Step by Step/Issue 6

This is Issue #6 of Step by Step. It is the sixth and final issue of Act One.

Issue 6
The hand gun Brock Menster flaunted rang out. A crazed woman fell to his feet. The sergeant smirked with a wave of glory urging him to continue. He looked up from the groaning carcass. The crazies were coming in large groupings with snapping jaws. Hundreds of people were rushing in from the clogged-up blockade.

Brock had seen the private go down. Soon, Brock knew, he would too. He was grinning now, preparing his stance for an upcoming man faltering over to him. The skinny man was getting ready too with his jaw snapping like the rest of the large groupings until Brock tossed him an agile knuckle

The punk fell back, shocked by the instant move. “Checkmate,” Brock uttered, grabbing the man by his throat and kneeing him in the chops. “You guys want a piece?” Brock said to the series of crazies going at him.

“A little god damn piece of ass-breaking?” Brock sent a powerful punch into the gut of neck-bloated individual. The lard groaned and spewed a repulsive wad of drool and snot at Brock's face. “Ugly excuse for a...” He was cut short by a heavy breath and rested the barrel on the downed man.

The bloat gurgled and swayed his head to all sides. “Hey, over here.” Brock eased the pistol on the bloke. Brock threw down the lifeless body of the punk and blasted a hay maker at the man with a scarf of inflamed blisters. “I'll make you bleed!”

Brock edged a relentless kick at the man and sent him on his stomach. There was a bone-chilling cracking noise that cut through the air. Brock laid his boot on the man's broken back. He sent three stomps down again and again.

Crack, crack, crack. Brock lifted his boot above the man and rolled him over with it. The man groaned with alert eyes. Shock filled eyes. Induced by fear. Great fear. The man sprawled himself out on the ground and gasped for air.

“Don't do it,” Brock warned, raising his view to the others. The men and women growled at him. He didn't care. They were weak. The weak were to be eliminated. Gone. Brock was willing to end them right now. He waved the handgun at the wary ones, chuckling like it was entertainment.

A malicious woman growled at him and uttered a step toward him. She wearily leaped, her blue dress encompassing Brock as they tumble down. “Off!” Brock struggled through her bashes, and jabbed his gun into her side. “Ah!”

The gun erupted with a furious explosion, deafening Brock's ears through the woman's endless groan. She lost grip of Brock and dropped to the concrete with a chilling howl from the rest of her acquaintances. Brock had no time to react when his eyes snapped open in freezing shock.

“You screwed up!” He shouted, dragging himself away vainly. He watched his hand go up and fire a bullet into the chomping head of a scraggly man on his calf. Brock winced in pain, observing his impairment that left him downed. “Screwed up big time!”

The sergeant blasted the trigger of his daring pistol at the crowd. Lifeless bodies collapsed to their deaths, leaving a pitiful few to drag themselves at Brock. The crazies unleashed largehearted growls at the bellowing sergeant with the clicking gun. They were maybe five feet, a meter or so, away from grasp.

The inhuman screams Brock made while on the sidewalk was suppressed by the volleys of bullets striking the waves of undead. Brock watched the crazies fall in front of his feet with clean bullet holes etched into their craniums. Brock grabbed his pain stricken leg and cowered at the sight. He felt the large gash in his calf and stung himself with an intense string of hurt.

He slid the pistol in his holster, trying to register what was happening. His battalion had abandoned him. He watched as they held down the school's main entrance. Frantic, yelling people behind them. Brock craned his neck around him to see the growling shelves of dead shuffling towards him. Brock didn't want to watch as his imminent death traveled at him. He looked around his surroundings, finding a couple of his boys strewn on the road with a group of crazies bashing fists at their bodies. He yelped as he was given another streak of pain and another set of growls closed in...

He couldn't die here on this sidewalk. If he did, he knew he was letting everyone down. Sportsmanship. His troops, the people, his family. Mary and the boys. Brock whimpered. What was this? Brock reached for his watery eyes and pulled back. He didn't want to die here, not now. Where was his gun again? Safe in his holster, useless without ammunition. Brock lifted himself up halfway before hitting the floor with his unstable leg. “Drat...” He attempted the act again, this time doubling his effort. He found himself standing up on an uneasy balance. Move, move, move or die.

Brock took a few steps with his good leg towards the school. He stumbled on his other leg, pain sending a fist at his head. Couldn't give up now, move, move, move. Brock arched his back on the way, hearing his back let loose a satisfying crack. Another step, here we go, so close you can see...

