The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (64 page)

“
Ass muncher…,” it was
barely a whisper.

“
Ricky
Retardo…”

Anthony approached the
girl, putting his companions out of his mind for the time being,
surprised to find the closer he got to the her, all the more
beautiful she seemed to become to him, especially with the
apprehension and fear absent from her face.

He waved smallishly,
“Hello.”

“
Hi,” she managed meekly.
Her head was slightly downcast so she was looking up at him through
her eyelashes and a few wayward strands of her remarkably colored
hair.

The other boys stayed
back, giving her some space for now.

“
Everything all good now?”
Anthony asked, testing the waters.

She peered up at him
directly. He nearly drowned in the crystalline blue of her eyes.
They were so sharp and detailed with flecks of azure and sapphire
about her irises, they were mesmerizing. He had never seen eyes
like that before.

“
I hope so…,” she replied,
returning his frank stare.

The newfound conviction
with which she spoke almost melted his heart right then and there.
He could see she was one the verge of trusting him fully. Her eyes
searching for the truth in him, dreading the lie she so desperately
hoped to avoid finding in his gaze. He had never been in a
situation of this magnitude before, with so much riding on so
little, the gravity of it all threatened to overwhelm
him
. He was sure he
would be able to recall this moment, every detail and every nuance
for the remainder of his life.

“
I know so,” he began a
little choked up. He cleared his throat and, “I promised,
remember?”

“
Am I to
take it that you are
not
one of those typical, immature guys who lies all
the time,” she spoke out of the corner of her mouth, a taste of
play sprinkled on her words.

He smiled, genuinely, more
of himself expressed, other than calm and reassurance. “There is
nothing typical about me, of that I can assure you. Although, I’ve
been known to walk down the path of immaturity now and again. I
like to think it keeps me from taking shit too
seriously.”

She actually shook with a
fleeting giggle. “Nice, I like that.” Her smile matched his.
Anthony watched as the last of her fright fluttered away, like a
shadowy bird flittering into the ominous winter storm about
them.

Joaquin and Jason walked
up behind Anthony still badgering each other back and
forth.

Anthony looked them over
with a shake of his head. “You guys are like a pair of crotchety,
old ladies - sisters, I might add.”

“
And who’s to say we
aren’t, darling,” answered Jason within a heartbeat, imitating a
stereotypical elderly Bostonian woman to perfection. His quip so
quick, there were laughs and chuckles all around, even the little
boy giggled. Anthony could just make out his heavy, jowly cheeks,
bright red from the cold, bouncing with each burst of
laughter.

“
I think things are
beginning to wear on you guys as well. You guys look a little
punch-drunk,” she quipped back as she pushed herself up from the
snow and stood up.

As with most girls Anthony
knew, she was shorter than him, but only by a few inches, which, in
his book, made her a little tall for a teenage girl. She was
wearing a pair of white jeans, now befouled and wet from her
sitting and kneeling in the snow. Anthony was a little surprised to
see she didn’t seem to care.
For a pretty
girl, she doesn’t seem all prissy and afraid of a little
dirt
, he thought. Upon her feet, she wore
a pair of white boots that were tie up above her ankle and looked
like foot coverings made for serious hiking and not the mall. It
was another atypical feature Anthony discovered he liked about
her.

“
Tell me about it,” he
agreed, extending his semi-gloved hand, complete with skulls
stitched into them. When he looked down and saw them. At that very
moment, he flushed with embarrassment, wondering if she would think
they were a little childish to be wearing things like them at his
age.

Shit!

After a short time, his
hand still extended toward her. “Um, my name is Anthony
Herrera.”

“
Oh,” she blurted, her
hand coming to her chest, not even looking at his gloves. Then,
“How rude of me, oh my! I’m so sorry about that, everything has
been so… so wrong and off kilter lately, I’m forgetting my
manners.”

“
Don’t worry about
it.”

“
Well, ok then, umm… my
name is Sophie Reed.” She took his hand and shook it. Through her
gloves, Anthony could tell she had small, thin-boned
hands.

Anthony turned to glance
behind him, pointing. “The big guy here is Joaquin…,” he began and
then looked over at Joaquin and put out his hands, palms heavenward
in surrender. “Dude, you’re gonna have to help me with your last
name,” Anthony said with a smile.

“
That would be
Barrientos,” he offered rolling his tongue over the “r’s”,
enunciating his surname. He stepped around Anthony to shake her
hand as well.

Sophie glanced up at him
with a shy smile, a tiny portion of her former fear creeping behind
her eyes. He was after all a big boy. He towered over
her.

A moment later, Jason
stepped up and shook her hand, introducing himself to her in a
quiet voice to which she replied, in turn, with a small nod of her
head and a thin smile.

Sophie turned, pointing at
the boy behind her. By now, he had gained his feet, waiting
impatiently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “This
is Louis Willigan.”

They boy waved at
them.

The three boys waved
back.

Anthony knew he’d been
right in his first assessment. The boy did look right around
Elena’s age. He was stockier of build than he’d first surmised
though, with a round face, completed by large, jowly cheeks almost
painfully red from the cold. Set deep into his face were a pair of
small, light-brown eyes. What hair stuck out from underneath his
hood was also light-brown, seemed straight and course. But, Anthony
could only really guess. He wore simple jeans and high-top sneakers
just as wet from the snow as the boots Sophie wore. Already,
Anthony could envision them freezing to death where they stood with
their clothes wet such as they were. The temperature around them
was so incredibly low.

“
From what I’ve been able
to get out of him,” continued Sophie, still looking over at the
boy, “is that Louis is eleven years old and lives around here
somewhere. He awoke this morning, as I assume the rest of us did,
and found things were very different with the world than they were
the night before. Is that right, Louis?”

