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

by Richard Heredia

  With the advent of modern construction, most people in the “know” are well aware that in order for a structure the size and complexity of the local shopping mall to function properly, there has to be a high level of infrastructure available to it. This is the rule of thumb, so even on the busiest days, shoppers would always find the atmosphere within the edifice inviting and comfortable. To provide this level of luxury, though, requires many resources. Huge telephonic and internet capable trunks, so each merchant had an adequate slice of bandwidth to conduct business. There were massive amounts of voltage to power equally massive air conditioners and heaters. There were large actuating pumps to make sure waste was properly pumped in the right direction. And, of course, just about everything else one could conceive needing electricity. All of these various MEP’s (a construction term meaning Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing) would’ve been “sized-up” to the industrial level in order for a building like that of the Eagle Rock Plaza to operate according to specification. This would mean a huge influx and outflow of resources would have to travel to and from the mall every given minute the complex was open.

  Denise had sat there, imagining all of the electricity and waste, etc., etc. being cut away from its varying sources at once. With the edifice gone, the only place it all could go was downhill, down into a pit already filled with cars and people. What would a scene such as that look like? What sort of carnage would result?

  It was precisely the kind Denise Miller had gazed upon in those first few minutes when the realization of the scope of the Event was unveiled. It was a sort inclusive of mass electrocution, drowning and the pulverization of every single human being shopping within the mall on the day before Thanksgiving. There had been hundreds of individuals, lovers, friends… families.

  Frankly, it was horrid. She knew no matter how hard she tried, she would never get over those first few images of the mangled and torn bodies out of her mind. The sight of a stroller, crushed and twisted, splashed with blood and something that looked grey would be with her for all eternity. She knew in her heart a child had been strapped within – a child who was dead now.

  It was then her boss had come to her. He had asked her to inquire about Federal assistance. Even if he hadn’t had a wild look in his eyes, she still would’ve known this was a job for departments much larger and better equipped than their own.

  It was… overwhelming.

  Still, as the night progressed, the abductions continued… all through the night, more reports, all as dramatic as the last. Within hours, no less than five thousand Federal agents – from more agencies than she cared to remember - descended upon the northeastern portion of the City of Angles. The investigation had begun in earnest. It was tagged - priority number one, a footing mandated from the highest reaches of the government. The details of the Event would be unearthed. As far as the White House was concerned that was all there was to it.

  *****

  She was still wrapped in thought, when she realized the welcoming hot air blasting forth from the vents in her vehicle. She hadn’t realized she’d been gripping the steering wheel as tightly as she had been. She loosened her death-grip upon the hard, formed plastic beneath her palms. She breathed in the hot air and let it warm her inside as well as without, still immersed in the happenings of the night before.

  There had been twelve children between the ages of eight and seventeen years reported missing in all, as well as a garage, a pool house, half of a front porch, a Vons Supermarket and, of course, an entire shopping center (parking lot included). All of the incidents had occurred in the neighborhoods of Highland Park and Eagle Rock. All of it had happened simultaneously…

  …6:28 pm…

  …a time she wouldn’t soon forget.

  6:28 pm, was when her life had changed, quite possibly forever.

  Even now, it was difficult to believe.

  You better hurry girl. You are going to run out of time, she thought suddenly and shook herself free the echoes of the bygone night, breathing deeply a couple of times. She put her car in gear and twisted around so she could look at the back window of her Nitro, making certain she didn’t hit anyone or anything. She eased the car from its space, from the center-mounted gearshift, she put the vehicle into drive, turning into the aisle between rows of cars and made her away toward the exit of the parking lot.

  Try as she might, she still couldn’t shake the images of the night before out of her head. It was as though she was stuck in mental loop. She couldn’t break free from seeing. She was forced to sit there and play it all, repeatedly, in her brain, before the back of her eyes. She was a prisoner.

  If she had known it would get worse in the days to come, she might not have fretted as much as she had over the course of those first few hours. She might’ve been more accepting of the Event, if she had known it wouldn’t end on the morning when she drove home a little later than she typically did. If she had known there would be more abductions, pets gone missing and other mysterious occurrences happening all about Los Angeles, she might’ve merely made her way home, did what she had to do and made her way back in time for her first ever video conference with a level head. Maybe if she would have taken all of that in stride, she could’ve spared herself the obsession over those first few incidents. If she had known The Event would spread beyond the borders of the southern California, outside of the continental United States of America. Maybe then, when it went global, she wouldn’t have sunk into the depths of despair as she would eventually. By then – weeks and months later – when it became very, very apparent something fundamental had changed in the World of Man, she would’ve been prepared. Maybe, when the mayhem continued to spread and something chaotic began to emerge, she would’ve been able to cope.

  She hadn’t though. Whenever she looked back to that early morning in November, when she’d marveled at the fallen snow and was in the grip of the cold, she would wish she’d known more. Just about every time, she wished she could’ve somehow known what was coming.

  A war was coming and so was he – the Lord of the Storm, the Great Maelstrom. The Snowman was coming and he would wreak havoc upon the Earth. Never, would it be the same.

