The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (61 page)

“
I agree,” nodded
Joaquin.

“
As do I,” Kenai uttered
softly.

“
Me too, that cold was
brutal, so I don’t mind staying here,” piped in Andrew, giving
himself a mock shake.

“
Then let us be about it
and stop wasting time!” chided Garfield as he sprang to his feet,
darting out of the cave before anyone else’s could say anything or
otherwise move.

“
I thought he was asleep,”
wondered Andrew aloud as those leaving began to shuffle toward the
portal leading outside. Some of their typical spirit was in
evidence. The prospect of finding something decent to eat had
invigorated them.

“
He was,” answered Elena.
She got up and walked to the stack of wood with the intention of
bringing back some larger branches and logs to place upon the
fire.

Mikalah, seeing her
intention, got up to help. Andrew snuggled under the animal skin he
still had draped about his person, closing his eyes, taking in the
warmth.

Joaquin followed the
others, zipping up his jacket, already bracing for the cold he was
about to experience. Somewhat thankful, because it had a numbing
effect on his eye socket, which had begun to throb with the heat
the fire was adding to the cave.

“
We’ll be back!” he called
to those still in the cave proper just as he passed through the
entrance and into the open-aired passage beyond. Looking back, he
saw only Mugzy acknowledge his statement with a single wave of his
hand.

Then, he was within the
gripping numbness of winter on the Melded World once
again.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Into the Melded World -
Again

Day One, Thursday, 7:59
am…

Jason came around the
mossy boulder marking - and concealing - the entrance of the cave
and into a heavy veil of falling snow. It was much denser than he’d
experience a few hours ago, when he’d awakened to find the entire
world had gone mad. He glanced upward at the sky, but could only
make out the very tops of the trees and nothing more. It appeared
as though the clouds themselves had descended upon the earth,
closing in all around, cutting their visibility to about twenty
yards. It played tricks with sound too. Sometimes, when he we heard
something, it sounded like he was underwater, lacking the ability
to ring out. At others, it became suddenly magnified, startling,
because it seemed much closer than it actually was.

He could make out
Garfield’s tracks in the deep snow, determine where the big cat had
already run. It seemed to him, the mighty feline had run back and
forth a few times in the area, immediately surrounding, the cave,
before venturing farther off. Twenty feet beyond, his tracks
vanished into the obscurity of the storm and the density of the
trees about them. The wind had picked up a little, but was still no
more than a steady breeze softly pushing at the sheets of snow,
making huge eddies sway and meander as they fell lazily to the
ground.

What surprised him though,
was the temperature. It had dropped severely in the twenty minutes
or so he’d been in the cave. It felt like a chilly slap against his
cheeks, and within a few moments of exposure, his face already felt
pinched and rough, as if he had been out in the elements for
hours.

“
Holy crap, man, it got
freakin’ cold out here,” exclaimed Joaquin, who stood a few paces
ahead of Jason, stomping his feet as if he could shake off the
iciness of the air. His boots sank deep into the snow, making a
crunching thud with every footfall.

“
My grandma always says,
‘it’s colder than a witch’s tit in Alaska’, when she walks into a
chill that stops her in her tracks,” remarked Anthony, making both
him and Joaquin laugh aloud before they stop themselves.

They got an exasperated
huff from Kenai for their lack of foresight.

Mr. Patas wasn’t paying
them any mind. He was already using his extraordinary hearing,
intent on what was around their immediate vicinity. His ears were
turning back and forth, sometimes in unison, sometimes not. Jason
could see flashes of deep pink skin surrounded by tuffs of white
fur every time he turned far enough to the side.

“
Ha, ha, dude, I like that
one,” said Joaquin still laughing in spurts.

He’s always been a
titty-man
, thought Jason as he approached
the two larger boys.

Kenai was ignoring them
now, looking at Mr. Patas, waiting.

After a time, Mr. Patas
looked back at Kenai and said in his somewhat squeaky voice that
typically rushed out of his mouth so fast Jason could barely
understand the beast. “The way is clear, Great Canine.” He jogged
passed them all, with surprising agility, balanced on its giant
toes. Somehow, they kept him from sinking too far into the mushy
precipitation, encumbering him to a lesser degree than the rest of
them.

Jason looked after the
animal. Then saw Garfield come looping out of the heavy snowfall
further beyond. Without any preamble, the tiger-sized, housecat
strode directly up to Kenai, stopping a pace or two away. “The way
is clear for now,” he stated simply, dashing off, back into the
storm and out of sight.

Kenai glanced at the boys.
“Let’s get going then, shall we?”

They all set off, through
the blinding snow and soft swirling breezes with Kenai leading. The
three boys walked behind her, side by side, speaking in low voices
as they went. Mr. Patas walked off to their right, not wanting the
sound of their footsteps to interfere with his hearing as they
sloughed through the landscape. It was obvious to Jason, the
rabbit-man didn’t want to miss anything of importance. If he did,
it might very well cost them their lives.

“
So,
Joaquin, what school do you go to… or
did
go to?” asked Anthony, walking
with his hands in his pockets, the first telltale sign he was
getting cold as well. His hands always got cold
first.

