The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (7 page)

He turned to look back at
her, the cast of his face expectant.

“
I mean it, man, thanks a
lot.”

“
Don’t mention it,” he
replied instantly, “anyone would’ve seen you were in a bit of a
situation and would’ve helped. I was just the lucky one to be at
the right place at the right time,” he gazed at her
warmly.

Kimberly stared at him for
a few moments, not sure what to say next.

His face lined with
concern. “You sure you’re ok?”

Kimberly snapped out of
it. “…Yeah! Yes! I’m fine, thank you,” she stammered, feeling
awkward as she tried to recover some sense of composure.

“
Ok… well, hope to see you
around,” he added with a small wave and then bounded down the
stairs.

“
Me too,” she
whispered.

She watched his tall, lean
figure bend to pick up his ball, the loose locks of his
khaki-colored hair bouncing as he moved. His sweat outfit concealed
the contours of his body. She wondered if he was built or if he was
lithe. His sneakers squeaked as he trotted up the stairs to the
gym. Just before he disappeared through one of the many portals of
the building, he turned and gave a quick look and another warm
smile, nodding his head in her direction. Then, he was
gone.

Kimberly turned to face
the parking lot once again, releasing a rueful sigh.
Why can’t I ever get the sweet boys?

Because you like bad boys,
you dummy.

Not anymore!
she decided of a sudden.

Yeah, we’ll see about
that, won’t we?

Her eyes caught movement
off to her right, from the highest portion of the parking lot, in
the deepest recesses of the furthest corner. Her eyes adjusted to
the distance, because of the sunglasses.

It was dog about the size
of a German Sheppard. Only it was black, with the short hair of a
Rottweiler and a musculature to match. Yet, it was clearly not a
dog of that specific breed. Its’ jaws were too big, its’ teeth and
fangs too long, too pointed at the ends. And, it wore no collar or
discerning characteristics that it was someone’s pet. It was just
sitting upon its haunches with an unsettling, very human-like grin
on its face.

Wait, dogs don’t have
faces!

And, it was looking right
at her.

Kimberly took a few steps
toward the cul-de-sac, intent on walking home, when she heard
something that made her stop in her tracks. The tiny hairs on her
arms stood on end, her head scrunched into her
shoulders.

No, the fucking dog
was
laughing
at
her! She was sure of it…

…
With a low guttural
squeal of delight that scared Kimberly more than Sonny ever
had.

How could it be laughing
at me?
she thought, but found she couldn’t
tear her eyes from the horrid canine. It huffed with mirth in a
very un-animal-like manner, right before her, as plain as
day.

Maybe I do need
help
, thought the girl as she quickly
changed direction and leaped down the flight of stairs and onto the
terrace, heading for the South Gym.

“
Where are you going,
Sweet Meat?” came the question from behind, issued from a wet,
gurgling throat.

Kimberly froze for a
second time, her eyes re-settling on the macabre canine.

It was on all-fours now,
its’ smile gone, its’ teeth bared.

Oh god!
she thought.

The beast growled deep in
the barrel of its’ chest.

Kimberly didn’t hesitate.
She spun back around, sprinting headlong for the gym.

“
You belong to Him!” it
shrieked.

Kimberly mewled,
terrified, taking two steps at a time.
How
can it speak?!?
She prayed, once she was
inside, safe, her tall, good-looking Samaritan would still willing
to lend her a hand.

From behind, she could
hear the hellish hounds’ nails scraping on the black top of the
parking lot.

It was coming,
fast!

Kimberly hit the doors,
moving too fast to stop in time.

No, no, no, no, no,
no!
She fumbled for the over-sized door
latch, smarting her knuckles in the process.

“
You
are
HIS!
”

It was close, too
close.

Frantic, she pulled down
on the handle, unclasping the latch bolt from the striker plate,
tugging on the door so hard, she nearly popped her arms of out
their sockets. Twirling like a ballerina, she whirled through the
opening in the doorway, barely wide enough to admit her, striking
her knee against the metal framing. Her textbook flew from her
grasp, landing with a resounding
Slap!
on the tiled flooring of the
vestibule of the gym.

With all of her strength,
she slammed the heavy door shut at the last possible
second.

The beast pounded into the
door from the outside, rattling the entire egress in its’
hinges.

“
Leave me alone!” she
screamed, heaving to capacity.

The hound didn’t smack
into the door a second time. Instead, over Kimberly’s gasps, it
laughed anew. “You will love his cold embrace…,” it whispered like
her lover.

She shuddered with
revulsion.

The laughter continued for
a long… long time.

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

Misgivings

Thursday, November
18
^th
,
3:45pm…

Elena looked up from her
packet of homework, her eyes searching the face of her older
brother, Anthony. He was busy pounding the keys of his laptop,
sitting in the chair next to hers, in the family’s office where all
of them did their homework after school.

