Step by Step/Issue 10

This is Issue #10 of Step by Step. This is the fourth issue of Act Two.

Not The Light
Caroline held her breath back with a sharp gasp. She stood beside a brick wall inside the hallway that lead to the main office. Fear jolted through her spine and threatened her to go back into the gymnasium. Back to her cousin. Escape the monsters that walked the halls of her school.

Howling moans filled the air. There were no more soldiers. No refugee left to utter a scream as they faced their demise. She was the only breathing soul there. Of course, there was the occasional chatter inside the main office and the cafeteria. But their doors were bolted shut. Out on the bullet hole riddled walls was just a nervous Caroline.

There were still fresh holes burning in the posters she and her dad had made. Her principal had commended her for boldly adding creative pictures to the election posters. You'll surely get some votes. That was the last time she had talked to her brunette principal before the military barged in. Where was her principal now? Gone during the school's finest hour.

Caroline let her eyes slip to a dry blood stain on the tiles. Eugene. She suddenly felt humiliated for letting her emotions get the better of her. She needed to get her cousin help. The main office was barely a meter away. So close she could listen in on the nurses panicking inside and their patients lacking the patience in their name.

She was about to push open the door to get inside when a horrendous croaking noise came to life behind her. She wasn't alone. Caroline turned around whilst maintaining her hardened, relentless composure. Caroline wasn't scared. She wasn't scared. I'm not afraid.

Her thoughts shattered once she fell witness to the moldy face of a man. Barely six foot, he had his left cheek brutally ripped off. The man uttered an elevating moan and cranked up his stiff arms. His T-shirt rose up from its former place and revealed a series of gunshots along his midsection.

Caroline gasped. “Let me in! Let me in!” She screamed without thought. Caroline frantically beat her fists against the cold metal door. A brown-haired lady speed-walked towards the door. But not fast enough. The crazie had already started to reel Caroline's scalp inwards...

The door shot off its hinges. Susie Brown was there. She sent a powerful shove that knocked the wind out of her at the diseased man. Once the crazie landed on the tiled floor, she grabbed a hold of the girl and shut the door. “Close it!” As soon as she commanded, a man, no younger than thirty, began to haul a shelf over to the door.

Susie's weathered face frowned. She grabbed her sides and took in a breath of the musky air. She ignored the diseased man outside as he started to rasp against the door with grimy hands. She left Nolan to encase the shelf across the door. Susie breathed in deeply. Didn't even look up to see the man's blistered face appear from the other side of the door's glass.

“Are you okay?” Susie asked Caroline. The girl seemed familiar. She had the pale face of the kid who had washed up in her nursing room with stomach problems two months before. Maybe even the eyes of a tedious boy who had barfed all over her desk. Eugene. “Caroline, isn't it?”

Caroline's voice came out hoarse like she hadn't spoken for days. “Yes, I mean, yes ma'am.”

Susie smiled with passion. “Were you looking for something?” She asked, tempted to know why the girl was out alone when the military had evacuated all the hallways. “Anything at all?”

Caroline nodded several times. Still in shock, she hid the memory of feeling the man's cold stench hit her neck when his hands wrapped around her back. “Cold water,” she blurted. “Ice preferably.”

Susie's smile dropped to the floor. She set a hand on Caroline's shoulder. On connection, she could instantly feel the girl's fear. Fear too common for Susie. She tried to say something, but glanced over to Nolan who was shifting a spare chair against the wooden shelf. “You're stuck in here with us, sweetheart.”

Caroline shook. She realized now that the churning storm outside had left the school with no power. Her eyes fluttered around the main office to find that there was no sunlight inside. The fluorescent lights had been shut off while some were still blinking little amounts of light on Caroline and Susie.

“They're here!” Nolan shouted. He had put his knee against the shelf in an effort to keep it into place. The loud clanging noises from the door had spiked in volume and they suddenly sounded as ferocious as the lightning strikes outside. “I need a hand!”

A burly man in a gray shirt with shredded sleeves hesitated to go, but got up from his stance against the wall anyway. He couldn't muster up a reason why he did that. He gave a last look to his wife who was settled on a wooden chair sleeping a peaceful sleep. The young nurse next to his wife looked at him with a grim face and nodded. “There's six of them—six!”

“Yeah, yeah. I see that!” Nolan clenched his fingers around the shelf. His eyes captured the bloody, soulless head of a woman on the other end. She was shoving the man with the blistered face to the ground with a sense of authority. She snarled and bared her foam-covered teeth at him. “Son of a bitch, man! Help!”

The husband swore as well and trudged over through the rows of patients. The wounded refugees in the room were less ware of their injuries with their eyes transfixed on the swaying door. He landed on the shelf and locked eyes with the door. The door knob had begun to turn through the mindless efforts of the six crazies outside. Each growling at everything in sight and banging their fists on the glass pane. Smearing it with blood.

“They're tryin' to open with the door knob,” Nolan reminded the man. “As long as we keep—“ Nolan and the man shot the door back into place when it went agape for a moment. “—they'll stay out there.”

Nolan screamed over the clanging of fists pummeling into the door in a nasty tone. “I got a feeling we're safe for now, man. We need to stay here.” He was doubting himself. He could tell the military had left them and took who they could to the gymnasium.

