The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (28 page)

“
It’s something my dad
always said to do,” began Joaquin, explaining. “He said it was
something he wished the boys would do for him when they came around
to see my little sister. So, I took it to heart. I do it for the
fathers of the girls I take out… though there haven’t been that
many,” he added quickly not wanting to sound like a jerk or
anything.

“
Well, it’s a really cool
thing to do,” she said quietly, looking ahead through a small
grin.

He was never sure if she
caught onto his abrupt clarification or not, but she didn’t react
to it any more than that.

They’d driven the rest of
the way to Clarisse’s house, talking and laughing about a whole
slew of topics. When he walked her to her front porch, she had
given him a chaste kiss, but there was a gleam in her eyes, for
Joaquin only. He knew the reason behind her sudden modesty. True to
form, he respected it and waved to her just before she had closed
the front door of her house, her parents barely visible behind her.
She had rewarded him with a brilliant smile and another kiss, one
she blew toward him from her palm. It was an unseen seedling of a
dandelion he imagined had wafted toward him, on the wind, to touch
his cheek with an audible pop.

It had been a
very
good
date.

The road ahead began to
turn slightly from left to right and then right to left as he
approached Avoca Street. He was passing one house, and then another
and another until his headlights shone into the property of the
fourth house. Just before the road straightened out – he saw her. A
small girl, maybe a first grader, in a white dress with, of all
things, a blue ribbon tied about her waist, another wound through
her hair, holding it back.

The fact she was outside
at this hour bothered him. The fact so many parents let their kids
do whatever ever the hell they wanted at all hours of the night,
even on a school day, often baffled Joaquin. He himself had come
from a family with a little more structure. There’d been strict
rules, constantly enforced. When he was her age, he would’ve been
asleep already, for at least an hour.

But, then she did
something truly unnerving. It happened just as his headlights
shined across her tiny form, one second, breathe and then came the
next. She was waving at him with something furry and reddish in her
hand. Her movements mimicked the exact fashion he’d waved to
Clarisse… as if she had been there watching him when he’d done the
same.

Wait, was that
blood?
came the astonished
thought.

His cell phone chirped and
he jumped, glancing down at it, a little perturbed at being
startled. It was sitting in one of the cup holders in the consul
between the two front seats. His mood lightened at once. “Can’t
wait ‘til school 2moro! Thx, for the best date ever, luv U. babe.
Clarisse! XOXOXO!” was splashed across the small LCD screen. He
grinned like a toddler.

I have a
girlfriend!

All thoughts of a little
girl in a white dress, adorned with blue ribbons long, holding a
bloody stump of something in her hand had vanished. He drove the
rest of the way to his parent’s house, grinning like a
lunatic.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Ricardo?

Monday, November
22
^nd
,
3:25 am…

She ran, as hard and as
fast she could manage. She could feel It behind her, coming quickly
through the white and gray… fog... mist? She wasn’t certain what it
was exactly. Only it confused her vision, played tricks with her
eyes, making her see things one second only to have them vanish a
second later as if they’d never had been. Though she’d never been
good at running distances, she was tugging every ounce of strength
she possessed from her short legs. Her limbs better suited to a
girl twelve years of age and not the sixteen she was
actually.

It was still behind her,
though. If it ran or flew, she couldn’t tell, but she was certain.
It was coming, swift, relentless… for her.

She was running over
concrete. Large three-by-three foot squares of it, not unlike how
forms of concrete were laid when building a sidewalk. If it was a
sidewalk, she couldn’t say. At this point, she was merely
guessing.

She’d been sprinting
toward a dark looming shadow in the distance for some time now. She
prayed it was an edifice of some sort that could offer cover,
something she could hide within, get away from It. Her legs
pumping, her arms swinging back and forth at her sides, she could
just make out the shadow had corners, hard, precise, manmade.
Nothing in nature grew that straight, could be that plumb. She kept
focused on the shadow. Her jaw was clenched with the
exertion.

Behind her, all the while,
It loomed. It grew. It darkened. It was rushing forward like the
rampaging waters of a tsunami, on and on, miles wide, miles long,
piled upon itself – layer after layer after layer.

She could feel the sweat
falling from her face, roll down her chin and between her small
breasts. She was sure her t-shirt was drenched already. Though, why
she was perspiring in the first place was baffling. She couldn’t
discern if the air was hot or cold, or anything for that matter.
Her environs were too bewildering.

Below her, more concrete
flashed underneath her pounding feet, when it abruptly change to
asphalt, black and uniform, poured, smoothed over the ground and
flattened to an exact degree only a veteran contractor could
achieve. Only heavy equipment could do such a fine job.

Why am I thinking of this
stupid shit when I am being chased?!?

The shadow before her
became a little more distinct. Her strained eyes to see, to
discover anything, about what it might be – a low-slung office
building, a two-story coffee shop, a ruin? She couldn’t tell yet.
The mist or the clouds or the smoke made it impossible to make out
details.

Why am I running? What is
happening?

Oh god, what the fuck is
chasing me!?!

The thought seemed to
drive her. Fear was a great motivator. Her feet garnered more
speed. The pain in her legs and chest was pushed aside. Some
newfound vigor was coursing through her.

