In The End | Novella | Beginning of the End

grazed on the rough concrete as I held my face from the impact. I scrabbled back to my feet, still staring to the metal bar that could mean the difference between life and death. Lunging to the cold metal, the door opened as I pushed down, my foot catching on the threshold and tipping me forward, sending my knees into the rough hair and faded black letters of the coconut mat.
Ignoring the pain in my toes and the sting at my legs, I scrabbled forward. Only partway through the door, I half stood up and half crawled, tripping again as my feet left the mat, landing on the soft carpet.
With no time to savour the warmth of the thick pile, I turned, crawling on my hands and knees in hope I wouldn’t be as easy to spot. Only then did I look out of the door and the direction of where I’d seen movement.
A dark figure, a man with a stilted walk, moved along the path, his gaze roving across the view as if in search of something.
I pushed the front door, forgetting how easy it had opened, tensing as it slammed hard against the frame, the noise reverberating around the house.
“Shit,” I said, unable to unsay the word, immediately regretting the volume I added to my first mistake.
There would be no chance he hadn’t heard. There was no chance he wasn’t heading this way. I had to run. I had to get back out into the open.
As I reached up to pull on a side table beside the front door, it tipped. Spilling the phone and vase of flowers, it sent cloudy water across the carpet. When the glass didn’t smash, I paused, knowing it could have been so much worse.
I rose to my feet, taking more care, then looked to the door in search of a chain, but when I saw nothing that could help, I ran along the short hallway and regretted the delay. Pushing open a door at the far end, light spilled out from the kitchen windows and glass panels of the back door.
I glanced back, catching a shadow moving across the diffused glass in the top half of the front door. I didn’t want to linger, but peering across the kitchen, I looked to half-full cereal bowls sitting on the side counters and plates spread out across the surface. Toasted bread rested upright in the toaster and two mugs stood by the kettle. When I saw the long knife beside the uncut loaf on the chopping board, I stared for longer than I should.
I was afraid to give the question too much thought. Should I take the few extra steps and lean out to grab the knife? I remembered the special assemblies in school. To carry a knife was so much more dangerous than not to. But the policeman on the stage was talking about the inner cities, or the suburbs at least. Could they really have thought of this circumstance, when self-defence could mean the difference between life and death?
A dull thud along the corridor drained my enthusiasm for staying in the house any longer and I left the knife sitting on the wooden block, hoping I wouldn’t regret the decision moments later.
Dropping my hand to the back door handle, I pushed down, guiding the door to swing open. Cold air rushed over me, chilling the sweat in my armpits as I ran with the short grass pushing through a hole in the sole of my slippers.
I didn’t linger. A smile rose as I peered along the length of the garden, looking to the fence standing at waist height and the strip of grass stretching out beyond, meeting the turned dirt.
A low, bass call killed my rising mood as I recognised the heavy engines of the trucks I’d seen on either side of the roadblock. Without looking, not needing to see to know what I had to do, I changed course, turning left and bounding the short fence to the garden next door.
Tripping as I landed, I then rushed to my feet and with the next fence already coming close, I regained my balance. Panting for breath, I regretted the hours on the Xbox.
I slowed, taking more care to climb over the next fence and so not to knock over the ceramic pots full of dirt, ready for planting when the weather turned. The engine noise grew to the background of the metal clatter.
I ran in brief bursts, slowing only to jump the low fences to the next garden.
On seeing a truck stationary ahead, I pulled up from a burst of speed. With its crane arm extended, soldiers in gas masks and camouflage guided hefty blocks of concrete as another stood high on the truck-bed, barking muffled instructions and sweeping his rifle across the view.
Momentum carried me forward, clattering to the fence panel as I dropped to a crouch. When a call came from a soldier, I hoped his noise had masked the bang of my body against the wood.
With heaving breath, all I could do was wait and listen to the orders I couldn’t quite make out because of their face coverings.
As I peered around the garden, I knew this wasn’t the place to stop. Just before I’d seen the truck as I came around the curve, I caught my first sight of the edge of the wood. Now I knew the only course of action was to go back through a house and out to the front to continue my escape.
Crouching closer to the ground, I turned to look to the back door and wished I could know by sight if it was locked, but the dark wooden frame and brass handle gave nothing away. I looked up to the windows. The top two were open, but in our close community it wasn’t unusual to leave them like that