That was the day Anthony began his caring for his first dog. She’d only been his for three years at the time, before the day she had run away.
When they arrived at his grandmother’s house, he had gone to the back yard, to fence at the back and looked at the pair of wooden planks she had pushed apart from their nails in the fence. Between them, she’d been able to squeeze through the fence. The first thought that had come to mind was he’d wondered what she was doing right then. His second was he hoped she was ok. He sat down on a random cinder block and had cried, alone and away from his grandmother and his uncle, who were both in the house at the time. Even back then, he’d been private with his innermost emotions.
Through the years, when he asked about this day, Anthony always said he hadn’t cried, because no one had been around to see him. But, on that day, when the hurt was fresh in his mind, he had. He’d chosen, instead, not to think of it again. He stored it away, deep in a mental filing cabinet and had locked the drawer. Over time, it was like it had never happened.
Until now, after all of this time, the memories came flooding back to the surface and he was amazed at the thought that she, Kenai, would still be alive. She would be here, having made this incredible journey with him, from one world to another. He couldn’t help it, despite all else, he felt like the luckiest sixteen-year-old kid alive. His old friend was still alive!
They had just come to the point where the trail had reached its’ highest point on the hill. It was still lower than the true zenith of the long, gently-sloping hill they’d gradually been climbing. The pathway here ran only about a hundred feet flat before it began its’ downward leg on the other side of the hill, a much steeper portion following where La Loma Road had once been.
Kenai’s trotting slowed to a walk and the stopped altogether.
Anthony looked around to see what was going on, but all he could see was rocks, trees, and bushes and, of course, snow was everywhere. He scowled at the lack of the familiar houses he knew should’ve been there. Atop the hill, they’d been crammed together like sardines. It was a meadow now, stretching far and wide, a thousand-year-old forest, as if there’d never been a city named Los Angeles in the first place.
“What is it, my daughter?” inquired Kodiak sniffing the air for threats. Her eyes darted back and forth over the various forms of plant life.
“We are close, mother. We must use caution from this point forward,” replied Kenai in a more subdued tone, dipping her nose to the snow-strewn ground, gathering in a multitude of scent - inspecting, searching. “We must make certain we do not run headlong into anything unpleasant.”
Kodiak looked back at Anthony’s sisters. “It might be best if you two little ones climb down for the moment. I might need my full range of movement. Such violent action would most definitely knock you to the ground, and we wouldn’t want that now would we?”
The girls shook their heads in unison. They let go of the large animal’s fur.
Both of the boys helped them get down as Kodiak was nearly as tall as a large pony at the shoulder. Each of them placed a little lady on the ground at either side of the bear-dog. Kodiak gave herself a great shake, resettling her coat into a more natural form and then stepped toward Kenai.
“They are close, mother,” mentioned Kenai upon her mother’s approach.
“Where did you see them last, Kenai?” implored the larger bear-dog.
“I was slightly ahead of them on this very trail before I went after you, so they should be around here somewhere. Although, I cannot get a single whiff of them at the moment,” she said this, beginning to sniff the ground in ever-larger rings around where her and her mother stood.
Kodiak watched for a second. She turned toward Anthony. “Maybe we should get the girls out of plain sight?”
“Good idea,” he agreed, motioning to Andrew.
He stepped over, stomping on the snow as he went, trying to warm himself. His inadequate outerwear allowed the cold to seep in the moment he stopped moving about. “Drew, find a hiding place for the girls and stay with them, while the rest of us look around for a bit.” Anthony could see the other was about to protest, so he added, “Dude, you are bigger and stronger than me. In a one on one fight, they’d stand a better chance with you than with me, ok?”
Andrew considered this for a moment, then smiled. “Well, when you put it that way, it does make sense.” He turned from Anthony. He motioned for the girls to follow him up the one of the small rises, sloping upward from the small level area they’d mounted the shoulder of the hill. He swung back around after three steps, looking at Anthony with a huge grin on his face. “Wimp!” he taunted.
The girls walked passed him, holding hands, occasionally wiping at their eyes. They kept tearing up in the cold.
He didn’t wait for Anthony to respond. The three of them vanished from sight through the foliage.
“What a dweeb,” Anthony said quietly to himself, and then made his way toward Kodiak, who was still sniffing the air.
Kenai continued chuffing at the ground.
He began to move, as silent as he could, about the shoulder of the hill, not sure exactly what he was looking for. He smiled begrudgingly at the thought of his friend. Andrew was a dork, true, but Anthony was very glad he was here with them, at this time, in this awful place. At least, he could count on him to help keep his sisters safe.
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~ 42 ~
Arrow
Day One, Thursday, 7:03 am…
Andrew led the girls about 30 feet off the trail. He found a small hollow at the foot of a good-sized eucalyptus tree. He motioned for them to place themselves in between the roots and boulders, so their presence was concealed against unwanted eyes. Since the tree was set in the ground at a point higher than where they stood, it offered excellent cover from above. Its’ massive trunk hid them from view above, while its’ many roots and the various boulders and rocks that grew around it, provided decent concealment from below.
