Shallow Creek

The town itself would be considered a small town in Texas, but that didn’t stop the sprawl that usually accompanied cheap land prices.  Brendan cruised down the main street for some time before finding the narrow gravel road he needed.  After bumping his truck down a ways, he found the unmarked trailer park assembled on his right.

As he drifted slowly down what could loosely be defined as a street, Brendan wondered how on Earth a place like this warranted a street name, never mind the house numbers to go along with it.  Glancing at a numbered signpost in disbelief, Brendan stopped his truck in front of a dirty single wide mobile home.

An A/C unit hung precariously out of one window.  Streaks of rusty brown ran down from improvised gutters running the length of the trailer.  A couple of good-sized dents hinted that someone had taken a baseball bat to the siding.

And this was where Taryn had found a better life for herself.

Reluctantly he killed the engine and got out.  His heart shifted up into his throat as he approached the door gracing the center of the home.  He didn’t really know what to expect, or even what to say, but he didn’t have much time to plan before the door swung open.  He hadn’t even knocked yet.

“What do you want?” growled a huge man with a shaved head.  His accent was definitely Eastern European, but Brendan had a hard time discriminating between the different flavors.

“I’m Taryn’s brother.”

“There’s no Taryn here.” The man stepped back and started to close the flimsy door.  Brendan shot up the two concrete steps and pushed against the door.

“Wait—” he started before the door flew open and meaty hands grabbed the front of his shirt.

Anger smoothly took control.

Brendan brought his arms up hard under his attacker’s.  With the grip loosened, Brendan brought an elbow down into the bridge of the man’s nose.  The satisfying pop didn’t distract Brendan as he hoisted the man around by one arm and spun him gracefully down the steps and onto his ass.

Brendan descended the steps in a single bound, punched his assailant in the face for good measure, and then ripped him up by the shirt, slamming his back into the side of the trailer.

“Where’s my sister, you little shit?”

The bigger man snarled, but did nothing more than stare back defiantly.

Brendan brought a knee up to the man’s gut and clocked him in the side of the head before rushing up into the trailer.  He could hear the man roar behind him, but he didn’t care.  Something wasn’t right here, and he needed to find his sister.

A noise to his left grabbed his attention.  He darted through a cramped bathroom and found himself in a stark bedroom.  On a mussed bed lay an incredibly attractive woman wearing nothing more than panties and a thin white tank-top.  Brendan averted his eyes the instant he recognized his sister.

With a cloudy voice, she asked who he was.  She seemed only vaguely worried that a strange guy had just burst into her bedroom.

“I’m Brendan,” he said, still staring at the floor.  “Your brother.”

She shrieked joyfully as she flew from the bed and wrapped her arms around his neck.  Not knowing what to do, he carefully pushed her hips back from his own and looked into her vacant, sunken eyes.  These were not the eyes of someone so young.  She’d lived some hard years.  When she smiled, her yellow teeth looked rotten, and Brendan caught a whiff of something atrocious from her body.

Powerful arms wrapped around his chest from behind and plunged him backwards through the bathroom and into the living area.  Brendan couldn’t regain his balance and his foe launched him backwards into a recliner, which flipped over with the impact, allowing Brendan to crack his head against the wall.

Before he could recover, the man lifted him up and slammed him against the wall.  In the background, his sister’s screams arrested both men’s attention.

“Serge!  Let him go!” she cried, pounding on the man’s back.  “He’s my brother!”

Serge’s glare bored into Brendan’s eyes, and he didn’t dare blink.

“If I let you go, will you fight?”

Suppressing the burning desire to break this man’s face even more than he already had, Brendan shook his head.  Serge slowly released him and backed away as Taryn lunged forward to embrace Brendan again.  Without listening to whatever it was she was saying, Brendan eased her aside and stormed up to Serge.

“What the hell is wrong with her?  What did you give her?” he demanded, pointing back at his confused sister.

“That’s not your business,” Serge said.

Now Taryn cautiously walked around next to Serge and clung to his giant tattooed arm.

“What do you mean, ‘What the hell is wrong with me?’” Anger creeped into her voice.  “Just what the hell does that mean?”

“What is it?  Coke?  Meth?”

Brendan saw the slap unfurling both in his sister’s mind and then in her arm, but he made no move to stop the clumsy effort.  She connected forcefully with his cheek before spitting on his shoes.