Wild Avalon

34

I walked around the factory until I found a suitable hiding spot. A place that felt reasonably well hidden, with a good enough path for me to hear if anyone came after me. I laid out the paper on the filthy floor, reading the article about my murder spree.

J came and landed close by. Almost seeming like he too was reading the paper of my crimes. Apparently after a whirlwind breakup, trip to Newfoundland to hunt and back again to murder my ex boyfriends new girlfriend, I went home and killed my mother. Aaron was also presumed dead, but until a body was found nothing could be proven.

Then I tried to claim more territory for my drug trafficking ring, eight people had died in the process. One body was yet to be identified. I imagined that had to be the witch the crows had eaten alive. There really hadn't been much left of her when the crows were done.

There were multitudes of speculation about where I was headed. They knew I had stayed in a house that was for sale, using stolen realtor keys. They also knew every single literal item I had bought with my stolen credit card. A lot was said about the footage of me choosing a knife from the several available. 

Apparently the realtors had been hooking up for months without either of their actual spouses knowing. Their realtor parent company did not like the bad publicity and liked the misuse of corporate funds even less. I was glad to read that the realtor company was going to pay the store what was owed for my purchases, because it was their own agent's misuse and abuse of company card that allowed me to steal it in the first place.

The department store sold me straight out, they had revealed all that I had bought. handed over receipts. Video footage, said they had allowed me to take out several hundred dollars on the card because they thought I was being abused somewhere. The old man who had helped me looked so sad in the photo tucked in with the continuation of my doxxing on page three. "She seemed like she was in trouble, running from an abusive boyfriend we had assumed. I just had no idea she was involved in anything like that." Was his quote in the paper.

The witch, the two guards not mom and I had killed and six other people had died in my home town. Mom was found in technically the city over. Twin cities that seemed to overlap. Mom's body was found behind the dinner we had stopped at before I took off. A family, mom, dad, and their toddler had been murdered in the park I had stopped at. I had only killed the one guard, I didn't think my one hit was enough to have killed him. I wasn't responsible for any of the rest of the other dead I was being blamed for. Aaron wasn't even dead. I still felt all the blame. 

My conclusions were not positive. This was literally the last stop on a last chance border crossing that was monitored in some capacity. Now the Canadian Authorities would be alerted to my presence. Which meant slipping into Canada wouldn't give me any extra cover right away like I had hoped. Another siren sounded. Two cars now trying to circle the town. More would be coming as fast as they could for a murderer with a body count as high as was currently ascribed to me. Shit, a helicopter wouldn't be out of the question, and other aircraft. 

Just getting out of town would be a challenge now. Certainly every single person in this small town would now be on the look out for the national fugitive or any single thing out of the ordinary. Militant civilians with too much hate and money could be heading here for a living man hunt.  I was deeply screwed if I wanted to get out of here unseen. I was 'write a book about your experience seeing them on the street' level of criminal right now.

It didn't matter if I was innocent or not. I had already read more than enough in Rama's Library in my dreams to know that once any human police had me captive in a cell, the coven would start to descend upon me. I would be locked in a cell with only crows to help me, and a coven with access to ancient magic would come at their leisure. They were waiting for any single word that I was captured, seen, anything. Hoping others would do the bulk of their dirty work for them. The grimoire had a pattern that was hard to ignore. I wouldn't be another victim, I was going to escape.

"Ready J? I want to make a run for it. Can we do it?" I asked my corvid supervision detail and personal guard. The curled tail feathered crow looked at me. Bobbed his head and took off. I sprang to follow. The more time I spent putting distance between me and here the better. Every moment only gave more time for more law enforcement and more firearms to come looking for me.

I ran through the abandoned building, following as close behind the bird as I could. Out into the street. The crow cawed once to keep me in line. I followed on blind trust. After a month together, I knew the birds were on my side, they were here to help me, because they wanted to help me.

The sirens continued to sound around town as the police cycled through the streets. I needed to officially work on distance. It wouldn't take long for someone with half a brain and aspirations to arrive and arrange a proper lock down of the area. 

Time for me to run. And run fast. Without stopping as long as I could manage. With the crows leading the way, I ran. When I imagined I must have been running for more than an hour I burst out of the woods, to the clear cut zone. The border. I had made it. I ran extra hard to get across the human made line in the sand. Then kept running. I would run until I had to physically stop. I was one big step closer to seeing Rama again.

I knew I had to stay pretty firmly towards a straight, eastward trajectory or else I could risk far too much time in rural Canada. East coast. I had to stay south of Hudson's bay and north of the border. That was my goal. Earlier on my trip I had narrowed down my travel options aspirationally looking up some information in a library. Getting to Newfoundland was going to be the biggest challenge after the Canadian border. I could try and car pool or ride share with someone traveling. I wasn't sure if it would be able to arrange it without a phone and internet access.  There was a service looking for companions for long haul truckers which had other challenges and instead offered a date and time for a crossing.  

The ferry was my only option, since my current identification was in Newfoundland already, and the evil coven would be waiting for me to seek a new ID in my hometown. I needed the ID and everything I had stored at the hotel in Port Aux Basques if I was going to be able to do anything. Thankfully for a ferry crossing, the driver was usually the only one asked for identification. A point I was counting on in my plans.

 I was certain once I used any of my bank cards or credit cards they would be able to trace me. So draining my accounts before I left town would also be important. I would find Rama and his castle, or else I would need to become a whole new person and live a very, very small life somewhere in Newfoundland. I had a feeling I would be able to carve out a small off the grid life for myself there. I just hoped I wouldn't have to. That I would make my way to my mate. To Rama.

Free on the Canadian side of the border. I ran east. Towards the Atlantic ocean. Not bothering to estimate how many hundreds of miles I still had to go. Ignoring the pull in my heart to vere more northward. It was too soon. I needed to get to the eastern side of Hudson's bay then stay towards the southern side of the Canadian border to America to go through New Brunswick, then Nova Scotia to take the same ferry I had taken not so long ago. Even though that trip now felt like it was a lifetime away.

I had supplies. I knew there had to be several rivers up ahead. Even if my map only covered American territory. Rivers didn't stop at borders. I could stay in the woods for days right now. Which all things considered, seemed like the only possible option open to me. For three days I travelled  through the woods. Doing my best to avoid leaving any evidence of where I had been. Only cooking once per day to limit the chance of my fire smoke being noticed by anyone. I was moving quickly. Doing everything I could think of to move myself away from where I had been noticed. Trying to forget what the news article had said about me.