I have to out run it! I
can’t let it get me. I can’t let it even touch me. It
will…

…
KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE
BITCH. YOU ARE GOING TO SCREAM FOR ME…

No! No! No! I have get to
-. I have to find… something! But where? Where is anything in this
fucking place?

She streaked toward the
shadow, fast. She knew if she so much as stumbled, she’d be face
first into the asphalt. She’d scrape her face or break her nose.
The skin on her hands would be burned off. She might even dislocate
her -.

It was a
building!

Oh, thank you, god! Thank
you! Thank you! Thank you!

It was unfamiliar to her.
She didn’t know what exactly she was looking at, but she could see
its’ walls clearly now. She saw it as clear as she could manage
through the soupy murk surrounding her. It had a tall flag pole to
the right side of the property, ten feet or so in front of the
building itself. Though the top of the pole was out of sight,
obscured by the mist or fog or whatever it was, so she couldn’t
tell if there was a flag hanging at its’ top. The brass brackets
that would’ve held the flag in place were at the bottom of the
pole. Maybe, there was no flag up there.

The building was painted
white, made slightly yellow in the strange play of the light. It
had a large fifteen by twenty foot window set directly behind the
flagpole. The rest of the structure was a lengthy wing, stretching
a hundred feet to her left. She could see a wide staircase and
pathway leading up to the structure. The way itself was bisected by
a peach colored railing; demarking one side of the walkway was for
walking up and the other for walking down. The pathway terminated
at another set of stairs, leading to the very threshold of the
building. It had materialized as she came closer. A few steps
later, she could tell she was peering at a set of heavy-looking
double doors, oaken, dark.

She didn’t hesitate and
made for the “up” side of the staircase, intent on going inside
when she saw him. She recognized his wavy, shoulder length hair,
his dark complexion, the thin form of his body. He moved the same
way he had when she watched train - day after day in the blazing
heat of Arizona, working to get stronger, faster.

“
Ricardo!”
she yelled, as loud as she
could, gaining the stairs, beginning to pump her knees higher as
she climbed.

Ahead of her and above,
standing directly before the doors, Ricardo regarded her frankly,
his eyes searching over her, for a moment, as if unsure. It took
him a few seconds, but he seemed to recognize her as well. He
motioned for her to follow him, an urgent look on his
face.

“
I’m
coming!”
she exclaimed again, letting him
know she understood his gesture.

At her back, she could
feel the day (if it was in fact day) grow darker as It came closer,
as It began to lay waste to everything that was and everything that
would’ve been. It was growing still, in size and in strength. Soon,
It would be too massive to stop, too strong to push aside. Soon,
there would be nowhere to hide.

Before her, Ricardo spun
on his heel and promptly went through the door without a backward
glance.

“
Wait,
Ricardo! Wait for me!”
she screamed after
him, feeling
It’s
hulking presence began to weigh upon her back her shoulders,
her neck.

It was here…

I’VE COME FOR
YOU!

She attained the pathway,
her legs aching now as the lactic acid in her muscles began to work
against her. It was the inevitable pain all runners felt when
they’d over-exerted themselves. Though, she was sweating profusely,
as if she had been sprinting for hours, something had changed and
she could feel it now – around her, in nearly all places, even
within. Cold: stark, lifeless cold, a chill unlike anything she had
ever felt before. It was iciness, full with malice, pregnant with
hate. So intense, it almost made her cry out in fear.

She rocketed up the second
set of stairs and almost staggered into the doors, nearly banging
her head, instead of opening them. She knew this cold; this
ever-growing absence of warmth was directing all of Its’
fathomless, black emotions at her. It loathed her. It despised her
very existence. It wanted nothing more than to smear her like a bug
across the surface of the world, scrub her existence clean from
space and time.

“
RICARDO!!!”
she shrieked as she
wrenched open the right side door. The same one the teenage boy had
gone through only moments before. She plunged headlong into the
structure. Darkness surrounded her at once. She slammed shut the
door, trying to figure out what to do next, where to go, where to
hide. It was just outside the doors now, she was certain of
it!

“
Ricardo?”
she implored, listening
intently for a reply, but nothing followed, only silence and
darkness.

She turned to the left,
knowing the building went furthest in that direction.

She took no more than half
a step when she bumped into him, her forehead rapping against his
chest. From above, she heard him grunt slightly.

“
Oh my
god, Ricardo, I’m so glad I found you,”
she said, not moving away from him. Instead, she brought her
arms up to hug him around the midsection.

The boy didn’t reply, but
brought his own arms to hug her back, giving her a firm squeeze at
first, and then settled into a warmth embrace a moment
later.

He sustained it

She returned the gesture.
Almost immediately, she felt safe, felt It retreat, pull back,
hesitate, as if It were suddenly wary, as if Ricardo made It
unsure, doubtful. She stood there, immobile, letting the tainted
cold seep from her body. She listened to the steady thump of the
boy’s strong heartbeat resound in her ears, continuous, almost
lulling, something she could count on, rely upon. She could feel
his large hands stroking her back, massaging various muscles,
caressing her curves and contours as if he were memorizing every
part of her. Like he wanted to know the way she liked to be
touched. He was searching for a response. She melted against him,
warm now, safe again. Her hands rubbed along his spine, then to the
long, stringy muscles of his back.