The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (57 page)

As a group, they began to
quickly come down the incline, gathering at the larger La Loma
trail, making their way down the steep hill toward their
destination.

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To Shelter

Day One, Thursday, 7:17
am…

They made their way down
the trail, roughly in pairs. The trail was just wide enough now to
accommodate two abreast. The plant life had thinned out on this
side of the hill, nearly devoid of ferns and other low lying
foliage as it had on the way up. Trotting as they went, they all
couldn’t stop glancing about. Their eyes darted in every direction
for any sign of danger.

Kodiak and Anthony were at
the front, followed by Mugzy and Elena, then came Joaquin and
Jason, with Mikalah and Mr. Patas next. Andrew and Kenai were the
last pairing, while Garfield intentionally took a more leisurely
pace. Kodiak had commanded he hang back and scout the way behind
them, making sure they weren’t followed. Fenris had escaped, after
all. There was no telling how many more minions he had at his
beckon call.

When they came to the
bottom of the hill, there should’ve been a road or a trail
branching off to the left (Joaquin wasn’t sure if it was a street
called Landmark or Lanark), but there was nothing there
now.

No one said anything,
though. Joaquin was under the impression they were all still shell
shocked by the turn of events since awaking and finding themselves
in this cold, desolate place. He knew he was. The fact his eye was
still throbbed, where one of the now dead Swüreg warriors had
clouted him earlier, didn’t help either. They trotted about twenty
yards farther, to where the trail should’ve forked. Again, it
didn’t. It merely continued on, straight. Like the side street
before it, there was no sign of Neola Way as well.

Joaquin peered around some
more, scrutinizing the landscape with greater care and realized
there was no sign of the car wash that had once stood, all by
itself, on a small triangle of land, surrounded by streets on all
sides. He didn’t have a chance to speak of it, nonetheless, his
mind clouded.
I’m almost back where I
started
, he thought nervously, because
where he’d awakened that morning hadn’t been a very nice
place.

Kodiak continued to walk
on, never hesitating. Apparently, she knew precisely where to
go.

To what, he could only
guess. Kodiak had mentioned something about a cave, but really
hadn’t been paying attention. Fear had its’ frozen claws deep in
his flesh.

The bear-dog forged on a
few more paces toward the intersection of what should’ve been La
Loma Road and Figueroa Street before she turned abruptly to the
right. She scampered up the short embankment on the side of the
trail and into a large copse of trees beyond.

He exchanged a brief
glance with Jason, who merely shrugged and raised his eyebrows. His
face, still dirty from their run in with those demented creatures,
melted into a tired smile. Then, Joaquin heard the scraping of
shoes across the ground and turned to see Anthony scuttle up the
mild slope, after the huge, bear-like canine. No questions asked.
He was definitely confident Kodiak knew what she was
doing.

Well, I guess Jason and I
don’t have much of a choice…

The rest followed,
bounding up the snow-piled rise, amongst a variety of trees growing
abundantly on that side of the trail.

“
Wasn’t there some sort of
plant nursery here before… well, before everything changed?”
intoned Jason, his head swiveling back and forth like a life-sized
bobble-head.

Joaquin looked at his best
friend and smiled.
Only you would think of
something like that in a time like this
,
he thought to himself.

From up front Anthony
turned back and said: “I think you’re right. I remember buying some
plants or small trees, or something like that, with my grandmother
a few years ago. I think we went there… or here, or… whatever.” The
boy shrugged his shoulders, turned and resumed following the
bear-dog.

That dude’s a
dork
, determined Joaquin.
Who the hell talks about their grandmother to
other dudes without apologizing for being a tool in the first
place?
He pulled his eyes from his
companions, taking stock of what was around them.
Besides, Jason was talking to me.

He heard himself speak and
was immediately shocked his mouth had opened of its own accord.
“Yeah, man, there
was
a plant nursery here, before everything went to shit,” he
colluded, his mouth still moving of its own volition, making his
eyes widen. And still, he continued! “It was a pretty big one from
what I remember. I think it went all the way back to Colorado
Boulevard at its back end.”

Now, I’m the freakin’
tool!

“
Yeah, it was, huh?”
echoed Jason thoughtfully. He shrugged again as if he’d made a
decision and moved to follow the others.

Joaquin let him get a few
paces ahead before he followed.
Where the
hell else am I gonna go, right?

In the beginning, the
landscape was level for the most part, but after a hundred feet
away from the trail it began to angle upward. Kodiak was leading
them in a slightly curved fashion, a wide sort of arch angling
toward the right. After a time, Joaquin realized she was skirting
the vestiges of the large hill, the very one topped by the La Loma
trail.
Where the huge animals had left
carnage in their wake…

About them, the trees were
a mixture of palms, both the broad and tall sorts, typical of
southern California. Elms and other broad leaf trees grew
intermixed as well, though, to a one, they seemed as equally
shocked and bewildered by the sudden change in climate as Joaquin.
There was a light sprinkling of pines, growing here and there, but
to Joaquin, they seemed no worse for the wear, having already
adapted to the cold and the ubiquitous snow eons ago on
earth.

