[Jason Grimm]

Chapter 2


The blue paint on the outside was cracked and past faded, and the windows were lined with rusting anti-theft bars. It was quiet around the small two-story shop, and there were no signs of chaos going on inside. After looking around, Victor carefully made his way to the front door and checked it. The brass knob turned without delay and the door pushed open. Bells sounded as the door fully opened, and sounded once more when Victor closed it behind him. A path of grey tile led him past the musical instruments, through the electronics section, and to the stairs where a wooden sign read "Knives and Firearms" with a yellow arrow pointing upward.
The staircase Victor’s eyes saw was narrow and dark, plus the second-story lights appeared to be shut off making the top of the stairs all but impossible to see. On top of that, the staircase was too narrow for Victor to take his weapon with him; making for a vulnerable trek to the upstairs area. With hesitation and regret, he sat the bent and bloody stop sign on the floor at the base of the stairs and prepared to start his scale to the upper floor unarmed.
A wooden creak released under his thick feet as they slowly climbed the narrow stairs. He tightened his eyes hoping the upstairs windows would offer him a dim view of the upstairs area, but pitch black was all he could see. Once he reached the top of the stairs, he could hear something moving around across the floor. His stomach tightened as his ears continued to pick up the light clicking noises on the other side of the room.
Fear quickly pressed him against the wall to his left as a bright flash of lightning illuminated the room for a brief glance. Thunder erupted seconds later, followed by the sound of rain striking the metal roof above.
With another flash of lightning, Victor made out a human-like shape in the place where the noises were being made earlier. Realizing that the person in the room was given a chance to see him as he had seen them, Victor crouched down and began slowly making his way over to the glass display casing in the center of the room that the lightning had shown him seconds before.
The thunder lashed out again in the distance, but was now much louder than it was seconds before. Again the lightning unveiled the interior, and this time Victor was shown a shiny aluminum baseball bat that rested on the second shelf across from him along with other pieces of various used sports equipment. He wasted no time snatching up the item as thunder erupted outside yet again. The footsteps he heard in the room with him slowly clicked their way past him one isle over and then to the right of him near the staircase as Victor continued to make his way to the glass cases he
had seen seconds before. Once more the lightning caused revelations in the room and exposed a middle-aged man lying dead in the far left corner of the room. It looked as though his neck had been eaten all but down to the spine as gore was heavily pooled under and around his lifeless vessel.
The thunder roared in once again, and shook the building as it did so. This time when the lightning flashed he could see the zombie in heels that was "clicking" around the room. It looked as though she hadn't been like this for too long as her skin was still almost toned for living. Her black hair shifted as her brown eyes saw him just as he had noticed her. With a stroke of luck Victor felt a light switch behind him on the wall as thunder sounded outside. He flicked the switch and readied the bat as the lights flickered on upstairs.
Once the lights fully revealed the room he saw the dancer standing in front of the stairs, her black halter top and her leather skirt covered in blood just like most of her skin. As she stood there she looked at him and parted her red lips to speak.
"You have to kill me before I lose control again," she said softly as she cried. "The keys to the weapon case are in his left pocket. You have to hurry..."
Victor wasted no time in running over to the dead body and checking the pockets as fast as his reflexes would allow after finding that the bat did nothing but bounce off of the safety glass case. Sure enough, he found a ring lined with keys which he immediately took with him to the middle showcase. With the lights turned on in the room he could see what rested in the chrome- framed weapons case in front of him. Within the blood-splotched glass he saw a couple of .45 clip-fed handguns, a classic 12-gauge pump shotgun, several 9mm handguns, corresponding ammunition boxes, spare clips, and an assortment of combat and hunting knives. He tried four keys frantically
while eyeing the girl before finding the right one, and once he did he picked up one of the larger knives with a snap-on belt sheath and loaded a black 9mm.
"It won't be long before I'm hungry again," she told him as she shook with pain; trying not to look at him. "You can't let me hurt anybody else...Please...”
"I'm...not sure if I can do this," Victor said while pointing the shaking gun at her head.
"You have to do this," she begged. "It hurts so much...and it won't stop until I give in and hurt someone else...You've gotta make the pain stop. Please make it stop..." she whimpered. “Please...”
“What did this to you?” Victor asked as a sense of compassion washed over him. After all, this wasn’t a monster trying to kill him...It was a frightened woman that knew her time alive was at an end. Victor knew that she probably didn’t deserve an end like this, just as he knew he didn’t deserve to be the one to end it for her.
“A man on the street attacked me...bit into me,” she said as she seemed to struggle with each word she spoke. “It hurts so much...”
"I hope you can forgive me for what I'm about to do," he said as he agonized inside and prepared to fire the gun.
"I...forgive you..." she said softly as she closed her eyes, causing a single tear to run down her cheek.
One last breath escaped her soft, rose-toned lips before Victor’s finger squeezed the trigger. Victor released a gasp as a flick of her cold blood slapped his face, and the instant her body slumped to the floor Victor’s soul seemed to fade into a numbness that he’d never felt before.

The sound of the gunshot rang out over and over in his mind as her inanimate body rested before him in a grim fashion that made Victor vomit after dropping to his knees. Even after falling to the floor, her eyes had stopped in a gaze of fear that locked with his own. Victor knew that every color, every curve, and every word that belonged to her would be burned into his memory for eternity. As he sat there, he found her eyes penetrating his will, forcing his breath to stiffen as what happened began to build.

He screamed in between gags as he spit remnants from his soured mouth while attacking a nearby shelf in a fit of agonizing rage after he stood. He turned away from what he had done and fell to his knees again as he screamed in disgust once more. While he sat there, he noticed faint movement coming from the dead man's arms and legs as he was slowly beginning to re-animate. Victor raised the gun with haste and fired, hurling bullets at the man's face until the head was no longer a part of the equation.
Victor tried to get a grip on his state of mind before he lost control, and as he did so he stood in a rage and looked across to the coats section where a selection of trench coats awaited. Once he found one that was close enough to his size in black, he unloaded the majority of his outfit’s contents into the coat and slipped it on. He then filled the larger pockets with extra 12-gauge ammo, but stopped in place the instant he saw a large custom revolver locked in the side case with a box of its .50 caliber magnum ammunition. He unlocked the case and removed the gun and its thigh holster which had chrome snaps made for attaching to a belt. Victor did just that and loaded the 5-shot
revolver, then placed it back in its holster while placing the ammo in his new coat. He soon after began filling the spare .45 pistol clips with hollow points as quickly as his shaking and unnerved hands would allow while he constantly tried to maintain the remnants of his composure. He eventually filled and placed them into his coat pockets, then removed the twin-gun torso harness
from its display and began putting it on and adjusting it after he briefly shed his new coat. He quickly loaded the two .45 pistols and slid them into the holsters in the harness, one on each side with a third smaller holster in the back where he placed the black 9mm. Victor then grabbed and quickly loaded the pump shotgun, and slung it across his right shoulder after putting the
coat back over his broad frame and wiping the blood from his face.
After arming himself, he walked to the window and looked at the dark streets that waited outside. It was then he noticed a faded billboard for a used car lot less than a half-mile down the street. If he could make it there, there would be no doubt he could find a car and be out of this forsaken place.
Victor soon after made his way down the steps and back out of the front door, walking in the direction the billboard directed as lightning and thunder were all that followed with him in the dark dread that seemed to chase him like a lost child; drops of rain pelting him all the while.