Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (26 page)

Kimberly, Hyun and Derek
made to run headlong, away from the giant cat, headless of exactly
where they’d go.

Anthony
shouted.

They all stopped in their
tracks, still frightened out their minds. In morbid fascination,
they stared as one. They were sure they gazed upon the harbinger of
their deaths.

The massive feline drew
nearer with his long fangs exposed and sharp claws
drawn.

Something is
wrong.

“
Stop! He’s with us. He’s
on our side!” shouted Anthony. “Stop! There is no need to
fear!”

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 14 ~

Terror

Day Four, Sunday, 8:59
am…

In a blink of an eye,
Garfield was at Anthony’s side.

Elena made her way closer,
noticing Mikalah and Sophie were doing the same.

“
Kring-Hël something
approaches. Hurry! Move! Everyone to cover!”

Elena felt dread fall on
her shoulders like a bucket of bricks, almost buckling her
knees.

“
What is it?” asked
Anthony in alarm, glancing about, but did not move.

Garfield’s face clenched
with angst. “I know not, but I sense a threat, Tony Boy. My hackles
rise. We must be vigilant, like the Great Canine warned. I will not
have us caught unawares like the last time.”

Her brother nodded and
spun to look at her and Mikalah. He never got the chance to
speak.

Just as Elena did not have
the time to process what was said around her.

In the next instant, Hyun
screamed at the top of her lungs and began to scramble from her
position near the far end of the Colorado pathway. She was flat out
running toward the vestiges of Townsend.

Overloaded with the rapid
infusion of stimuli, Elena saw it, before her mind could grasp what
she was seeing. It had the same bulk as a medium-sized dog. Yet,
the moment she laid eyes upon it, she knew it was nothing like a
dog.

It had eight legs. They
were long, spindle-like, covered with an alien sort of chitinous
skin. It looked hard and reflected the sunlight as if polished to a
high sheen. Yet, there were knobs and thorns across its' surface as
well. Its’ body, segmented, had two distinct parts. The first much
smaller than the second, which was bulbous and bloated looking. It
did not have a head, only a face pushed into the smaller, frontal
segment. Four eyes, two of which were small and beady, the other
two large and bulging, had fixated upon Hyun’s fleeing back. Its’
mouth was a ragged, slash below its’ eyes. It unfolded. It did not
open, revealing a large orifice, full with needle-like teeth and
fangs. A pair of pedipalpian pincers grew at either side of its'
maw.

Still, this was not what
had startled the little girl the most.

This creature did not come
running upon the ground or dropping from a tree. It flew. Right out
of the forest it came, on a pair of seven-foot wings, leathery and
flushed with large, dark veins, pulsating blood.

It’s a
spider
, came the automatic thought.
It’s a spider with wings like a bat. A huge
flying spider!

It was a spider whose
scopula and claws at the end of its long legs were reaching for
Hyun’s back.

Elena could see it would
take only a single beat of its’ great wings and it would be within
reach of the teenage girl.

“
Get back!” yelled
Anthony. “Jason, Mikalah – call your Gifts. Elena, at the
ready!”

Jason moved toward it with
surprising speed, heeding her brother’s command. He was already
beginning to “glow”. It was the same golden-emerald-like sheen
Mikalah had described earlier.

His Gift!
Elena thought, her brain a riotous mass, firing
too fast. Her thoughts were fleeting and uncontrollable, almost not
her own.

Wait! What did Tony
say?

Most of their group
scattered in various directions away from the creature. There were
yelling and screaming with horror and revulsion. It was like Hyun
had the plague, left behind in the center of a widening circle,
alone and unprotected.

“
Patas, to the fore! Leap
and take this vile beast from the air!” thundered Garfield at the
forest.

Elena had not heard him,
though. She glanced from Jason to the giant spider-bat, gauging
distance. Immediately, it was plain. Jason would not reach the
creature in time to save Hyun. It was coming down fast, with a
steep rate of descent. She knew this thing was beyond his reach. He
could not hit it as he had the squirrel-pig.

Elena glanced around, in a
frenzy to find Mikalah, hoping her sister was close enough to do
something with her Gift.

Wait! What did Tony
say?

Thoughts interrupted, she
saw Sophie holding her little sister behind her. The older teens'
arms formed a protective shield about her. She half-expected to see
Mikalah struggling to get away.

She was not.

Her sister looked on with
abject fear, her eyes dripping with remorse.

Elena knew her sister had
come to the same conclusion she had moments before.

Mikalah knew she could not
reach the creature. She might get there fast enough, but the thing
would still be beyond her grasp. She could not leap that
high!

Elena looked for Jason
once more, praying within the grip of his Gift he had somehow
figured out what to do.

It was a false
hope.

He did not have the time
to figure anything out.

Another spider-bat swooped
down from the sky and struck him hard at the shoulder. He went
sprawling onto the icy snow. He arrested his forward momentum,
scrambling so he could regain his feet.

Joaquin came up quick. He
pulled on his friends’ upturned leg at the ankle, but had to dodge
aside when the second spider-bat clawed at him on its’ return trip.
All he succeeded in doing was drag Jason along with him rather than
help him stand.

Joaquin was
frenzied.

Garfield raced toward him,
shot out of a canon.

The second spider-bat was
already angling its’ horrid body into a long, parabolic turn. It
would be upon Joaquin and Jason within seconds.

