[Jason Grimm]

Victor removed the disinfectant and the bandages, and began spraying the disinfectant so he could place the bandaging onto the wound as fast as possible. The instant he clamped down on the wound with the bandaging to stop the bleeding, the wounded man released a sharp exhale of pain.
"Fuck me that burns," he hissed.
"Sorry man, but I gotta try to get the bleeding to stop," Victor said softly as he watched the blood quickly seep through the bandaging. "Just sit still and try to stay calm, ok?"
"It’s bad, isn't it?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"Don't jerk me around man," he said as he made eye contact with Victor once more.
"I can't get the bleeding to stop," he answered after a few seconds of silence. "The wound is a jagged tear. It’s fairly deep and not that small. Ok...Lemmie think...Ok, I think I saw some torch lighters in the gas station so I'm going to try and burn the wound dry. Just sit there and try to stay awake, ok?”
“No prob,” he answered. “Nice car.”
“Yeah, it was.” Victor said as the damage to the front end made him all but sick. “Speaking of cars, where’s yours?”
“Piece of shit quit on me about a half-mile down the road,” the man said as the look on his face told Victor that he hated not giving them an escape plan. “I’ll never buy another import...” he chuckled weakly.

Victor helped him lie back on the hood and placed his right hand onto the blood soaked bandaging, then ran across the pumping station exterior and into the gas station. Once inside, he looked around for the small torches he remembered seeing earlier.
After looking for a few seconds, he spotted them on the counter
by the register, and wasted no time grabbing a handful of them. After retrieving them and returning his arm to his side, the dead brunette lunged over the counter trying to bite into his arm. Victor fell back with a yell of surprise and plowed through a candy bar display as the zombie slid across the
floor to his left. He scrambled to his feet as fast as he could and made sure to grab several of the torches he had dropped when he fell. The zombie was also on her feet, and on her way towards him once more.

Victor quickly realized that this zombie wasn't slow like the ones that lived in the movies, but at least she wasn't as fast as she probably was when she was alive. She lunged at him again, and he wasted no time in side-stepping and slinging her into one of the isle shelves behind them. He then ran
out the door, and used a couple of the torches to block off the tracks of the doors once they closed behind him, jamming them shut.
He ran back to his car while taking the safety cap off of one of the torches he still carried, getting ready to use it. He made his way around to the front of the car and found that the man resting on the hood of his car was unusually relaxed as if he were sleeping. Victor checked him, and he was dead.
"I'm sorry man," he said with a tremble as he hated himself for not being able to reverse nature's decision. He was trained in basic first aid, but wasn't able to help someone who needed help. He released a sharp yell of torment as frustration erupted from his lungs. He stood there for a moment as everything sank in; frozen in place as though he were a statue made of flesh and blood. Once again he was alone in a hell that made no sense.
Victor was scared, confused, and suffering from a headache caused by the car accident earlier. He looked to the dead man's belt, remembering the gun he was carrying. After checking it for ammunition, he rested the gun back in the hand of its owner. The chrome handgun's clip was empty. He then checked for extra ammo, but found nothing even close in comparison.

After regaining his composure, Victor placed the unused torch in his left pocket and began walking up the dark pavement looking for a way to get out of town. He knew that there was another small strip of stores less than a half mile in the direction he walked; a few burger joints, a video store, a grocery store, and a small gentlemen's club that had been there since the 50's. As he looked to the dimly-lit surroundings he rested in, he realized just how alone he was. There was nothing but the horrible soft-rock music playing on the gas pump speakers to lighten the dead silence around him. Every now and again he could swear he heard footsteps in the darkness that waited beyond the
reach of the sole street light that illuminated the small business area. As he began walking he fetched a cigarette from his black jacket pocket and one of the small torches from his matching pants. He pressed the button and a blue flick of heat emerged to light his cigarette. Victor slowly exhaled a small cloud of smoke as his left and right foot passed one another over and over again.

Once he left the radius of light behind, his skin began to prickle with fear and every breeze that blew past him spawned a shudder from his flesh. He felt as though something watched him from the darkness, but each time he looked around his disadvantaged eyes could find nothing. While his feet
carried him up the dark two-lane road, he could hear footsteps coming from the edge of the woods to his left. The mere thought of what could be waiting in the dark made him improve his pace, and after doing so he heard shoes click onto the pavement a few yards behind him. Victor turned around quickly to find the mangled corpse of a young girl sniffing the air around her. The lower portion of her jaw was missing, replaced by glistening gore that dripped from her face and tongue as she moved. Victor gagged as he noticed that her right eye was dangling by a thread of crimson flesh, and her stomach had been torn open leaving tendrils of meat dangling around her waist. He began
backing away as she made suckling, gurgling noises that almost sounded like words hissing from her throat while the wind tossed her straight darkened hair around her face.
Victor released a gasp of horror that sent his cigarette flying as she suddenly began to drag herself towards him, causing him to almost instantly turn and begin running. As he ran, he looked back on occasion to see her following him as fast as her broken shell would carry her.
After several minutes of this, the old strip club came into view up ahead on the left side of the road. Victor was tiring from the run, but he noticed that the thing following him didn't seem to be affected by fatigue, or pain for that matter. He was breathing rough and was slowing down, and the zombie was slowly catching up with him. He had no means to defend himself beyond his own body, so he decided the best thing to do would be to find a place to hide so that he could rest and think of what to do next. The strip club seemed good enough...no doubt they had alcohol, and he imagined car keys weren’t completely out of the question either.

There were a couple of cars in the parking lot of the strip club that was named "The Bare Essentials". One brown station wagon, and a mud-covered Nissan truck sat in spaces near the front door as he approached. A steady drip of blood trickled from the bed of the truck, and a lifeless arm dangled over the driver's side of the bed near the tailgate. Victor could also hear a loud gnawing sound coming from the front of the truck that made his skin crawl as his stomach twisted and churned .