Chapter 10

    They drove all night, the sun was still over the new horizon, but it was high enough to make the small city look as dreary as it must have been. During the entire drive, aside from getting directions from Dee, Katrina only though about Ryn. How he must have changed in the hour since she last saw him. She still hoped he was safe though. He had to be, they would head east and keep low. Katrina's eye began to be hard to focus and a few times, she had a hard time to open them. Dee ask if she could drive, but Katrina told her to get some sleep on the drive.
    The town was in its last stages of fall, leaves were yellowed and mostly gone. The ones that hung on were flapping on their branches. It was the sign of changing seasons, wind that changed from a warm southwest air current to a stiff north breeze. Along some of the houses on the south side of lake the town was named after, therw were a few chimneys that puffed wisps of smoke.
    The lake spanned the valleys, east to west, in a few hours it would sparkle with the sun. Making it look a lot warmer than it really was. There was a single raft that must have broken loose in the wind, tethered to the shore by a rope that cut across the water and disturbed the small waves. In a few months, the lake would have a solid layer of ice.
    Katrina pulled into the first motel she saw, it looked like it saw better days, but a bed was a bed. She shook Dee awake and told her to go get a few rooms, pay with cash. As soon as Dee was out and still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes to go to the office, Katrina was laying her head back. She didn't know how long Dee was gone, but she lost the sense of time and didn't know how long she slept. Dee already had all the bags in their rooms, Miki and Bev didn't even wake her as they crawled out. Katrina struggled to wake herself up and got out.
    “Saturday?” Katrina asked and kicked the suitcase full of money.
    Miki and Bev were in the joining room, the door was open between the two rooms. Dee looked in and saw that they were already sleep. Katrina dropped her coat on the floor, before sitting, she decided that she was going to just go to bed. She stripped to her uderwear and crawled under the blanket. Dee walked over and shoved the money up beside Katrina's bed, between her bed and the wall then covered it with Katrina's coat.
    “Yeah, Saturday. We got a couple days before we can really hide this. Go to sleep, I'll be up until you wake up.” Dee picked up a guide that was supposed to be a travel adviser for the small city. Katrina almost laughed when she heard Dee complain about the lack of a night scene, but she was asleep in less than a minute.

    The city of Wilkins Lake was that by the most loosely based interpretation of the word. The main highway, which ran all through Canada. You could jump on it at any point and go from coast to coast, so said the stories about it, made a dog leg and pointed north. The major intersection, where the highway turned north, was most of what travellers saw of Wilkins Lake. Standing at the intersection looking west, you'd see “the mall”, the massive lot of summer dusted new vehicles at the Lakeside Dealership. Other than that, the view was dominated by the hills surrounding the place. Those hills dotted with roofs of houses that peeped out of the trees.
    Heading west from the intersection, past “the mall” and the dealership, on the right, a massive grocery store. Called that because it was once a small building back through the war years until the city slowly grew up around it. Then it was a bigger building, then torn down for an even bigger building. The people that lived in the area always called it the grocery store though. Keep heading west and the town got older and older. Buildings smaller and smaller with less outdoor aluminum. Just went from the large concrete and sheet metal covered mega-stores to the concrete and window stores.
    Further west, the heart of the town, banks that stood there since the days before pavement. Torn down and rebuilt into more concrete and cement structures. The place seemed to squeeze together to huddle for warmth against the upcoming winter. The small businesses that struggled to survive, always very happily at that, huddled around the banks. There were two main intersections that cut across the town's main street. One went down to where banks were, the other went all the way through town. As long as you know these two streets, you knew the entire town.
    To keep going west, you reached where the main street started to dip into the valley. Where the lake drained off down to the river that went south. The places down there were always changing because people would think they could start their small businesses in the area. Sometimes, they could, actually did. Soon as they were profitable enough, they moved east out of the shadows of the town. The main street ended at the road that went across the industrial district of the town.
    Past that road are the railroad tracks. The lifeline of Wilkins Lake. Without the railroad, there would be nothing in the area. It was a spore that grew the place. First the railroad track, then the train station to carry passengers in and out if they could get out of the way of the relentless logging industry shipping out the famous BC lumber out to the world. Then a hotel, Lakeside Hotel, which wasn't anywhere near the lake, it wasn't even within view of the lake at all. Then the bars. Then a store or two. Before anybody knew it, they were electing town, then city officials. The highway and the railroad, it made the little city of Wilkins Lake a major stop.
    A major stop that nobody really wanted to stop at, maybe grab some chow and cram some fuel into the rolling trucks and off they went. The people that lived in the area were mighty proud of it though. Every summer, the town would spring to life with colour and a whole lot of rambunctiousness. The stampede would have people walking around in their cowboy boots and hats, fancy shirts with shiny buttons and fresh blue jeans. That's when the world would stop for the one little place.
    That was only a few weeks a year though, the rest of the time. All business with little time for play. Everybody scurrying back and forth, trying to get their bills paid or trying to get to and from work. In the little place, more pickups rolling by than cars during the daytime hours. People hitting town for new parts for their tractors of skidders, feed for their assorted animals. It was a town built by the sweat of the blue collar folk for the blue collar folk. That century of work to build it didn't make for a lot more to do that keep that nose to the grindstone.
    That meant, fun, when people could afford to get it, would be cheap and densely packed. With society changing for the entire world towards a white collar paradise, the people that lived around town felt abandoned. Their contribution towards the great country they lived in, that they actually built, was being forgotten by the talking heads a few thousand kilometers away. Recourse couldn't reach that far for the people, so they started to turn on each other. The people of town could only watch as an even more disheartened group began clattering for 'something'.
    The town fell down into crime for a few decades, even took to being the crime capital of Canada. It was arguable that the reason that town wasn't number one anymore was that everywhere else just got more criminalized. Either way, the natives in the area began taking to banding together. Mostly for the good of it all. A small portion, for the safety of a common goal of survival, went the way of violence. It was the only life they knew. The gangs drew more lines across the small town, mostly just ignored by people just trying to get to work. The people that had to live there, they couldn't just ignore them. Their neighbours would be the ones who took to punishing those who were disobeying their rule.
    Those things were not in any travel brochure.
    Katrina awoke to the smells of mingled pizza and chinese food. Everybody else was in the next room eating and watching television. Miki and Bev arguing about what to watch. Miki arguing for the hockey game that was just starting, Bev arguing for anything else but hockey. By the sound of their groans, Dee took the remote and put on something she wanted to watch.
    Katrina swung her legs out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. By the looks of everything, she slept through a lot, towels piled on the floor, clothes hung everywhere. She sat on the toilet with her face in her her hands, trying to remember everything that happened. She looked over and saw somebody's phone, she picked it up and checked the time. She wanted to call, to see if there were anymore instructions. If it was safe to go back home.
    “You decent?” Dee knocked on the door.
    “No.” Katrina was sitting on the pot with her underwear around her ankles.
    “Well, Miki's room has a kitchen and we got food for you in there. Pizza and chinese, the breakfast of champions.” Dee laughed.
    “Oh god.” Katrina wanted something home cooked.