Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (38 page)

Something, he might be
able to work in his favor.

Thus, he had stayed the
rest of the night, gazing through the howling wind and the biting
snow. He watched as the little girl-who-was-not-a-little-girl
fought some invisible entity. Her body flung one way, and then
would hurtle in the opposite direction. All the while, she had
clasped her head, screaming and screaming. She had howled with the
worst obscenities Juan had ever heard. They were disgusting
ravings, lunatic and gross, but he had endured it. He had wanted to
see where it would lead. Because somewhere deep in the recesses of
his tremendous mind he knew the outcome would be
important.

By sunrise, the storm had
blown itself out, as had the girl in the white dress. Only now, her
dress was a soiled mess, dirty and torn. The blue ribbon about her
waist had frayed and ripped, threatening to fall away. She had been
still then, leaning back against the great bulk of the creature
that obeyed her every command. She was staring out into the forest
beyond, at nothing in particular. Her jaw had gone slack, her eyes
vacant.

Juan had skip-phased as
close as he dared, which had made her pet growl in warning, though
it did not move an inch toward him. He had knelt upon the ground.
He watched her for almost an hour and a half.

The entire time she did
not move once, her chest did not rise or fall; her limbs did not
twitch with nervous inactivity. She had not even
blinked.

If Juan had known her for
anything other than what she was, he would have deemed her dead. He
knew, though, she was not. He knew the beast she was, so he had
waited, patient and quiet as her pet dosed and she remained
motionless.

It was the horrible
cracking and breaking sounds that roused his attention first. He
peered at the vile, little female in astonishment. Both of her legs
snapped, just below the knee, at grotesque angles. It was though
she had toppled from a five-story building or bludgeoned by a
ghastly set of twin sledgehammers. She had screamed in agony,
freezing him where he knelt in the cold white of winter, sickening
tingles running up and down his spine.

Her huge pet had lurched
to his feet, scuttling away like a frenzied pup. Her head flopped
hard upon the packed snow. The beast left her to squirm about in
anguish. It ran a couple dozen yards away, then had stepped behind
a large pine, mewling and whimpering as if she'd beaten
him.

What the
shit
? Juan had thought, coming to stand.
He stared on with unwholesome fascination as her legs crackled back
into place, making her cry out again.

He had lost track of the
time he had stayed there, standing less than a dozen yards from
her, waiting, wondering. All the while, he tried to anticipate what
would happen next. Until, she had rolled onto her stomach and with
agonized movements, jerky and unsteady. She had regained her feet
and turned to stare back at him, Juan.

To his utter surprise, she
had grown, only a few inches, but she had grown nonetheless. Her
face had changed as well, not by much, but it had altered enough
that he took notice.

He had tried to pin it
down at the time, but he had been absorbing so much in such a short
amount of time, he found he was unable.

Now, when he thought back
on it with hindsight in his corner, he realized what had
happened.

She had aged.

Not by a lot, but the cast
of her countenance had been more angular than before. They were
less round as if all the child-like features she had once had about
her face had melted away.

She had grown and she had
aged.

“
What’s the matter, Juan
Ibarra?” she had asked, her voice no longer as high-pitched and
musical as it once had been. Some of its’ allure had vanished as
well. It was harsher now, chimed less, and was sharper - almost
biting to the ear.

“
Nothing,” he had replied,
chancing a quick glance at her pet. He pleased it had not budged
from its’ partial concealment within the trees. “Just curious…,” he
had added.

“
Ah, but I thought you
knew… that curiosity ate the cat,” she warned. She peered over at
her beast, her small eyes narrowing as the giant wolf-like animal
whimpered in pain.

“
Isn’t
it ‘curiosity
killed
the cat?” he corrected.

The girl smiled, pure
evil, from the side of her mouth, gazing at him through the corners
of her eyes. “Not where I come from.” Her laugh was throaty and
suggestive.

“
Stupid,
little
puta
,”
Juan cursed under his breath.

“
What’s wrong? Afraid now
that I’ve discovered your little ruse? Worried that I will now turn
tail and go after you precious offspring?” she asked,
level.

Juan could feel the
violence within her, a palatable ooze flowing from her.

“
I promise I will tickle
him for a long, long, long time…”

Juan had had enough. “Hey,
why don’t you just leave him be, huh? Leave them all
be!”

“
I cannot.” The shake of
her head was a false attempt at sadness.

“
Why not?” he
demanded.

“
I will not.”

“
You little bitch, you
leave my son alone!”

“
Ne-Veeeer,” she said. The
last syllable drew out, rattled. Her long, articulating tongue
uncurled from her mouth, widening far beyond one of a normal human
being. It was impossible, almost an appendage. She wagged it at him
as if beckoning him to come forward, rocking her hips back and
forth in a manner a girl her age would not know how to
do.

“
I will kill you, if you
go near Andrew!” he vowed with enough force, spittle dripped down
his chin.

“
You are always welcome to
try…,” she replied around her lolling tongue. Then she yelled of a
sudden, “Jätung!”

From behind the screening
trees, the great beast howled. It strained against something Juan
could not see. Almost as if the creature was under the threat of
torture.

Without warning, the beast
bounded forth as if compelled, not of its’ own volition. It had
stopped before the girl. Its’ heavy coat twitched and spasmed as
though it loathed being near to her.

