Step by Step/Issue 9

This is Issue #9 of Step by Step. This is the fourth issue of Act Two.

Stalemate
A large crow streamlined over the streets of Indianapolis. It soured through the gloomy rain clouds that hung over the city. There were helicopters diving below the crow. Black Hawks. The crow glided through the plumes of smoke that had accumulated below the storm clouds.

It swooped down and every now and then ducked under a tree branch. The crow sometimes would twitch its head to the side to watch out for any danger. There were more people out in the streets than usual. More than the crow had ever seen in its great six years of life.

The large crow cawed as its claws snatched onto a broken down tree branch. The crow surveyed the streets. There were at the most one hundred people at a given area. All of them were after something. A goal which the crow had never thought would be useful for it.

The crow had a growing hunger in its belly. It switched vision to the oak tree's thick trunk. In the vagueness of sunlight, the crow stood out next to a crevasse in the trunk. It cawed once more, and then the lumbering storm clouds flooded the streets.

Thick fumes of exhaust filled the air. It blended in with the sleek, smoldering clouds of fog that enveloped the roadway. The ashen masses brought along with them a chilling front that made Jacob Davis shiver in his brown coat.

“Damn weather.” It had started to pour out in thudding amounts of rain. Jacob squinted his eyes, and tried to make out the vehicles in front of him. Stalemate. He chuckled to himself. He had never been much of a chess player himself. Maybe if he could get past the graying hair first.

“We're going to be stuck here for hours,” exclaimed a dark-haired woman next to him. “I told you this was a bad idea.”

Jacob glared at his wife. Sarah, such a kind soul, was stuck with him in the cramped car. “Don't worry, we'll get to him soon enough.” Jacob bit his lip. It had been a suffering of two hours stuck on the road. The only reason he and taken his car out was to fetch his son. “Sure of it.”

Sarah ignored him and flicked her eyes to the window. The frozen window. Whatever moisture once laid on its glass had formed a sheet of ice on the layers. Must be winter coming early.

The car spurted out more smoke fumes. Whenever the car started to do that, Jacob would always remember that he needed the engine and every single part of his car inspected. His impatience started to make his skin crawl. “Ethan.”

“What?” Sarah asks. She grabbed a dry, messy rag from the counter and started to brush the blurry windshield.

“Nothing, nothing.” Jacob kept his eyes on the direction he was moving in. Ever since the military station at Summercreek dropped explosives on the road, he had grown wary and on high alert. He didn't want to know why they would even do such a thing.

“That better?” His wife finished clearing the once blurred out windshield. Jacob started to see the blinking red lights of the SUV in front of his car.

“Yeah, thanks.” Jacob flipped on the car's radio, his impatience urging him to listen. He didn't want to listen to any music. Switch. No talk shows. Switch. He could care less about the weather at the moment. Switch.

“What are you trying to find?” Suddenly, a sickening word left the radio. Riots. Sarah covered her hand onto his “Keep your eyes on the road, Jacob.”

He nodded and went to lay back into his chair. Jacob's back ached from jogging the day before. Not to mention the weights he had pressured his arms to lift up and down for two hours. “You hearing this Sarah? Or am I going insane?”

The terrified voice of Ronald Cleveland continued on. “The large riots are said to be a reaction to the force being used to detain those with the disease,” Cleveland droned on. “An ongoing, yet vigorous, riot taking place is one developing in New York... there have been more than twenty confirmed casualties.”

Jacob grinned. Detain, sure, detain. He and Sarah knew what that word meant. Shot to death. Ever since the first hospitals were greeted by the aggressive strain of disease, those who were infected with the plague went on to slaughter unsuspecting others.

It was all a mystery to Jacob, but his wife had other opinions. The night before she had come home from the Indianapolis City Hospital drenched in tiring sweat. She had gone to her bed and babbled on about how two nurses had been found with the disease and had been detained.

“Gotta be kidding me,” Jacob let his car race up as a good portion of the other cars in front of him to disperse.

“They do this now?” Sarah watched and rolled her eyes.

“Good for us,” He said, planting his shoe on the pedal. Jacob slammed down the pedal and rocketed through the road. The thought never crossed his mind of why they had loosened up. All he cared about now was about Ethan.