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  Part Three:

  The Melding

  All the ancient classic fairy tales have always been scary and dark.

  ~Helena Bonham Carter

  I would rather live my life as if there is a God and die to find out there isn't,

  Than live my life as if there isn't and die to find out there is.

  ~Albert Camus

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  ~ 36 ~

  Fist

  Day One, Thursday, An Hour Earlier Some Place Far Away at 5:22 am…

  All of the aches and pains he’d felt for years had disappeared - the stiffness in his joints, the hunch of his spine, the slight twist in his right hip he’d developed after his first master had kicked him in a violent, drunken rage and broken it. All of them, every last residual echo of pain, were gone.

  No longer looking at the world nine inches off the ground, no longer trapped in a tiny four-legged body, he stood on two legs now, upon huge padded feet, man-like. His head was nearly six feet from the cold, snow-covered earth. Gone were the days when he cowered and hid from anything making excessive noise or moving at speed. No more would he duck for cover or quiver at the sight of a large raptor intent on snatching him from the ground and taking him up into the sky. Though his face was still like that of a pug, pushed in and broad, his jaws bristled with massive teeth and incredibly sharp two-inch fangs. His arms were long and muscled, hands ending in equally intimidating claws, the color of obsidian. He was still covered from head to toe in a thick coat of salt-n-pepper-tinged hair. It was longer and thicker now, impervious to the icy chill of this new place. When he’d awakened, only a few hours ago, he’d found himself within a new world, entirely different from the one he’d left behind.

  He glanced down, gri
nning at the smoothness of his coat. It lay evenly against his body as if freshly brushed. Finally, it was free of brambles and tangles as it had often been before his transformation (and transportation) to this other place. He inhaled. His grin broadened even more, making him look wild with delight. He was truly amazed at his lack of offensive odor, a thing so typical and ordinary in his old form. He’d grown used to smelling like a cesspool, fetid and putrid, as though he’d been a walking corpse with hair. Everything about him seemed improved - his size, his strength, his vigor, his eyesight (which had been atrocious before), even his hearing was three, maybe four times, as acute as it had been only a short time ago.

  His stomach growled hugely, suddenly reminding him, he was ravenous. This had to be due to his recent growth. His change must’ve used an inordinate amount of energy.

  He glanced about the landscape, realizing he was just down the hill from the house belonging to the Lady with the Long Hair. Only, her house wasn’t there. In fact, there were no houses around at all. He stood upon a small pathway. It should’ve been a wide paved road, called Church Street by the humans. All about were spruce, pine, the odd willow and an abundance of shrubbery, long cleared in the world he’d known before. Now, it was everywhere.

  He surmised, as sniffed at the air, letting his eyes inspect the landscaper in depth, he wasn’t in the same world of old, of his birth. Maybe, he’d known the moment he’d opened his eyes and hadn’t understood it fully. With a bit of time, though, he could tell. The smells were wrong, the stars in the night sky were in the wrong place, and the timing of his instinctual internal clock was misfiring second after second. He was nowhere near where he’d fallen asleep after digging his way under the house owned the Lady with the Long Hair. He’d scurried there when those ferocious creatures had taken his Little Flower, her brother and her sister.

  The memory of them being beaten into submission made his fur stand on end. He growled deep down in his throat, a sound that would’ve sent a grown man running in the opposite direction, overcome with fright.

  I hope you are unharmed, my Little Flower. It will not be long, you will be rescued and avenged!

  His gut contracted for a second time. He knew he would have to hunt soon. This new body would consume much, much larger meals than those he’d required before. He shook his head against the idea he’d have to eat the equivalent of two of his former selves in order to satisfy his hunger now.

  My, my, what an indecent thought!

  Then, he heard it… a long, forlorn howl, peeling across the landscape. It sounded in his ears, sparking some heretofore unknown response. It came from the very core of his now vast consciousness. It was like a key opening a locked door, a password granting access to an unknown level of himself, and he found he couldn’t refuse it.

  He was compelled to obey.

  His body flexed. The whole it, as he mentally calculated his physical condition, testing the limits of his now considerable strength.

  She calls! his mind shouted silently, breakfast would have to wait.

  The Fist was forming.

  A split second later, he was gone.

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  ~ 37 ~

  Bear-Dog

  Day One, Thursday, 5:25 am…

  There was no other way to describe it – she was monstrous. She was truly a gargantuan representation of what she’d been only hours ago. She resembled a bear, but in actuality, she was very un-bear-like in almost every detail. Whereas bears have short, tufted ears, she had long, triangular ears standing prominently upon her head. Her hair was chestnut colored, typical of an ursine. Hers, though, wasn’t the two and a half to three inch length, which was the short, dense coat of a bear. Her fur was shorter, possibly only three-quarters of an inch in length more like that of a German Sheppard than a bear.

