The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (75 page)

For the second straight
night, for some unknown reason, he wasn’t. Though he was wallowing
in the four inches of snow, covering every square inch of space in
this accursed place, he remained untouched. He could feel he was
damp. Beneath his tattered clothes, the icy precipitation melted
against the warmth of his skin nearly covering him from head to toe
in a frigid wetness. This should’ve been his undoing.

Yet, it didn’t seem to
affect him. He wasn’t even shivering. Actually, he felt
comfortable, as if he were taking a casual stroll through Highland
Park on a balmy spring day, on one of those perfect days when
temperature was seventy-five degrees. He shouldn’t feel so snug
when the air around him was in the low teens. And, he should’ve
been hungry too - famished, starved – but, just like his inability
to feel the effects of the weather, he wasn’t. Desire for food
wasn’t on the top of his list, despite the fact he hadn’t eaten a
single morsel or drank more than a mouthful of snow in more than
thirty hours. There was no twisting urgency in his gut, no
persistent desire of chew and swallow to assuage the emptiness his
stomach. There was no headache, no dizziness, and no
lightheadedness – nothing. He didn’t seem to need anything. He
just
was
. He
existed in the mind numbing bleakness of the land around
him.

As time passed, even that
was not entirely true. There was more. He was
driven
… nearly mad with the need to
find his son, to make sure he was unscathed, to hold him in his
arms and feel his heartbeat counterpoint to his own. He was
consumed by the memory of what had come for his son, of what had
crashed into their home and taken him. It was a vivid recollection
- a demonic child and a hulking beast that looked worse than
anything ever dreamed by the greatest fantasy writers of the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. How could he forget the
terror on his son’s face - stark, raw? How could he forget the
terrible
Gongs!
that seemed to dissolve the very existence of his oldest boy,
right before his eyes? He could he think to calm or ignore the
nagging urge to find his son. He had to make sure he was
unmolested, safe, and secure. Never before had he felt such
overwhelming compulsion. He wouldn’t stop until he found
him!

In the first few hours
following his arrival, he thought these maddening thoughts might be
the reason behind his lack of hunger. He figured this had to be the
reason behind his imperviousness to the overpowering cold of this
place. But, over time, he began to feel something else, something
different about himself. He could
feel
small things, tiny things
moving, mutating and altering from within. They came from his
bones, his muscles, and his brain -
everything!
He knew his mental state
wasn’t the sole reason, especially now, after so much time had
passed from the moment he’d passed out. He had heard a huge
explosion of some sort just before the darkness took him. He had
awakened to find himself on the steps of his front porch, lying
face down. His house was gone. So was every other house on Milbur
Avenue. They were all gone. Only the three steps and a small
portion of the landing, comprising his front porch remained. The
small bit of his home his body had rested upon was all that was
left, all that had come with him. He’d been transported to this
place of desolation and cold.

When he did, in fact, feel
small changes here and there throughout his physical form, he
thought upon them fleetingly. Whatever was happening, it was of
very little import when compared to the whereabouts and condition
of his son. That was paramount in his mind. The notion was the
center of his drive, his determination to finding out just what the
fuck was going on. He had to solve this problem. He just had
too.

No, his physiological
instability wasn’t the culprit. Something much different was the
reason behind it. He was certain, though its’ real nature still
eluded him. He knew for sure, nonetheless. He could tell there were
forces at work, gigantic, titanic forces responsible for this. That
is what drive him, what made him untouchable.

That pinché pendeja better
not hurt my boy!

It was dark now. The
moon’s strange purplish light was hidden behind a mostly cloudy
sky. He had no problem making out a broad swath of tracks crossing
his path at a slight angle from right to left. He stopped to
inspect them. It was easy to divine the five sets of very human
looking treads in the snow, ranging from what looked to be adult
down to one set that had to be those of a child. A heavy child, he
clarified when he saw the child-sized tracks seemed as deep as some
of the ones made by persons with a much bigger shoe size. Then, he
saw, running directly through these footprints, were four… no… five
sets of runnels. It was as though a sled, a large sled, had been
dragged through the snow, back into the copse of trees he’d just
exited, just north of his current position.

Then he saw the prints of
an incredibly large beast, a sort that wasn’t familiar. His eyes
darted about, when he realized he was seeing more than just one
set. They were disturbingly large footprints, some of which were
nearly a foot and a half in diameter!

That’s bigger than a
bear,
he thought to himself as he bent
down and sniffed at the impressions in the snow, not entirely sure
why he did so. There was no second-guessing. The moment the scent
hit his nostrils, it registered in his brain – canine.
But, what kind of pinché dog is larger than a
bear? Son of a bitch!
His brow wrinkled
with concern as he tried to picture what a dog of that magnitude
would look like. In his mind’s eye, it would have to be a beast of
some magnificence, possibly more impressive than the largest Saint
Bernard or Great Dane. It would have to be something on the scale
of a cow in weight, but made to look –
and
smell - like a dog. It would be
wondrous to look at, he surmised.

Another thought crossed
his mind.

What was a beast of such
immensity doing assisting a group of obviously lost and desperate
young humans? Was it a creature of burden, a dumb, obtuse brute of
bulk and brawn? He looked down, his hand cupping his chin in
thought. From whatever angle he tried to broach the subject, the
answer to his question didn’t seem to fit. Something was missing he
couldn’t quite put his finger on.

There was much more afoot
within this place than he’d first concluded.