Meanwhile, Andrew crept forward a few paces, slinking his way behind a large, snow-laden fern. From there, he could see what the others were doing. The elevated position gave him a good view. He could see Kenai had begun to trace the ground much farther than before, attempting to get the scent of the other kids she’d seen earlier.
Kodiak stayed in rooted in place. She periodically closed her eyes and arched her great head skyward testing the air for any clue.
So far, neither of the bear-dogs seemed to have made any progress, but they kept at it nonetheless. Catching the correct scent was more often than not a game of percentages. One had to keep trying in order to be successful. Most things didn’t come easy.
The wind gusted for the first time since he’d been outdoors, making the falling, flaky precipitation dance around him, partially obscuring his eyesight. He waited and shivered in its grip until it subsided. The animal skin he wore worked, for the most part, to keep him warm, but it didn’t fit well. When the wind blew, the cold air would find a way in the under his layers of clothing and set his teeth on edge within seconds. The fact that it smelled like socks rank with mildew didn’t help either, but it was better than nothing at all.
He saw Anthony, searching the ground a bit away from the others, on the same side of the trail Andrew and the girls had chosen to hide. Only, he was at a higher elevation than they were.
“Anything yet, Drew?” asked Elena from behind. Her tiny voice barely carried over the wind. She was tucked back within the roots of the towering eucalyptus, partially out of sight. He surmised her vision was obscured to some degree.
He looked back in her direction, shaking his head in the negative, bringing his index finger to his lips, indicating she should stay quiet. She nodded in affirmation, while Andrew resumed his watch over the others.
Anthony had moved farther away, off Andrew’s right hand side, about fifty feet.
Kenai continued to search the area immediately opposite from where he crouched. On
ly she was moving away. Each of her sweeping arches took her further out from them.
He watched the bear-dog for a few more seconds and then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Anthony stiffen, surprised, shocked. Andrew’s attention immediately swung back toward his friend.
Anthony, half-crouched, moved a few branches of the fern before him to one side. It was larger than the one Andrew was hiding behind, so it would’ve blocked more of his view. Once he’d moved the leafy fronds aside, Andrew could tell the other’s view, further up the incline, had opened before him. It was there his expression had changed, made his body go rigid.
Andrew stood slowly to get a better view, continuing to watch his friend, wondering what he’d found.
Anthony stood straighter, moving another frond, then another.
Andrew saw it, traversing almost directly behind and above their hiding place. It was on a small pathway beginning at the larger La Loma trail and doubling backed around them about thirty feet higher up the hill. It was a much narrower track, overgrown and made nearly invisible by the foliage growing alongside it, but his friends’ attention was elsewhere.
Anthony remained frozen solid. His gaze was riveted to something in front and slightly above him.
Andrew’s face rippled with concern as he followed his friends gaze, taking a few unbidden steps. He emerged, partially from his concealment, as his eyes following the pathway all the way to the point where it mounted the ridge of hill itself and fell out of sight. Almost sixty feet away from where Anthony stood, he saw what his long-time friend was staring at. It was so startling that he too stood, as immobile and dumbstruck as Anthony.
Standing there a pace or two from the top of the pathway was a Swüreg soldier, dressed in full battle regalia, facing his friend. Clasped in its’ hands was a black, vile-looking re-curved bow, notched - arrow aimed directly at Anthony’s chest.
Andrew was only able to yell, “NO!”
The warrior loosed his arrow.
He knew in his heart, his friend would die that day, right before his very eyes.
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~ 43 ~
Blur
Day One, Thursday, About Half a Minute Before…
Mikalah was watching Andrew with such unrelenting scrutiny when his head popped up all of sudden, she knew at once he seen something significant. Though she’d been told to stay put - she didn’t. She stole from her place of concealment amongst the large rocks of the hillside and the roots of the eucalyptus towered above her and her sister. As quiet as she could, she slinked through the crusty snow. She tip-toed the entire way, until she was a foot behind Andrew, slightly to his left, glancing up at him.
For no reason she could discern, he’d stood up and took a half step from behind the fern, his face hidden from hers as she approached.
She scuttled forward a bit more to catch a glimpse of what he was looking at and saw her brother take a few steps on what looked like another trail. Only this one was much smaller than the one they had walked upon a few minutes earlier. It was nearly invisible.
She saw him stop so quickly, it made her eyebrows rise unwittingly. She’d seen her brother react in this manner countless times, and every time, it had been when he was stunned – utterly and completely stunned. She felt Andrew move. She followed. She craned her neck as far as she could in order to see as much as possible, exposing herself even more.
The boy beside her went rigid.
She looked up at him again, seeing the concern on his face melt into horror.
