Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (76 page)

He stayed motionless
instead, holding onto the limb beneath his thighs with his hands.
The suitcase was all but forgotten. He glanced about, eyes wider
with each passing second. He felt his gut wrench at the sight of a
multitude of leaves and pine needles cascading toward the ground
from every tree he could see.

The shaking
stopped.

The silence that followed
was profound for a few moments.

Then, he could hear the
birds hooting and screeching. He sat there in awe as hundreds of
them lift from their lofty perches to take to the air. It was
obvious to his untrained eye the ground shaking had disturbed
them.

He listened to his heart
pound in his chest, still contemplating if he should or should not
get down. Maybe he could wait a little longer and get the suitcase
of out the tree.

Derek peered around once
again, his eyes shifty now, before placing his hand upon the
luggage. He gave it a forceful push and sent it tumbling out of the
tree. It careened off the lower branches, spinning and twirling
before it hit the ground with a thud and toppled over on its’ side.
He scurried back toward the center of the tree, hoisting a leg
downward looking for support from the limbs below.

A tremendous rending sound
exploded in his ears, so loud he almost lost his grip and fell.
But, he caught himself in the last instant and hugged the branch
before him for dear life.

The sound turned from a
tearing, tortured resonance to a rumbling so deep, he could hear it
and then feel it at the same time. About him, the boughs of the
tree shuddered with such force, the pine needles were falling off
in great showering sheets. They poked his scalp and face as he
struggled to hold on. Across the land, he could see a great cloud
of dust begin to rise. He could hear terrified screams and wails of
the injured and dying as hey reached his ears. The import of those
cries registered in his brain.

Still the rumbling
continued. The massive vibrations went on.

All he could do was hold
on.

He chanced a quick glance
out toward what he could see of Eagle Rock, to the hill that
Occidental College occupied at the edge of his vision. Even at a
distance of a mile or so, he could see the ageless buildings begin
to crumble. The trees began to slide down the face of the hill as
if rooted in some sort of liquid surface and not solid
earth.

As he clung to the pine
tree stupefied, unable to move or think with any degree of clarity.
He was seeing the impossible.

Crosswise the shallow
valley, the entire hillside appeared to cascade downward. First, it
flowed down its’ own slope, then into itself. It was a miraculous
sight. The entire ridge became a gorge. It was a hill no more.
Right before his eyes, within seconds, he could see the hill was
now inverted, turned inside out. It was unbelievable. He could see
the entire neighborhood begin to tilt. With agonizing slowness, it
flowed toward the bottom of this new-made trench. It continued to
fall, edging more and more until the balanced tipped. The entire
landscape before him - the college and the hundreds of houses slide
out of sight and into a gigantic crack in the earth that spread
outward. It bisected the hills beyond and the one where his
parents’ house stood.

Derek screamed as loud as
he could. He could not hear his own voice over the unimaginable
cacophony of sound emanating as a cubic mile of earth fell into the
center of the planet.

That was when he noticed
the crack was changing. It was no longer a gigantic rent in the
ground.

It was a hole!

Horror made his jaw go
slack when he saw it was widening at an alarming pace. Everything –
roads, sidewalks, homes, restaurants, businesses, banks, gas
stations, a Starbucks, and more – was falling within it. He
watched, petrified. He could only watch as retaining walls,
telephone poles, mail boxes, lawns, trees, bushes, cars, men,
women, children, pets -
ALL
- fell into what was no longer a deepening
valley. It was more of a gargantuan maw of molten lava. Down, down
it all went into the fiery depths of what he assumed was the
earth’s mantle.

He stared in stark
disbelief as the edge of the hole came nearer and nearer to his
family’s property. Street-by-street. Block-by-block. The land fell
away, faster and faster. Huge mountains of earth were there one
instant and then plunging downward the next. Quicker and quicker
all of Eagle Rock descended into hell itself.

All the while, the edge of
it approached the tree upon which he stood; toward the house he had
lived his entire life.

Quicker, louder and
louder, closer and closer, the earthen jaws chewed everything in
its path.

Derek could do nothing,
but scream and scream and scream…

The edge came nearer. More
and more of the world he had known fell into it.

His eyes widened as far as
they could go. He looked down. He saw the seething mass of roiling
and churning magma burn away everything falling into it, burning it
to oblivion.

He was seeing thousands
die before his eyes. A million souls winked out like mosquitos
caught in the electric current of a humongous Bug Buster – their
existence burnt out in a flash.

Then… the edge passed
beneath him. He could feel the entire tree lean and begin to fall.
His beloved back yard preceded him into the very pit of the
underworld…

…
You should remember when
the time comes…

Where did that come from?
When had he heard it? Who had said it?

…
You should remember when
the time comes…

Remember what?
He could feel the tree topple completely over.
With naught to do, he fell with such velocity he almost threw up.
The huge lake of magma swirled below him. Its’ incredible heat was
already burning away his eyebrows and hair, crisping his skin. Huge
blisters rose and popped and seeped from every exposed surface of
his arms and legs.

...You should remember
that when the time comes…

His clothes caught
fire.

Remember what, that I can
jump high? What are you talking about?

…
Remember…

His lungs began to
boil.

WHAT!?!

…
Remember…

He went blind as his eyes
melted in their sockets.

Derek knew he was about to
die. He knew he was about to be burnt in the furnace of the
earth.

And yet, another sense
filled him. It was new. It was a different state altogether. He
could only wonder at the sense of total weightlessness he was now
experiencing. Though he could not see, he reveled in it.

