Step by Step/Issue 13

This is Issue #13 of Step by Step. This is the first issue of Act Three.

Soon
The wind slapped its mass against the enclosed windows, tainted with dust. Covered by deepening cracks. It whistled through, giving way through the gas station. Not much could be said for the heavy, cold might of air that brushed against Daniel Whittaker's steady face.

He sat, perched like an eagle, on the outskirts of the gas station. His silver sneakers had sunk into the muck of trash littered across the floor. The tingling cold forced his toes to curl back into his feet. Daniel whined, loosening his hands across the body of his Winchester Model 70.

Watching it shine in the lively pairs of fluorescent made him smile. He tugged the blue nylon jacket he wore. Daniel straightened the creases in the fabric, but to no avail, when he moved back into position it did so as well.

Daniel gleamed out a foggy window where his breath had condensed and accumulated on the film of glass. He swiped at the glass, managing to erase some of the grub. Several looming figures substituted for the missing dust.

“More of 'em.” Daniel reeled back the rifle, jamming back the cocking mechanism. The rifle's brown stock met with his shoulder. He had practiced the technique so many times before, but now he started to hesitate. His finger unsteadily crept its way to the trigger.

His scope lingered across the focusing black stature of a woman. Through the mist, he could see her facial features. Long, narrow chin with a mouth ready to connect with flesh. Her face twitched, her legs tripping over each other.

Daniel covered the trigger.

“Stop!”

The rifle stumbled in Daniel's hands. “What the hell, man?” He turned around, expecting to see a suntanned man in khaki shorts. It's Marco, except he's wearing a dark red shirt that falls over his khaki shorts.

He's gripping onto a red hammer, barely hiding his anger. The rampant clanging of nails being stabbed into wooden plank fill the background behind Marco. “You're killing people.”

Daniel shook his head, wagging his rifle down to his waist and pointing it downwards. “They ain't people.”

Marco's fingertips turn white from pressing too hard on the hammer. “How you know that? If I catch the cold, you gonna shoot me too?”

“It depends,” Daniel said, “are you going to start rotting and acting dead; trying to eat me?”

Marco rolled his eyes. "Does this look human to you? We're killing humans. The government sure as hell seems hesitant on killing their own, but why aren't you? You're shooting them straight through without any consideration for who they are. That only thing you're caring about now is the second Amendment!"

Daniel bit down on his lip. Unsure of what to do, he sighed. He's about to say something, but two footsteps hit the floor behind Marco.

“What are y'all fussin' about now?” The man cocked his head over to Daniel. His eyes turbulent. “How many are there?”

“Not a lot. Betcha I can pick them off now.”

“Oh no you don't,” Marco said. He took a step forward towards Daniel. “I'm not gonna stand by and let you shoot sick people.” Daniel shook his jaw. His rifle spun upward.“They ain't people. I thought we all got used to that fact when they starting killing and eating everything that breathed.”

The dark-skinned man by Marco nodded. Ray is his name. He looked at Marco, creasing his face. He saw the obvious frustration underneath Marco's skin. “You got a problem?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Marco said, “I do got a problem with killing people.”

Ray made a walk past Marco. His eyes focused behind Daniel and on the pack of crazies growing like fungus against the gas station. And there's more. He looked over to the two other people, a blonde women in a baggy white T-shirts with a ponytail.

Trying to plant more planks across the gas station's bloody windows. The makeshift barricade looked irregular from a distance. After a week of gathering the wood from storage crates and finding nails, the planks looked twister and bent. Nonlinear.

The girl took notice. “We're almost done.” Her name is Bridgette. She placed her hammer down along some of the rubble. She released a long sigh, capturing her tired head in her hands. Her neck ached. “What are you boys arguing over? We run out of beer already?”

“No,” Marco said with a barely restrained growl. “Daniel's shootin' people.”

Bridgette's eyes flared up. “Are you serious, Marco? You saw what they did, what they are capable of, and what they will do to get into this station and rip us to shreds!”

“It's wrong.” Marco started to loosen his clamped fingers. His left hind rose, scratching the stubble of black hair growing on his chin. “I'm going out there. I don't need y'all against me.”

He went to the door, studying the pile of shopping carts keeping him away from the exit. He put both hands on the first shopping cart he saw. He took a moment to breath, and turned before the aisles of stock. His words sounded so ironic to him right then. When they gas station had been jam packed, he had shoved a looter through the same door. Watched the man's face gape in horror as the can of beans he tried to steal fell from his hands as three diseased men and woman had dragged him away behind a car.

“Now,” Ray started, "I don't believe in luck. Or any of this voodoo shit. We're staying here— inside. Unless you want to go out and get killed by some bitches on the streets. "

Bridgette stiffened up, placing a hand on her ponytail. She cracked her head sideways, letting some of the pain escape from her aching neck. “Listen to him, Marco.”

Marco sighed. He had no choice. His face crumbled into a weak, tired form. “I'm sorry.”

The gas station goes silent. Minus for the nearing moans.

Outside, little groups of rain hail against the gas station. For seven days, more than a hundred and fifty hours, the heavens had sought to weep over the land of Indianapolis. And it didn't seem to quit.

Daniel lifted up his gun, snapping his fingers at the idle three. He's going to do it.

He turned to Marco. "I woke up from a nap to the sound of gunfire from the school. The damn school. And you know me with my naps... Then I had to shoot one of those things. A man. Blew his brains out with my Winchester. That's when I realized that we're between a shit hole and a hard place."

Without warning, Daniel pulled up the rifle and went back into position. The woman is so close to the window he can see her orangey-yellow stumble out of the mist's arms. Her hair is frizzled, cascading over her face. For a moment, Daniel does nothing. He stared back at the woman's lifeless eyes. They were as white as snow would look like during the coming winter.

Then she yawned. Her hair brushed to the side. Daniel is stunned by the large hole in her cheek. It revealed her intact teeth, despite them being brown like mud. She let out a strangled cry.

He placed his finger back on the trigger and pulled.

The woman's already unsteady legs give out beneath her. Betraying her survival.

Daniel pursed his lips. He stood still, watching the woman's fellow crazies ponder over their fallen ally. His spine shuddered as a cool waterfall washed over it. He remained silent. Blood pounding into his ears. The Winchester dropped to the rest against the wall, smoke still leaving the hot barrel.

Ray broke the silence. He awkwardly nodded. “Let's get back to work."