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Prolific Writer
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Aus.
Gender: Female
Posts: 267
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Heidi - reedited- first chapter Word Count: 2, 501
Chapter 1:
Past and Present
The bushland between Cartville and Gin Ginaba (specific location unknown)
25/04/08 03:12 pm
The wind was rustling the ironbark’s leaves; Heidi looked up at the tree from her blanket beneath.
Six years ago, she wouldn’t have believed it possible to find a place like this.
As she stood up Heidi looked to the creek where the children jumped from rocks into the water, on higher rocks men and women meditated their robes fluttering about them idly.
As she turned to pick up the blanket, she let the long grass tickle her palms knowing that they could bring her no harm for this was a safe place, a place where she could forget about her past.
Abstract from ‘The Sunday News’ Newspaper’s Police Report 25/04/08
Police are asking for the public’s assistance after the escape of two male prisoners, from the Cartville Correctional Centre yesterday morning.
One is a 27 year-old - medium height, average build with a shaven head and olive skin tone, the other - 35, just under six foot tall, muscular build; dark brown hair and glasses.
Police are asking residents to phone Crime Stoppers if they witness the two men or any suspicious behaviour.
Police will not reveal how the prisoners escaped but ensure residents that they have the situation under control. Investigation is continuing.
Shady Retreat Motel: Room 12 24/04/08 08:45 pm
Ken stuck his head out the window of the motel room and took a long deep breath.
‘Ah, the smell of freedom.’
‘Here, dumb ass’ Greg said handing Ken a cold one from the mini-bar fridge as he sat down on a chair opposite the motel bed.
Greg opened his can, and paused, listening to the sound of compressed air being released as the smell of fermented yeast tempted his nostrils.
‘Now this is freedom’ he said tilting his head back.
A couple of six packs later and Greg yawned.
‘We better get some shut eye before we grab some wheels tomorrow, and get our selves out of this shit-hole of a place.’
Police conference Cartville Police Station 24/04/08
Police chief inspector Ronaley straightened his suit jacket as he stood before the ten police men and women working on the Ken Georgia and Greg Linely case.
‘Of course we would like to wrap this up as soon as possible. Therefore, our first port of call will be to work from what we know of the prisoner’s escape and to follow their path from there. These fellas are pretty chummy and we believe that they would have stuck together after their escape.’
A few of the officers nodded and the chief inspector continued.
‘We will have several of you man the phones as we will be releasing a description of the men, telling residents to phone if they see any suspicious behaviour.’
Chief inspector Ronaley turned to his two key sergeants and lowered his voice.
‘I want you two to research the escapees’ previous cases to see if there is any clue to where they are or where they might be headed.’
Smithson Highway between Cartville and Gin Ginaba 25/04/08 04:02 pm
Heidi was almost at the top of the embankment and what lay behind her was a twisting of thick vegetation.
It was one of the community’s customs for individuals to go wandering by themselves, to reflect upon nature.
Reaching the top of the embankment Heidi stood frozen at what she saw.
The black tarmac was hot on her bare feet and she moved quickly from it.
She had completed a fair hike but was surprised to discover the road so close to the community, surprised that she had never heard cars passing. When she first arrived at the community, it had taken a good two days on foot to reach them.
The road was empty now.
Maybe cars don’t pass here very often.
The old man, must have known about the road.
Why didn’t he tell me?
What else is Charlie keeping from me?
The parking lot of the Shady Retreat Motel 25/04/08 06:04 am
‘Trust you to come back with a Chevy. Where’d you get it?’ Greg asked Ken, settling in behind the wheel of a 1961 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door sedan.
It had been repainted a few times over its life but now it was a light grey, a little worn here and there but still a beauty.
‘Not just any Chevy mate. Old lady round the corner had it just sitting in her backyard,’ Ken said, smirking.
‘Well get in then show-off. We should have left an hour ago.’
Ken got in and they sped off from the motel.
‘Where are we headed?’
‘Thought we’d head north, maybe catch up with an old friend.’
Ken stared at Greg, his eyes twinkling with suspicion.
‘She knows where it is and how else we gonna pay our way out of this mess?’ Greg said.
‘All right,’ Ken said grinning, ‘Gin Ginaba here we come.’
