The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves

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The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves Page 12

by Richard Heredia


  But, that wasn’t what got her attention this particular day.

  No, it was the fact that Mugzy and Garfield weren’t doing their usual play fighting, running around the yard as they typically would. Somehow, a third of an acre was too closed-in for comfort and, more often than not, they got on each other nerves. That was when the chase was on.

  Not today, though. They were mere feet apart, and yet, they weren’t even looking at each other. Instead, Garfield was posing like Kodiak, in a more cat-ish way though, which meant he was completely stretched out, as far as his spine could manage. His fore-legs and paws reaching out, claws extending, then retracting, he was flexing those tiny muscles like a bodybuilder. To Mikalah, it was his ears that gave him away. They moved with two to three times the alacrity than the rest of him. Constantly changing their position upon his small head, so swift, Mikalah was certain, as with the other animals, he wasn’t missing a single sound.

  Again, Mikalah looked about the yard, eyes and ears straining to see, to hear something. Her imaginary foes had long scattered in the wake of the bizarre behavior of their pets. But, there was nothing there. She was sure of it.

  The wind came again, cold. A hair or two stronger than before, the lack of intensity from the sun wasn’t enough to combat this sort of chill. In her young, perceptive mind, the air seemed colder than it had been when she’d first stepped from the house. That had only been a few minutes ago.

  She took a few steps deeper, along the main pathway, into the yard.

  All of a sudden, there was an explosion of activity and motion, a blur of fur and hair as all three animals jumped to their feet, keeping pace with her step for step. Not for an instant, did they break their protective formation around her.

  Mikalah stopped, astonished at what she’d seen. She had played enough Call of Duty with her brother and Uncle to know what the animals were doing. Even though she was only eight years old, she even knew how to explain what they were doing – Garfield was taking the point, while the dogs were taking up flanking positions, guarding her “3” and “9” from an ambush.

  Why were they doing this? Mikalah said to herself again, completely confused. What was out here that would make them act together like security guards trying to protect the President or something?

  Mikalah’s thoughts were shattered when out of nowhere came –

  “Hey Mikalah, you gotta come and see this!”

  “Aaah, crap, Elena, you scared me like crazy!”

  It was her sister yelling from the small porch at the backdoor of their grandmother’s house. Only the upper part of her body craned through the portal and into the cold air.

  “Sorry…! But come on inside, you have to see what Tony and Niño are doing, ok?” Elena repeated. She didn’t wait to see if her sister would indeed follow. She merely leaned back into the house and closed the door in her excited state. Mikalah could only frown at the portal in consternation. She heard her sister’s muffled footfalls as she climbed the stairs to the second floor of the house, where her uncle lived.

  “What a retard,” Mikalah muttered aloud, making her way back the way she had come, grabbing the toy guns and made her way back to the house. Well, at least, she’s not crying like a big baby anymore, thought the dark-haired girl.

  Whether or not she noticed the animals shift and reform their protective formation about her, she gave no outward indication. Whether or not she saw them take up guard-like positions just outside the door as she walked through it, her expression didn’t reveal any such realization. The girl, frowning and more than a little confused, merely followed her sister inside the house and up to her uncle’s TV room. She knew they’d all be there, watching something Elena had got all worked-up over.

  Five seconds later, Mikalah found them precisely where she expected to find them, playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on her uncle’s Playstation 3. Even before she reached the top of the staircase, she could hear the explosions and the loud voices of her uncle and her brother. Every now and then, the piping, excited appraisal of her sister - all of them were completely engrossed in the game.

  She entered her uncle’s TV room, her eyes already on the 50-inch HD flat screen her uncle had bought a few years back. Her eyes were intent upon the typical top and bottom splitting of the screen. This told her they were playing in two-player mode. From the way they were talking both to each other and on their headsets, she further deduced they were playing as a team against some other bunch of guys (or gals), somewhere in the vastness of the online experience.

  “Move to the right, Ernie,” said Anthony to his uncle as he maneuvered his own simulated soldier around a wall or what was left of one. “The guy is behind the same wall I’m hiding behind right now, only on the other side.”

  “Are you sure?” uttered their uncle, though he followed the instructions Anthony had given him without pause. “How can you remember all that?”

  “I don’t know it’s almost like I memorized the whole map, but in like three dimensions. I could see everything in my mind, clearly. It’s kinda like I could see it almost as if I was there… like a dream,” he tried to explain, but knew he fell miserably short. His uncle merely grunted. “I think if you make a quick left turn around that pile of debris, you’ll see the guy,” continued Anthony as he instructed his “guy”, via the controller in his hands, to switch to a grenade. He had the toon make ready to toss it over the wall, and then: “Oh, crap, Ern… I think the whole team is here just on the other side of the damned wall! How did they sneak…?”

  Next to him, she could hear her uncle give commands through his headset to the four other people who were playing on their side, imploring them to follow his “guy” in and strike the moment Anthony’s “guy” tossed the grenade. It only took them seconds.

  Ernie said quietly, “Throw the grenade, Tones…”

  On screen, Mikalah watched as her brother’s toon tossed the grenade over the wall. Then, from her uncle’s perspective in the game, she could see the object fall right into the middle of a group of six commando-like figures and explode.

