Escaping was a lot easier in the movies than it was in real life. Still, the alternative, turning herself in and going back to wherever she’d come from, was as good as death to her. That truck had to be going somewhere important; she decided to keep hidden but follow the road.
Several hours later, when the sunrise told her that she was heading west, she was itchy and aching and even more hungry, but at least the storm had not hit and the clouds seemed to be breaking up a bit.
At the next exit there was a military checkpoint. Several trucks were backed up as soldiers examined cargoes, bills of lading, and the truckers’ passes and orders before allowing them to proceed. They were not looking for anyone on foot out here, though, and she avoided them easily.
A bit later in the morning she came upon a small pool, panicking some deer who’d stopped for their early morning drink. In the surface of the pool she could see herself for the first time.
The water could be used to wash off some still painful cuts and to get rid of some of the dirt and grime. It made her feel better, but the gown was only a collection of rags held by tenuous threads into a semblance of a garment now, and stained with oil and grease. Her hair had been cut in a boyish style and to within three centimeters in length. Even slightly blurred and distorted by her vision and the pool, she thought her face looked more like a young man’s in his mid-twenties than a woman in her early forties. It looked like a different person entirely. The rest of her body, however, betrayed her sex if not her age. She was in very good condition and had a nice shape which the remains of the gown did nothing to hide.
She drank some needed water and headed back into the woods toward the road. After a minute or two she hit a huge patch of moss and lichens growing out from and connecting several fairly large trees. The result formed a mat which felt soft and nice, and she was terribly tired. She stretched out on it to rest for a few minutes, and was soon fast asleep.
She awoke when the sun was across the sky. She felt rested and refreshed, although her back ached from the uneven natural bed. The disembodied and uncoordinated feelings remained, but could be controlled. A result of the sleep, though, had been, in twisting and tossing, the end of the bindings of the gown.
She considered what to do now. Oddly, being alone and naked in the wilderness had an oddly sexual feeling. This feeling of arousal disturbed her, but she couldn’t fight it.
Still, naked she was even more restricted, and she turned finally to the remains of the gown. It was a long one, of course, which had caused some of the problems, but there was a fair amount of whole cloth left. Carefully experimenting, trying it several ways, tearing a bit here and there, she managed to make a makeshift wraparound that covered her from bust to a little below the thighs. Binding it together was a pain. She finally managed, by a combination of biting and tearing, to make a couple of small holes and use the remnants of the gown’s straps as a sort of tie, done in front so there would be little chance of slippage without her knowing it.
She was so proud of her fast-thinking handiwork that it was all the more frustrating when she couldn’t seem to tie bows in the straps. She finally managed to make knots, knots that might have to be broken to be untied, but it made an unholy mess and drew the thing tightly where tied. They were like a little child’s attempts at knots, she thought angrily, but after a lot of false tries they seemed to hold and that would be enough for now.
Near dusk she reached some vineyards. The country was picture-postcard style, with rows upon rows of grape vines stretching out in all directions. They were sour and probably not yet ripe, yet she ate them and ate them, spitting out seeds with abandon. They filled a need, and if they made her sick later, well, so what?
She crossed the vineyards by the light of a three-quarters moon, disturbing a couple of dogs that stayed mercifully distant, and skirting around the large farm area that was obviously the headquarters for the vineyards. She still couldn’t read the logo on the sign, but it was obvious that this was part of a major winery operation.
Wine country, she thought. The soldiers at the road check had been in familiar uniforms, so she was sure she was still in the United States. If that were so, where would major vineyards be? Northern California or New York State, most likely, she decided. The land didn’t look like the Napa Valley, and the trees looked more northern than anything else.
Upstate New York, then, she decided. It made her feel better. New York State—she tried to think. Wasn’t the wine country somewhere in the northwest part? That would make the road the New York Throughway, which went to the Great Lakes, to Buffalo, Niagara Falls—and Canada.
Canada.
And she was heading west!
But how far, she wondered. Hundreds of kilometers, or was it over the next hill?
No matter. For the first time she dared to hope.
The next hill didn’t reveal Buffalo, but it did reveal a small town nestled in a pretty valley with a small river flowing almost through it. In the moon-light it looked almost storybook in quality, a fairy tale village of a couple of thousand homes. A number of older houses on a series of very large lots were off on a small road by themselves. She was attracted to them by the long clotheslines they all had in their backyards. She hoped that at least one of them would do washing today, and that, somehow, she could sneak down and steal something, even if a sheet and clothespins, to replace her disintegrating makeshift garment.
She picked a spot and settled down to wait. It didn’t matter how long, she thought wearily. The grapes had soured her stomach but stayed down; she could always sneak back for more. She would wait until the opportunity presented itself for her to get clear with what she needed.
Down at the far end of the road, where it met the main road from the town to the freeway, she spied a phone booth. She chuckled to herself. With a quarter she could call for help.
Or could she? she suddenly thought. Who would she get? While she waited for them to find someone she could trust, the inevitable security patrol tap would pick her out, and it would be back to the hospital and the drugs again. The operator could be called without money, of course, but it would bring the local cops and the same result.
No, she decided. She was on her own and she would remain so as long as possible. If she were going to place any calls, they would be from Canada or not at all.
For a while she dozed, awakened once when a curious dog came by. The small black and white mutt proved friendly, however, and didn’t betray her. She petted him. He licked her face, and, after a while, lost interest and wandered off.
Nobody did their washing the next day, but the house at the end of the row of a dozen or so caught her interest just the same. She watched through the day and saw a young woman leave the house and walk down the hill to a lot where there were a number of school busses parked. The woman got in one, started it up, and rolled off; soon the others were started by men and women walking from different parts of town.
She watched the house for some time. There was no sign of life there, although other houses along the row had people going to and fro, being picked up in clearly marked company cars and minibusses, and from a few there were the sounds of radio and TV and stereos.
But not the house on the end. The woman was gone about two hours, then came back and parked the bus out front of the house, next to a very dusty little foreign car.
The little black-and-white dog was doing what dogs have done for an eternity in her backyard, and the woman spotted the mutt as she drove up. She jumped out and ran back, yelling at the dog to get out of there. The dog got, but it was too late; he’d already left a messy souvenir.