She tried to think, to remember where she was and how she’d gotten here, wherever it was. Memories were misty, fragmented, disjointed, but she had a sense of identity, she knew who she was. She remembered, as if through the wrong end of a spyglass, walking out into the lobby of NDCC, being approached by the security men, going into an office—and that was that. Nothing more until now. How long ago? Days? Weeks? Worse?
Almost as disturbing was the quality of the memories; nothing would go together right, get connected. There were odd scenes, strange places and faces, and she couldn’t connect names or situations to any of them. It was a disembodied collection; she seemed to remember those things as if she’d been a third-party observer there, and her mind sometimes pictured her own image in a place or conversation fragment as if she were seeing through someone else’s eyes.
She moved her arm out a little and touched something soft and large. It startled her, and she almost screamed, but managed to get hold of herself. Steeling herself in the darkness, she reached back out again, felt it, then grabbed it and picked it up. It was a real job picking it up, although it was neither heavy nor bulky. Her hand and arm didn’t feel right, wouldn’t quite do what she wanted and willed them to do.
At first the shape of the thing puzzled her. There was no light to see by although the perception of a slight glow coming through slats somewhere assured her she was not blind. Finally she felt the sewn mouth, the button nose and two plastic eyes.
A teddy bear? she thought, totally confused.
She tried to collect her thoughts. It was easier to concentrate on one thing at a time, although matters were still cloudy, dreamlike and easily lost.
Drugs, she decided. They had drugged her with some sort of hypnotic or hallucinogen, and for quite a long while, too. This was bad; some such drugs had lasting, even permanent side effects and aftereffects, and this scared her.
Somehow, though, she knew, she’d been drugged and locked away and had still managed to escape. That was the only explanation for her being here. But if she had escaped, then they were looking for her, and could find her at any moment.
She felt around the shed, finding the two half-broken boards that had been her entryway. Slowly, carefully, she edged over to the opening, and carefully dangled her legs down.
Her feet touched water. It was odd; that tingling numbness was still there, and contact with the water produced a sensation more like wading in gelatin, but the message of water came through.
She hesitated for a moment, first to listen for any sounds—there were none she could hear except insects and the lapping of the water—and then because she had no idea how deep the water would be. Finally she decided to chance it; it couldn’t be very deep or she’d never have gotten inside in a drugged condition. Cautiously she lowered herself down. It was little more than knee-high, which was a relief.
She bent low and emerged from under the boathouse, looking around. It was still dark, but her eyes, accustomed to it from the moment of awakening, saw fairly well the lake and the looming shadows of boats, lights, and equipment. Only one small light was on now, far over to the other side. There seemed to be some movement there, a guard perhaps, but whoever it was had to be pretty far off. The sky was overcast, and the humid air had the feel of thunderstorm about it.
She moved away from the light, back to the shore behind the boathouse, and looked around. Trees all over, it looked like from the darkness and the sounds. She knew she had to get moving fast or else they would catch her, even though she didn’t know who “they” were. Then she heard the sound of a distant truck just off to her left. A road! she thought excitedly. Not too far, either. She decided to head for it, despite the risk of exposure there. Roads went somewhere, and somewhere was where she needed to go.
She was still uncoordinated; it took a little time for her to get things moving in a semblance of normality, but she made the trees and bushes nearest the direction her ears assured her the road was.
Once concealed in the foliage, she paused, feeling momentarily safe and hidden, and took stock of herself. It was dark and she was farsighted without her glasses, so visual checks were blurry and tenuous. Still, she found that she was dressed in tattered shreds of what must have been a hospital gown, and nothing else. She was dirty and covered with grease and grime, but, mercifully, someone had cut her hair extremely short, so it was the least of her problems.
She was a little chilly, but it was the result of the high humidity and approaching storm—and yet the overall warmth and humidity cheered her in that they said that it was still summer, and perhaps not a whole lot of time had passed. The thought that she might be in Florida or some other warm climate area crept slightly up to her thoughts, but was pushed back as unacceptable.
The sound of another truck came, somewhere ahead of her, and she started for it. Stumbling, still dizzy and feeling somewhat disembodied, she made the road in about half an hour.
It was a pretty fancy freeway: four lanes in each direction cutting a swath through the wilderness. It would take a lot of traffic to justify a road like this; in normal times it would be crowded day and night. It was empty now.
There was a green exit sign off to her right, and she headed for it, hoping that it would tell her where she was. Keeping close to the bushes and trees in case another truck should come out of the darkness, she came close to the big sign in a few minutes.
And, suddenly, she felt real panic, and started to tremble and feel sick. Despite her farsightedness, she was in good position to read the huge white-on-green letters and they stood out reasonably well in the lightning flashes.
They just didn’t make any sense. Her mind simply refused to put the symbols together into words she could recognize, no sounds or images forming as she stared at them.
She spent a few minutes getting hold of herself, telling herself it was another byproduct of the drug that would wear off in time, but that thought only helped a little.
There was a rumbling sound off in the distance, and before she could move a large tractor-trailer truck came over the hill and rumbled toward her, its bright lights cutting like knives through the darkness. She flattened against the ground, and it came toward her as she held her breath. Finally it passed, fairly close to her, its lights briefly illuminating her but obviously not enough to give the driver a clear look at her. It went past without slowing down, a big rig with a tandem trailer, and passed out of sight.
She turned slowly and looked at the sign again. It still made no sense to her, but now she noticed the little blue signs underneath. These were symbols telling what could be found at the exit. The little white words underneath were so many random squiggles, but there was the tent sign that meant camping—the lake, of course—and an additional white cross that meant hospital.
Hospital, she thought. Of course.
She looked at the squiggles underneath, knowing what they must say, but they just wouldn’t say the words to her.
She’d heard of the effect, but its happening to her was terrifying.
Still, there was nothing that could be done about it. It was probably something that would pass, she had to believe that, and clung to it. For now, she had to get moving, and that meant away from that hospital, away from this exit sign.
She was starting to feel hungry, with a particular craving for something sweet, but she knew that meals might be few and far between in the near future.
Now what, though? she mused, a dark feeling of hopelessness coming on. She was as good as naked, hungry, in a wilderness the whereabouts of which she didn’t know, and with, undoubtedly, a search on for her.