From somewhere to the
right, she saw the forest erupt in a cascade of snow and ice. She
thought for an instant another spider-bat had sprung forth. Then
she saw the long tufted ears and the white, fur-covered body. She
knew she watched Mr. Patas fly over the surface of the snow at an
incredible pace. She felt her eyes widened when she saw his broad,
nimble feet did not sink into the deep precipitation as they should
have. Rather, the rabbit-man streaked across it as if he was
lighter than a feather. He was a large, muscular “feather” with
long claws and death in his luminous, pink eyes.

“
Hyun run!” howled Derek,
yelling the obvious.

She was already doing just
that.

Wait! What did Tony
say?
The notion struggled against the
events transpiring about her.

Then she heard the beat of
wings. A massive gathering of air,
whoomp!
She heard a strangled,
gurgle escape Hyun. Sheer fright had closed her throat,
constricting the scream boiling within, thwarting its’
release.

Elena turned in time to
see three of the creatures eight legs gouge into Hyun’s back. She
heard the girls’ designer jacket rip.

Hyun let out a blood
curdling yell of pain. No amount of constriction could have
contained the agony she must have felt in that moment.

“
Hurry, Mr. Patas!” Elena
heard herself scream. Her throat was raw by the force of
it.

Garfield’s great roar
echoed across the landscape, followed by the roiling screech of the
other spider-bat.

Joaquin called out in
fear.

Jason bellowed: “Get out
of the way!”

Elena had not time to
look.

Another
whoomp!
from the fell
insects’ wings sounded throughout the intersection.

Elena gasped in horror
when Hyun’s feet began to lift from the ground, an unexpected leap
her mind and body had not coordinated. She tripped and
fell.

Only the inhuman strength
of the spider-bat held her up. The tips of her toes made twin
furrows upon the snowy trail. It was dragging her along with it!
The creature garnered greater control as more of it legs clutched a
hold of Hyun, each new clamp made her scream aloud. Out of pain or
fear Elena could not discern.

Time had run its’
course.

In the next beat of
Elena’s heart, Hyun lifted completely off the ground, dangling a
few feet in the air.

She screamed again – long,
agonized.

Elena could hear the some
of the others cry out, infuriated, shrieking with rage. She saw Mr.
Patas pounding over the ground, as fast as he could manage, trying
to catch Hyun before she was out of reach.

“
Come here, you
sonofabitch!’ It was Jason’s challenge to the other
spider-bat.

Maybe he was standing
now
, she thought in her mind.

In her heart though, she
knew there was no chance for Hyun. Mr. Patas would be too
late.

“
NO!” Elena was not sure
if she had said it out loud or had shouted it in her
mind.

“
Elena!” called her
brother.

Yes, she had yelled
it!

“
YES!” she cried out in
exaltation.

“
Do it now!” commanded
Anthony.

Her Gift exploded within
her. In a flash of warmth, she lost herself to it.

Then the world blinked. It
was like gigantic eyelids had closed over the orb that was the
Melded World.

What remained of the
daylight seemed to diminish. A part of it coalesced, gathered,
centered into a single point twenty feet above her tiny head. If
left the day less brilliant than it had been before. It focused
there at an amazing velocity. The incredible light formed there in
an instant, blinding, harsh and painful.

A split second of a split
second later, it struck downward too fast for the eye to follow in
two places at once. There came an incredible crash of thunder. It
was a violent report that should have come from the sky, but had
come from a place only few feet away. Unnatural lightning struck
the ground in rapid succession, knocking her from her feet. For a
moment, she was dazed.

All around, her companions
fell. They thudded or slid across the frozen, billowy forest floor
from the power of the blast. Audible thumps and long scrapes,
reached her ears where her vision failed her. Still, she hardly
understood.

From somewhere at the
forests edge, she heard: “Hold here!” She knew it for one of the
bear-dogs, but did not know which.

Elena shook her head,
trying to clear the cobwebs. She felt like she was in a washing
machine and put on the spin cycle. Disorientation was her only
experience.

Close-by, she heard
someone move and saw a figure rise to its feet. It was dainty, a
female.

Elena wiped at her face in
hopes of seeing clearer.

“
Jesus Christ, did you see
that?”

Elena was not aware it was
Kimberly who spoke, but was astute enough to hear the mix of awe
and fear in her voice.

The sound of the others
regaining their feet came from all about.

“
I sure did,” answered
Anthony in a matter of fact tone. “Elena, are you, ok?” he
inquired, his voice changing with a brother's concern.

Elena placed her hands
underneath her and pushed herself off the ground. She ignored the
pain in her shoulder, coming to sit on the balls of her feet, her
knees still touching the earth. Her vision cleared finally. “Yeah,
I’m fine. How about Hyun? Has anyone checked her?” She was already
looking back toward the last place she had seen the teenage
girl.

Hyun was a heap upon the
ground, farther away than she had been seconds before. Beyond her
was a smoking, crisped hunk of flesh, spewing wispy tendrils of hot
mist up into the swirl of the wind. The Asian girl was moving,
slow, as if she were testing specific parts of her body to see if
they still functioned.

“
I’ll go and see,” replied
her brother, walking from her. He intercepted Jason who had already
been heading toward the injured teen.

Joaquin was nudging a
similar burnt pile of flesh with the tip of his shoe. It too smoked
and hissed, charred to a cinder within a millisecond. The contrast
between its’ ultra-high temperature and the growing chill of the
day was making it crack and pop in hideous fashion.

Elena had slain both
spider-bats at the same time. With sunlight she was tenfold more
powerful than she had been in the cave earlier that
morning.