He caught a whiff of his strong cologne and rolled down the window to his left. A thrust of cold air blasted into the car. The biting wind made his eyes tear up, but all he could care about was Ethan. His son.

“J-Jacob!” Sarah shouted in a terrific, worried scream.

Jacob's eyes split to the windshield. Oh shit. He swerved out of the way, although he still felt the rumble of a body connecting with the hood of his Chevy. He blinked twice, trying to make sure what he was seeing was true. And it was. They were there. Moaning and groaning with their diseased hands clawing at his car.

“Jacob, go!” And he did. He pulled out of the avenue and left the crazies staggering behind in the fumes of exhaust. Jacob tried to speak to his way, just say something, but he couldn't. He never wanted to look into the milky eyes of a diseased person ever again.

That was when he found accelerating deep into the parking lot of Summercreek High School.

He hadn't even blinked before leaving his fixed position. Joseph lunged at the metal door, trying in angst to get the door open. Locked. He pressed his hands on the lock, cursing at it as he launched a kick at it.

Joseph glanced up to see Gordon. His friend was still there, but looking worried. Gordon flashed Joseph a look of somber in his hazel irises. The next moment, Gordon left the glass pane and disappeared into the thick blue mist that had formed outside.

“What the hell's goin' on?” shouted Lyle as he barreled for the metal door. “Joseph?”

Joseph rapidly blinked his eyes before letting go of the door lock. He was unsure of what he was doing. Or what he saw. “I—“ Before he could continue, something thumped against the door behind him.

“Holy shit!” Lyle backed away, pointing an unsteady finger at what was behind Joseph. The glass pane. Joseph eerily turned around to see the bloodied face of a woman. Her face had grayed from disease. Her cracked lips suddenly slipped out a deep, haunting moan.

The woman's eyes grew when something struck her from the mist. Her body loosened before sliding beneath view. That was when Joseph knew he had seen his friend. There was Gordon, yanking a shining blade from the crazie's head. “Open it, man!”

Joseph nodded nervously, his hands finding their way to the door lock. He switched the bolts out, occasionally looking up to make sure Gordon was still there. And he was. Joseph released the last lock and shot the door off its hinges.

When the crowd of refugees had gathered behind Lyle, they began to whisper. Some of them were on tired legs, wrapped up in blankets to keep warm from the chilly air in the gym. Most were happy to get up on their feet after being cramped up on the uncomfortable bleachers. Though none were prepared to see what they saw.

Gordon crossed through the entrance, slipping on his own weariness. He was out of breath, and dropped his knife. As it clanged against the floor, he collapsed to the floor. “C-close it!”

Joseph frantically set the door back until it closed with a satisfying clinging sound. He clicked the large padlock into place. He dared not to check out what lurked in the darkening outside. Joseph rested his back against the door and tried to catch his breath.

Lyle's not to sure about what to think of it. The man looks like a soldier, but at the same time one of the refugees. He examined Gordon's tattered military uniform until stopping at his thigh. It was caked with dripping blood. “He's shot.”

As Gordon screamed in agony, Lyle turns around to divert his eyes to Lilian. “The man is shot!”

Lilian was kneeling next to Eugene and packing up her equipment. She hadn't had time to zip up her medical pouch. Her attention was stuck to the downed man. She tucked in her pouch and turned to face a female nurse next to her,one of the few paramedics in the gym. “I'll go.”

Gordon relentlessly squirmed on the waxed gym floor while keeping a hand on his thigh. “It's burning!” He exclaimed once Lilian crouched beside him. She fished a hand into her pouch and got to work on checking the wound. There was no exit wound.

She cursed. Lilian double-checked all sides of the thigh by flipping it over, much to Gordon's agony. “W-who shot you?”

Gordon tried to respond, but his teeth had become glued to each other. When he started to scream through gritted teeth, he wriggled around uncontrollably in a struggle to relieve the sheering pain sensation. His eyes drifted up to Lilian. Help.

“Heheh...” Eugene raised his drowsy head from his pillow. He had been listening in the whole time. His jaw hurt like he had been shot like Gordon had been. “I told you..” His words fell out his mouth. “The military...”

Then, a set of moans rasped on outside behind Joseph.