Chapter 11: Candy Departs from the Institute
1343 Words
“Those shoes hurt my feet,” she told him. “Do I have to wear them?” She reached down and slipped on a pair that was outside the door into her house.
“Yes you do. The ground where we are headed is much worse than what you’re used to around here. There are a lot of sharp objects you need to worry about when we get there.”
Candy didn’t give him much trouble and helped to load the van. Jason was surprised to see she’d done most of her own packing. He went through everything and made sure it was something Majors would approve her taking along. One thing Candy wanted to bring along was the drawing she’d finished of the raccoon and her babies.
“I told them they could stay,” she explained t Jason when he asked about the picture.
“Meet me at the front gate,” Mrs. Majors informed him over the phone before Jason drove away with Candy. He watched Candy turn and look at her house as it vanished in the background.
The administrator was there in her red car by the main gate. Jason pulled up to her and shut off the van’s engine. Candy was already out the door by the time he was over to her side of the van.
“Candy,” Majors told her. “I’m leaving you with Jason until you return. Take good care of him.” Candy leaned down and gave Majors a hug, the first time Jason ever saw her do this.
In another five minutes, they were on their way to Louisville.
It took four hours for Jason to drive to the city of Louisville, Kentucky. It was a quiet drive and Candy was absorbed by the passage of cars that whizzed past them. This was the first time she’d been around heavy traffic. Candy seemed to be putting a few things together in her head. When she wasn’t watching the cars, she used Jason’s tablet to find something to watch. By now, she was quite versed in using the Internet. Although the tablet was on a restricted setting, it wasn’t an issue to Candy as she used it to surf the Internet to find pictures of babies. This was her latest interst, newborn children. Ever since the raccoon showed up with its cubs, she’d asked everyone nonstop questions about children. This caused the staff to advance her basic human biology understanding, but there was no use in stopping Candy once she wanted to know about something.
Jason heard a laugh and turned to see Candy watch a video of a daycare where a group of toddlers played. He turned away and then turned back. Was Candy smiling? Yes she was. This was a new development. She seldom smiled. Now she held a smile for at least fifteen minutes. Jason made a mental note to record this activity once he reached the motel they were supposed to be staying that evening.
“You seem happy for a change, Candy,” Jason told her. “No bad nightmares?”
“Not last night,” she told him. “I slept a lot better. I think knowing we’d be leaving on this trip made me feel better. I know I slept and didn’t need any of those pills.”
The pack for the trip included the variety of medical supplies they needed to take. The staff found him a pharmacy outside Louisville where they could be refilled. Candy was on a whole course of psychotherapeutic medications, which they hoped to get her off with time. Already her dosage was far down from what it’d been when she was first discovered in the wild.
She leaned back and propped her feet on the dashboard of the van and went to sleep. Strange how peaceful she looked that way. Jason hoped she wouldn’t have any night terrors on the trip. There seemed to be no way to predict them. Likewise, he prayed she wouldn’t revert to her original state as she’d done at the mall. She came out of that state fast enough and Jason worried she would do it again. She was still a walking time bomb, ready to go feral at any moment. Perhaps this was the origin of all the ancient stories of werewolves. People raised in the wilderness on their own who could become savage again if the time was right.
The motel was located off one of the interstates and close to the city. It was part of one of the many chains that lined the major cities and had a sterling reputation for the weary traveler. It also had an arrangement with the institute. The motel chain went out of its way to provide for the special needs people who would travel to and from the coasts visiting family, going to special doctors. It provided for whatever they needed done that couldn’t be accomplished on the grounds of the institute.
The night clerk, a young man in his twenties with a tag on his vest that read “Chet”, looked up as Jason and Candy entered the lobby. A few other guests sat in the chairs and at the tables nearby. This was a sizeable motel that had a conference center attached to it.
“Good evening,” Jason said to him. “I’m with the Harvest Moon Institute; we have two interconnecting rooms reserved.” He fished out his credit card issued by the institute and handed it to the clerk.
“Yes,” the young man responded. “I see we have you here. Are there any special requirements you need before I finish checking you in?”
Jason shook his head. “No, I can take the luggage up myself. Do you have a cart?”
“Over on the wall. Simply return it when you’re done.” Jason nodded and filled out the registration forms.
This time Candy didn’t look at everything with curiosity, as she’d done before. The trips outside the institute paid off and she seemed to be at ease around people she didn’t know. Jason found her starring at a newspaper when he went to get her.
“Can I take this?” she asked the clerk.
“Of course, it comes with the room. It’s the evening edition.”
She rolled it up and took it with her as they returned to the van.
“Something in there that interests you?” Jason asked her as they drove the van around to the rooms. She’d learned to read over the past few months, although her level of comprehension still left much to be desired.
“The missing children,” she told Jason. “There’s something in here about the missing children I’m supposed to find.” She held the paper up into the light and tried to read it as she drove the van.
She rolled up the newspaper and carried it under her arm as Jason unloaded the van and took the luggage up to their suite. In some ways, the motel wasn’t a lot different from the main building at the institute. It had an elevator that serviced both floors. Candy never minded elevators, which surprised everyone. Since she grew up confined to a small room, it was assumed she’d want to avoid them.
Once the elevator doors opened, it was a short trip to their connected rooms. Candy helped him push the cart as he found his room and used the card provided by the clerk to unlock the door. Once inside, Jason found the interconnecting door to her room. It was a simple matter to unpack the luggage.
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