Winter's Fury - Volume Two of The Saga of the Twelves (77 page)

Why? Why? Why?

So many questions without
answers, Lynn had been crying through Vanessa’s cell.

The buxom teen felt bad
for her friend. She knew the girl had mooned over Andrew for quite
some time, unable to determine if she liked him or not. It was not
until he had been snatched from her life that she had come to
realize all along her feelings were true ones.

It frustrated Lynn to no
avail that she could do nothing about them. She could not tell him.
She could not know if he felt the same. And, if he did, she could
not hold him in her arms and let her heart burst in her
chest.

Vanessa felt bad. She
flopped back down upon her pillow, her misbehaving mane like that
of a male lion, her broad face and hazel eyes pointed at the
ceiling. None of this shit made any sense to her. It was
confounding beyond belief. It was a wicked twist of evil tidings
none of them could escape.
Wouldn’t it be
so much easier to just go back in time, to that last week of
school? Everything was normal then. Everyone was happy… or as happy
as they’d let themselves be.

She ran a hand across her
forehead, her unease forgotten, worry of a different stroke
plaguing her thoughts. She let her mind continue through their
talk, like she was reading a script, only in her head.

Lynn had finally calmed
down after many minutes of Vanessa’s soothing. Through a stuffy
nose, Lynn had asked something that had stopped Vanessa cold. It
was a simple question, devoid of complication.

“
Have you seen
J.J.?”

Vanessa was thunderstruck.
She had not heard anything from her friend since Friday night. They
had talked on the phone, trying to decide whether to go to a party
or to Lynn’s. J.J., being the consummate club-slave, had opted for
the shindig.

Vanessa had gone to their
friend’s house.

But, the Filipino teen had
promised to visit them the following day. She had not. She had not
called or texted or direct messaged them through Facebook or
Twitter. It was like…

“
You
don’t think?!?”
Lynn had asked,
horrified.

For a moment, Vanessa had
not known what to do or say. She had swallowed her voice, her
throat constricting with dread.

“
Ness,
you don’t think
they
got her, do you?”

“
I
do-do-don’t k-know…”
Her speech had
dwindled like someone turning down music with a
dial.

“
Oh my god, no! I’m going
to call her right now.”

Vanessa remained silent,
only able to listen.

“
How could we have been so
stupid not to think about her?”

Vanessa remembered shaking
her head back and forth at a loss. With so much going on, so much
worry over Andrew, she had completely forgotten about their other
friend.

“
I’m going to three-way
her in, ok?”

Vanesa had nodded before
she realized the other teen had no way of seeing her affirmation.
She began to speak, but by then Lynn was already dialing, her ear
away from the microphone end of her cell.

They were the longest
seven rings of Vanessa’s life.

And then,
nothing.

The cell went to
voicemail.

Lynn had left a urgent
message, pleading for J.J. to call them back and then terminated
the call.

“
Try
again,”
Vanessa had
mumbled.

“
What?”

“
Try again,
please.”

“
Sure.”

The result had been the
same as the first. Only when Lynn tried to leave a second message,
a monotone, female voice clinically informed them that J.J.’s
voicemail box was full. The line severed before either of them
could breathe.

“
Something’s wrong,”
Lynn had
said.

“
J.J.
would never let her voicemail fill up. She’s too anal about her
phone,”
Vanessa had flubbed. She felt
punched in the stomach, unable to catch her breath, her insides
cramping.

“
What should we
do?”

“
Do you have her parent’s
phone number – house or cell?”

A long silence.

“
No.”

“
Me either.”

“
Maybe
they’re online,”
Lynn had suggested, her
enthusiasm abound.

“
They’re not. Remember
what J.J. had told us about her trying to get them up to speed with
the rest of us?”

“
Fuck.”

“’
Old school’ is what
she’d said.”

“
Yeah, ‘old
school’.”

Lynn had begun to whimper
anew.
“Maybe we should call the
police.”

“
That's done
already.”

“
You sure.”

“
Yeah, her family would’ve
already done that.”

“
But, still…”

Vanessa’s tone firmed, a
decision made.
“Let’s go down to the
Police Station tomorrow morning first thing and give them what we
know. You know, the last time we spoke to her, what we talked
about, stuff like that.”

“
Ok.”

“
It’s late, girl. We
should get some sleep, so we can get an early start.”

“
Ok,”
repeated Lynn, slow. Then,
faster:
“Maybe she got drunk and crashed
out at someone’s house.”

“
Maybe,”
was all Vanessa ventured.
Even if their friend had partied a little too hard, they would have
heard from her by now. The entire weekend had
passed.

“
Hey,
that could be the answer.”
Lynn sounded
like she was on the verge of breaking, as frail as scorched
glass.

They had made a promise to
get up early and go down to the police station in person and give
their respective statements. They then had said their
good-byes.

Vanessa peeked over at the
clock.
4:15am
shown unblinking back at her – an angry, demon-red glare. She
smacked her lips, thirsty of a sudden and reached for the water
bottle she customarily kept on the nightstand next to her clock.
She clicked her tongue, derisive, when she found it empty.
Dammit! Now, I’m gonna have to go all the way to
the kitchen to get another one. Frick!

She threw her bedcovers
from her and made for the door, her nightgown fluttering in her
wake.

I’m going to start
bringing two from now -.

