Escape: Day 17

Word Count: 102,027

Summary of Events:

Stopping for the night Dallis and Trace speculated whether the gangsters would be particularly close to them or not before going to bed. Trace was woken in the night by sirens and learned from a fellow trucker that his favourite truck stop was on fire; he talked to the owner and learned she'd been visited by the gangsters. Dallis was told about the fire and suggested they make for the Canadian border no matter how long it took. Trace thought that would be a good idea after some thinking and asked Dallis to look his map and give him the distances on it so that he could estimate how far they were from the Canadian border; she first figured to Winnipeg, then Trace told her to figure to Estevan . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

""Go out of Fargo west and tack north on the most major road from there," Trace replied, handing the map back.

"Your phone went black," Dallis said.

"Here," Trace said.

He took it back and unlocked it.

"Eight hundred two," Dallis said, after a silence.

"That's thirteen," Trace said.

"We'd still make it, though, right?" Dallis asked.

"It'd be cutting it a lot closer," Trace said.

"So you're thinking we should go straight north to Manitoba then?" Dallis asked.

"Well, I'm not sure how far it would be from the border to Winnipeg," Trace replied. "Unless we find a truck stop somewhere in the middle, but I don't think Winnipeg's too close to the border. I mean, it's closer than Calgary, but it's not perched almost on it like Vancouver is."

"You're more familiar with Saskatchewan," Dallis said.

"Well, no, not really, I just know Estevan's closer to the border than Winnipeg is," Trace replied. "Not to mention, it does take us a little bit more westward, which is more beneficial, because we would need to get that way anyways, and could save some gas by cutting off the corner that would be made going all the way to Winnipeg."

Dallis was silent. Trace heard the rustling of paper.

"The most annoying thing is that American highways either go north-south or east-west, they don't typically go on angles," Trace said. "Canadian rural roads work in a grid for the most part, but the highways just kind of go wherever they need to go to get to wherever they're headed the fastest, a lot more of an as-the-crow-flies sort of way."

"Here," Dallis said.

Trace glanced over and grabbed his cellphone back.

"So we've got good news, though," he said. "We'll get into Canada by the end of the day — no matter what — and it won't take more than eight hours to get to the border if we don't get all the way there in the time we have."

He looked over to see Dallis nod as she looked at the map.

"That's all saying that the gangsters don't somehow hold us up between now and then or anything like that," Trace said.

"They've only chased us before," Dallis said.

"Yeah, but they're probably getting seriously desperate now," Trace said. "After all, they got you back and now they've lost you again."

Dallis was silent.

"So, once they find us, they'll probably be a lot more inclined to act as quickly as possible," Trace said. "Goodness knows they might shoot out my tires, then shoot me up and blow up my truck."

"But that's only if they find us," Dallis said.

"Which I'm sure they will," Trace said.

"And only if they have sufficient backup," Dallis said.

"I don't think that'll be too hard for them to acquire either," Trace said.

"You never know," Dallis said.

"I'm sorry, I'm a bit of a pessimist," Trace said, sighing as he gazed at the grey pavement that flowed in a seemingly endless ribbon underneath his tires."