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harshly. “Fuck! Where the fuck, am I?”
    Did the sick people speak? She was sure they didn’t. She had not heard them speak, so he was just a drunk.
    “Shuuuuush,” Amy whispered. “Be quiet. Go to sleep.” She waited for an answer, but there was only the return of snoring. She finally decided the man must have passed out. At least he was quiet. She slowly pulled boxes in front of her to hide herself and Claire from the drunk.

Chapter 5
Saving Drunks
    Matt Monroe slumped on the tattered barstool in front of a battered bar. He knew the cheap booze was clouding his mind, but that was the point. He drank because he wanted to forget. He’d been drinking on a regular basis since he’d returned from Iraq.
    It was a country with a hopeless population. Add all the radical jihadists and as far as Matt was concerned the United States government was pissing down a dry hole in the Sand Box, many of the soldier’s term for Iraq. Nothing was ever going to change. People, poverty, and religious extremists made it impossible to live together. They would be killing each other until the end of time. Now the world had terrorists using religion as justification to kill people they didn’t even know.
    He pushed away the thought of shattered lives and dead children. His actions were slow and deliberate when he reached for the next glass. He could barely hold his head steady on the fisted hand at his temple. There were nearly a dozen shot glasses lined up in front of him when he reached for the full glass at the end of the row.
    This particular bar was a shithole frequented by serious drinkers and Matt considered himself a serious drinker. He didn’t care about the decor. Getting drunk could be accomplished in a high-class bar alongside a bunch of suits and cost a lot, or in a dive like the current one with enough money to do it over and over again. Matt chose the latter, hands down.
    Since he was six foot four and weighed close to two hundred pounds, it took a lot of alcohol to get him drunk. He ignored the amber liquid splashing his fingers as he drew the glass closer to his lips.
    “Hey, buddy.” A voice behind him interrupted as an arm snaked around his shoulder and grabbed the glass from his hand. “You’ve had enough.”
    “Fuck off, Larry!” Matt slurred as he reached for the drink Larry had set on the bar to his left.
    Before Matt could reach the glass, Larry gave it a shove down the bar. A grizzled old man, four stools down, reached out and snagged the glass and downed its contents in one fluid movement.
    “Hey!” Matt protested. “My fuckin’ drink.”
    Without responding, the two men behind Matt each grabbed an arm and pulled him off the backless stool.
    “Time to get out of here, man!” Larry declared. “Shit’s fixing to hit the fan.”
    Matt’s head spun and images swirled around him, ebbing and flowing until finally engulfing him in an opaque haze. His final coherent thought was that the cheap whiskey was finally doing its job.
    Oblivion was preferable to the distant screams from his past. Those screams even intruded into his thoughts as he slipped into the void. He could hear the terror and pain filled screams of women and children.
    Larry Benson’s companion, Jake Curtis, pulled at Matt’s arm. “How in the fuck are we going to get him out of here? He’s passed out cold. It would serve him right to get eaten by those freaks,” Jake complained as he supported most of Matt’s weight.
    “Come on, Jake. I got an idea. Back door. Now!” Larry slid under Matt’s arm.
    He had been a frequenter of this particular dump and knew the back parking lot was fenced off. That left only the front of the alley to worry about. 
    “There’s a fence behind this place. I figure we can cut it, escape through the hole and then zip tie it back together.” He began pulling Matt toward the back door.
    When the bartender saw them head toward the store room door, he grabbed a bat from under the bar and followed the