The ground was covered in
a multitude of confused layers. First and foremost, closest to the
ground, were a variety of wild grasses and other small plants as
well as the usual assortment of weed-lings. Over this was a
multitude of fallen leaves and needles that seemed to have died
off, en masse, at the abrupt turning of the weather. Draped over
everything, was a thick dusting of snow and ice – a blanket of
cold, freezing everything, making the entire jumble of flora
extremely brittle. As they stepped, they found they were making a
substantial amount of noise as they traipsed after the bear-dog,
knees high to compensate for the thickness of it.

It made them all cringe.
They sounded as loud as a marching band.

The snow had slowed down
considerably. For the most part was caught by the throng of leaves,
twigs and branches still clinging to the tree limbs above them. The
air was much cooler now. Far below freezing, surmised Joaquin. He
could feel the chill creeping through his many garments, griping at
his skeleton. He had never experienced temperatures this low
before. Which amazed him, because he was half-jogging, exerting a
lot of energy, and had been for some time now. He wondered if he
hadn’t been trotting after the large form of the bear-dog, would he
have been frozen stiff by now.

He wondered if the others
were just as cold as he, then happened to glance back at Andrew and
knew the answer to that question at once, thinking himself stupid
for even asking. Andrew was shivering uncontrollably now, his lips
tinged blue, his cheeks whitish with flaking skin.
Poor dude! We gotta find shelter quick or this
homeboy is gonna croak!

He managed a quick glance
skyward, seeing through the trees. The sky was still overcast,
thickly so. It was even more foreboding than it had been when he
had awakened this morning, after being so horribly sick the night
before. He had passed out and awoke to find he wasn’t in his bed as
he should’ve been. No, he had awakened next to Jason on ice-cold,
tiled Linoleum flooring. To top it all off, he happened to open his
bleary eyes to an entirely different world, finding himself
immersed in a new, frightening set of circumstances. No, he wasn’t
in his bed. He wasn’t even home. He was somewhere else, somewhere
far.

Yeah, Dorothy, I’m
definitely not in Kansas anymore, am I? Fuck no! I’m in an igloo’ed
world of shit!
He ground his teeth against
the sense of loss he felt in his heart.
Clarisse where are you?

Ahead, he saw Kodiak and
Anthony, and next, the black-and-white-haired man-dog, named Mugzy,
trot around a very large pile of moss covered rocks and boulders.
They seemed to grow out of the hill itself. One after the other,
his companions popped out of sight before him.

He watched as the girl
named Mikalah rounded the corner, briefly screened from his vision.
He peered upward, along the incline, noting a few pines had found
adequate purchase atop the rock-pile. It was obvious to him the
geological structure had been here for quite some time, or at least
it looked as though it had. He couldn’t be entirely sure in a place
like this.

He turned the edge himself
and found the others just a few yards ahead. All of them had
stopped and were looking at the fifteen-foot conglomeration of
boulders he had just jogged around. The entire pile was
interspersed with shrubs and grasses, seemingly held together by a
throng of lichen and moss growing from every crack. A few moments
later, those behind him came around the rocky mound. They milled
about, chests heaving from the short exertion through the
woods.

“
S-s-s-so now w-w-what?”
inquired Andrew impatiently.

It was clear to Joaquin
the boy was cold. All he was wearing was an awful looking animal
skin that could’ve come off a large dog or an emaciated cow or
something of that nature. It smelled like week old gym socks. He
couldn’t help the slightly disgusted expression. The hide looked
nasty. Silently, he hoped, for Andrew’s sake, it wasn’t infested
with lice or fleas. Although, when he thought about it, the cold
had most likely done away with vermin of that ilk. Nothing
insectile or warmish could survive conditions such as this.
I need to get a grip! My mind is wondering all
over the place.

“
We go in,” answered the
smaller of the bear-dogs with a rumbling tone.

“
Go in where?” asked
Anthony, leaning from side to side trying to find an opening. “I
don’t see anything but a giant crap-load of rocks.”

The rest of the kids
laughed quietly, Joaquin included.
Ok, he
was a funny dork
, he said to himself,
chuckling along with the rest of the group.

The bear-dog merely
sniffed in indignation and walked toward the collection of stone,
straight and unwavering, until she reached a particular boulder
standing nine feet tall entirely topped in lichen that hung down
either side. Then, miraculously, she disappeared, making a sharp
right turn around the left hand side.

All of the children gasped
with shock.

Garfield enjoyed a snicker
or two, which made Mugzy give him a hard look, shake his head.
Garfield returned his look with another one of his patented blank
stares, complete with hooded eyes.

“
Where the heck did she
go?” responded Elena, her tiny voice made shriller by her
excitement.

“
She went in the cave, my
dear,” replied Kodiak. “Come let us all go in and make the
flicker-heat. I know we are all in desperate need of its’
warmth.”

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