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

by Richard Heredia

  Of their own volition, Joaquin’s eyes began to dart back and forth. He brought his comforter under his chin for the false protection he knew didn’t exist, but couldn’t help hide underneath. All kids did this right? It didn’t matter that he was seventeen years old. Why am I acting this way?!? He wasn’t seven anymore.

  He searched the immediate vicinity for the source of this fright, but found he couldn’t center it upon a single, defining notion. Yet, the fright persisted, deepening, paralyzing him.

  A second later, the multitude of meaningless words stopped abruptly.

  No, a few began to boil to the surface of his mind as if stuck: Niveus; Nixeus; Metohkangmi; Yeti; Big-Head; Nihhus; Nicor; Nivis; Isig-Halförd.

  These new words were different from the thousands that had preceded them. They bled fear from him. They burned like coals in his mind’s eye. They were embers of a fire pit, in the lightlessness of a campsite, at the mid of night. They were a glow of red to black and black to red, hinting at flame, but not quite hot enough to achieve it.

  As he felt these new words sear into his brain. They pulsed with breath, almost like that of a breathing, living being. He knew then, these words were to be feared, naught else. The word resounded in his mind, Feared! With each toll, came the emotion, attached to them. Though he didn’t know what they meant. He knew this to be truer than anything he’d ever experienced in his life.

  The shivering began, even though he wasn’t cold in the slightest. He was in no clutch of ice, and yet, he was shaking as if he was lost in a blizzard north of Fairbanks, Alaska – ice cold! Oh God, what the hell was going on? he thought as he flung his blankets completely over his head and shoved his fist in his mouth to keep from screaming with dread. He didn’t want to scream out loud, like a baby. Crap! It was something he hadn’t done since he was a little boy, experiencing night terrors for the first time, yet this…

  This wasn’t the same. This was real, or at least, as real as he could imagine.

  Why was this happening? Why now?

  Then, simply, it all clicked into place. He couldn’t explain how, or why. He knew. He just did. This had all happened for a reason. This is what had scared him. He was as certain of it, as he was the sun would rise each morning and set each night. This whole thing was a warning, portending to things to come.

  They all were in mortal danger… all twelve of them…

  He was coming and soon! Niveus, Nixeus, Metohkangmi… Him!

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  ~ 9 ~

  Despair

  Friday, November 19th, 5:59 am…

  Elena’s eyes flew open as wide as saucers. Her breath caught in her throat. Her hands reached up to her chest as she sat up in bed, knowing in that instant something was wrong. Something wasn’t the same. It was different than it had been when she had gone back to bed after Anthony’s nightmare. She kicked the blankets off her legs and slid bare feet toward the edge of the bed.

  Despite the central heating, the morning air was colder than usual against her cheeks. Typically, this meant the weather outside was downright chilly, but that didn’t change the way she felt.

  Something wasn’t right.

  It had nothing to do with the temperature in the house. This was more of a presence, but the specificity if it eluded her. What had changed? What made everything look the same, but feel so horribly wrong, unclean? It feels icky like something bad has painted everything I feel with a nasty slim, in my mind, on my heart, within my hands, even my house. Why had the world altered? What had happened to make it so different? It had only been a matter of hours? What could do this?

  With one hand, she rubbed the last of the sleep from her eyes, scooting, standing erect upon the carpeted floor of her bedroom. She glanced around. Her toes gripped into the plush weave beneath her feet. Everything looked the same. Mikalah sleeping, as usual, on the bed opposite hers, still separated by identical nightstands - one hers, the other her sister’s. Each of them held a matching lamp and digital clock. When she turned toward the foot of their beds, there stood their desks with their laptops perched upon each, one Dell Red and the other Dell Blue (Mikalah had always loved the color blue). It was just as they’d left them the night before.

  When she gazed beyond the desks, she saw their wall-to-wall closet covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Though the mirrors were covered with about a hundred stickers, pictures and cool drawing the girls had collected over the years. The bottom five feet of their reflective surfaces were blocked by the things they’d taped, pinned, or pasted. It was impossible to see one’s appearance below that height.

  No, her room was the same, but something else wasn’t.

  She walked to her bedroom door. She opened it as quietly as possible, not wanting to wake her parents should they still be asleep at this hour. This was very likely, since her mother usually “closed” on Fridays. It was her custom to sleep in. Her father usually woke up at the last minute to take Anthony to school, which wasn’t on the daily schedule for at least another hour and a half.

  Since their room was just down the hall, to her right, she decided she would be as quiet as her little feet would take her. She went left. She walked to the end of the hall, passing, at the same time, the front entrance of the house and the living room. They’d been on either side of her when she tip-toed past.

  She stepped into the kitchen beyond, making her way to the great window, which looked out from the far end of the breakfast nook at the front of the house. She stood there for a moment listening, but heard no more than the play of the morning birds beyond the walls of her domicile. She climbed onto the long, semi-circular bench, circumnavigating the table in a horseshoe-like fashion. She knee-walked to its’ far end and looked out at their front yard and the street beyond. She nestled behind the thin kitchen curtains to get a better view. Her face came within inches of the icy pane of glass, gazing over the small, green lawn and rose bushes.

