JILLIAN GEORGE
JULY 21, 2003
JILLIAN GEORGE ran, leaving Sam Newhook behind.
She ran fast and quietly, ran like someone who really knew how to run, no amateur here, her head down, hands coming up with every stride, looking straight ahead and never glancing behind. Her legs lashing forwards in the darkness, her feet coming down light on the pavement, wasting not one scrap of energy as they thrust her forwards.
She only had a few blocks to cover, but she thought she had left it too late. From a doorway by the butcher shop, she’d stopped to see how badly they were going to hurt him, whether the beating was going to go on until they’d killed him or whether they’d break it off if he was smart enough to just stop fighting back.
It was over fast enough for him to have a chance, she thought, so she took the opportunity to come out from cover and run, the street numbers unfolding as she went. She had a head start of well over a block when one of them saw her streaking away, but she had one clear disadvantage: as soon as they recognized her, they knew exactly where Jillian George was going.
And she knew them. Jillian knew all of the guys chasing her simply by their shapes and voices, knew their parents and their houses. She was even passing many of their houses as she ran. She knew all of them from school, but it was like she didn’t know any of them at all. Later, she’d know that it was all wrong place, wrong time, that they had stumbled onto a situation where the voltage had already been cranked up, just waiting for a place to spark.
Jillian could hear them coming down the street fast and she felt completely alone, as if every house was empty, no one looking out at the noise as they passed. No time to bang on doors and wait for someone to come to the front of their house: no way to take the risk of stopping and waiting and having no one come. It was better to run and keep running. She counted down the street numbers as she went, knew they were getting closer behind her, and decided, close to her parents’ house but not really close enough, that she wouldn’t be able to get there before they caught up with her.
Instead, she cut down beside Albert Carter’s, heading for the back laneway so that she would come up behind her own house and in through the back door. The back door was always unlocked, so there would be no fumbling with keys, just the quick rush through the door, turning and slamming it home. She knew the rules and so did they: once inside she’d be safe, and they’d all melt away like water. Chances were they’d never even mention it again, like it was something as simple as a game gone wrong once the sharp anger of the chase faded.
It was, she thought, her best chance.
Except that, at the back of his house, Mr. Carter had blocked off the gap between the houses. Blocked it off right before the lane, a new ragged fence just a couple of feet long there, built out of rough lumber. Even in the dark, half lit only by the street light out front, she could see the crazy pattern of shiny nails sticking out through the wood in all directions where Carter, no carpenter, had pounded them through, missing the fence stringers so that the wood had spines everywhere, like some armoured prehistoric beast. No way to climb over, not from that side, and there were already heavy feet coming down the gap behind her from the front of the house, and she knew there wasn’t time to carefully climb the fence, no way to pick her way past the metal teeth.
So Jillian stopped and turned around.
It was dark, but she recognized a few of them. Ronnie Collins and Brendan Hayden. The Chaulks, out of breath and gasping for air, not used to running, especially Murray. Twig, as rangy as his nickname suggested, thin, long arms and legs, standing there as if he was waiting for instructions. Somewhere nearby, probably, Chris Wheeler too, or Larry Hayden—not participating, but always aware.
“Okay,” Jillian said, her arms at her sides, hands in fists. “You caught me. So what now?”
Ronnie was out in front of the other teenagers, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him. Then she felt his hands on her wrists. A part of her was afraid, another part resigned, a voice saying let’s just get this over with already. She wondered how Sam was, whether he was still out there bleeding, unconscious or worse.
“So you like it when they’re from away, do you? Or is it just their money you like?” Ronnie said.
“Come on, Ron,” Brendan said. “It’s bad enough already. The cops are going to be here any minute.”
“Shut up, Brendan. Get out to the front of the house and keep your eyes open. You saw what happened to that guy—you want to be next?” Ronnie turned halfway towards Brendan, still holding Jillian’s wrists, but Brendan was moving back down towards the front of the house. “You’ll have your turn.”
High up on a fence on the other side of the laneway, right down at the back edge of the property line, Larry Hayden was perched on the top of a garden shed, his eyes narrow in the dark, looking over the fence at the group of people and already thinking about getting away. Through the back window of the house, he could see Albert Carter walking back and forth through the light, carrying tools. Larry could see Brendan at the front in the gap between the houses, the long, narrow gap lit by one lone street light out on McKay Street, the dark bunch of the other four people silhouetted against the street light, moving like cut-out characters but with their actions absolutely clear.
There wasn’t any sound at all from between the houses. Off to his right, a dog barked a few sharp warning barks and then stopped. It was the kind of night when the air hangs still and wet, like sweaty clothing, and sounds seem to come from far away, cleanly divorced from their source.
No noise from between the houses still, but the motion of the cutout shadows brutal and sharp.