25 Years Online
••• The International Writers Magazine - Extract from The Repossession of Genie Magee

Escape • Sam Hawksmoor It was now or never to get Genie out of jail.

Rian smiled.  Yeah, time to do it.  He opened the door and dropped down to the road.
            Tunis fired up the engine.  He was excited but controlled.
            Rian ran across the road to the bushes at the edge of Genie’s property and waited for Tunis to get the truck in position in Mrs Mackie’s yard next door.  Genie’s window was at the side of the house, which made it hard to get leverage.
            Tunis drove over and backed up at a 45-degree angle onto the driveway next door.  Rian ran over, grabbed the hook and rope from the back of the truck and draped it around his shoulders. The light was fading, it wasn’t as dark as he would have liked.  He hoped the neighbours across the street weren’t watching.  Even if they were, by the time they could do anything about it, everything would be over.
            He was up on the garbage bins, hauled himself up onto Mrs Mackie’s garage roof where he’d placed a long plank of wood the week before.  He was relieved to see it was still there.  Genie’s room with the barred windows was right opposite, about a head higher.  The only detail he hadn’t been able to do anything about was to let Genie know he was coming.
            Rian lifted and swung the plank across the void between the two houses.  It was steeper than he expected and he nearly lost his balance as he ran up it, grabbing the bars to stabilise himself at the window. 
            Inside he could see Genie was asleep.  She looked beautiful lying there in her briefs and torn t-shirt curled up on top of the blankets.  He tapped on the window but she didn’t stir.  He had a horrible moment of doubt.  What if she didn’t want to come?  He should have prepared her somehow. 
            “Genie, wake up,” he called, but still she didn’t stir.  Was she drugged?  He wouldn’t have put that past her mother.
            He wrapped the hook around the bars and turned to signal to Tunis, who waved, gingerly moving the truck forward to take up the slack. 
            As soon as the rope was taut Rian stepped back, ran back down the plank and pulled it away.  Tunis was watching him in his rear view mirror.  He gunned the engine and went for it.  At first nothing happened and Rian was afraid the rope would snap, but then suddenly the whole metal window frame came tearing out of the wall bringing some of the siding out with it.  It shot forward, narrowly missing Rian and crashing loudly onto Mrs Mackie’s roof.  The noise would be enough to wake the whole neighbourhood.  Tunis was already out of the truck and untying the rope.
            Rian got the plank up to Genie’s window again and ran up to the gap.  She was sitting up in bed, totally spooked.  Rian smiled, then he saw the bruises on her face and arms and felt a surge of anger.
            “God, Genie, what the hell?”
            Genie just stared opened mouthed. 
            “Ri, you came. You came.”
            Rian was in the room, grabbed her, and hugged her tightly.  “Grab stuff, we have one minute babe.  Now!”
            Genie was just dazed.  Rian had really come to rescue her.  Took the whole window out and everything.
            Rian was throwing stuff at her.  “Dress.  Tunis won’t wait.”
            Genie got the message.  She pulled on a sweater, jammed her legs into her jeans.
            “Get your shoes on in the truck.  We got to go!  No time.”
            Genie grabbed a plastic bag and crammed some underwear into it and other stuff.  Her favourite bunny – childish, but nevertheless couldn’t be left.
            She ran to the window, careful not to place her bare feet on the broken glass.  “Jesus, Ri, I can hear sirens.”           
            “Go, go on,” Rian urged.
            Her legs were sluggish.  She’d been trapped in the room for so long it would be some time before she got back her strength.  Rian was right behind her, kicking the plank to the ground as he reached the garage roof.
            “Drop down to the garbage bins,” he instructed her. 
            Genie practically bounced down, heart in mouth, tense, scared the cops would get there before they could go.  She ran like the wind for the truck, her legs like jelly, Rian close behind.
            Tunis began to move and they had to jump up on the back and flip over to land on the rolled turf stacked there.  As soon as they were safe aboard Tunis floored it.  Someone would have called 911 and they would have given a description of his truck.  So he took the narrow alleys behind the houses, keeping it slow until they reached the far end of Maple Street.  Cops, he figured, would only look for a speeding vehicle.
            Genie lay shaking in Rian’s arms.  Still astonished at her escape and how cool Rian turned out to be.  If ever a girl needed proof a boy loved her.
            Rian was concerned at her bruises.  Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot; there was a nasty burn in the shape of a cross on her arm.  He knew they had held her prisoner, but they beat her? Burned her?  Her own mother had done this?
            “She hurt you?”
            Genie shook her head, her eyes shining.  “I’m ok.  I’m fine, Ri.”
            But he was angry.  This was his Genie and they’d disfigured her.  She was so thin, so unbelievably thin.  He couldn’t believe what he was holding in his arms.  Reverend Schneider was the most evil man on earth.  He would have to pay for this.
            “Get me out of here, Ri.  Take me away,” Genie whispered.  “We have to go far.  Reverend Schneider will send people after us.”
            “We’re leaving tonight.  We ain’t ever coming back.  Get your shoes on.  We got some running to do.”  He kissed the top of her head.  Her heart was beating fast, like a wild animal, as she clung on to him.
            Tunis halted at the crossroads at Fir and Geary.  People were gathering in the community square by Princeton Park to pray for Anwar.  Genie quickly slipped down out of sight below the side window.  The shrine to the missing kids was lit up like Christmas and messages to the disappeared were pinned to the community notice board fluttering in the wind.  Heaps of half dead bouquets of flowers littered the ground and someone had lit candles, which flickered in the blustery weather.  Rian stared at the scene with sadness.  So many kids gone from Spurlake, and now, perhaps, someone would add their names to it.  Well, maybe not their respective mothers, but perhaps one of their friends at least.
            Tunis turned off the road and took the unpaved track down by the river.  There was good coverage from the forest there.  He was confident no one had followed them.
            He stopped by the old landing where the gold rush museum had burned the year before.  By the time he got out of the truck Rian and Genie were already on the ground.  Tunis lifted out the backpack and her bag and handed them to them.  “You need to get going now.  I got to change the plates back before he notices anything.”
            He saw Genie’s face and was taken aback.  “Jeez girl, what did they do to you?  Hell man.  If I ever see Reverend Schneider or your mother crossing the road, I swear I ain’t going to brake.  That’s a promise, girl.”
            Genie broke free of Rian and smiled, wincing slightly from a cracked lip.  “You do that Tunis and back up on them in case you didn’t do it right.”

© Sam Hawksmoor - October 2024
The Repossession of Genie Magee available in print or ebook.
Winner of The Wirral 'Paperback of the Year'.

More fiction from Sam Hawksmoor here

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