  Underneath this short hair, bulged and flexed her great musculature, belying the incredible strength she had within. Her snout was also unlike a bear’s. It was a long protrusion, full with bright white teeth and commenced in a black, very canine looking nose. Upon all fours, she still stood nearly five and a half feet at the shoulder. Her body easily a yard and a half wide at the barrel and, where her feet met the ground, she stood upon clawed paws more than eighteen inches in diameter. Set deep into her broad, rounded skull were a pair of compassionate, dark-brown eyes – orbs that possessed the ability to delve into the very center of one’s soul, to know the truth of a person, in all of their glory or their shame. If one had to put a sign best describing what she might be, the term “bear-dog” would’ve seemed the most fitting. For all intents and purposes, she was exactly that, a dog the size of a bear, all one thousand pounds of her.

  She pawed at the ground, waiting at the top of the hill where once there’d been a street. It was along this street where the house of the Lady with the Long Hair should’ve been, but was not. There was no street either, only a narrow, nearly overgrown trail of compacted dirt, covered in a thin dusting of snow. The wind blew harsh and cold about her. She faced downhill, into the rush of air, her thick fur shielding her from the elements. Her nostrils flared. She was barely able to contain her excitement.

  Any moment now, she would catch the scent of a creature she hadn’t smelt in more than five years, a creature she had cared for, nurtured and loved. The same creature that had been taken from her, against her better judgment, but one she had to let go all the same. Her undeniable sense of duty had demanded it. She had borne the guilt and the hurt all these years, never certain if the decision she’d made had been the correct one. At times, she’d even questioned the very details of their mission themselves. Was it worth the sacrifice? Was it worth their separation? It had torn at her heart for so long. She could scarcely remember the animal she’d been before that fateful night when she was given a choice (and not a tiny one at that). She had agreed, finally, and watched her baby disappeared into nothing, right before her very eyes. Though she’d been fully aware the task before her baby was one of monumentous importance, knowing it would take her nearly five annums to complete, the bear-dog still had her doubts. She still questioned those who had told her baby was needed, as well as herself.

  Five years, she had waited.

  Five years, she had wondered.

  Any minute now, she would know the answer…

  The anticipation was making her skin twitch and contract in different places, all about her body, as if she possessed a myriad of nervous ticks. She pretended she was shaking flies from her hair, though it was far too cold for insects to exist in a place like this. This was a rendering of only half the world she’d come from and half of something else, something dark, sinister and ancient. This was an impossible place, shouldn’t have existed, but, by some monstrous twist of power and will, it did.

  That means little in the grand scheme of things, she thought silently. The task at hand is all we must focus our minds upon. All else is best left ignored or forgotten.

  Although, I will miss the Lady with the Long Hair, she was like a sister I never had…

  The first rays of a sun-that-was-not-Sol were already peeking over the horizon in long bands, looking like the outstretched hands of an impossibly large giant. The amount of light about the landscape, doubled. To her, though, the brightening of the young day didn’t matter much. She could see just as well at night as she could during the daylight hours. Her capabilities had improved since the evening before, before the change, before her traveling was over.

  The forested land was beginning to awaken. She was aware of the great many animals and like beasts beginning to fill it. There were many more of them than there’d been upon her arrival only a few hours prior. This world was filling quickly with entities from both planes of existence. Her ears began to pick up the usual rustlings of the small rodents, possum, squirrels, and rabbits, the calls of the gulls, the raven and the hawk, even the occasional Blue Jay or sparrow.

  Now, these noises had mixed together with all of the noises she hadn’t
grown up categorizing, memorizing. There were others she couldn’t place. Some she couldn’t even guess at. They were strange ululations or serrations, high-pitched screeches issued from bodies sounding much too large. There were howls and grunts from chitinous throats with volume unnatural to the earth. It was unnerving to think the children were out there in this quagmire of conglomerated species. They were extremely vulnerable, exposed. They were completely unaware of what they were up against, ignorant of their cruciality, unknowing of how much hung in the balance, because of them. It made her shudder anew, she – they - would have to act fast. Time was running short. Before long, they would be completely out of her reach, surrounded by too many of the enemy.

  Time! Time! Time!

  Then, she caught her scent!

  The scent of the one she’d let go, of the one she hadn’t seen for so long, the one whose absence had cause such agony in her heart. She was here! Her loamy, familiar smell - cinnamon and earth - a sweet musk much like her own, wafted up her nostrils and into her brain, sending sparks of recognition. They made her crane her head this way and that, shifting upon her feet, though she held her position atop the hill. The sun crept ever-further over the horizon. With it, came the wind, the temperature rising slightly with its’ warming rays, different areas of air pressure rushing about the land, a natural attempt at equilibrium.

  At the bend in the trail, some distance down the hill, she suddenly came into view, another bear-dog. She was a near replica of the older bear-dog standing above. Almost, save she wasn’t as tall and was longer of body, maybe a hundred pounds lighter. Her snout wasn’t as pronounced and her great paws not as large. Even from a distance, she looked like a faster version, though there was still immense strength within her large form. She was graceful and feminine in the eyes of the bear-dog atop the hill.