It felt like
flying.

Then he hit the surface of
the super-heated rock and he too winked out of
existence.

*****

Falling?

Flying!

He was flying?

No, falling… down,
down,
to burn
…

…
Flying…?

Derek woke with a start,
the remaining part of the sleeping bag covering his legs, fell away
as his body jerked from his slumber. He knew he had not slept long.
He was still tired. It was sometime in the middle of the night, but
not that deep into it.

He brought his hand up to
knuckle at some of the grit that had formed in the corner of his
left eye. He wanted to go back asleep more than anything
else.

Without knowing it, he
shivered.

They had placed space
heaters at various intervals about the air mattresses. But it still
did not take long before he could feel the cold creeping into his
body. He felt around for his sleeping bag, but could not feel it in
his immediate area. He opened his eyes, looking up at the ceiling
through the dark, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom of
the store.

Sitting up, he rubbed at
his other eye. He groped about further away from where he sat
half-blind in the dark, hoping to grab hold of the damned
covering.
Did it fall off the
mattress?
he thought, his mind foggy from
sleep. He lay back down, exasperated when he did not feel it. He
decided to wait for his eyes to adjust, sighing, getting all the
more cold as time progressed.

Ever so slow, his eyesight
improved. Within half a minute, he was able to see well enough to
discern some detail.

He glanced around the
store, though he did not see much. It struck him as odd. Something
was wrong with the ceiling. He whipped his head forward to look at
it and realized it was too close. It was almost as though the
building had shrunk or the walls had lost a degree of height. More
wild than before, he peered about him, looking for his companions
and did not see any of them. It occurred to him, he could not even
see the surface of the air mattress itself. He turned completely
around and was so outraged by the site below him, he him yelped
with shock.

He lost control of his
Gift and…

…
Fell.

Derek tumbled from five
feet in the air. He landed on the air mattress hard as the small
corner of his mind controlling what had been artfully buried within
him, lost its’ grip. He hit the air-filled mattress with such
force, those companions sleeping the closest to him were tossed
into the air a foot or more. Their bodies came back down a second
later, hitting their own air mattresses with wallops, it woke them
all.

Frightened, unsure, more
than a bit angry, they yelled too.

While, on the far side of
the air bed he had shared with Louis, came a soft thump and a small
cry. The boy went up into the air and off the surface of the
mattress. He thudded onto the carpeted floor like a sack of wet
rags

“
Hey!” he said, irritated.
Didn't anyone know it was rude to jar someone from their sleep?
“Who the heck farted and knocked me off the bed?!?”

Many of them were still
groggy and slow. There came no immediate reply to Louis’s inquiry.
In a fog, they stared at one another, trying to figure out what
happened.

From afar came the sounds
of the Fist approaching -
fast!

“
Hey, who
farted?”

Derek began to laugh, all
the dread that moments ago had soaked through his body and left him
sweaty, was gone. He sat up. “No one farted, you retard,” he began
through bubbles of laughter.

Louis was frowning at him
from the carpet in obvious confusion.

“
I think I just found my
Gift!”

Louis gazed back at him
like he’d somehow put on a tutu and was dancing around like a
ballerina.

“
Don’t you get it, man?”
Derek was all smiles and grins. “I’m the Fly-guy. I have the Gift
of Flight.”

“
You are the Skëi-Van,
Derek, the Lord on the Wind,” explained Joaquin. The large teen
rubbed at his face, and then shook his head from side to side,
trying to wiggle free from his fatigue.

“
Yeah, yeah right,” said
Derek nodding, beaming at those around him.

His companions were
smiling back upon small, tired lips.

Kodiak and the others of
the Fist, realizing there was nothing dangerous amiss, did a swift
about face. They returned to their former spots, muttering over the
dead of night being a time for sleep, not noise.

“
That’s awesome, Derek,”
commented Anthony. “I’m glad you found your Gift. I truly am. But I
gotta get some sleep.”

There were grunts and
groans in agreement all around and many of the Twelve laid back
down.

From the ground came the
tiny voice of Louis. “I still think somebody farted…”

“
Go to sleep, Louis!” came
the shout from more than one of them.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 44 ~

Of Lesser Value

Monday, November
29
^th
,
4:08 am…

Vanessa Menendez sat up in
bed as fast as she could manage, though she had no clue why she
felt the need to move so quickly. Something had startled her from
her dreams. Inklings and mental figments had already scattered to
the wind. Sleep as usual had made her wild hair look insane. Her
stringy locks stuck out in every direction except down. She glanced
about her bedroom unsure if it was reality or the dream that was
making her so unsettled.

What was I dreaming by the
way?
she asked, trying but failing to
recall what had startled her from what had been, until moments ago,
nice dreams.

The abrupt nature of it
was confusing.

She rubbed at her eyes,
glancing over at the digital readout of her clock facing her from
the nightstand.
4:08 am! Holy crap! Will I
get any sleep tonight?

On automatic, her mind
immediately went to the late night conversation she’d had with Lynn
a few hours earlier. Her friend had been distraught over the lack
of new information about Andrew. Even her Aunt Denise had dribbled
insignificant factoids her direction. They were points with no real
merit to the case, with no real new information attached. All she
had said was The Event was on-going. It was not over yet. Something
immense was underfoot. And there was nothing any of them – not the
police, not the Department of Homeland Security, etc. – could
determine was the motive. Why abduct so many children? Why such a
high concentration of kidnappings in such a small geographic area?
What were they going to do with them?