With a leap driven by anger, Brock threw himself past the poorly made defense composed of shredded cardboard and plastic chairs from the school's office. Brock winced at the pain being sent up his leg. He could barely take a step without collapsing to his knees with ever growing angst.

There was a man, hood covering his head, staring at the instructor. He had just finished sweeping up three refugees who did not feel the need to comply to his pleas. “We're fine; we just want outta here” they had assured him. Oh boy that sure worked out just peachy. Peachy just like when he saw the same sergeant instruct Wyatt to his death.

The hooded man knew what three refugees put back into the cafeteria would get him. Maybe another tray of spoiling food? He'd need to ask Nolan to smuggle something in for him. Peachy. Peachy just how Wyatt ended up being his buddy. A close buddy if anything at all. He watched closely from his post as the sergeant dragged his lifeless foot towards the school's front doors, pushing past the lines of refugees. The sergeant hollered over the warfare to other commanders but to no avail. The bastards were separated from each other like dogs in kennels.

Hatred. That was the one word to describe what Lyle C. Jackson held inside himself. The soldier wanted to walk over to that dog and curse him to death. Poor Wyatt. Poor, poor young Wyatt. Minutes before, he had stepped over his own lifeless friend.

Lyle had picked up his friend's carbine with a tight, firm handle. Boom, boom, boom. Three shots and those things were off of Wyatt's body and dead themselves. He made sure they were dead. He wanted to send a kick into the sergeant's gut just like he did to the bastard that was ripping out Wyatt's throat.

The anger grew. “Sergeant!” He shouted, knowing it was useless over the deafening voices and ringing gunshots. Lyle glanced back to the barrier, just in time to see a brand new group of shambling idiots making their way to the school. He sighed and went for the bastard.

-

The sergeant burst into the main office with furious strength. There were several paramedics loosely working on the injured who sat on whatever resembled a chair. Four soldiers, that was all, stood at each door and occasionally peered out. People were moaning inside the office. Everyone was preoccupied with howling unfortunates laying down on whatever came to their reach.

He dragged himself to one of the doors, leading to the cafeteria. There must be more medics there who could offer some help. Everything would be okay. Brock looked down at his leg, lifted up the pant leg, and nearly threw up at the sight. His eyes lit up at the sight of the massive sizable bite.

The sergeant gave a gander to the soldier at the door. The man was trying to hold in his fear. Brock noticed how the man's face quivered and was more concentrated on the outside scenery than guarding. It took several moments for the soldier to notice there was a panting sergeant making way for the door knob.

“Hey!” He hissed, grabbing a hold of Brock's hand the guard stared at the sergeant. “What do you think yer doing?”

Brock bent down and brought up his pant leg, “That enough information, smartass?” Brock regretted showing the soldier his leg, since it took only two seconds for a nurse's wail to turn into uproar. “Scoot over, boy.” It took a shove, but Brock shut the metal door behind him.

Brock left the main office to the surprised crowd, moving for the cafeteria. His leg was killing him. Brock gritted his teeth as a god awful pain spread throughout him. A shearing, blinding agony that damned him. No, he would be okay and he would see Mary and the boys. The boys.

There was no one soul in the cafeteria who wasn't a yowling devil. There was the occasional soldier actually listening to whatever the instructor instructed. The rest were screaming their voices to oblivion at the enforced crazies. The crazies did a fair share of the noise too, but they weren't the ones soiling their pants.

Brock dragged one side of his body to the front door where there crimson streaks on the tiles. He could spot a nurse or two managing inside the cafeteria. They must have been there to symbolize something to the soldiers. Whatever that symbol may be, it didn't do jack shit to help out.

There was no use for him there. Sure, he could get a nurse to lay him on one of those stingy cots. One of those nurses could have saved the wounded sergeant that day. Brock knew that a bandage wouldn't satisfy his bleeding muscle cavity with a bite-sized hole in it. He would have to just settle with it.

Brock felt for the dinosaur in his pocket. He felt the touch of his fingers against the solid phone. It was a moment of reawakening for the sergeant who had spent the last dozen minutes crippling a crazie and shooting off rounds like it was the darn hunting season. For a second, he sensed the deepening pain in his leg disperse.

“Ah!” Brock shuddered, crumpling to one knee as a pain jolted him like getting struck by thunder. The strong sensation singed him, leaving him on the smoldering hot floor. He tried up again, like what he did before, but it was just another fuse of agony. He had to get up. He had gotten up from it several minutes ago.