Jason turned to look at
his friend who was walking in between him and Anthony as he
replied, “Both Jason and I go to Eagle Rock High School. I think
we’ve both been going there since the seventh grade, you know,
because it’s also a Junior High as well.”

“
Yeah, I know,” Anthony
began with a dry smile. “That’s funny, man, because I’ve been going
there since the ninth grade. This is my second year attending the
school now. I didn’t do Junior High there, though, I went to Luther
Burbank Middle school right after elementary. I transferred over
when I graduated,” informed Anthony.

They continued through the
cold, following Garfield’s footprints through the snow, although
they couldn’t see him. He was ranging farther ahead and out of
sight.

“
Really,
wow, what a small world,” commented Jason. “I mean, what are the
chances?” he trailed off looking about at the strange world around
him.
...that we’re all here, together, in
this place
, he finished his thought
silently.

“
How come we haven’t seen
each other before? I mean, we know a lot of people at the school
and yet we haven’t met,” wondered Joaquin.

“
Probably because you guys are jocks and I -,” Anthony stopped
abruptly. “I mean, you
are
jocks, right?” Both of the other boys nodded
slowly at that. “That’s what I thought. It’s likely we haven’t
bumped into each other, because I hang out with a bunch of
musicians. We don’t hang out in the main quad area. You know, how
most of the students tend to gather around the grassy area, right?
We hang out in between the bungalows, more towards the back of the
school. It’s a spot we’ve been hanging around for some time now,”
explained Anthony, looking at Jason and his friend, wondering if
they were going to pigeonhole him into some sort of high school
cliché clique.

The moment stretched for a
bit, bordering on the uncomfortable.

Instead, sounding as
though he was interested, Jason asked, “What instrument do you
play?”

Anthony sniggered
peevishly, though not overly embarrassed, inwardly relieved their
conversation hadn’t devolved into the typical and the uninspired.
“Me, ha-ha, I actually don’t play one, I just sort of ended up with
friends who do. Some of them are in the Jazz band at school, and a
few others are in a band together. You know, they do gigs here and
there. Mostly, house parties and garage kick-backs and such,”
Anthony added with a thoughtful shrug. “I always wanted to learn to
play the guitar, but for some reason or another I never got around
to it.” Joaquin grunted and kept walking in silence.

“
So what do you do, then?”
asked Jason, kicking at pile of snow in his path, spraying snow in
front of all three of them.

“
What do you mean like
what do I do for fun or a hobby or something like that?”

“
Yeah, man, whatever. What
do you do when you’re being you?” clarified Jason.

“
What are you, a hippy
now?” inquired Joaquin sarcastically.

“
What?” was Jason
indignant question.

“
What do you mean, what?”
answered Joaquin with a question. “You just sounded like some
left-wing nut-job right now.”

Anthony laughed at that,
while Jason just frowned at his longtime friend as if he had
sprouted a second head.

“
What do
you doooo when you’re being youuuu, man, oooh wooow,
duuude!”
mimicked Joaquin using an accent
Jason couldn’t place. It was some amalgamation of a hippy, a stoner
and a surfer dude all mixed and mashed together.

“
Whatever,” was all Jason
said and fell silent.

Anthony took a deep
breath. “I guess you could say I became a computer nerd, because I
play a lot of online games and stuff. I have a ton of online
friends that I keep in contact with on the various social networks,
when I’m not hanging out with friends from school. It’s kinda cool
to have people to talk to all over the world, you know?” Anthony
looked back at the ground before him, seeming a little nervous as
what the other two were going to say about him.

Jason began to think maybe
Anthony didn’t get out all that much. He was definitely was no
party animal, which was actually a good thing, the more he thought
about it. Being “The-Center-of-Attention-at-Every-Party-Guy” wasn’t
always cool. He was usually the first jerk to end up worshipping
the porcelain god…

“
I think that’s cool,
man.”

Jason was surprised to
hear the words come out of Joaquin’s mouth. His friend usually
dismissed anyone as useless if he or she didn’t consider
bench-pressing 200 pounds a must in life. Wrestling was indeed a
huge portion of what Joaquin did, thought about and practiced,
during the course of any usual week. Things not falling under that
narrow prevue in his mind were usually foreign and unnecessary to
him. It wasn’t like he was mean about it to anyone, about what they
found interesting. He was merely intent on something
else.

Joaquin must’ve seen his
expression, because he added, “I mean, it would be cool have people
to talk to if everyone else you know is busy or asleep or
something, you know, right Jay?”

Jason recovered quickly
under his friend’s gaze. “Yeah that would be cool.”

“
What do you guys do?”
Anthony’s eyes went back and forth between Jason and Joaquin,
genuine interest in his gaze.

“
I’m a wrestler,” began
Joaquin almost immediately, “so that takes up a lot of time. You
know, the working out, meeting weight, flexibility training,
building stamina, etc. Sometimes it feels more like a full-time job
than an extra-curricular activity.”

“
Are you any
good?”

Jason answered for his
friend with what he believed was the absolute truth. “This dude
here is probably the best wrestler the school has seen in the past
20 years. I mean that, no joke. He is hands down the
best.”

“
Hey thanks, Jay. Now I
remember why I don’t squash like a bug when I really want to do
just that,” kidded Joaquin under the veneer of a
compliment.