Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (47 page)

They were all staring at
her rapt.

“
By then, though, I was
getting pretty cold, so I went back to the garage to look for
something to wear. I only found an old tarp and some rags my dad
used to clean his tools and stuff, but nothing else. I wrapped
myself up in the tarp and closed the door, hoping over time things
would warm up. Hours later, I went through everything in the
garage, trying to find useful things to help my situation. But, I
only found some boxes of granola bars, some old clothes, old pots,
a bunch of fire logs and a few other things. Not much else.
Everything I could’ve used was in the house, and that was gone. So,
I sat down and ate some of the granola bars and drank the water not
sure of what I was going to do next. At first though, all I could
do that day was cry.

“
I had forgotten it was
Thanksgiving.

“
Truthfully,” she went on,
bravery welling, her inflection lightening, “I did not care. There
were things even more critical than celebrating a holiday. There
were things happening around me I had to focus on – facts,
conditions.

“
When I got up the
following morning, I saw a bad snowstorm had struck during the
night. It began to dawn on me that I was stranded. I was stuck
there in the garage with little to no food and only a miniscule
amount of supplies. I had no clue how I was going to survive. I
began to ration my food and just waited out the
blizzard.

“
It wasn’t until the day
after, I began to understand that things around the garage were
beginning to change too. I saw strange plants that weren’t there
before start to pop out of nowhere. They had features and
characteristics I had never before seen. That was the day I almost
got juiced by some ugly, pig-thing when I mistook it for a person
stranded out in the cold.”

“
You saw a Klürrg?”
questioned Joaquin, his eyebrows raised.

“
A what?” she
countered.

“
A Klürrg,” he clarified,
“a kinda piggy-squirrely thing about… I don’t know… four hundred
pound or so,”

Piggy-squirrel
? she mused.
That mother-humper almost took my head
off!
Aloud, she said, “So that’s what you
call it, huh? A Klürrg?”

“
Yup,” Andrew answered
instead, “or a Pig-squirrel or whatever the hell else you wanna
call it. Call it a butt-munch for all we care.”

Marianna giggled into her
hand.

“
Those things suck,”
objectified Elena, rubbing at her bruised shoulder as she
spoke.

Then Louis leaned to one
side and tapped his rear end. “Tell me about it!” he
exclaimed.

So everyone was listening,
huh?

Sophie, the young girls
and the older boys laughed.

Marianna searched their
faces for answers and found none.

Hyun and Derek looked as
confounded as she felt.

Kimberly remained silent,
out of her immediate view. She had no clue what her reaction was to
all this.

Private
joke
, she figured. Their group had been
together before they had come upon the rest of them. They would
know things about one another that none of the rest of them
would.

She waited for the
laughter to die down before she went on. It did not take
long.

Andrew was shaking his
head at the pudgy boy with a cheerful face.

“
Anyhow,” she began, “I
got attacked by the Klürrg-thing. I just managed to get the door to
the garage shut before the son of a bitch eviscerated me. I just
waited after that, scared the awful creature was going to come
back, but it didn’t. I sunk back into my routine of rationing my
fruit bars and drinking melted snow until I woke up today. This
morning I saw it was clear. The sun was out. I ate the last of the
granola and the water and set off. I needed to find out what the
hell had happened, to get some answers. I would let nothing stand
in my way. But ,things didn’t quite work out the way I thought they
would.” She smiled with remorse, wiping at the corner of her eyes.
“The first thing I saw alive and walking around I thought was a
dog. It was about the same shape and size of a dog at a distance,
but as I got closer I could tell it was something else. A moment
later, I realized how bad I had fucked up. I saw the familiar form
of a giant deformed squirrel. By approaching, I had put myself in
mortal danger, which was stupid. The goddamned thing was tearing
through something, eating and swallowing like it was mad. I
couldn’t tell what it was, but the squirrel-thing was ripping at it
and making these horrid chewing sounds. It was gross.” She
shuddered at the thought.

Anthony piped in, “Yeah,
we encountered a few of those ourselves.”

“
Yup, you stumbled on
another Klürrg,” elucidated Joaquin. “Or maybe it was the same one
you had seen the day before. Those things don’t tend to travel all
that far when the weather is bad, especially if there was food
around.”

Marianna remembered
something. During her first interaction with a Klürrg, it had
sniffed at the air a few seconds. Then it had streaked off after
something she herself had not heard or seen. “Yeah, maybe you’re
right,” agreed Marianna.

“
So, what did you do? Did
you just leave?” asked Hyun, still intent upon Marianna’s
story.

“
I wish,” she replied with
a shake of her head. “No, the deranged creature glanced up at me,
getting my scent or something. It stared at me with its beady,
black eyes. I think I backed up a few steps, trying to get out of
there without disturbing it. I thought everything was cool when it
started chomping down on its’ meal again, so I turned and trotted
away. That’s when I heard this crazy howl like a baby screeching.
When I turned, it hit me on my side and took a huge bite of the
tarp I was wearing. It ripped it off me in like a second. I just
turned in the opposite direction and took off running as fast I
could. I can’t tell you if that thing followed or not. I don’t even
remember hearing it. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart
in my ears. I remember running and running until it felt like my
lungs were going to burn inside my chest, but I didn’t stop. I
could feel the cold seeping in even though I was running like a
crazy bitch. But I kept on going. I had no choice. The last thing I
remember, I was coming out of the forest, crossing a pathway,
looking up at the hills. I was thinking I could at least protect
myself from the creature if I was on higher ground. I must’ve
tripped on something. I’m uncertain. I just remember flying, and
then I hit something and everything was dark, and cold.”

She looked at Andrew of a
sudden, wiggling her hands still within his grasp, garnering his
attention. “I woke up in Andrew’s arms…”

Andrew could only smile
beneath her fond gaze.

