Chapter 7 - THE BARRICADE & THE TRAP
The phone sat on Lily’s desk, the voice of the dispatcher still buzzing softly like a trapped hornet. Lily didn't listen to the warnings. She had exactly eight minutes left, and her brain was already calculating the laws of physics.
Her bedroom door was made of solid oak—not the cheap, hollow-core wood found in modern subdivisions. It was sturdy, but the brass latch holding it to the frame was small, held by three half-inch screws. If a grown man threw his weight against it, the wood around those screws would splinter like kindling. She needed a counter-force.
Lily stood behind her heavy, white wooden dresser. It was nearly four feet tall, packed with her winter clothes, sweaters, and heavy books. She estimated its weight at around ninety pounds. On the slick hardwood floor, however, the coefficient of friction was low.
"Leverage," Lily muttered.
She got down on her knees, pressing her back flat against the solid plaster wall adjacent to the door. She placed her feet firmly against the side of the heavy dresser. Taking a deep, ragged breath, she straightened her legs with all her might. The dresser groaned, its wooden legs scraping loudly against the floor as it slid twelve inches.
She repeated the motion, pushing with her legs like a piston. Slide. Scraping. Slide.
Within two minutes, she had wedged the massive dresser horizontally between the bedroom door and the foot of her heavy wooden bed frame. The bed frame itself was pushed against the opposite solid brick wall of the chimney. She had created a perfect, continuous bridge of solid wood and iron. Any force applied to the door from the outside would have to physically compress the entire bed and crack the brick chimney wall to move the door even an inch.
But Lily wasn’t done. She knew that if a person was stopped by an obstacle, they would look down or try to find an alternative way.
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She walked over to her toy shelf and grabbed a large glass jar filled with nearly three hundred glass marbles—her prize from the school science fair. With a steady hand, she unscrewed the lid and dumped the marbles directly in front of the bedroom door, spreading them evenly across the smooth floor. If the intruder managed to squeeze his hand or foot through a crack in the door, his first step into her room would be on a frictionless, rolling hazard.
Finally, she grabbed her dad's heavy metal laser level from the desk. It was solid steel, weighing about four pounds. It wasn't a sword, but if she had to protect herself, it was a blunt instrument that could deliver a devastating impact.