In one fluid turn of her head, she traced Andrew’s stare at its’ terminus… just in time so see a Swüreg soldier release his hold on the string of his bow. The cloth-yard shaft, wickedly black and barbed, shot from the bow like lightning through the sky, straight for her brother’s chest.
To Mikalah, the world seemed to turn yellow with heat and fear, fire and a deep smoldering vat of anguish exploding from her heart. She heard Andrew’s screeching Noooo! as her mind flooded with a thousand, thousand memories. A dam of images, notions, nuances, inklings had burst within her. They filled her to the brim in less than a second.
She remembered she had once run from Anthony when they were having the only snowball fight they had ever had as a family. He had thrown a snowball at her. It had hit her in the back, right between the shoulders blades. She had fallen to the ground little shocked. Yet, before she could actually react, he’d picked her up entirely off her feet and planted upright, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and ruffled her hair. The next moment, he’d run off, laughing, making her follow suit.
She saw him again, all arms and legs, trying so hard to learn how to swim when his was fourteen, finally tired of being afraid of water. He’d been frustrated and a little angry, because he couldn’t make his body move the way it should’ve underwater. He’d been scowling, until she yelled out over the den of splashing water, she believed in him. He had turned to look at her shaking his head, trying to ward off his embarrassment. When he met her eyes for a second time, she stuck her tongue out at him. He had laughed.
Two weeks later, he was swimming like a fish.
She could see Anthony - a much younger Anthony - sitting cross-legged before her, showing her how to connect her Duplex building blocks, while her tiny, clumsy hands tried to duplicate his movements, to no avail.
She saw her brother, as she lay on her side in the sand, come storming into the playground at the park, yelling at the little bully who had knocked her off the merry-go-round and had made her cry.
She saw him make a joke at her expense and go off, down the hallway of their house, laughing so hard he was almost doubling over. Right when she was about to hate him, he’d looked back with a twinkle in his eye, making her stop and smile back.
She had sat next to him on a matching office chair, watching the screen of his laptop as he played Lineage II, explaining all the history and detail that comes with long experience of playing a game of that sort.
She watched the TV, sitting beside him as he played Call of Duty.
She saw him trying to trick her into something she didn’t believe.
She saw him put sour crème on just about everything he ate.
She saw him riding his skateboard and fall off, scuffing his arm.
She saw him making fart-noises with one of his armpits.
She saw him cracking his toes.
She saw him cry.
She saw him dance.
She saw him crow like a rooster.
She saw him kiss a girl.
She saw him make scrambled eggs.
She saw him mad.
She saw him excited.
She saw him smile.
She felt his love.
Her entire life, she had felt his love. He might not have expressed it day in and day out.
No, he had conveyed it to her, silently, but steadily over the years until it had become so steadfast and sure, she had come to trust it would always be there.
He had loved her since the day she was born.
She had always known it!
Now, she was going to watch him die.
It felt like something popped inside her head. The yellowish world turned slightly red, pink at the sides, but fiercely so. As the three-foot arrow left the ebon shaft of the Swüreg’s bow, Mikalah could see the it begin the dual oscillation a missile of its’ kind would employ during flight. She stared at it, seeing the three, glued feathers at its end, keeping in it on course. She saw the steel arrowhead, sharpened. It appeared to cut through the air itself. Her eyes made out the type of the wood - it was made of yew or, quite possibly, some other super-hard sort. Next, she could see the grain. Then the miniscule grooves left behind by sanding during its manufacture. She could see everything about it in such detail. It was like watching it under a microscope.
Suddenly, her vision blurred as the world became indistinct, muddled and not quite real. She felt a strange vibration and thought, for an instant, she was moving, but
it wasn’t right.
A moment after, she was on the ground, her mouth full of dirt and snow as she rolled and rolled, end over end until she finally came to stop. She was lying on her back, looking up at the tree top canopy, covered with clingy snow. There was something hard and unyielding grasped tightly in the palm of her right hand. Sweat poured out of every pore on her small body and her stomach twisted as if she hadn’t eaten in days.
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~ 44 ~
Face to Face
Day One, Thursday, Simultaneously…
“NO!” screamed Andrew.
Elena was about to rush forward to stand beside Mikalah when, out of nowhere, came a torrent of snow and dirt and leaves and twigs and tiny rocks and just about everything else one could imagine on the ground.
Only, it wasn’t on the ground. It was all around them.
The deluge swamped over her. It was as though someone had tossed a grenade at their feet. Everything that should’ve been on the ground wasn’t any longer. It was in the air about them, pummeling their legs, arms, bodies, and faces.
A heartbeat later, there was a strange, very loud rumbling of what sounded like thunder, but it couldn’t have been. The concussion had come directly in front of her and it hadn’t preceded any lightning. Half an eye-blink later, the explosion slammed into both her and Andrew, tossing them aside as if they nothing more than rag dolls. They were hurled to the ground, covered with every sort of debris imaginable, clogging their nostrils, ears and noses, making them gag and spit in disgust, making them deaf, dumb and blind.
The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves Page 35