The Wall (2 page)

‘That’s it, get inside the room,’ Clarkson spoke up, siding with his mother, ‘we’re shutting the door.’

‘No,’ I protested, shaking my head in obstinate refusal. ‘We can’t. My dad’s still out there.’

‘Baby, if we don’t get the door closed
right now, we will probably all die.’

‘No, please, just give
me another minute. One more minute! Please, I beg you! He’s probably headed here right now!’

‘Denise, babe–’

‘K, please! When have I ever asked you for anything?’ I met his brown eyes, held his undecided gaze for a second and released a sigh of relief as he gave a curt nod.

‘
Fine, one minute it is, then.’

‘I hope the glass doesn’t give before that,’ his mother pointed out, as the see-through surface seemed to be growing weaker by the second.

Long, nerve-racking seconds dragged on. Every bang seemed like it would be the last and with every breath I took, the sense of despair only intensified in my body. I was already beginning to give up, when I heard the sweetest of sounds: My father’s voice. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, he was calling out to me.

‘Denise,
honey,’ he was hollering at the top of his lungs, trying to outshout the constant yip of the security alarm, ‘where are you?’

‘Still here, Dad!’ I y
elled back, rushing to land him a hand, as he was dragged in my direction on the shoulder of another Controller. ‘What happened, are you okay?’

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ he
assured me, wincing with pain every time he took a step forward. ‘Now, quickly, get inside the room, we have very little time!’

Klarkson
replaced me as my dad’s walking aid and seconds later, we were inside the rectangular bedroom. Not losing any time, Mrs. Oakland moved to close the door, but ran into some trouble during the process.

‘What’s the problem, Mom?’ her son inquired, shouldering sweat from his face.

‘I-I’m not entirely sure,’ she confessed, looking nonplussed.

‘Private
Yorlin,’ father barked at the fair-haired Controller who was busy easing him into a chair, ‘get that damn door shut before we get eaten alive, would you, son?’

‘
Yes, sir!’

Moving with confidence in his step, he
moved Mrs. Oakland aside, and took to aggressive dialing on the touchscreen keyboard bolted to the metallic wall. He kept drabbing away at the cursed thing for what seemed like a good five minutes, and there were already glistening chunks of glass flying off the panels, when finally, the heavy door slid shut just in time to protect us from the bevies of yodeling wildlings that had finally worked their way through their only obstacle.

We all sat in utter silence, as muffled
, beastly exclamations and distant screams for help reached our ears. I was so terrified, my lungs seemed to be unable to inflate with oxygen, but my Dad’s reassuring stare and Klarkson’s comforting touch kept me in check. If it hadn’t been for them, I would have most definitely lost my mind by now.

After the elapse of several minutes, Mrs. Oakland broke the deafening silence with the following words, ‘Jesus Christ, what’s going to happen to us?
What’s going to happen to New New York?’

The response was more silence.

THE END – Get other books by
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