He glanced around and
recognized the area within which he was standing. It looked very
much like the lay of the land around the intersection of Figueroa
Street and La Loma Road. Although, the wide streets and boulevard
were gone, replace by a wagon trail and a pathway respectively,
and, of course, all of the manmade structures were completely
entirely absent as well.
What could
possibly be around here that these people would want?
He took a few tentative steps around, in deep
thought. With a mental coin-toss, he decided to follow the tracks
to where they began versus from where they terminated, his
curiosity getting the better of him. He had gone only twenty yards
when the answer to his question was revealed. Standing there,
surrounded by a hundred-year-old forest, was the local Vons
Supermarket. Its’ lights were out, its’ parking lot devoid of cars,
the doors on right hand side of the edifice were propped open,
gaping. It was from there the tracks originated.

Madre de Dios!

He knew why this
resourceful group of people had been out in the cold searching.
They’d gone for supplies, most notably food. It was likely, they
took it back to wherever they were holed up, hunkered down. For the
first time since setting foot in this god-forsaken place, he had a
thought that gladdened him. Some of the pain eased. With all of his
heart, he hoped these hearty folk had found his son. He prayed with
every ounce of his soul, they were taking good care of
him.

He quickly turned on his
heel and began to follow the tracks in the opposite direction, his
mind made up. He would find where these people were staying. He
would help them. It was, after all, the human thing to
do.

Ay, por favor, Andrew
estar bien!

~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼
}>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

The Gift of
Knowledge

Day Two, Friday, 3:39
am…

It was light, white light.
It surrounded him, warmed him and bathed him with care his mother
might’ve given a decade and a half ago. He could feel it in the
very depths of his heart, mind and soul. No longer was he swimming
in the darkness, with pain pounding inside his head, his dreams
plagued by terrible visions of death and decay. No longer did he
breathe in sickness and corruption until he was near vomiting. All
of that was gone. It had been replaced by comfort and
heat.

Little by little, bit by
infinitesimal bit, he came to realize he was moving. His body was
cradled in what felt like an impossibly large hand, skimming him
across a vast whiteness, stretching out about him in all
directions. It wasn’t blinding, though. There was no impairment of
his vision.

Ever so slowly, he turned
his head to peer in the direction he was moving. He saw nothing at
first, but as the minutes passed, he began to make out a tiny dot
of color in the light, a pinprick of muted earth tones incredibly
far away. He rested his abused head upon the puffy digit of a giant
finger as he was conveyed toward this speck of color. He watched
silently. His mind was devoid of thought. He let himself relax for
the first time in what seemed like ages.

It was then he felt the
acceleration, as if awareness of his movement was enough to speed
him ever faster toward his unknown destination. Faster and faster,
he glided until he felt like Superman flying through the sky. Only,
he was cupped protectively and upside down relative to the
preferred manner of flight employed by the Man of Steel.

The speck became a
splotch, and then quickly turned into a smudge. The smudge
sharpened and focused, finally coming into clarity – it was almost
like a picture, only this one moved. A few seconds later, it
shifted, reformed and abruptly there were three figures standing
before a roaring fire, encased in the largest fireplace he had ever
seen in his life.

A breath after, he was
there, standing before three tall, gray-robed figures in a chamber
that an instant before hadn’t existed. It was a stone-walled affair
with a ceiling vaulted high above his head; the only sound was the
popping and hissing of the fire. He chanced a quick look about,
seeing large tapestries hung upon each wall, depicting flowing
garden scenery in various forms of season and time of day. They
practically covered every square inch of the bulwarks about them.
He let his eyes fall back to the three humanoid figures in front of
him.

Before he could stop, he
let out a gasp of shock and made to defend himself.

But stopped instead,
forestalled by one of them – a quick movement of the hand,
placating, calming. His palm outward from his body, long, slender
fingers splayed slightly. It was the universal gesture asking one
to “stop”.

“
Do not be alarmed by our
appearance, Joaquin Barrientos. We know well our resemblance our
hateful brethren the Swüreg. I assure you, we are a much different
race… in almost every possible fashion imaginable,” said the figure
standing in the middle.

Joaquin merely nodded
nervously. Though, his skin crawled at the fact they knew his name.
He would remain docile for now, but he wasn’t entirely certain he
should trust these creatures any more than the Swüreg they’d
mentioned. They did indeed look like them, complete with the
strange elongated earlobes, stretching back behind their heads
almost touching at the tips.

Then, he noticed something
that did make made them different, breathing a pinch easier. It was
the color of their skin. It wasn’t the sickly gray of the Swüreg.
Rather, it was the color of greatly compacted ice with a
surrealistic depth to it. It was as though he could peer deep into
their flesh. It began white, toward the surface and slowly evolved
into a brighter, more blue-ish tone. He imagined if he’d been
walking atop a glacier and peering into a frozen crevasse, he would
see something similar to what he was seeing now. Their hair was
grey-white and their eyes shone brilliant sapphirine, a blue
variety of spinel he was sure he hadn’t seen before on any other
living creature. All three wore identical robes of some rich, soft
looking fabric that Joaquin couldn’t name. They wore them belted at
the waist with navy-colored cordage. Upon their feet were matching
sets of boots, black, leather, impeccably shined. They all wore
their hair in similar fashion as well, combed back over their
heads. For his vantage, Joaquin could see they had their hair
twisted into many small braids, beginning an inch or so lower from
where their hair passed underneath their strange, looping
earlobes.