Chapter 24: A Slow Boat To New York.
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After being taken to a bathroom with a shower stall, Tammy is sent into the shower stall to wash her self off from being locked up for a couple of days. She takes the over hanging towel to dry herself off with before stepping out covering herself with the towel.
A female squirrel takes her by the arm to a fur-drying chamber, telling Tammy, "You don't have anything we have not seen on other female prisoners. Now get in there." With a hard push, the squirrel takes the towel off her hands and makes her stagger into the chamber. As soon as she gets up, hot air blasts out of the jets. After a minute the jets are turned off and an arm extends to the chamber with a robe in its hand. Tammy takes it and puts it on before stepping out. The female squirrel and female rabbit were waiting for her.
"You'll get your underwear and clothes after they get washed. Right now you have to eat.", the female squirrel tells her.
The female rabbit takes Tammy by the arm and leads her down a hall to a dining area with the female squirrel behind them. The female rabbit sits Tammy by a round table and the female squirrel puts a covered tray in front of her, lifting the cover off the tray. A bowl with a large square of Lasagna was there with smaller bowls of soup and vegetables. A can of soda was there, the brand she gets from the store, as the American Brands of Coke and Pepsi were harder to get in Italy, it seems to mock her. She picks up the fork and hovers it over the lasagna.
"Don't try anything stupid. My friend will shoot you if you do.", the female squirrel tells her as the female rabbit put her gun on the table – a large caliber Dessert Eagle automatic pistol.
Tammy looks at it for a moment before dropping the fork on the try. "I want to see my sister!", she lets out.
"We'll see what can be done though she is not here. But first you are to eat. Then you will be sent home.", the female squirrel tells her.
"Home?", Tammy asks.
"In America. Where else.", the female squirrel answers.
Tammy pushes the tray away towards the rabbit, "I'm not hungry."
"You are goink to eat or you will stay here until you do.", the rabbit tells her, pushing the tray back to her.
"You do not want to stay here in solitary confinement. And you will never see your sister then, now will you.", the female squirrel adds.
In those words, Tammy manages herself to start eating even though she did not want too. It took long for her to ingest her food, more than an hour to get it done.
"Now, that wasn't bad after all...", the female squirrel almost mocks her. She takes the tray and puts on a shelf at the end of the room.
A female chipmunk Tammy recognizes from before approaches her with her clothes wrapped in plastic, putting it on the table.
"I never seen anyone so clean.", the female chipmunk says.
"Clean?", the female squirrel asks.
"Yes, clean. There was no dirt, fur or dander. Not even her underwear was soiled with the usual body fluids.", the female chipmunk explains.
"There are people in the world who are like that, especially us squirrels.", the female squirrel replies.
"Regardless. She's clean. Too clean.", the chipmunk says to the female squirrel, then turns to Tammy, "Get dressed. We don't have all day." Tammy looks at the rabbit, then the squirrel, and lastly the chipmunk. "What's the problem? You shy or something? You don't have anything I have not seen on another woman. So take off that robe and get dressed.", the chipmunk throws at her.
Tammy takes the plastic wrapped clothes and rips open the plastic. One at a time she takes each items and lays them flat on the table until she gets her panties, which she puts on under the robe. The jeans were next though remains open for the time being.
Finding her bra, she takes it and draws her arms into the robe and manages to put it on. The t-shirt was next, which she also puts on under her robe but had to let the robe fall as she puts her head through the t-shirt's neck opening. Once on she reaches for the robe's belt and untie it. Her blouse was put on next and her jeans zipped, buttoned and belted. Her sox and shoes were last to put on.
"Only twelve year olds who are ashamed of their bodies dress like in gym locker rooms.", the female chipmunk lets out for all to hear. She turns to the female squirrel. "She's now yours. And stick to the plan.", she tells her.
"When have I failed you?", the female squirrel asks.
"You really want me to count?", the female chipmunk answers.
"I'll make sure she sticks to the plan.", the female rabbit says.
"Please do. If she escapes or gains too much knowledge, its all our heads.", the female chipmunk tells them before turning to Tammy and approaching her, "You were so talkative that day weeks ago. Now look at you. It's such a pity; we could have used somebody like you. Now you need to remember that you are not to ever come back here."
"I'll be back to get Bink, and I'll brings friends too.", Tammy growls at her.
"Oh really. Who will it be? Your rope climbing, ambulance driving, rescue ranger buddies? I think not. What you did will never happen again. The trees have been taken down and the fence electrified. So shut up before I decide to throw you back in that cell", the female chipmunk tells her.