That was as far as she got
– to the instant the door swung open.

She had time to realize
the way was still obstructed, blocked by something huge, and it was
not the door. She heard a strange hissing. A terrible smell
engulfed her. She felt her knees buckle the moment fire erupted in
her lungs.

Abyss followed.

~~~~~~~<<<
ᴥ
>>>~~~~~~~

~ 45 ~

Boiling Point

Monday, November
29
^th
,
4:59 am…

Despite his sizable bulk
when Miles Novello wanted to move with a purpose, he could. They
had all been asleep with the lantern turned down to its’ lowest
level, he was awake in a flash, springing forth. Something directed
him without conscious thought.

With the agility of an
alley-cat, he leapt to his feet from the blankets he had been
sleeping upon (After eight “deliveries” they accumulated enough to
make a decent cushion with them). He was stalking toward the large,
iron-bound door the moment he heard the chains rattle and the lock
disengage.

He knew he should be
frightened. God knew those terrible things with their ever-changing
faces and bodies were fearsome beyond belief. They were so alien.
They made his skin crawl, irritated the nape of his neck with an
uncontrollable itch . He should be cowering like the rest of them
held prisoner in what Christina had everyone saying was a
bomb-shelter. He was not. He was a Grand Canyon’s worth of emotion
away from anything that did not resemble pure wrath.

Shoulders hunched, fists
balled, knees near-stiff, he was standing before the door when one
of the creatures pushed it open.

It had another
blanket-wrapped bundle upon one of its’ massive
shoulders.

“
You have no right to keep
us here! Let us go, now!” he shouted at the
man/woman-thing.

“
Miles, no!” came
Marissa’s tiny voice from behind.

He ignored her.

Her captivity had been the
longest of any of them, so it was no surprise to him that she was
as scared of the beasts as she was.

He was not.

“
Let. Us. Go,” he demanded
through a clenched jaw. He bit off the end of each word with the
same ferocity he would use on a triple chili-cheese from
Tommy’s.

The monstrosity gazed back
at him with a baleful expression. Its’ eyes changed color and
shape. Its’ hair sucked back into its’ head as if the pores
themselves were ravenous. In the span of a few seconds, it was
bald. A few moments later, it was no longer male, but female. It
was a huge Amazonian now. There were scars crisscrossing her face
and a couple of gigantic warts, almost like keloids, disfiguring
her nose. It never stopped glaring at Miles.

“
Let us go or
-.”

“
Or what, soft human?” It
was the voice of a man emanating from the throat of a woman. It was
confusing. “You think to fight me?”

Miles stiffened, though
the thought of tangling with the creature was alarming. He could
tell by the way they walked, by the sway of their arms, by the
crooks of their elbows – they wielded thick muscles beneath the
heavy outer-garments they wore. He knew by the tread of their
steel-shod boots each of them outweighed him by at least a hundred
pounds. And he was just over two hundred.

Yet, he held his ground,
refused to look away, unwilling to blink. “I-if… If it comes to
that, I will do what I have to.”

The creature laughed,
deep, rumbling, but with a timbre that shook the boy in the middle
of his chest. It swung its’ right arm forward, dropping a large
rucksack full of what miles deemed was more food. With more of them
down here, they were constant need of nourishment. The
man/woman-things were bringing sustenance with every visit now,
even when they did not have an abductee in tow.

Miles eyes followed the
things’ arm, ready should the creature strike out at
him.

He cringed, then braced a
second later when something heavy fell into his arms. His mouth
went slack went the blanket fell away, revealing a Hispanic teen
girl. She had light-brown hair, curls abound. Her strong face was
sluggish looking. She was out cold.

The man/woman-thing’s
voice brought his head back up. “You would not last all that long
against the likes of a Loki, boy. Do well. Take care of the girl
instead. Make sure she learns the rules.”

Miles half-turned to one
side. Out of instinct, he was shielding the girl from the
creature.

It was an Amazon no more.
It was a colossal Asian with a neck so wide, it seemed not to have
one at all. It made champion Sumo wrestlers look like
children.

“
If she breaks any, I’ll
hold you responsible.” It rumbled with laughter once more. The
sound was so low, he felt it more than heard it.

He found himself shivering
before he could stop.

“
You don’t scare me,”
Miles said. It was a veiled attempt at defiance. He was disinclined
to show weakness, though he knew the creature could tear him limb
from limb. He tried just the same. He was not about to back down
now.

Besides, motivation was
driving him more than any fear felt inside. He wanted nothing more
than to see Deborah again.

The merriment stopped at
once.

“
Miles don’t be stupid!
Leave him alone,” appealed Christina. “He’ll hurt you.” Her voice
cracked. “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Miles felt his jaw
tighten.

“
It wouldn’t do any good,
my friend,” came the stilted interjection from Chum-Lee.

“
You are exceedingly
foolish, even for a human.”

Miles face
hardened.

“
Vanessa!” screeched J.J.
from behind, making a mad scramble for the girl the chubby teen
held in his arms. She reached for the girl, her almond-shaped eyes
as wide as they could go. Her hands searched over her unconscious
friend’s face as if she were no more than ash and would
disintegrate to no more than dust with a single touch.

Miles turned to face the
distraught Filipina. He heard the door closing, but did not bother
to look at the Loki as it shut them within the bomb shelter once
again.