He yearned for Mary and those little boys of his. The words replayed in his pain-stricken head like a vibration. The words he had told his wife. “Be back before you can blink,” He murmured, spitting on the floor. It was coming back to him in his concentration. “You lousy excuse for a soldier, get up...”

He pounded a fist into the floor.

It was before he was barracked to the high school. The sun was shining that day as the wind passed by. That day there were many, oh yeah a lot, of soldiers spilling their eyes out through the phone with their loved ones. He'd even seen one soldier, a real tough guy, weep gently to whoever was over the phone.

Brock hadn't had time to use the phone provided by the military station. He had went to his locker that afternoon and flipped out his cell phone. He had minutes to spend so why not? Mary had picked up instantly, answering first with a joyful laugh.

“Brockford Menster, if it isn't you?” Her voice was angelic if anything at all. Brock was smiling by the start, knowing his wife liked to tease him with the name.

“Hey, honey. Are you alright?” Stupid thing to ask. Why wouldn't she be? They lived in a two-story in the richest part of the neighborhood. She wasn't bored either considering Brock himself had bought his family a flat screen television set built for perfection. How could someone lose interest in reruns?

“Yeah, why wouldn't I be?” She laughed again. “I just got back from running groceries. Did you know Kyle doesn't like peanut butter?”

Brock had laughed too. “I guess it runs in the family then.” Brock had never himself liked peanut butter. He had done what his father, and his father had done since the time of George Washington Carver. Good man, but not to Brock's taste. “So Kyle and Mikey are at school?

Dumb question, Brock. The boys had been at school for an hour or two at the time. As he laid there, spatting curse after curse at the murky floor. She must have tossed a sarcastic joke at him. Both of them had probably laughed too. Good bye, and that was it.

Oh how he would give for her sweet, soothing voice again. Brock knew he couldn't stand up even if he wanted to. There was a storage room next to the office. He started to drift along the flooring towards the storage room. It took some effort, but hell, he made it.

The door was already ajar. He slid into it, groaning as he bent his leg. There was a shelf overturned with its boxes strewn across the room. Brock glided along the sea of cardboard, resting back on a table shelf. He reached for his cellphone, flipping out the screen.

Redialed. Come on.

After stabbing in the numbers, he waited for the tone to beep. There it was, okay time to wait. “All the time in the world,” He muttered in a bloody breath. He was getting all riled up from excitement. He felt his face stretch out in a warm smile. He pressed the phone to his ear waiting for that beep.

No one had picked up by the second beep. Maybe there was no one home. Mary could be running those groceries again. Of course she was. Like last time with the boys at their school. All those times that Kyle gave his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to his younger broth-

“H-hello?” The voice wasn't soothing. It sounded worried, anxious and deep. There was the sound of clashing and thuds in the background.

“Todd? What are you doing in my house?” Brock hissed, remembering the low voice of his burly neighbor, Todd.

Something shattered in the background. Glass. “Brock, is that you?”

“Who does it sound like?” He retorted, “why are you in my damn house, Todd?”

Todd gulped on the other end. He didn't respond right away. The other end of the phone was muffled, but after a minute of Brock swearing there was a noise. “I know how this seems, Brock, but...”

“But fucking nothing, get out of my house!” Brock shouted into his cellphone. He grabbed onto his leg when the pain jolted him again. There was a hot, burning sensation in his thigh. He reeled up his pant leg and to his dismay there was a red, bumpy rash.

“I can't do that, Brock.”

“Listen here, Todd.” Brock's words echoed into a whisper. “Tell me where Mary is.”

There was a cold silence that hung in the air. “You won't understand what's happening.”

Brock had enough of his stubborn neighbor. “Tell me now,” He tried to keep the anger in his throat, but in a furious rage he screamed out. “Now!” His neighbor whimpered. Brock cocked a grin, expecting some answers. That was before the familiar set of moaning spilled out from the cellphone.

“Todd, please, Todd where is my family?” He heard Todd on the other end throwing something. Through Todd's struggling breaths, Brock heard him yelling at whatever was moaning. “Please...”

There was an ear-piercing scream from Todd. An ungodly loud, drawn out yelp. Brock heard the phone crack on the other end as it fell to the floor. Todd's gurgling noises left Brock speechless. Brock winced, hearing the hungry groans the dead unravel. There, stuck in the depths of the storage room and next to a mop, was the sergeant sobbing.