The Shadow Grove Chronicles - Book II: Dark Artifact

CHAPTER SIX

Sharron took off her heavy winter jacket, neatly folding it into a tight roll before stuffing it into her backpack. The sun was high and it was starting to get considerably warmer. What snow was left on the ground over the past few days from the coldsnap wouldn’t last more than a few more hours. She too was begining to melt under so many layers of clothing. It had been freezing when she woke and ice had formed from the melted snow overnight all over her camp, making it difficult for her feet to gain purchace on the pavement beneath them.

Breakfast at the soup kitchen had been decent, hashbrowns and bacon. She had left the eggs alone, not being able to eat them, offering them to anyone else at her table. Not a lot, but enough to keep her tiny body functional in this cold. Now it was almost one o’clock and her stomach began to growl angrily at her. Scowling, she ignored it and was presently back on the move.

She had managed to get a ten dollar bill from a good samaritan earlier when she was over by Parkland Hospital. She had stopped to rest on the campus while she was on her way to the library and wasn’t even flying a sign to panhandle. She had seen too many of the other homeless get picked up for doing that by Dallas police and she didn’t want to follow in their footsteps. Regardless, the young lady who had given it to her thought that Sharron must’ve needed it. She wasn’t wrong… It was going to be what she used to get dinner before returning to her pitch.

Traffic through the residential streets she now took was considerably less than what it had been over by the medical park. Only a few cars passed her as she trudged on instead of the hundreds that flew past when she was walking by the hospital. It had unnerved her, still not used to the heavy traffic of the large city. She had been from a very small town well outside the Metroplex. When her parents died, she didn’t have any other family to look after her and she was too old to be scooped up by child protective services like her brother and sister had been, but too young to take care of them herself.

That was over five years ago. She did what she could, working two jobs to try to cover the mortgage of the house that her family lived in, but it was too much for an eighteen year-old earning minimum wage to handle on her lonesome and was quickly forclosed upon by the bank despite her protests. In truth, the bank was going to take the house anyways, she not being part of the contract. Not having many friends and the ones she did have didn’t have the room to spare for her.

Frustrated, she packed a bag and left her small town behind and hitchhiked to Dallas, hoping that she would soon find a job that would afford her at least a small apartment. No luck unfortunately, the wheels fell off the economy and jobs, even in the metropolis she now found herself, were nearly impossible to find that could fit her current circumstances. Even members of the professional class were forced to trade in their white-collared shirts for McJobs.

Sharron was in her head as she made her way down the tree shaded street, planning out the week and hoping that she had some replies on the job board she visited in search of work. There were extra footsteps that echoed behind her, but she didn’t hear them as they approached up behind her.

“Hey, little girl.”

The sound of a male voice snapped her out of her reverie and her heart skipped a beat.

“Shouldn’t you been in schoool?” A new voice, higher pitched and weesely.

Sharron spun around and jumped back in surprise seeing the two men so close to her. They were close enough that she could smell them, even with cold wind that was blowing past.

“Didn’t yo’ momma teach you that the streets is dangerous? Good thing we’re here, ain’t it Zach?” The first man was of average height but still towered over her diminutive stature. He was smiling broadly, but it didn’t touch his eyes. They were cold as they looked Sharron up and down.

“Sure is, Chris. Now we can ‘escort’ her. Where you going, honey?” The smaller of the two was almost eye-to-eye to her and had the same predatory smile plastered to his face. Both of the men’s eyes were bloodshot and dialated. Under the smell of sour body odor was an acrid chemical smell, almost like acetone. Great, ice-heads on a bender.

Images flashed across her mind as she took in the situation: A violent tableau with her as centerpiece with these men holding down her naked body while trying to fumble with their zippers. Damn it… She took off down the street with them hesitating before following after her.

“You shouldn’t’ve run little girl,” said the small man as he started to gain on her, his voice strained from exhertion. “Now you’re jus’ go’n’ be exhausted when we’re done wi’cha.”

The houses blurred past as she ran. She took the first turn off when she got to it and then into an alley further down. She just kept running, the heavy stomps of her pursuers trailing after her. Just my luck, she thought. I pick the one alley without an outlet. Tall privacy fences lined the dead end and no gates stood open in which to duck through. She could see them again, racing down the gravel path to get to her.

“There you are you little b***h! You go’n’ pay for makin’ us have to run after ya. Ready to be a good girl for us now?”

She slipped her backpack off her shoulders and threw into a corner then squared her shoulders as she reached behind her, feeling for the nylon pouch hanging off her belt. The sound of velcro being ripped apart filled the small area but Zach and Chris didn’t hear it. They were just outside of her reach as they stopped ruunning, Chris having to bend over and catch his tattered breath.

“Okay, little girl, nowhere to run and you’re outnumbered. If you behave and treat us nice, we’ll treat you nice. Keep acting like a little b***h and it will go hard for you. Your choice.”

She slid out the last thing her father ever gave her before he and her mother died in that car wreck. A loud click echoed down the wooden corridor as she snapped opened the heavy black handled jack-knife. Their eyes widened as they saw light glint from the serrated edge of the lower half of the blade. It looked nasty, single edged but tapered on both sides and an easy five or six inches of cold steel.

A smile twitched on her lips as she stood there in front of them. She could see the sudden fear they had as they stared at her knife.

“What’cha go’n do with that pigsticker, little girl? Think that changes anything?”

“If ya get any closer ya gonna find out what I plan to do with this. As for it changin’ anythin’, who knows. Do ya feel like gamblin’ today, fuckboy?”

They both shifted their focus from the blade in Sharron’s hand back to her body. She may have been dressed in several layers but it didn’t do much to hide the shape of her petite frame. Some men may like velouptiousness in their women, she was definately not that. She was skinny and looked like she had the muscles of a kitten. Males who have lolita complexes strong enough to be attacted by her were few and far between, but they were usually one of two types; protective galants or rapists looking for an easy target. She saw the hunger return to eyes of the shorter man. Looks like he’s a betting man.

“Can you believe this, Chris? She think she go’n’ hurt us. I hate to tell ya, little b***h, you’re cute, but because ya dicided to take the hard way, you won’t be after we’re done.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at the knife again.

“You think so? I don’t…”

She shifted to an underhanded grip as she lunged at the two men, catching them flat-footed.