Be in the Real (19 page)

“You’re almost there,” Derrick said, sensing Kaila’s hesitation.
 

She gazed at him, waiting for the alarm to ring, to be discovered by the Wildwind staff. The only sounds she heard were the crickets chirping in the tall grass just beyond the fence.

“This is real,” she whispered more to herself than to Derrick.
 

He flicked on a tiny penlight then glanced at her. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he did Kaila fitted the toe of her runner into the space between the links. She gripped the fence with her clawed fingers, searching for purchase. Then she was pulling herself up, link-by-link, hand-by-hand, foot-by-foot until, puffing and out of breath, she reached the top. Kaila threw one leg over the edge of the fence. Perched there, she took a final glance back at the place that had been her home for as long as she could remember.

She predicted that she would eventually come back to Wildwind, but right then she had no idea when, only that it would probably happen. One detail she was sure of however was that when she did come back she wouldn’t be the same anymore. She was about to enter the real world, see the things that she had only dreamed of. It would change everything.
 

Kaila longed to see Pauline again, save her, but more than that Kaila wanted to live something new, something away from the confines of Wildwind. Gazing up at the moon, a glowing stone of white, she knew exactly why she was there and also the reason that she had so quickly accepted Derrick’s offer. She had dreamed this reality, more than anything in her life she had wanted to be free, for a little while at least. Her desire to experience everything that she couldn’t while locked away, had been burning so deeply inside her that she hadn’t even known it had existed. Like a pilot light that had always been lit, waiting to burn bright, Kaila had secretly wished for this.

Derrick had provided the opportunity, now all she could do was go where he led her. The fear that had made her head hurt, her heart race and her muscles feel edgy, had dissipated. In its wake came an intense calm. A rush of euphoria spread through her, from the top of her head to her toes because she was free, really free. For the first time ever there would be no pills to swallow, no doctors to pry into her mind and especially no fences to keep her away from the world. She was free, absolutely and utterly free, and with that thought in mind she climbed down the fence to the other side until she was standing next to Derrick. Then they were running. Soon Wildwind was only a dim light in the distance.

CHAPTER 24

For most of the night Kaila and Derrick walked through fields of grass that reached well above their hips.

Kaila hadn’t known where Derrick had found the penlight that he had used before, but the other flashlight that they had used to traverse the night was familiar enough. Derrick had stolen the emergency flashlight that had been strapped to the wall next to the fire extinguisher on the second floor of Wildwind. The light proved invaluable to their excursion. Though the moon was luminescent enough for the most part, there were spaces, mostly where copses of trees blotted out the light, that were exceedingly darker than others.
 

Kaila wasn’t sure how long they had been walking only that her legs ached from overuse. Walking through endless fields wasn’t a habit of hers and her thighs and calves were balking from the abuse. Her newfound freedom had pumped sufficient adrenalin through her veins at the offset, but miles later it had been completely depleted. Blisters formed on the underside of her soles. At that moment she wanted to stop and rest, have a cool drink of water. It was then that she realized that she had failed to pack food and water. Having all her needs met in absolute regularity left her unprepared, and now quite thirsty.

“You have to keep up Kaila. We need to be as far away from Wildwind as possible when the sun comes up and they figure out that we’re gone.”

“I need water,” Kaila said through parched lips.
 

The night was considerably cooler from the sultry days, but was still warm enough that the armpits of her tee were drenched. A perpetual flow of sweat trickled from her hairline, down her temples and her spine, making her shirt stick to her.
 

Derrick paused, digging through his bag. He tugged out a plastic disposable water bottle and shoved it at her.

“Go easy on it, it’s all I have until we get out of this fucking wilderness,” he said.
 

Kaila snatched the bottle from him, she removed the cap and gulped half of the contents in seconds. She wanted more, but decided to heed Derrick’s words since he was the expert in this great escape and would surely know more than she did. She tried to hand the bottle back to him. He shook his head.

“Keep it.”

Kaila tucked the bottle into her bag, careful to maintain the order of her packing. Before she had zipped the bag closed, Derrick had resumed walking.