"I like to see you try. My friends will be looking for me soon enough.", Tammy tells her.
The female steps up to Tammy and pokes her in the chest with her index finger, "In your words, 'Nobody knows you are here. You just got up and left. They probably think that you disappeared.' And in this basement, nobody knows you are here. Nobody." She takes a step back and about to leave the room.
Tammy's anger went up exponentially, making her charge at the female chipmunk with fists clenched tightly and about to pummel her. The female chipmunk sees the charging step Tammy was taking and gets into a quick martial arts stance, shifting out of the way of Tammy's charge, and sending a fist to her jaw that sends her to the floor faster than Tammy can realize it happening.
Tammy begins to cry, whether from the pain or the failure, it was hard to tell. The female chipmunk steps over her to walk to the door. She stops at the doorway, "Get that stupid bitch out of here before I decide to throw her back in that cell myself!" she then begins to walk away and down the hall.
The female squirrel steps up to Tammy and lowers herself down to her. She grabs Tammy by the arm. "That was stupid, attacking Ferro like that.", the female squirrel says before getting slapped across the back of her head. "OW! Why you did that?!"
"You mentionek our supervisor's name…", the rabbit tells her.
"It just slipped out.", the female squirrel says as she gets up. They exchange stares.
Tammy stops crying before they end their staring contest and slowly sitting up on the floor. They both turn and face Tammy. The female rabbit reaches over and grabs her by the arm and lifts her up in one move, putting her gun to Tammy's face. "Now don'k do anythink funny, or you be goink home in a woodenk box.", the rabbit tells her before shoving her to the doorway.
Tammy staggers a few steps to get her balance as the female squirrel steps up to her and grabs her arm to right her. She then leads Tammy out the door and down the hallway. In a few minutes they were leaving from one of the other buildings other than the main one and walks to the firing range. The range had men overlooking young girls who were firing assorted weaponry. Tammy is led to just up to the staging area. Everyone notices them and order the girls to stop firing. A male mouse in a trench walks up to them.
"What's the meaning of this intrusion?", the male mouse in the trench coat tells them.
The female squirrel lets go of Tammy, walking up to him and tells him softly, "Just showing our guest around. Seen Jose and Bink around?"
"They are where they supposed to be which is not here. Now take her to where she is supposed to be.", the male mouse tells her.
"Alright. Don't be such a grouch.", the female squirrel says to him. She returns to Tammy, taking her by the arm again and leads her out the shooting range. The girls in the shooting range begin their practice again.
In a couple of minutes they were at a parking lot inside the walled area of the compound. They walk to a modern yellow Volkswagen Beetle. The female rabbit opens the passenger door and sets the front seat down and points to the rear seat for Tammy to sit on. Tammy gets into the rear of the car to have the front passenger seat brought back up into position. The female rabbit sits on the seat as the female squirrel sits in the driver's seat. After the engine is turned on, they drive out of the parking lot, past the gate at the street and continue driving for a long time.
Soon they were driving along the river for many miles until they enter a shipping yard. Tammy remains quiet as they drive inside the shipping yard, passing by many shipping containers.
They pull up to a shipping container, which has its doors open. They step out of the vehicle and towards the shipping container. They take Tammy by the arm and lead her to just before the container's opening.
"This will be your ride home. Sixty days of peace, quiet and solitude to think about never coming back here again.", the female chipmunk tells her as she walks from behind the shipping container, carrying her backpack. She lifts it up slightly and hefts it into the container. "There's your stuff. Your credit cards however have been shut off so they will be useless to you. The ship's crew knows about you but it will take them a few days to find you. Hope you last that long.", she tells Tammy.
The female rabbit grabs Tammy by the shoulders and shoves her hard into the shipping container. Though she gets in, she trips where the container met the ground and falls hard against something that was inside. She gets up on her knees and shakes off the pain with her hand to her forehead of hitting something hard. She tries to turn around and run out the container but freezes at what she sees: Bink closing the containers doors with a male mouse behind her. She yells for her sister as the locking mechanism is activated and secured.
In the darkness she cries on her knees, but suddenly stops as the shipping container sways as a crane lifts it up off the ground to a couple of hundred feet and then is put down again. Several other containers can be heard placed on top of the one she is in. There were creaking noises around her.