“
Yes, it is,” retorted the
boy in the piping voice of a tween just upon the vestiges of
puberty. “I went to take out the garbage for my mother last night,
when I heard these scary sounds and everything was shaking real
bad, and for some reason I got sick. I think I fell on my face
next, but I don’t know for real. That’s all I remember, I woke up
this morning in what should have been my driveway, but all the cars
were gone. I was cold. I looked around and all the houses were
gone. Everything was gone…” He stopped. His voice cracked and he
tried with all of his inner strength to keep from crying. “Even my
dog…”

Anthony was sure Louis
didn’t want to cry in front of three bigger boys. He was trying
very hard
not
to
appear like a baby.

“
You’re not alone anymore,
Louis. You see, it happened to all of us, every one of us here.”
The other boys were nodding in agreement, looking down at the boy
with sympathetic eyes. “Now, we’ve found you and you’ll be safe,
ok?” said Anthony with a reassuring tone.

Sophie gave him a big,
warm smile of thanks.

He nodded back and smiling
too.

“
Hey, maybe we should
kinda get rolling here, huh?” prodded Jason, looking around through
the dreary landscape, unease drawn across his face, shivering
suddenly, worrisome thoughts crossing his mind.

Anthony’s shook as if he
had just snapped out of a trance. His smile dwindled. “Yeah, you’re
right, man, we need to get going,” he muttered quietly. He glanced
at the two kids in front of him. “Ok, we are going to introduce you
to some of our friends. We don’t want you guys to freak out or
anything,
and
definitely do
not
run away, because you could get lost in the
storm. We might never be able to find you again. This has got to be
some of the worst weather I have
ever
seen. So please, don’t panic or
anything, and please, please remember they
will not hurt you
. Just like I told
you both before, you have my word. Okay?

“
Now,” he went on,
tempering the situation, “they’re gonna look a little strange to
you, maybe even a little scary, but don’t worry ok, because they
are with us. In fact, they are the reason we are here right now
with you guys and not locked up in some cave or worse. They
actually saved us all from being prisoners like less than an hour
ago. Okay? So, you’ll be fine.”

“
He’s telling the truth,
they kicked some major ass like -,” Jason didn’t finish.

“
Dude, stop trying to
help,” begged Joaquin.

“
Ok, ok, ok,
damn!”

Sensing the seriousness in
his tone, Sophie nodded nervously at Anthony.

Louis seemed to physically
brace himself and gave a weepy, “O-ok.” He reached out suddenly,
grabbing one of Sophie’s hands.

Anthony hated seen their
fright return anew.
Man, this is a messed
up day…
He swiveled at his waist and
called loudly over his shoulder, “Garfield, bring the others!”
Anthony looked back at the other two, emphasizing his point, “I
promise you, they are on our side.”

They both just nodded a
few times and stepped back toward the trunk of the tree they’d been
leaning against before. They were side by side, hand in hand, their
eyes darting back and forth.

Out of the snow, three
large forms came towards them, materializing into Kenai, Garfield
and Mr. Patas.

Both Sophie and Louie let
out tremendous gasps of shock and hugged each other tightly. Louis
buried his face into Sophie mid-section, not wanting to look
anymore.

“
They will not hurt you,”
cajoled Anthony in the calmest voice he could muster. “I know this
because they were once my pets.”

“
What?” squealed Sophie as
if she had been “goosed”. Anthony’s claim had jolted her from the
grip fear. They let go of each other, simultaneously, to gaze upon
the animals in disturbed amazement.

“
They were my pets,” he
repeated with the same calm. “The cat-like one was my little
kitty-cat, named Garfield.” The cat immediately dropped his head
and shook it in exasperation, making Anthony chuckle knowing he
hated the label.

Kitty-cat, lol!

Anthony pointed at Kenai.
“The big bear-like dog was once my puppy Kenai who was taken away a
long time ago, but that is a long story we don’t have time to get
into right now.” He turned to smile at them, hoping they weren’t
about to run away or made insane from the constant barrage of
shock. “Lastly, the rabbit-eared one was once my pet rabbit, Mr.
Patas. As you can see, like the rest of them, he has really changed
a lot too.

“
Now,
I’m not sure how or why exactly, but somehow, they came to
this
place
when
we did
and
… I
believe they were sent here to protect us, right
Kenai?”

“
That is correct, Tony,”
replied the bear-dog with a voice, sounding like boulders grinding
together during an earthquake.

“
How do you do?” said Mr.
Patas in his squeaky tones, introducing himself, while the other
animals merely nodded.

Both Sophie and Louis just
stood in wide-eyed disbelief at what they were seeing, struck
speechless. They could talk!

Surprisingly, it was Louis
spoke first, “Are you serious? Man that is sooo cool! Weird too,
but cool just the same!” His fear seemingly replaced by genuine
enthusiasm and excitement.

Anthony smiled at the boy.
“I know, it sure is cool and you do know what’s even
better?”

“
What?” asked the
Louis.

“
They’re being here means
we have more friends to stop the bad guys that are trying to get
us.”

“
Really?”

Anthony could see the boy
didn’t quite understand what he was talking about, but had replied
politely anyhow.
Could it be possible that
they do not know… have not seen... Could they’ve been that
lucky?

“
Yeah really, I told you,
Louis you are no longer alone.”

“
Well, ok then, good!
That’s a huge relief, I think,” said the boy with a slight frown,
but it was gone in seconds as he began tucking the few strands of
hair that had fallen out of his hood back underneath it.