Where Did the Time Go? : Part XVII
Kim and Ron stood there transfixed for a moment. Kim was already in her battle-ready stance even before Ron ran out of breath from his scream. Even with his huge boost in confidence, the sight of the animated totem pole in the midst of Wannaweep was enough for him to, at least momentarily, revert to his old ways.
The thing had no mouth to speak of but it still had a voice of sorts. It sounded like an old wooden building groaning in the wind.
"SQUEEEEEEEB" it rumbled.
Kim risked a look at her boyfriend. At least his features stood out in sharp relief with her night-vision glasses set to thermal imaging.
Surprisingly, the monster using the same taunt that Gill had used had the opposite effect than the one she was expecting.
He dropped into a what vaguely resembled a martial arts stance and growled "Oh, bring it, splinters."
The monster stood there for a moment, as if it were could not quite figure what the two tiny humans intended to do. Then there was a sound like a tree trunk cracking in the wind. Two burly arms appeared at its side, as if the great bear that comprised the top half of the thing was about to sweep the two of them up in a huge, deadly hug.
"Um, Ron, that thing just smashed a bunch of great big logs, I don't think monkey kung-fu is going to do much to it."
It chose that moment to charge.
"Runaway?" He asked in a tiny voice, though he was still holding his ground.
"Oh yeah." She grabbed him by the shoulder and headed for the woods.
They could hear it crashing through the remains of Kim's cabin. Fortunately, it wasn't terribly fleet on it's short, stumpy legs, though in the dense foliage they weren't making very good time, considering the lack of light or heat to operate her glasses and the fact Ron was too busy concentrating on running to hold his light steady.
"It's still coming after us, KP!"
"I know. Ron, which way did we run?" She was desperately trying to remember the lay of the land. Both times she had been there before, she had stayed almost exclusively in the main part of the camp and for a good portion of that she'd been encased in mutagenic slime, forcing Ron to step up and become the hero she always thought he could be.
A small smile crossed her face. How cool was it to love a guy so much that she could think of the reason she felt that way when they were running for their lives.
"I…gasp…think north." There was a thud and the light suddenly disappeared. Moments later it was back up. He'd tripped on something.
She was actually shocked she hadn't planted her face in the snow herself.
The only thing that saved them was when the white covering the ground everywhere suddenly disappeared.
She grabbed Ron's jacket as he rushed by her, pulling him back from the edge of the bluff.
"Whoa! I don't think I've ever been here before." He said.
"I thought you were the one who knew the lay of the land out here." She said, leaning on her knees and gasping for breath. It took far more energy to run in the crunchy, week old snow than normal.
"I know every inch of the camp itself, but they never let us off the property." He paused, listening. Every so often they would hear a tree fall in the distance. Somewhere out there the creature was searching for them.
"Do you think it's still after us?" He wheezed.
"I hope so." She said. "Come on." She pulled him to the left, taking it a little slower so they wouldn't fall.
"You hope so? I thought we were trying to get away."
"If that thing is following us, that means everybody else can get away."
"Oooooh." He said. He panned his light around.
Kim had been in front of him just a moment before. Now his beam fell on just trees and snow.
"Roooooon!" He heard a scream from somewhere below him.
The crunching and crashing was all they could hear on the bus. The vehicle itself was pointed in the wrong direction, so even the twin beams of its headlights did nothing to illuminate whatever was going on at the cabins.
If it hadn't been for the fact every single person on the bus had heard it many times before, Ron's blood curdling scream would have sent them into a panic.
There was still a murmur of collective fear. Clear sounds of destruction followed by the scream, then more crashing in the near pitch-black was enough to frighten even a veteran like Barkin. If this had been the jungles of Jai Alai he would have actually felt somewhat comfortable. Then the enemy had been people just like him. Here he knew better.
He was actually coming to believe the place was curse, just like Stoppable kept insisting.
He panned his flashlight around, but the beam was so feeble it was almost completely ineffective. After a few moments, the bulb went from white to yellow and finally orange before it simply went out. There was no telling how long the light had been sitting nearly forgotten in that tool box and the freezing temperatures didn't help the batteries one bit.
The Pixie troop was going to have his head for venturing out so unprepared.
Bonnie sat in her seat, clutching her day-pack. Every so often her fingers would reach for the zipper tab, but each time her hand slipped back to her waist. A bit more understanding of Kim Possible crept into her mind. Kim could face this sort of thing. She found, suddenly, that she could not. Like her rival she had been glued to a tree with slime at this place and she didn't have the advantage of a Kimmunicator to learn that the creature responsible for doing that to her was incarcerated at a lab almost two hundred miles away from here. For all she knew, Gil Moss, who had become the slime monster known as Gill, was somewhere out there, still trying to seek his revenge against Ron.
