The Wall

38

Moses jumped down the last few steps to the lounge. He lost his footing on a runner that lay in his path. He quickly scrambled to his feet as he heard footsteps on the floor above. Also the couple’s voices, but he couldn’t understand anything they were saying. All he had to do was push open the terrace door. Out and back in the direction from which he’d come. Just had to make sure to not get any further away from the exit.

Rapidly cleared the hedges and walls. The other guy wouldn’t run after him. Moses had seen the condition he’d been in. Around the corner in the outer wall and right on going. Another jump, solid landing, keep running. All of a sudden, the man in the rugby shirt was standing in front of him. He wasn’t fit or all that fast, at least he didn’t look like it. But he was standing in his way. Moses knocked him down. And got caught. The sharks guy was clinging to him. He had wrapped his arms around both of Moses’ legs.

“We know what you did!” he cried.

Moses tried to kick free, but in vain. The other man had strong arms.

“You won’t get out of here!” the rugby man said as his breath grew shorter.

But the kicking still wasn’t helping. Moses swung at the man’s head. First with his hand, then with his fist. The man clutched at his head with one hand, trying to protect it. As he did that, he tightened his grip with the other hand. Moses was still lying half on top of him. Kick harder, break his grip. He was slowly gaining more maneuvering room. Moses only needed a second. He stretched out his right leg and then brought his knee up hard. It landed in the middle of the rugby man’s face.

He hollered in pain.

Then, there was another voice.

“Help!” a woman screamed. “He’s killing him! Hellllllp!”

Moses had already freed himself by the time the woman who had come out of the house nailed him with a plastic chair in his lower back. Keep running, he told himself.

But instead he stayed where he was and tried to deflect the next blow. Pulling back his arm, he slapped the woman hard across the face. As his body twisted with the momentum, he heard more than saw her glasses land somewhere. By the time Moses tightened his muscles for the next jump, the woman had begun to cry.