“I just have to get to a payphone…then I can call someone to pick us up…”

“Someone?”
 

Kaila’s body hummed with apprehension. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be with people she didn’t know.
 

“A friend, you don’t have to worry. They want to help us get to Pauline.”
 

Kaila relaxed slightly at the mention of Pauline. She still wasn’t sure how long it would be before they met Pauline; only that time was ticking away continuously.

They continued making headway, stopping intermittently when Kaila needed to catch her breath. She was surprised that Derrick, the man-boy, didn’t seem to need any sort of pause in their journey at all. She wondered if people from the outside world were in better condition than those in Wildwind.

Some time later the sun began to rise, streamers of light and color raced across the sky, as if the heavens had thrown a bucket of varying shades of peach and pink paints across the universe. Kaila paused, watching in awe as the hues spread and unfurled and became the morning. She had watched both sunrises and sunsets on her computer, but had never seen one in the real world in such an open space.
 

The longer she and Derrick walked, the more distance they placed between them and Wildwind. Though excitement lingered, it was tainted by utter fatigue. She had a near palpable desire to rest, lie down in the field and sleep until the weariness left her bones, and she felt alive again. Derrick most definitely didn’t share the sentiment and trudged along as though he had just begun the journey. In the daylight, Kaila noticed that he was walking with a limp even though his cast was no longer on his foot. Now he wore a shoe instead of a cast. Kaila hadn’t known when the cast had been removed, only that it had.
 

The longer that they walked the more the idea that they had truly broken free settled in. The reality of their position had the unpleasant side-effect of making Kaila increasingly aware of how little she actually knew about the outside world. That she had failed to plan for her most basic human needs by forgetting to pack food and water had Kaila realizing how much she had been depending on Derrick to lead her. Having people manage her needs wasn’t a novel experience, but having Derrick, who she wasn’t even sure if she trusted, arrange her world seemed foolhardy. Since she knew that she had little choice in the matter, Kaila pushed her doubts to the recesses of her mind. She allowed Trillian to shoulder the worry.
 

The morning light accentuated Derrick’s form. What had been merely his silhouette for most of the night, now became the man-boy. She rapidly understood that her previous assumptions that he wasn’t as bothered by the long walk as she was, were untrue. Judging by the way his navy t-shirt was plastered to his back with perspiration, how his hair was damp like an old mop, and the back of his exposed neck glimmered with sweat running in rivulets down his skin, his struggle was as great as hers. It heartened Kaila to see that Derrick wasn’t as tough as she had originally gauged. He was a human too, one who tired, sweat and got blisters on chaffed flesh.

As the sun rose higher in the sky, the temperature soared. The suns rays sizzled across Kaila’s freckled skin, leaving a prickly sensation on her exposed flesh. She dug into her bag for the water bottle and was disheartened to see that she had drained all but a few drops. As she swallowed the last of her water she chastised herself once again for her stupidity and lack of planning. She appreciated Derrick’s forethought more than she could express.

Now that she had the luxury of seeing where they were, Kaila paused for a few moments. She turned to face the path that they had followed to this point. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but the vast fields of empty land, devoid of anything but evergreen and deciduous trees, wasn’t it. Although she knew that it was absurd, she had somehow expected to see Wildwind in the offing, sitting there as a beacon, its presence saying that she could return at anytime if the notion hit her.
 

“Come on,” Derrick said, pulling her out of her thoughts. “We have to keep going, it’s already five-thirty.”

Not for the first time since they had made their escape, Kaila had gone back in time and had questioned what she was doing. Her state of exhaustion made her forget the excitement of being outside the confines of Wildwind. Now she pondered a question that had figured prominently but she had mostly brushed aside. Why couldn’t Derrick have relayed his premonition to the staff and allowed
them
to remedy the situation? She had actually mentioned this option to Derrick before then, but he had been quick to shoot it down, saying that the staff would never have given his dream any credence.

