thousands that had preceded them. They bled fear
from him. They burned like coals in his mind’s eye. They were
embers of a fire pit, in the lightlessness of a campsite, at the
mid of night. They were a glow of red to black and black to red,
hinting at flame, but not quite hot enough to achieve
it.

As he felt these new words
sear into his brain. They pulsed with breath, almost like that of a
breathing, living being. He knew then, these words were to
be
feared
, naught
else. The word resounded in his mind,
Feared!
With each toll, came the
emotion, attached to them. Though he didn’t know what they meant.
He knew this to be truer than anything he’d ever experienced in his
life.

The shivering began, even
though he wasn’t cold in the slightest. He was in no clutch of ice,
and yet, he was shaking as if he was lost in a blizzard north of
Fairbanks, Alaska – ice cold!
Oh God, what
the hell was going on?
he thought as he
flung his blankets completely over his head and shoved his fist in
his mouth to keep from screaming with dread. He didn’t want to
scream out loud, like a baby.
Crap!
It was something he hadn’t done since he was a
little boy, experiencing night terrors for the first time, yet
this…

This wasn’t the same. This
was real, or at least, as real as he could imagine.

Why was this happening?
Why now?

Then, simply, it all
clicked into place. He couldn’t explain how, or why. He knew. He
just did. This had all happened for a reason. This is what had
scared him. He was as certain of it, as he was the sun would rise
each morning and set each night. This whole thing was a warning,
portending to things to come.

They all were in mortal
danger… all twelve of them…

He
was coming and soon!
Niveus, Nixeus,
Metohkangmi… Him!

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Despair

Friday, November
19
^th
,
5:59 am…

Elena’s eyes flew open as
wide as saucers. Her breath caught in her throat. Her hands reached
up to her chest as she sat up in bed, knowing in that instant
something was wrong. Something wasn’t the same. It was different
than it had been when she had gone back to bed after Anthony’s
nightmare. She kicked the blankets off her legs and slid bare feet
toward the edge of the bed.

Despite the central
heating, the morning air was colder than usual against her cheeks.
Typically, this meant the weather outside was downright chilly, but
that didn’t change the way she felt.

Something wasn’t
right.

It had nothing to do with
the temperature in the house. This was more of a presence, but the
specificity if it eluded her. What had changed? What made
everything look the same, but feel so horribly wrong,
unclean?
It feels icky like something bad
has painted everything I feel with a nasty slim, in my mind, on my
heart, within my hands, even my house.
Why
had the world altered? What had happened to make it so different?
It had only been a matter of hours? What could do this?

With one hand, she rubbed
the last of the sleep from her eyes, scooting, standing erect upon
the carpeted floor of her bedroom. She glanced around. Her toes
gripped into the plush weave beneath her feet. Everything looked
the same. Mikalah sleeping, as usual, on the bed opposite hers,
still separated by identical nightstands - one hers, the other her
sister’s. Each of them held a matching lamp and digital clock. When
she turned toward the foot of their beds, there stood their desks
with their laptops perched upon each, one Dell Red and the other
Dell Blue (Mikalah had always loved the color blue). It was just as
they’d left them the night before.