  KA-BLAM!

  The surround sound speakers blasted with noise just as Ernie’s “guy” and the rest of the team flooded around the burning debris pile and blasted the remaining troopers with what Mikalah figured was at least a thousand bullets. Without warning, the screen changed. Both her brother and her uncle cheered aloud, “high-fiving” one another. Apparently, they’d won the game or at least this round of it.

  Mikalah looked over at Elena. “This is what you brought me up here for?” Damn, you can sure ruin a nice few hours of playtime with your dumb ideas sometimes!

  “Yeah, look at the score, Mikalah,” replied her sister, still staring at the flat screen.

  Mikalah’s eyes shifted back to the TV. At first, she was just looking at a bunch of numbers she didn’t understand. She was about to say something when Elena prompted her by pointing to a specific area on the surface of the TV. Then, she realized what she was looking at. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head. She had already surmised they were playing in Team Death Match mode, which was an all-out team vs. team round wherein the winner was the declared when a given team registered 120 collective kills. But, that wasn’t what had made her gape in shock.

  She had seen her brother and her uncle play this game repeatedly, in almost every mode possible, but not once had she seen the kill score read:

  Kills - Team “Fire Ants”: 120

  Kills – Team “Skull”: 7

  Never.

  “Were you guys playing a bunch of low ranking players or what?” asked Mikalah. She was quite familiar with this game.

  “Nope,” was her uncle Enrie’s quick reply.

  “Did the entire team keep playing through the entire round or did they leave like one guy hanging to get slaughtered by you guys?” was her next question out of her mouth.

  “Nope,” again her uncle answered her.

  “Did they accidently kill themselves a bunch of time
s with like their grenades or something?”

  Again, “Nope”

  “Then how…?” Mikalah muttered under her breath as she glanced at her brother, who was smiling back at her like some goofy dog with his tongue half lolling out of his mouth.

  Her uncle suddenly sat up straight and turned to look at the young girl. “You gotta ask this dude over here.” He pointed at Anthony. “He kept saying he knew exactly where they were, even when they hadn’t fired their weapons for a long time or spawned after being killed. You know, in both of those cases, there are no little red dots indicated on the mini-map, telling you where your enemies are located. He kept saying follow me or go over there, or hide here for a while and will bring them down this ally, etc., etc., etc. And, every time we did what he said to do, we either ambushed them or killed them quickly. They had absolutely no chance against us. Our placing was perfect, even the timing was awesome. Tony knew where they were on the map or where they were going. It was sort of…freaky.”

  He glanced back at Anthony. “Man o’ man, Boy, that was the best tactical fighting I’ve ever seen. All the guys on our team were saying the same thing. We didn’t even need to strategize. We were killing them too fast. There was simply no need.”

  “How did you do it, Tony?” Mikalah asked, now truly confused.

  Elena giggled at Mikalah’s wonderment, but shifted her gaze back toward her brother, an eager expression written on her face.

  Anthony seemed suck in his tongue like it was a foot long.

  Both girls arched an eyebrow in question, disgust their mutual expressions asking, “What the hell?”

  To which, of course, Anthony was entirely oblivious. He seemed to collect himself as if nothing had happened. He tilted his head slightly to the side, uttering, “You know, I could just see everything in my mind. I could somehow direct the team, but I really don’t know how I did it.”

  “Did what?” asked Ernie, getting up and placing his headset in front of his TV. He returned to his seat on the over-stuffed BARCO-lounger, apparently finished with team play for the day.

  Anthony turned toward his uncle, his brow furled in concentration, wanting to get this explanation as accurate as possible. “Like I said, it was kinda like a dream, you know? Like a dream you can anticipate and begin to predict. Over time, it kinda gave me a degree of control. I mean, I knew it was a game, but I could see everything like I was in a dream of my own creation, something I could guess at, interpret, I don’t know read somehow. I don’t know how I can answer the question any better, I just could and we couldn’t lose. I could see those other teams “toons” and I just knew where they were going to go just as they did. I was able to move our team into the right place with the right tactics in advance. It was all happening so fast; I’m not sure what I was doing, only… I was doing it, all of it. It doesn’t make any sense, huh?”

  Ernie merely grunted and laughed briefly, already dismissing it as some stroke of luck. He changed the video setting on the TV from “Game” to “Cable” and began searching for the college football game he wanted to catch before he had to leave for a barbeque at one of his friend’s house.

  Mikalah watched her brother deflate a bit when their uncle didn’t offer any sort of comment to his reply. She darted a glance toward her older sister. Elena wasn’t looking at Anthony like he was crazy. Rather, her countenance was simply determined. Her face was set with the type of cast Mikalah knew as her “interested” expression. She was keen on understanding what had happened to their brother. Next, she would spend a good deal of time trying to figure it out, no matter what. That was just the way Elena did things. She would ask him question after question. Most likely, she’d badger Tony to death with them. She wouldn’t relent until she knew exactly what had happened and why. Mikalah knew her big sister too well and smiled at the thought of Anthony barricading himself within his room and locking the door, trying to get away from Elena and her ten million questions.