Thinking of him being in trouble like that, out there facing that thing brought her hand to the zipper once again. Ron, if nothing else, was willing to be her friend. No matter how rotten she had been to him through their teens, no matter how much spite and actual hatred flowed between her and Kim, he was still willing to offer an olive branch, so willing that he never once put any kind of condition on his potential friendship.
She pulled the zipper a couple inches. Then she thought of that fish-like creature again. The last time she had seen it, it was more than twice its original size and even though she helped capture it, she had nightmares about it for a month.
No. Ron was out there with Kim. Her feelings for the head cheerleader aside, she knew what she was actually capable of. She also had a lot more respect for his abilities than she cared to admit to anyone.
Her hand fell away from her pack as tears rolled down her cheeks in the darkness, the cold liquid damning her weakness and cowardice as they fell silently on her collar.
Outside a white sedan pulled up.
"Barkin, what's going on? Why are all the lights off." Principal Director said as she shut the car off. Snyder piled out of the other side. His old car had been left at home, the convertible being utterly inappropriate for the icy mountain roads.
"Something's happened at the cabins."
She climbed onto the bus and reached past the driver, turning the interior lights on.
"Douse those lights, that thing could still be out there."
She spun on her heels, though she did shut the lights back off. "Where are Possible and Stoppable?"
"Uh, they went to go check out what was happening."
It was too dark on the bus for him to see her scowl clearly but even though he was far more than twice her size she shoved him roughly back out of the vehicle.
"Major." She growled at him so the students could not hear. "Just what do you think you are doing sending students into an unknown situation."
"Ma'am, with all due respect, I've seen some pretty freaky things at this place and those two are probably the best suited people on this planet to deal with it."
"Deal with what, Barkin? A black-out?"
"It's more than a black-out." To punctuate his words, the sound of trees snapping in two, somewhere off to the north reached them.
"What the hell was that?"
"I don't know yet."
The sound drifted out of the woods. It was louder but the couldn't tell if it were closer or just the thing that had been making the noise becoming more violent.
"Damn and hell." She said, opening the trunk of her car. She pulled out a pair of heavy black metallic flashlights and handed one to the larger man. Together they ventured into the lane between the cabins, seeing for the first time the destruction that had been wrought.
"Colonel," He said, reverting to his military training. "Make sure the rest of the kids are on that bus and get the hell out of here. Don't stop until you get back to Middleton."
"Major, are you saying we're just going to leave Kim and Ron here to deal with…whatever did this?"
"No, I'm saying you're going to get the rest of the civilians out of here…"
"…I never said I was leaving anyone behind."
Listening intently for any sign the Totem creature was getting closer, Ron carefully leaned over the gap Kim had just fallen into. The clouds were starting to clear a little, but the stars were just to dim to offer much help. He shined his light down, trying to find where her voice had come from.
"KP? Where are you?" He shouted.
The beam finally came to rest on two shining eyes. "Right here, Ronnie." She said weakly. She was at least fifty feet below him.
"How bad are you?" He asked, trying to see a way to get down to her.
"Ankle." She said, grunting slightly from the pain.
"Same one?" Kim had only recently been cleared for regular activities after she got a hairline fracture during a fight."
"Yeah. I think it's only twisted but…grrrrrrrr," She half-moaned, half growled." There's a lot of ice down here and I can't get a grip on anything.
"Kim, your grappler. It was in your pack."
"Already thought of that, Baby. It's not on me, I lost it somewhere when I fell."
He winced slightly. Kim almost never called him by pet names in a sitch. It was always plain and pure Ron. She must have been in a lot more pain than she was letting on.
Somewhere in the woods, a tree was snapped in half. It was definitely a lot closer than it had been before.
Thinking desperately, Ron slapped at his pockets (save he one where Rufus was.) He cursed softly, realizing his Kimmunicator was in his pack back on the bus.
"KP, did you grab your Kimmunicator?" the last time he had seen it, the little device was still propped on a broken log, shining light on the ruin of Kim's cabin.
"Nope, sorry Honey. Was runnin too fast to pick it up."
Gritting his teeth, Ron shined his light up and down the path Kim's body had taken when it tumbled down the face of the bluff. Finally he spotted something a slightly different shade of brown than the disturbed earth.
"I see your pack." He called down to her.
"Can you reach it?"
"No way. It's about halfway down. I'm going to try and climb."
"No, Ron." Her voice got a little more forceful. "I'm on a ledge and I can't tell how much of a drop is underneath me. I lost my glasses too."
He shined the light down on her again. She shielded her eyes at the glare, allowing him to see something he'd missed before. It wasn't a lock of her hair that glistened red across her forehead.