She calms herself down for a while and starts searching inside the shipping container. She finds something large in there with her, feeling it shape she senses that it's a car. Slowing down her search, she feels for details and finds a door handle. It takes a while for her to figure out how to open it. Inside the car she finds the keys. Twisting it part way, it turns in the electronics. She examines the dashboard, finding a switch for the headlights. Pressing the switch lights up the inside of the shipping container brightly. She sees two more cars in front of her and a perforated floor above her with three more cars above on a metal perforated floor. Examining the car, she finds a trident on its steering wheel and the word "Masserati" on the passenger side glove box and on the trunk of the car in front of her.
She figures that she has a couple of hours of car light so she steps out and searches the shipping container, finding that all of the cars were of the same make and model of Masserati though in different colors and form; most were two doors, one was a convertible. She searches their trunks and finds an emergency kit with large flashlights and batteries. Turning off the car's electricity, she uses the flashlight instead. She finds energy bars in the backpack but not enough to sustain her for the two-month trip. She also comes to the conclusion about bathroom facilities are going to be very lacking. Her netbook erased to the condition it was when it came out of the box and all the paper evidence she had gone with only her personal papers in the binder containing the originals. But with nothing for her to do, she sits in the seat of the first car she was in and eventually falls asleep.
She wakes up hours later, confused, tired and hungry. But there was noise outside. To her ear it was noise like someone whistling and tapping something against the corrugation of the shipping containers in the distance. She goes to the car and opens its trunk, taking a tire iron out of from inside. She begins banging on the shipping container's door with the tire iron until she tires out. In a couple of hours the doors open. A thin cat in a nylon jacket with the ship's logo on its back and patches on his front right and arms with uniform pants stands on top of a set of forklift arms.
"How you got in there? Are you a stowaway or something?", the cat asks.
"No. It's a long story, but I was thrown in here.", Tammy says as she walks to the edge. She looks down and finds herself up some fifty feet on four other shipping containers marked with various car logos and the forklift on the arms of two other forklifts. The other shipping containers were also marked with various car logos.
"So what are you? Italian? Greek? Slovakian? Gypsy?" the cat asks but is interrupted.
"American.", Tammy answers.
"What were you doing in the Italy?", the cat asks.
"Looking for a lost relative. My sister actually.", Tammy explains.
"Looks like you made a few enemies. Lucky for you this ship is going to America. Someplace called New Jersey.", the cat explains.
"Alright. I think I can get home from there. How am I going to get down from here?", Tammy says and then asks.
"Right now that is not possible. We'll figure something out. But I need to report this to the captain. I hope you got some cash or can work on a ship.", the cat says.
"I can cook, and clean but I would like to talk to your captain about contacting my friends and family.", Tammy tells him.
"I'll tell him that.", the cat say before signaling for the arms to be lowered.
Tammy sits on the edge as he is lowered. After everyone has left Tammy climbs back into the shipping container and takes out a couple of energy bars.
Some six hours later, the cat returns with some news.
"I'm sorry to say this, but you're stuck there. The crane that could get you out is broken.", the cat tells her.
"How about I jump on the forklift arms?", Tammy asks.
"Don't!", the cat yells, "This is very precarious and if you jump on it we'll fall!", the cat tells her.
"But... What about food? Water? A bathroom?", Tammy asks panicky.
"I'll send a bucket for you to use as a toilet, and we'll figure out about food and water later. You need anything?", the cat explains and asks.
"I need to get out of here!", Tammy tells him.
"Look. I understand your predicament. You need to wait it out and see what we can do.", the cat tells her. "I'll be back but I don't know when.", he begins to get lowered.
"But...", Tammy tells him as he goes down.
"You're squirrel! Can't you hibernate or something?! I'll check on you from time to time but understand that this is a very large ship!", he shouts back up at her.
Tammy can only look at her resolve. If she forces herself into hibernation, she can take weeks off the trip, but she will be starving when she wakes up and the urge to go to the bathroom will be at its greatest. She takes an energy bar and head inside the Masserati.
She sleeps without realizing it and her mental state forces her into a light hibernation mode for a couple of days. So it begins, she goes on and off a hibernation cycle with food being brought in once in a while and a bucket for her bathroom needs. Cleaning supplies were also brought in for her to clean out the car she was sleeping in.
Days before the landing in New Jersey, the cat arrives with news of her to hide in the car's trunk and hibernate the days as they prepare to dock at the pier, the shipping container will be taken out of the ship and put onto a truck to a pick up point and the cars taken out one at a time and put on a car carrier to the dealership. At the point the cars are taken out and driver to a car carrier, she is to make her escape and run out of the docks and into town. She has one large last meal and use of the bucket and cleans up of the area she is in.
With a screwdriver she figures out how to unlock the trunk from the inside. She crawls inside with her backpack, closes the trunk and waits.