She ignored her reluctant
pet and mounted the beast, then turned to gaze back a Juan. “The
Twelve belong to me now, young man. Stay out of the way and you
won’t get hurt.”

With that, she had ridden
off, back the way they had come. Her long hair flowed behind her,
her small frame bouncing upon the back of Jätung.

He stared at her for a
while and then she had twisted around, lifted her hand and flipped
him the bird.

He had chuckled, rueful,
and yelled back at her retreating form.

She coaxed her great mount
back toward what used to be Highland Park, more than twenty miles
distant.

“
Y tú, pinche cabrona!” he
had called after her with great volume.

She paid him no heed as
she sped away, once more in search of his son and the other
children stranded here upon this accursed plane.

For no reason inspiration
filled him and yelled at the top of lungs once more, though he knew
she could not hear him. “You’re messing with the wrong
Mexicano,
you bitch!!!
”

A moment later, he had
vanished, while the blizzard continued.

He had reappeared where he
knew she had to traverse, along the Colorado trail west of the
Eagle Rock Plaza. He was content to sit and wait. He would do so
for however long it took.

Something was happening to
her.

He could feel it deep down
in his bones.

It was something
the
other
side
had not expected - something new.

He was going to get to the
bottom of it!

In the meantime, he was
going to keep that crazy bitch from the…

What had she called
them?

…
The Twelve?

It did not
matter.

She would never get
anywhere near his boy and his newfound friends.
Never.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 22 ~

Gut Feeling

Sunday, November
28
^th
,
10:42 am…

Pain!

Pain!

Pain was everywhere. It
was pain in his gut, pain in his head, even pain behind the spheres
of his eyes.

It was painful to look at
her, agonizing to hold her hand, though he tightened his grip on
her until his muscles ached.

She peered back, her face
a rictus of anguish. She could feel it as well.

What was
happening?

Everything blurred. It was
hard to gaze through the fog of agony. His mind could not focus,
thoughts formed, but were not complete. They disappeared before the
gale, scattered, shattered, never realized. He tried again and
again, but could not construct a single notion of merit.

With the slightest touch,
he felt the tension in her hand, made small by his giant palm, but
insubstantial at the same time. What was happening?

Where was she going?
Why?

She yelled his name, but
there was no sound. Something else was drowning her out. It was a
long, forlorn resounding. It seemed to go on forever.

Blooooooooonnnnngggg!

With it came what felt
like ripping, tearing. He shredded from the inside out!

She hollered again. His
name.

Yes, it was his name. He
could tell by the way her cosmetically blackened lips moved. She
was holding onto him with both hands now, her back hunched, her
feet spread apart. She was trying with all her might to keep a hold
of him. She was tugging with all her might, though he did not feel
anything pull.

He noticed it then - the
growing amorphousness about them. It was a thing smacking of all
that was indistinct, undefinable and it was growing, spreading,
outward. It was not coming from one central location. It was in all
places, everywhere.

He stared down at her,
fear creeping upon his back, into his lungs. He breathed it now. It
was him.

The sound would not stop.
It was deafening. It was overpowering.

“
Shawn!” He could just
hear her. She spoke with the strength of her entire body. She was
using every ounce to communicate. Still, it was like she was under
water, screaming through air that was one thousand times thicker
than it should have been.

Why? How was this
happening?

To his horror, she became
fuzzy. Right before his eyes, she was less there than she had been
a second before. He could no longer make out the details of her
face, the color of her eyes.
They’re
blue,
Shawn!
he
bawled as the memories of her washed over him.
She has eyes the color of an aquamarine gemstone!

Try as he might to make
himself see them, he could not.

She was less tangible now.
Her hand did not feel the same. It was no longer warm, no longer
comforting. She was somehow less of a person. She was more of an
image.

“
Kimberly, don’t leave
me!” he shrieked, but he could not hear his own voice above a
whisper. He felt the massaging of his throat as the sound passed
from his chest to the outside world. But there, it died. It lacked
the vitality to withstand the immense, reverberating cacophony that
rattled him in his own skeleton.

The four sets of
double-doors leading into the Macy’s department store disappeared.
Then the walls went away. The ceiling and the decking turned to
mist until it was just him and the teenage girl he beginning to
love. An enormous gray nothingness surrounded them.

Another bout of pain
wracked him. He wanted nothing more than to double-over, to clutch
about his mid-section. His stomach and entrails were screaming at
him, but he would have none of it. He would continue to look at
her. He would not give her up. Now that he had finally found her,
he would never let her go. He could not. He would not.

In the end, he
did.

He passed out.

Everything went black. He
could not see.

Kimberly was
gone.

But, he could feel. The
pain was still there, only emanating from different places – his
left shoulder, the corresponding hip. His right ankle felt like it
was on fire.

In a flash of blinding
light, with the sound of a convoy of semi-trucks, the world burst
into being. It was horrid, terrible. He felt it in his stomach, a
wretched twist, bile rising in his throat. He was going to
throw-up.

The scene about him was
nothing short of hell itself. Bodies smashed and tangled amongst a
throng of cars and delivery haulers. Men, women, children and
infants ground to nothing resembling who they had once been. Raw
sewage assaulted his nose with ferocious intent. Somewhere
thousands of volts of electricity snapped and popped. He heard
someone shred their vocal cords as the currents ruined what had
once been a human being.