  Although, she’d looked out this very window, in this very manner, more times than she could count, she couldn’t shake the feeling something wasn’t as it should be. An unseen weight, she couldn’t describe or measure, but felt. It seemed to be pulling at her from the shoulders, dragging her down, making her stomach curl in disgust, while, at the same time, she couldn’t explain how or why she felt it to begin with.

  This was her special spot. This was her place of solace when she needed it, her place to go and think. Her place to center herself, gather her strength. Yet, this morning, it was providing just the opposite. More than ever, she was puzzled, uncertain, as a wave of nervousness spread throughout her small, slender frame.

  On her knees, she looked out the huge window. She sat back upon her heels, trying to comprehend what was happening to her.

  She was beginning to realize this was a vain attempt, the “wrongness” was too alien, too unnatural. She’d never left anything like it in the past. It was baffling.

  As much as she tried, she couldn’t entirely recall what she’d been dreaming before she awoke. She’d been somewhere cold, somewhere far away. Beyond that, nothing more came to mind. She stared ahead at the red, pink, and white rose bushes, surrounding the perimeter of their family home, trying to find answers that kept slipping away.

  The only thing she did know, peering about her front yard, was they were in store for another cold day. Though the sky above was strikingly blue and clear, in her bones, she knew the sun wouldn’t warm her today. The chill over the city would fester and prevail. The past few days had been the coldest she’d ever experienced Los Angeles.

  Her hands came to rest upon the pane of glass before. One to either side of her face, her breath fogged up the window, because she was so close. Absently, with her finger, she wrote a stylistic “E” through the condensation left in the wake of her breathing. A letter she’d always inscribed there, in that exact location, on the window, when the weight of the world was just a bit too much for her. It always seemed to realign her thoughts, give them a degree
of order.

  Though now, this newfound, unsettling, feeling wouldn’t stop bubbling up from within. She could feel its’ inky clutch about her heart, making her wilt before its’ intensity. It came from somewhere deep and could override all of her emotions in seconds.

  Almost as if… she realized it then. She could finally begin to understand it. In its most basic, simplest form, she knew. She felt her heart sink to the very pit of her gut. It was a terrible dread, descending upon her – fast, all-enveloping, total.

  She could do no else, but yell the name of the only person who had mental strength enough, who was utterly calm when the rest of them were melting into chaos. And why wouldn’t he? He needed to be, for her, because, he possessed the most perfect arms to shield her from danger. From the bottom recesses of her throat, she screamed, “Daaaaaaddddyyyy!”

  The details of this fright hit her full force. She could no longer form coherent words.

  Still, she screamed for her father.

  For a second time on that young day, her family awoke to wails of terror. For a second time, there was the pounding of feet and the slamming of doors as the family rushed to protect one of their own. As they came, wallowing, by then, in desolation so deep, Elena hardly recognized them. She no longer had the words to express what had chilled her to the bone.

  Her father hauled her from the breakfast nook and into his arms. This time, things were different. This time, things weren’t made right by his huge embrace and the warmth of his body.

  She knew, before the week was out, her parents and her entire - wonderfully huge - extended family would be dead. There was nothing, irrefutably, she could do about it.

  With her parents soothing her, holding her, telling her all would be well, it was be a long time before the girl regained the will to stop weeping in complete despair.

  She was lost… for a time… in the vastness of pure panic.