Smithson Highway between Cartville and Gin Ginaba 25/04/08 04:04 pm
A car was coming down the road.
Heidi could hear it, but stayed where she was, holding her breath.
The car was old, but it was going fast. It sped by and she exhaled.
She turned to head back to camp. This was too much. She had to talk to Charlie.
As she edged over to the embankment, she could hear another car coming from the opposite direction.
Heidi turned her head and frowned as the car came round a bend, the same car that had just passed.
The Chevy slowed down and then stopped right in front of her.
Heidi turned around to look at the car’s occupants.
Her mouth dropped, the faces staring back at her were all too familiar.
Smithson Highway between Cartville and Gin Ginaba 25/04/08 04:07 pm
‘G’day Heidi. Just the person we were looking for. Didn’t expect to see you out this way but I guess it’s our lucky day isn’t it?’ Ken said, rubbing the front dash fondly before opening the car door.
Heidi felt as if she had been living some fantasy and now all of a sudden she had been jerked back into reality, as if someone had reached out all too easily and pulled hard at her hair dragging her back to the very situation she was trying to get away from. She did the only thing she knew how to, she ran, but Ken was quickly out the car.
He reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, she struggled to get away, but he was to strong for her, his arms holding her in a bind.
Pulling a knife out of his pocket, he flashed it at her.
Heidi froze.
‘Get in the car’ he said pushing her onto the back seat.
He tied her feet together with a bit of rope and locked the door.
‘Now I’m not going to tie your hands but don’t go trying nothing, right’
Heidi closed her eyes; she thought she had removed these men from her life.
Smithson Highway 25/04/08 04:15 pm
Heidi felt as if someone was shining a light in her face.
She put her hands up to defend herself but it was blinding her, causing too much pain so that she wanted to retreat, to go back, back to her community, back to a happy place where bad things didn’t happen and in her mind she did go back.
‘What is she doing?’ Ken said looking into the backseat at their kidnap victim.
‘I don’t know, I can’t see I got me eyes on the bloody road, don’t I,’ Greg said, glancing into the revision mirror to see the young woman curled up in a ball on the back seat, eyes closed, hands over ears, making a soft humming sound.
‘You right in there, Heid’s?’ he called to her.
It had been years since anyone had called her that and she pressed her hands closer to her ears to shut out the words.
‘I know your after Chris’s money, but I don’t have it,’ she shouted at the men, her hands still covering her ears, ‘I don’t know where it is’.
The community had taught Heidi it was wrong to lie, but she had to protect them.
‘We know you were the only one Chris talked to, the only one he would confide in. Come on now,’ Ken said, admiring the knife’s blade.
‘Chris didn’t tell me anything. He didn’t want me to have anything to do with it, he wanted to protect me from the people he had to deal with; people like you’ Heidi said, her hands now clenching the seat.
‘He was scared all along’ Ken said with a smirk, the same way he smiled in the courtroom as she told the jury what had happened, ‘I always knew he was a coward.’
Heidi started to hum again.
The bushland between Cartville and Gin Ginaba 23/10/02
‘Take it,’ Heidi said pushing the credit card with the slip of paper into the old man’s hands, ‘You need it more than I do’.
‘You don’t have to do this,’ he argued, placing an arm on Heidi’s shoulder.
‘I know, but I want to…’
I have to she thought, for your sake and mine.
‘I don’t want to be a part of that world anymore.’
‘I understand, but why not throw it away?’
‘Because you need it, you said so yourself…’
‘That was a moment of weakness,’ the old man said looking away.
‘Take it, please take it’
Heidi looked into the old man’s cold blue eyes and wondered if he could see her at all.
Charlie’s hand closed around the card.
‘Thankyou’ he said, ‘you will be safe here.’
The Townhouse: Number 34 Loov St Gin Ginaba 12/12/01
Heidi lay on the bed rubbing her nose, with the back of her hand.
Chris sat on the edge of the bed staring at the ceiling.
On the bedside cabinet was a credit card and a small pile of white powder.
Chris turned to Heidi kissing her lightly on the forehead.
‘Love you babe,’ he said before getting up.
Heidi smiled, watching his slender body walk away from her. She turned facing the wall.