A warm sort of silence
settled on the two of them.

The others watched her and
Andrew stare at each other for a while, exchanging smiles and
winks.

“
I think, out of us all,
Marianna, you definitely had it the worst,” commented Anthony.
“Still, I’m glad we found you when we did. I am also glad to have
you with us, because we need you. You are the final member of the
Twelve. So, welcome!”

Marianna grinned almost
from ear to ear without realizing what she was doing so. To be
honest, she did not care if she looked like an idiot. It was just a
relief knowing there was for a reason for all this. Their abduction
from their world was not some random, meaningless act. There was a
reason why their situation was so desperate, fraught with danger.
There was purpose behind it all along. Something greater than she
was at work, was responsible. Something had chosen her and her
newfound companions. It had selected them for a specific task. A
job no other human being had faced throughout the entire history of
humanity. True this undertaking might seem daunting or impossible
at that moment. But, it was still comforting for her to know
everything had happened with a degree of deliberation. Because of
that, she did not feel as bad as she would have if she had known it
had all been for nothing. Her terrible experience, the hunger and
the terrible cold had almost killed her. Yet, it had not been for
naught. There was meaning behind it and she was able to accept this
stipulation, and move on. This was why Anthony’s formal welcome
meant more to her than one would expect under normal circumstances.
She was part of a group now, a part of the solution that might be
capable enough to return her to her family and everything else she
loved.

Well, almost
everything…

She came back to the
present.

Jason was asking Anthony:
“So, after we’ve completely bum-rushed this place, are we going to
make for the Legacy? Or are we heading back to the
cave?”

Anthony seemed to consider
this for a bit, biting his lower lip in concentration. “I’m
thinking back to cave where we can go through the stuff we have
there, rest for a night and then make for the trip up to Crystal
Lake. Sound good, Joaquin?”

The other teen did not
speak, but nodded instead.

Anthony continued. “Yeah,
so we’ll be heading to Crystal Lake. It’s at least three thousand
feet above sea level, maybe even higher than that. If things are as
bad they are down here, can you imagine what the weather would be
like up there?”

Marianna was struggling to
keep up with the conversation.
These kids
are freakin’ organized!
She sat back,
amazed. Even through a semi-confused state, she agreed with
Anthony. They would need to gear up big-time. Moreso than when she
and her friends had camped about the outlying countryside around
Holbrooke. This was something far more permanent.

“
Brutal, man, it’ll be
brutal,” echoed Joaquin. “I agree with you, Ant. I also think we
ought to all grab like the biggest backpacks we can carry from the
outdoors department. We need to load them up with personal items.
I'm talkin' clothes, underwear, socks, extra pairs of boots and
coats, bedding, and maybe an extra blanket. We also need toiletries
and shit like that to keep ourselves clean. Hygiene is going to be
something we are going to have to pay attention to. Nothing around
us will be one hundred percent clean. Not like at home, not like
before.”

Hyun nodded, then pointed
at Joaquin. “I think we should also have a day or two worth of some
sort of travel food in each backpack. If we get separated or
something
, at least we’d
have something edible to keep up our strength until we reunite or…
whatever.”

Marianna felt like a
bobble-head. The conversation was darting around her, rapid fire,
staccato.

“
That’s a great idea!
Almost all the food and other supplies will be in the shopping
carts and most likely lashed to Kodiak and Kenai. If we have to
disperse in a rush, we could do so without fear of going hungry,”
uttered Anthony.

Marianna watched Derek
turn toward Hyun, beaming as if she were a genius.

“
Speaking of the carts,”
interjected Jason. “I was thinking we should lose the sleds too. We
should hack off the wheels, which we don’t need, and replace them
with some of the skis they have back in that corner over
there.”

They all gazed over to the
Sporting Goods section of the store.

“
Skis have a longer, wider
surface. They run much smoother and higher in snow than the blades
of a sled, so it take as much strength to haul them over land,
uphill even. Over rough terrain, they’ll fly as long as there’s
enough snow on the ground. Plus, the carts won’t be as top heavy as
they are right now. We won’t have to worry about them tipping as
much – we could travel much faster, cover more ground.”

“
Dude, I knew there was
reason why we kept your monkey ass around here,” was Joaquin’s
reaction. It was a compliment, just a weird one.

There were chuckles and
giggles all around.

Anthony asked, “What else
could we do? Anyone have any more ideas that might improve our
situation?”

The silence grew as some
of them dropped into deep thought. The others looked from face to
face to see if anyone had thought of anything else.

“
What about weapons?”
inquired Andrew, glancing around, sitting up a bit
straighter.

Marianna’s brow
tightened.

Weapons?

“
What about them,
Drew?”

“
Well, Ant, some of us
might not need weapons, because of the Gifts they have, but only
some of us control them right now. Until the rest of us figure out
ours, and how we’re supposed to use them, it might be a good idea
to have something handy to protect ourselves. You know, just in
case.”

Marianna could see he
wanted a weapon for himself. Yet, at the same time, he wanted to
make sure everyone else felt good about it.
He hates feeling vulnerable
, she
understood of a sudden, feeling her heart clinch in her
chest.
That’s waaaay too adorable!
She wanted to kiss him again, as she had when
they were searching for clothes.

“
Besides,” began Joaquin
furthering Andrew’s case, “think about Jason bitch-slapping that
Klürg earlier today. I mean he took it out clean. Think about when
he and Mikalah took out the Isig-Pjäs and its’ pack. Of course,
Elena was a big help too and it’s true that all those creatures
were big. They were strong, but they weren’t a Jötun or an
Isighünd. Would he or she have been able to fend one of those
things off with just their fists? I don’t know, but I sure as hell
wouldn’t want to find out they couldn’t in the heat of battle, if
you get my meaning.”