  He was coming…

  …To kill them all.

  ~~~~~~~~<<<<<<{ ☼ }>>>>>>~~~~~~~~

  ~ 10 ~

  Questions

  Friday, November 19th, 8:45am…

  Raymond Herrera placed his car keys in the small basket on the kitchen counter. He and his wife used it to store the entire collection of keys for their home. Since they had the annoying habit of misplacing those important items, they’d decided long ago, a designated place to store them might eventually break that practice. If not, then at least it would keep them from running around the house at the last minute, cursing, while they frantically searched.

  He waved absently toward his wife, Myelly, giving her a silent greeting.

  She nodded back at him, talking into the phone. She pantomimed someone shoveling food into their mouth - her soundless way of asking if Raymond was hungry.

  He shook his head in the negative, smiling at the crazy things his wife sometimes did to communicate with him. He walked over to the coffee maker and poured himself his first and only cup of java for the day. Funny thing, he thought, as he went through the motions of adding sugar and stirring his hot beverage. He seemed to be the only one who understood each and every one her unorthodox methods of articulating her messages. Others would often stare back at her in utter confusion, with an ever-familiar half-smile, deer-in-the-headlights look frozen in place upon their faces. Raymond chuckled to himself at the thought, adding another teaspoon of sugar to the drink before him. He walked over to the freezer to fetch the one ice cube he’d place in the mug to ensure he wouldn’t burn his tongue from the heat of the coffee, which he absolutely hated.

  Across the island in the middle of the kitchen, Myelly said a terse goodbye and hung up the phone a little harder than normal.

  “What’s going on?” asked Raymond, eyebrows raised, taking a tentative first sip of his morning comfort.

  “Ah, it’s just work again,” she began, running her hands through her auburn hair, picking up her coffee mug, transferring it from the island countertop to the microwave. She promptly hit the “reheat” button. “These new owners at work are completely unrealistic when it comes to the special events we’re supposed to be holding once a month.”

  Raymond grunted for her to continue, sipping his coffee for a second time.

  “Because we’re slow right now, they moved up the date of The Event to tomorrow, which was hard and stressful to begin with. I had to schedule another person, last minute, to make sure we placed a phone call to each and every of our one thousand top customers, notifying them of the change. We absolutely had to or else no one would’ve showed to the event.

  “Then, just right now, they sent a ridiculous e-mail stating they were changing their minds - again! Apparently, too many of us managers were complaining there was insufficient time to prepare for the event properly, which is true. And on and on, you get the picture, right?” She nodded at him. He nodded back. “SO, the geniuses at home office have now rescheduled the event for a second time.” A twisted sneer ravaged her typically pretty face. “They idiots changed the event back to the original date! Uuurrgh! So now, I have to call somebody else in today to re-make all of the already remade phone calls, so our customers will come on the correct date, AGAIN!” She threw up her hands in disgust.

  “Good God, what a pain in the ass,” said Raymond in support of his wife, taking a larger sip of his Joe. To himself, he thanked god he didn’t have to deal with the sort of corporate bullshit she did on a daily basis. The fact he had to deal with all the bullshit he made on his own was more than enough for him. Thank you very much! Being a full-time writer and a stay-at-home Dad had its perks.

  “And you know our customers are going to get it all confused. Add the fact they have money and are used to having everyone cater to them, they’ll bitch and complain, and I’ll never hear the end of it!” The microwave “dinged!” She turned to retrieve her coffee. “Talk about screwing up my day, dammit.”

  This was more than the usual level of anger he typically witnessed when his wife had an issue with work. Deflection time! “Yeah, especially with us getting so little sleep last night,” added Raymond, thankful for his coffee as well. He’d nearly cracked his head open with the monstrous yawns he was stifling on the way to Anthony’s school earlier.

  The comment seemed to take Myelly’s mind off the things she couldn’t control. Her attention shifted back to her family. Raymond watched as she took a deep, cleansing breath. She gripped her coffee mug with both hands as if to warm them. It was still, after all, cold in the house, even with the sun completely over the horizon. Raymond made a mental note to turn up the thermostat once he and Myelly finished talking.

  “I know, what was going on last night, anyway? I cannot remember the last time Anthony had a nightmare like that. I think, he was six or seven, wasn’t he?”

  Raymond shook his head “no”, his thoughts mirroring hers; he honestly couldn’t remember Anthony crying out at night. He had to have been a toddler or maybe even an infant. On occasion, Anthony would walk in his sleep, moreso when he was a young child than he had in his teen years. It was incessantly true; he talked in his sleep all the time. Any little creak or bump in the night could draw a confused, often hilarious, string of words from him. Nevertheless, not once, had a nightmare caused him to scream out in terror. That sort of thing just never happened with him. It must’ve been an intense dream. Aside from his hilarious sleep-talking, he was actually quite silent once his head hit the pillow. He moved infrequently. He didn’t have to get up during the night to go to the bathroom. He never even asked for a drink of water. Simply, he slept like a rock.

  “Yeah, I think you’re right. It has been a long time,” Raymond replied, as he walked around the island and up to his wife, giving her a one handed, half-hug. He extended his coffee away from himself just in case he spilled it. Its’ hot liquid wouldn’t splash on either of them. No sense in getting burned for nothing.

  Myelly responded with a fiercer hug, breathing deeply as she put her head on his slightly turned chest. “You always know whe
n I need a hug the most,” she mumbled into his pectoral muscles as he stroked her hair.

  “That’s my job, honey, to know when you need a hug. That’s how I score the most points,” joked Raymond. It was a line he said to her all the time.

  Still, she giggled and then gave him another quick squeeze just before she broke contact. “How was Elena? Had she put herself back together? I mean, will she be functional at school today?”

  Raymond put down his mug and crossed his arms at this chest, leaning back onto the island for support. “I’m not sure really, but she wouldn’t take the bait to stay at home either. You know how much she loves school.” His brow furled as he continued. “It just broke my heart to see her cry like that.” He shook his head. He was having a rough time putting his mind around the way she had looked earlier that morning. “It was just so despondent and forlorn. The way she cried in my arms like...like, I don’t know, like something horrible had happened. It was like she’d been mourning, down to her very soul.”

  “Wow, when you put in like that, it makes me almost want to cry.” Myelly’s voice warbled as she spoke.

  Her husband reached out and placed his hand upon her shoulder, the moment he heard her voice crack.

  “It was very unnerving to tell you the truth,” he muttered as his wife came into his embrace one more time. “It was strange, you know, looking into her beautiful, little eyes earlier and seeing something I had never hoped to see in her eyes,” at his chest Myelly seemed to stiffen, as if to brace herself against something she didn’t want to hear, but had to. “It was fear, Myelly, pure, unadulterated fear.”