The Wall [Featured Story]

Chapter 4

On his knees, lifeless and surrounded by darkness, Scott closed his eyes and took a long shaky breath. The chug of the diesel engine faded away into nothingness. He faded away into nothingness; the nothingness he expected in death.

Finally, he opened his eyes and stood up. His trembling hand hit the timer button beginning the countdown while studying the darkness for any movement. There was no life here anymore—just him and a hard cart. Huge black and grey walls fired off in every direction and shot high into the sky. The ground was once a road but now a warped black surface speckled with glassed sand. Solid waves of it flowed over the ground seemingly with no end splashing up to every wall and gushing around every corner. The black sea with its sparkling sand-tipped breaks froze solid in place but instead of icy coldness, it was hot to the touch like last night's half burned charcoal.

The shadowy recesses of shopfronts, offices and apartments barked at Scott stay out. He felt like a rat trapped in some impossibly complex maze with no chance of escape. He could not see out of the maze whichever way he looked. The truck was long gone and its direction a mystery. Above him was just a patch of open sky sneaking through the blocked skyline.

He ached for some comfort but the truck was now long gone with its dim red glow extinguished along with the link to the town. He was on his own. He looked up for inspiration but the small patch of black sky offered little. The buildings closed in on him, leaned over shrinking the scattering of stars above which were the only thing he recognised. He felt himself frozen to the spot his feet part of the black sea.

The movie played again in his mind and he was unable to escape the shocking imagery brought about by the stories he had heard. Blistering skin on his arms, around the face he couldn't see, falling to the ground in an agonising death, arms and legs writhing in agony—the malicious heat unceasing in its torture. Once the skin and flesh had all burned away his brain would be set to boil in its own skull like some big old wrinkly potato bobbling violently around in thick starchy water sending his head shaking around like a steel pot left on the stove too long. Foul steam forcing itself from beneath the rattling lid whistling out of every opening on his face along with the occasionally spray of grey bubbling foam onto the parched cracked ground.

He turned on the torch but it seemed to offer no clues of what was inside the dark caves around him. He clicked it on and off a few times to check it was working then flashed his eyes leaving a sharp point and trailing ghost of the round LED just to the right of the centre of his focus. Alone in embarrassment he blinked a few times hoping to brush it away to no avail. He decided to leave it on regardless of how little use it was.

The city was still complete apart from some blast damage here and there. It was conceivable that people could still live within these buildings, if not for the deadly day time heat and radiation. No plant, animal or even insect could survive during the day this far south. With no open sky or horizon to comfort him, he looked once again at the map for some grounding but found none. It was still as bewildering as it was when he first look at it and seemed to share no correlation to where he had found himself. He did his best to focus his mind as it continually to wandered off in dark directions. Gradually he realised that the squares and rectangles were buildings and the lines the roads. The drop off location was marked as a red dot. Fear propelled him onwards. He grabbed the handcart and began a slow trudge forward through the city to what he hoped was the encircled building.

The suit weighed down every step he took but the thought of how much time he had already wasted just standing there weighed even more. He managed to keep his eyes clear of the timer but as he walked, his eyes began to flicker towards the display catching glimpses of the elapsing numbers.