  “So, Elena, are we still gonna play outside,” inquired the little girl, an early attempt at saving her brother from eminent torture.

  Elena stared at Anthony for a bit longer, who was staring back with an ever-enlarging crease in his brow. “Yeah, we probably should, because it’ll be too cold to play later on. We might as well go out while we still can.”

  Mikalah giggled, knowing Anthony wasn’t out of the woods yet. Elena would bombard him later. She could tell by the look on her sister’s face.

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  ~ 14 ~

  Fugue

  Saturday, November 20th, 9:37 pm…

  She knows I love her with all of my heart and my soul. She knows the very center of me belongs to her. She’s seen me express it, reveal it, unearth it with every look, every stare, every touch, every kiss I give her. She knows I have eyes only for her… and she loves it. She craves what I give her.

  She does. Yes, she does.

  She has to…

  He had already searched and found a large roll of trash bags from underneath the kitchen sink, quietly miffed at that, because they should’ve been in the utility closet on the back porch instead. The search itself had already cost him precious time. He didn’t have extra time to squander looking around blindly for the precious items he had to gather this night.

  He pulls one free from the roll and wads it up in one of his hands and makes his way back to the porch at the rear of his house, his parents’ house, looking for something else that just might help. Something that’ll make things a little bit easier… for him...

  For Her.

  …And, there is no doubt in my mind or anyone else’s that she loves me with just as much fervor and abandon as I love her. There is nothing in the world I wouldn’t do for her. There is nothing in this world she wouldn’t do for me. Nothing! She has done so much for me already. The feel of her, the smell of her – all of it, exquisite!

  Only…

  He sees something and quickly grabs for it. Then, he rips open the trash bag and tosses it within. The bag, only opened partially, catches this new item in its’ middle. Its round, hollowed-out center form a bulge half way down inside the bag, but he pays it no mind. Details, he can work them out later. His head bobs up and down as he looks for more instruments, tools – whatever items he needs to make things easier.

  He just needs a few…

  …She is trapped, held prisoner and against her will, her true will. This is the Will that wants, with every ounce of strength, to scream out her love for me. But, she cannot, because of her circumstances, because of her condition!

  Yes, that’s it, that’s correct – her condition! The trap comprising her life, the confines she is forced to live within. Where they lie to her, every day, those who tell her they love her most… the ones who tell her who she can or cannot love.

  This time, they haven’t succeeded in her quelling her true emotions, because they were too deep. They didn’t possess the ability to wash them away like before. Her true feelings, feelings for him are unbreakable…

  He sees the rope and adds it to the duck-tape, already in the bag. He spies a short pile of rags and adds them as well. Then, he pauses. His eyes flash this way and that within the closet, knowing he will need more supplies, more tools.

  Make it easy. Make it simple, he thinks, realizing he won’t find the last item here. With a nervous twitch of his hand, he closes the twin doors of the closet, and glances about the enclosed back porch, before he takes a few long strides to the back door. He yanks it open with more force than is necessary, but doesn’t care, ignoring the loud screech coming from its protesting hinges. Anger rises of its’ own accord, from the center of his chest outward – warm, soothing, fiery thoughts. He enjoys the emotion.

  …Who can love her more than me? Who, any one of them - those, they, the others, the purveyors of falsity, trying their damnedest to keep her from me? From me, are they serious? The one she desires most in life?

  Ha! Stupid! Fucking idiotic! They make me laugh
, because they’re so ignorant. They know nothing of my love, nothing of her strength, of her determination. They are all imbeciles. She knows what they are inside. She doesn’t believe them. She knows they’re false.

  I’m all she has left. I’m all she needs. She knows this too. She lives with that one tiny notion of hope and longing... longing she has denied herself for so long, too long! The truth has been revealed to her.

  This why I must act, this why the time is now, today, especially after her vehement act the other day. Her public display, her violent so-called rejection of the truth. The act is becoming more than just a rouse, even a lie, it’s too much for her to bear, too much for the purity of her soul to manage. It was the sign I have been waiting for, ever since the wondrous day amongst the flora and the fauna, where she held me and talked to me, while I rested in the warmth of her arms, my head nestled where it belongs…

  He peers around the darkened kitchen, the ambient light from the fifty-two inch flat screen in the living room, flickering and flashing throughout the rectangular space. In the back of his mind, he is aware his parents and younger sister are watching some program on the television. As quickly as thoughts of them come, he forgets they ever existed. He glances about the kitchen once again.

  …Atop her thighs, my forehead rubbing against her firm bosom, so young and full of life… I can almost see her erect nipples through the sheer material of her bra and shirt. She had been so excited to have me so near to her, touching, stroking. I can smell her sweet breath…

  What else does he need? What other tools can he find lying about?

  All the while, she had murmured to me, talked to me in her sweet, gentle voice. It is the one she saves only for me, when we are about to become intimate with one another. She had such a wondrous future planned for both of them, filled with so much love and raw desire. I remembered how she blushed as she confessed how much she wanted me, wishing for the two of us to become one, for me to be…

 

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