"SQUEEEEEEEB" drifted to them out of the woods. It was close enough he could make out the footfalls.
"Yipes." He squeaked.
Some hundred or so feet away he could see the glowing orbs of the Totem's eyes floating about fifteen feet above the ground.
Cold fear started mixing with something else.
"Ron?" Kim called from below.
"It sees me." He said, facing the thing as it slowly advanced on him.
Rufus screamed and dove deeper into his pants pocket.
When you need it most, it will be there.
He shook his head. He didn't know who had said it or why, but if he needed something, he needed it now.
The totem pole stepped into the clear.
Ron stood there straight and proud. The fear that gripped him was replaced with the knowledge that all that stood between that thing and the one person he loved most in the world was him.
He suddenly realized he could see the monster as plainly as if it were bathed in the light of a full moon that would not rise for several hours yet. He could see everything, the forest, the snow covered ground, the whole world was lit with a blue ethereal glow.
"Rufus!"
Despite his fear, the little Naked Mole Rat popped back out of his pocket sanctuary and skittered up onto Ron's shoulder.
"Climb down the bluff and see if you can get to KP's pack. I'll take care of splinter-boy here."
"Uh huh." He squeaked, hopping down and scrambling over the edge.
The totem charged, its stumpy legs carrying it faster than he would have believed possible.
Ron screamed again.
Only this time is wasn't a scream of fear. This came from somewhere else. If there had been another human being to see him at that moment, they would have witnessed his body wreathed in blue light as if he were actually on fire. His eyes glowed blue, almost turning pure white as he leaped into the air at his onrushing nemesis. A fist flashed forward as two great wooden bear arms sought to clap him between them.
There was a clap like thunder.
When he had first gone to the Yamanuchi School, Ron threw a kick at a large tree after witnessing the other students splitting logs with nothing but their hands. He struck the trunk with enough force it should have shattered all the major bones in his leg. Instead, he was utterly uninjured.
The tree did not fare so well. The trunk was completely split asunder, a fact that was lost on many as that same tree fell and demolished a thousand year old building. One student who had taken great pleasure in mocking him had even remarked the tree must be old and rotten.
He never knew that the same student was taken aside and shown that the tree had indeed been healthy and solid. Something within Ron had the power to destroy a thick, strong, healthy tree in one blow.
Whatever animated the totem pole he had no clue, but it was made of wood, just like that tree had been. What's more, it had not been carved from a great hardwood like a real Native American religious icon would have been and it had been sitting forgotten, slowly drying and rotting in the one-time abandoned camp.
When Ron hit it with the full force of his resurgent Mystical Monkey Power, it looked like the top half of the thing simply exploded as if it had taken a direct hit from a stroke of lightning.
He sailed up and past the remains as its momentum carried it forward. Flipping twice, he landed catlike in the crunchy snow.
The lower two thirds of the pole sailed over the edge, disappearing into the benighted chasm. He rushed to the edge, hoping beyond hope that it had not struck Kim and taken her with it.
As the power fled his body, he caught a glimpse of it as it smashed against a boulder far below them.
"KIM!" He shouted as everything was plunged into darkness once more. His heart plunged when he realized he had also dropped his light.
"KP! RUFUS!" He shouted over the edge when he didn't hear a response.
Then there was a loud bang and something sailed past him to the right, followed by a faint whirring sound. His attention was jerked back to the edge of the cliff when he heard a soft 'oof' right below the lip.
"KP!" His hand wrapped around her arm. She had hit the lip when the grappler pulled her upwards. He got another hand on her arm and hauled her up. A quiet chittering and squeaking announced the presence of Rufus, presumably riding on her shoulder.
"Kim, you okay?" He said, gasping as he fell down beside her on the edge of the cliff.
"Been better, Ronnie."
He sat up in the darkness. The clouds thickened again, obscuring even the faint starlight. Kim lost her night-vision glasses, his were in the same pack that held his Kimmunicator and he had no idea where to look for his fallen flashlight. Considering it was no longer lit, it had probably been damaged anyhow.
"Isn't this a fine how-do-you-do." He said, scooting a little further from the edge.
Kim gingerly checked the gash on her scalp. "We're alive, aren't we?" She said, reaching for his arm in the near pitch black.
"Yeah. I guess we're going to have to sit here until morning." He grumped slightly.
Kim felt around until she found his shoulder. Then her hand patted its way to his head, before forming a fist and lightly rapping on it. "I know there's a lot more than air under that hair, or did you leave your watch on the bus too?"
"No. It's ten forty-five. What good is that going to…"
Even though he couldn't see her face he realized she was glaring at him rather intensely.
"Oh." He said sheepishly as he pressed the hidden button on the protective ring.
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