 
Despite being exhausted and a little fearful, Kaila was pleased that she hadn’t allowed any doubts to cloud her mind for more than a second until right then. The questions that swam through her psyche at that moment might have been enough for her to halt her plans altogether.

“You need to pick up the pace.”
 

The urgency in Derrick’s voice was difficult to ignore. His stress made something tingle in Kaila. Trillian whispered her doubts again. But when Kaila had honed in on Trillian and her comments, she had disappeared into the back of Kaila’s mind; Trillian was hiding. This odd behavior on Trillian’s part only caused Kaila more anxiety.

Kaila pushed her body forward, willing her fatigued muscles to do their job, but her urging was no match for the increasingly sluggishness that followed her every step. The blisters on her feet had broken, and every time her runners scraped across the swollen and tender skin of her soles and the back of her heel, burning pain ensued. She wanted to ask Derrick how much longer they would have to push on, but wasn’t sure if she wanted to know, so she kept her mouth shut.

Then she saw it, and her heart leapt with anticipation. Something other than the wide expanse of fields that they had plowed through endlessly had risen on the horizon, in the form of a manmade structure. The building was ramshackle with a slanted tin roof, and was sided by greying shingles that looked as if they hadn’t seen paint in a century. A single gas pump was positioned at the front. A weather beaten sign that said Quik-mart, where the red painted letter “k” and “m” had faded years before, dangled lopsided from a single hook. As they approached the place, Kaila noticed a relatively new looking pay phone that appeared to be in working order. Without a word, Derrick quickened his pace and had reached the pay phone in seconds. By the time Kaila had caught up with him he had already fed some coins into the slot, and was talking in a hushed voice to someone on the other end.

“Is that Pauline?” Kaila asked hopefully.
 

Derrick gave an impatient shake of his head then turned his back to Kaila. He lowered his voice even more. It made it impossible for Kaila to hear what he was saying, not that she cared much since no one other than Pauline mattered. Unless of course it was Norm. She shook the thought from her mind. It had been a long while since she had put any thought into seeing Norm again. But now that she was outside of Wildwind things could be different. The possibility that she could look for Norm after they found Pauline became real. She wondered if she did find him if they might have sex after all. Kaila’s body vibrated with the remembrance of their last encounter.
 

“They’re coming for us soon, but we have to meet them further up the road, away from where people might see us. There’s supposed to be an abandoned farm about a mile up that way,” Derrick said.
 

He motioned north, at the winding dirt road that was only partially visible in the distance. Kaila was crushed to see that other than the store they were standing at, more desolation and long stretches of fallow land was all they could look forward to.

“Can we get some food and water in this store?” Kaila queried.
 

Hope bloomed at the concept of having something to wet her parched lips. She pressed her face to the greasy, dirt-smudged front window that had a crack down the center. A fluorescent light flickered inside, showing an interior that was far superior to the outside façade. Modern coolers were crammed with bottles of colorful drinks that she imagined were icy cold. Racks of potato chips and salty snacks were stuffed to capacity. Kaila’s stomach, programed by the regularity of her routines, growled at the sight of it all.

“No,” Derrick snapped. “We have to stay under the radar. This place might be a dump but I know a lot of buses go along this line. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to put two and two together, and realize that we’re escapees from the funny farm.”

“It’s not the funny farm, it’s Wildwind,” Kaila corrected.
 

She gazed longingly at the chips and drinks, ignoring Derrick’s words. Her need was too great to be concerned about what he said right then. Derrick continued speaking, but Kaila had stopped listening. Feeding her hunger and thirst took precedence over anything that Derrick had to say.
 

Kaila laid her laptop computer on the surface of a swing that was mounted to the overhang that covered the deck, running the length of the building. Her arm was cramped from carrying it so long and she was relieved to extend her fingers and straighten her elbow. With all the kinks stretched away she searched her surroundings. She spotted exactly what she needed almost immediately. Without fanfare she hurled a baseball-sized rock that she had just discovered, through the glass door at the front of the store. There was a satisfying smash of glass followed by the tinkle of the shards that fell away onto the floor below.