Chris’s shadow was dancing for her and she giggled maniacally at the sight.
Heidi rolled onto her stomach to stop herself from laughing, and then rolled over again wrapping herself in the sheets. From the silence, she could here voices talking over the top of each other.
When the voices came, they said bad things.
Heidi didn’t want to hear the voices, didn’t want to hear the bad things.
Chris had told her to hum when they came, to put her hands over her ears, and hum to drown out the sound; hum so she couldn’t hear them so she didn’t do bad things and end up in hospital again.
When the voices got louder, Heidi hummed over the top of them.
It was only when she heard the gun shot that she stopped.
She took her hands away from her ears.
‘Chris’ she called.
‘Chris’ she said again making her way into the kitchen.
There were two men standing in the doorway, men she recognised.
‘What are you doing here?’
The men took one look at Heidi and ran.
Heidi looked down at Chris’s body lying on the kitchen floor.
‘Chris? Wake up.’
But he couldn’t, not anymore.
Bushland between Cartville and Gin Ginaba 24/04/02
Heidi eyes were red, her body demanded rest, but her mind was too busy for that.
She was loosing track of time. She just wished she could fast forward until it was over.
The last time she had felt like this she had been faced with plain white walls, plain white sheets, frowning nurses, and pills every half-hour. Now she was up against mud walls, an old guy with wrinkly skin and food -if you could call it that- that looked worse than what she was churning out.
To begin with, she had been somewhat a form of attraction for the children who giggled as they peeked their heads around the hut waiting to see if she’d move.
Occasionally she’d swear at them and then they would go debating which what language she was speaking.
Some fat woman came to visit once and wanted to rub some herbal shit on her belly, she almost scratched the bitch’s eyeballs out.
She had given them hell, and all they responded with was kindness.
She pulled the hand knitted blanket closer to her skin. Never before had she felt so warm.
Smithson Highway Gin Ginaba 25/04/08 4:45 pm
The expression on Heidi’s face changed as the landscape outside the car window went from bush to farmland, to outer suburbia.
She knew what was coming next.
House after house, side by side, shops, multi-story buildings, parking lots, cement, brick, less trees and more greed.
People she didn’t know.
Strangers, so many strange faces.
People she couldn’t trust.
People living in world beyond their control, a world ‘they’ had created.
People obsessed with material things,’ oblivious’ to the obvious irony.
A never-ending consumer society for a world of limited resources.
You can only take for so long.
Bushland between Cartville and Gin Ginaba 02/05/02
From the moment the old man entered the hut he could hear the soft humming.
Heidi’s was the only bed in the hut and the old man bent beside it picking up an empty bowl.
Heidi quickly retreated away from him.
He’d gotten used to this distrust over the last month, at least now she was eating properly.
He turned to go but a felt a tugging and looked down as Heidi’s thin hand grasped around his robes.
‘Don’t leave me here with them, please.’
‘The past only lives in your mind if you let it my dear,’ he said but sat beside her anyway, holding her hand.
Cartville Police Station 25/04/08 09:30 am
Sargent Rofeerio entered Inspector Ronaley’s office and swiftly handed a file to his boss. ‘Sir, we got a call in to say that a couple of men matching the description of Linely and Georgia checked in at a motel eight hours from Cartville.’
‘Good,’ Ronaley said adjusting his tie.
‘And an old lady reported her car being stolen from her house right near the motel. Sir, the car was a 1961 Chevrolet Bel Air four door Sedan,’
Ronaley blinked.
‘Sir this is an important lead not only do we know from the offenders’ history that Georgia had a thing for older motor vehicles. But you don’t see a 1961 four door Chevy driving around too often; it shouldn’t take too much to track it down.’
Ronaley stood up.
‘Let’s go then.’
Gin Ginaba rd, Gin Ginaba 25/04/08 5:23 pm
No one had said anything for quite some time.
Both of the men had their eyes on the road.
Heidi slid quietly across the seat and undid the lock on the car door.
Ready, she told herself, holding the handle, now.
__________________
Experiment; it's good for you!
Last edited by saintoflight : 06-22-2008 at 12:26 AM.
Reason: half story didn't transfer when copying and pasting first time round
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