Although he was
half-turned away from her, she could still make out his thin lips
and prominent nose, nestled between the high ridges of his
cheekbones. If he were facing her, she knew she would’ve seen the
narrowness of his face, ending in somewhat pointed chin that, of
late, was producing a decent amount of fuzzy, crinkly hair. He was
seven years her senior and tall for sixteen. Already, his frame
stretched over 5 feet 9 inches and still - as her father put it -
he was growing like a weed. He was a long and lanky boy with broad
shoulders, forewarning, when he reached manhood, he’d make him a
formidable figure. For now, though, it seemed as if his muscles
were stretched just a bit too tight. This, in turn, magnified his
overall length and thinness, accentuating the largeness of his
hands and feet in the process. He wore his hair long, combed back
over his head. It was perpetually in a half-pony tail, exposing a
large forehead, dotted with a number of pimples, belying the
full-blown onset of puberty. Unlike Elena, Anthony wasn’t dressed
in a uniform; the High School, he had attended since the fall,
didn’t require that of its’ students. Rather, he wore a pair of
blue, skinny-jeans and a long-sleeved thermal shirt emblazoned with
a twisted dragon across the chest. Over that, he donned a
light-blue colored jacket, matching his pants, but was otherwise
plain. Upon his feet, he had put on a pair of partially unlaced
Chuck Taylor, high-top sneakers, one of the newest to hit the store
shelves this year. They were made entirely of shining black nylon
with red eyelets and black nylon shoestrings.

“
What do you want?” asked
Anthony, obviously annoyed, once he’d noticed Elena was staring at
him from the corner of his eye. He wasn’t willing to give her his
undivided attention, because he had more important things upon
which to waste his time.

“
I was just thinking,”
replied the girl.

“
Well, think with your
stare somewhere else.”

“
How can you think with
your eyes, dork?” she uttered indignantly, jutting her chin
forward, stressing her point.

“
Whatever, Ellie, I’m busy
here, so go mooncalf in the other room,” was his answer as his
fingers continued to play across the keyboard of his
laptop.

“
You’re not even supposed
to be playing video games before doing your homework, anyway. I’m
gonna tell, Dad,” challenged Elena, already making to get up, to do
what she’d threatened.

Anthony breathed a huge
sign of resignation, because pulling his eyes from the screen was
such a great sacrifice. “Look, I called a quick clan meeting right
now, because we’re gonna have to figure out a strategy when we
attack that Raid Boss later on tonight. You remember, right, the
one I was telling you about?”

She nodded.

“
You
know, if we don’t have a good plan, he’ll morph again and kick the
living crap out of us. We’ll have nothing to show for it, except
being massacred by that stronger version of himself that no one
has
ever
killed.”

Elena quickly sat down,
very interested, her threat forgotten.

“
You do remember the last
time?” he asked.

“
Are you talking about the
time that huge guy with the real big horns turned into that
demon-wolf-man thing that killed your party in like three hits?”
chuckled Elena, recalling how angry Anthony had been over losing
the battle so quickly. It should’ve taken well over an hour to
complete.

Anthony nodded his head,
shaking it slightly from side to side. “Yeah that’s the time. I
lost my +6 earring in the process. The freaking thing cost me like
12.5 million bones to craft,” explained the boy. “That sure pissed
me off.” He face wrinkled ruefully at the memory.

“
So what are you going to
do this time?” she asked, genuinely interested in the massively
online game Anthony played religiously. It was a game most of the
males – and one female - in her family played year after year -
Lineage II.

Anthony smiled and leaned
closer toward his sister. “This time were gonna Zerg that fool,” he
whispered conspiratorially.

To Elena, it was as if the
monster within the game could overhear what they were saying about
its eminent demise. Maybe it could make plans to counter the
pending onslaught? This, despite the fact that he - the monster -
was merely a sequence of code on a server somewhere in Korea. Or,
maybe it was Texas. Elena couldn’t remember which.

“
Zerg?” she bleated,
having never heard a word like that before. “What the heck does
that mean?”

“
It’s game-speak. It
describes a horde of four parties, each with eight players, working
as a unit. Together, it’s called, a Zerg. Everyone bombs on a
single monster, or mob of monsters, with a common goal in mind. In
this case, it means our entire clan and a few of our allies are
banding together to kill that Horny-headed bastard,” informed
Anthony, as he resume his online chat with the other clan members.
“If it works out as it should, then we should get some mad
drops.”

“
Does he drop only weapon
enchants when he dies or does he drop other things?” inquired
Elena, wanting to show her brother that she did indeed know some
things about the game.

“
According to some of the forums out there, he’ll drop just
about any high-level item in the game, so the whole Zerg should
benefit from it,” he answered. He quickly typed in a few more
messages, smiling down at the screen of his laptop. “We could make
a very decent profit, if all goes well. The extra cash will enable
us to outfit
all
of our lower level characters. Everyone is pretty excited
about that prospect.”

“
What
time are you guys gonna….
Zerg
that fool?” she asked, giggling at the strange
sounding word, bouncing her pencil between her thumb and
forefinger.

“
I think around eight
tonight.”

“
Can I watch?” Elena tried
not to sound too enthusiastic. She didn’t want Anthony to think she
was pleading.

“
We’ll see,” smirked
Anthony. Suddenly, he reached out to tickle Elena on her side. “So,
goofball, what were you thinking about with your eyes?”