The man spoke through a course, light black beard and blinked, but kept his eyes shut. He turned to the shelf and slammed it one more time against the metal and put both of his arms on the wood just as it began to splinter from both of their struggles. Nolan eyed the man. A name crossed his mind and then a flow of fear; something Nolan has rarely experienced. Wayne locked his serious eyes with Nolan “You better hope, and I swear to god, you better hope more of these things don't come, boy.”

Alexander slipped into the cafeteria. He had followed behind a uniformed soldier into it. He wondered why there were so many injured. He sat on one of the remaining cots where there was a discarded soda can. Splotches of Cola stains marked the cot's sheets. He couldn't take his eyes off of the crying and bellowing wounded. Shot at? Bitten by what?

He set his radio on his lap. No use now, he thought. He gave it one last go and slammed his fist against it. “You're worthless.” When he needed the radio most, it just wouldn't comply to him. “I should recycle your sorry ass later!”

He rested his forehead on the radio before twisting his head over to survey the cafeteria. The lights had begun to flicker and the room had grown into an icy cold state. He shivered from the coldness and barely kept his head up when he saw Hector Pacino stretching out his limbs. Alexander looked away and went back to his habit of picking at the knobs and buttons on the military radio.

Hector Pacino yawned for his spine-popping stretch. Crack, crack. He felt wonderful and relieved from the monkey that was once on his shoulder. He realized the siren he hd heard when he woke up before had died down. Then he remembered about where he was. Who wasn't by his side. Hartman.

Swallowing an ounce of guilt, Hector maintained his posture and sprang up from the nursing bed he laid in near the stage. A wave of pain made Hector wince. His nose. There was a white bandage strapped across the cartilage. Broken nose, heh, best gift ever Mr. Mayor.

He looked around to find that beautiful piece of uniform that had carried him over to the bed. Amanda something. He found her saying good bye to an old, black man. Sanders? Hector rejoiced. It was the man who had threatened to sue Hector for not giving him insulin. Hector considered just ordering up some shots of insulin, but he reconsidered the thought. The governor and the damn president with their state of emergency wouldn't have the time to please a man with his dumb insulin. Hector grinned.

He felt for the handgun by his waist. It was still there; fully loaded. He shouldn't of been so quick to act. Should have thought it through when twenty plus things started to shamble at him and his downed partner. He imagined just lifting up the pistol with his remaining strength and blasting the bastards to smithereens...

There was more than a dozen National Guardsmen in the cafeteria. Hector counted and subtracted. His heart fell to his stomach. He had heard through whispers that a group of uniformed soldiers straggled into the gymnasium. That didn't make up for the thirty soldiers that he was missing. Were they dead?

Hector reached a foot out from where he stood and toward the boarded up windows. A glare of thunder flashed across his face. The rain came down hard against the glass. But didn't do much to ease the unruly fire that masked the avenue with orange sparks of fiery. The streets were empty as well. No people outside left to wail. All he saw were the swarms of those things trailing into the school's entrance. The living dead.

Spinning around just as another thunder bolt struck, he circled his eyes around the cafeteria. His police officers were still there. Hell, even the Frank the sheriff was there albeit snoozing on a bed. A smile crossed Hector's face. They were still in business.

“I want out!” A curly haired man pleaded as he was being checked up on by a stray nurse left in the cafeteria. The nurse hadn't even finished stitching up Blake's leg when he shot up and marched over to the front doors. “You're all gonna die here!”

Blake grimaced from the blood caked wound on his leg. He remembered when the soldiers with freckles dotted across his face was pounced on by the mother. Blake could sense the pain he felt when that mother jumped at him and tore a chunk of muscle from his above his kneecap. It stung like the time Blake had cut deep into his arm when he went fishing years before. His arm felt great now, but his leg wobbled as he went to the door and started to open it.

Hector reached for his gun. “Don't open that door.”

Blake laughed at the officer with a fearless grin. “Or you'll do what?” Blake reached for the padlock that had been placed on the door when the soldiers had rushed into the cafeteria and shoved out most of the refugees. Friends of Blake. “I ain't dying here.”

Cold sweat formed a layer on Blake's face. His head ached from the fever he was getting. He had to blink several times a second to bat out the sweat. His hands couldn't keep steady from the excruciating pain. Blake could tell there were eyes burrowing into the back of his head.

Unclasping the handgun from his holster, Hector tilted a hand to Blake. “Go back.” Hector's right hand trembled on the gun, but he pushed it forth and into the air. His head felt woozy from the fall. He could tell that the throbbing was setting in on his face. “Get away from there, now!”

Blake continued to cackle. A ray of thunder light illuminated the cafeteria. As soon as the light traveled out of the cafeteria and it went back to its dim state, Blake realized he needed a key. He spun around. “Who has the—?“

Hector squinted his eyes as he pulled back the trigger. Smoke puffed out with every shot he fired. He watched Blake convulse with each of the two shots. After the third, Hector's ears popped. Following the fourth round, screams of horror filled the cafeteria air.

But not Blake. Blake could barely keep himself up anymore. Explosions of light appeared in his vision. He howled in pain before landing on both knees. He didn't care about the flesh that had been ripped clean from his thigh. As the agony took over him, he tried to say something through the blood seeping from the corners of his mouth.

Blake never finished what he was trying to do. A fifth and final bullet raced through the air and out the back of Blake's head.