Free Dead Drunk II: Dawn of the Deadbeats (Dead Drunk: Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse... One Beer at a Time Book 2) by Richard Johnson

made up, Marquell moved towards them with purpose, chuckling to himself.
    Then he
reached down and effortlessly dragged Trent upwards as if lifting a child from
a crib. Marquell was not ready to lose his pawns quite yet.
    Trent spit at
the zombies and then composed himself. “Thanks, I mean it. Keep the damned
flashlight.”
    Marquell
nodded, then looked at Russ as his hand throbbed from his hard punch. “Damn,
you got a hard head.”
    “People been
telling me that my entire life.”
    Just then,
the laser show stopped and a floodlight turned on. Several armed men crept from
the pitch-black side tunnels and surrounded them. That’s when a pale man
wearing a bowler hat and a necklace of hickeys came to the fore with an air of
superiority and malevolence. “Hands up, fuck-sticks. You’re in Gutter Punk
territory.”

Chapter
8: Sisters
     
     
    Jackie’s
expensive yacht powered through the choppy waters of Lake Michigan while
absolute chaos erupted in the city behind them. Blaring sirens, gunfire,
screams for help and explosions competed for the girls’ attention before it all
faded away in the distance. The whole fiasco had been going on for only about
fifteen minutes.
    But to Jen,
Padma, Jackie, and new arrival Mary, those minutes were a lifetime. They had
lost friends and dodged sudden death, and even killed a man. And it wasn’t even
lunchtime.
    As they got
some distance from the shoreline, Jen asked Jackie what they were all thinking.
“Where are we going? Indiana? Michigan? Wisconsin? Just because this is your
boat, it doesn’t mean we don’t have a say so.”
    Jackie cast
her friend a sideways glance and continued to pilot the boat without saying a
word.
    “Jackie, you
need to—”
    “Will you let
me think? Jesus,” Jackie replied with a huff. She was the type that had her
life in magnificent order with all going as planned since childhood, whether it
was her education, career path, love life, you name it. But now that whole
lifestyle was gone. There would be no more long-term plans, only reactions.
Reactions based on what would keep her alive the longest. She veered left and
Jen almost fell over.
    “Well?”
    Jackie
pointed ahead at a large building rising above the water. “Here’s your answer.”
    “Okay. What
is it?”
    “It’s a water
pumping station for the city. We’ll dock here until we find out what’s going
on, and we can always hop back in the boat and head to shore if we need to.
Does that sound good?”
    “All right,”
Jen said and left to tell Padma what was going on.
    Padma was
busily tending to Mary’s bruises and trying to calm the girl down. “You have a
nasty knot on your head, but nothing serious,” she added while checking the
thirty-year-old woman’s eyes. “And that’s pretty amazing considering you just
rode the top of a cop car and took quite a beating.”
    Jen grimaced
upon seeing the injuries she caused the woman during their escape. “We’re
stopping right up here at some kind of station. It’s like an artificial island.
Sorry again, about that, by the way. You can’t blame me though, considering.”
    “I’m okay,”
Mary said and rubbed her scalp. “It’s crazy that we ended up here together.”
    Jen tilted
her head. “How so?”
    “You don’t
remember me?” Mary asked, a little surprised and a little hurt.
    “Sorry, no.”
    “I’ve been
bagging your groceries for like ten years over at Healthy-mart. You come in
like clockwork every Sunday night. Wine, cheese, waffles and soda. Anyways, I
recognized you outside the store when everything started happening and figured
you would know what to do. You always seem to have everything together. I
chased you guys for like a mile.”
    “Oh yeah,
Mary! It’s hard to place someone when you see them out of context, you know,”
Jen said with half a smile. In fact, Jen didn’t remember Mary at all, and
couldn’t care less who bagged her groceries, washed her car, or delivered her
pizzas.
    Mary adjusted
her