by Dean Floyd
Tough Luck
Saga
of the
☘ Shamrock Samurai ☘
Folktale 1
By
Dean Floyd
Table of Contents
Title Page
Chapter 1 | Family BBQ
Chapter 2 | Sidetracked
Chapter 3 | Late Dinner
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Chapter 4 | Uppercut
Chapter 5 | Monsters Are Real
Chapter 6 | Big Rig vs Banshee
Chapter 7 | Showdown
Chapter 8 | Finish Her
Author Notes | Thank You
The Backstory of Tough Luck (and a free story)
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Chapter 1
Family BBQ
I really wanted the family barbeque to not suck.
I was also struggling to ignore the foreboding feeling of dread in my chest. Ever since my sister died I knew supernatural things were real. I’d done my best since then to suppress my newfound awareness of the dark creatures lurking in the shadows.
I was on my way to my mom's house for dinner and to watch a UFC fight. I had a ton of homework for community college and I'd fallen behind. Of course, I put most of it off until the last minute and forgot about the barbeque dinner. I tried to set aside those thoughts but they kept coming back to school. Responsibilities weigh on me even if I neglect them.
But my mind kept wandering to school for another reason. Charice. She was so cute, so half Asian, half Mexican. Sigh. Oddly enough, we were paired up together for a project. We hit it off strong and I suggested that we discuss our project over dinner this week. She must've been attracted to me too because she agreed to it right away.
That was the other day. I'd been daydreaming and playing video games the rest of the week and as a result got zero homework done.
What bugged me the most about tonight was seeing my brother. Well, brothers. But Aiden doesn't count as I see him all the time. Gavin would be there for the first time in a couple years and we hadn't talked for a while, besides short and vague texts. He left on a bad note after a heated argument. It wasn't the only reason he was gone but it was the last straw. But after two years he finally figured he’d pop in all the way from Washington.
Despite still feeling anger and resentment towards Gavin, admittedly I was looking forward to seeing him. I wondered how he was managing it up there in Washington by himself. Living by myself and renting in the Bay Area sucked; it was rare to get enough hours at my part-time job to afford rent.
But from what I gathered about Gavin, he was doing just fine. Working the lumber mill and making good money, he had more than what any 18-year-old needs. He was also a workaholic, or that was just his excuse for not talking to us much. Supposedly he worked 50, 60, sometimes even 70 hour weeks and never took the weekends off. That guy. I don't understand him sometimes. Which is why we fought a lot. But tonight we were going to put our differences aside. I would attempt to steer away from topics we'd argue over. We were eating meat and watching a UFC fight. How could anything go wrong?
Mom was gonna be thrilled. She hadn't seen Gavin in a long time either. And Aiden would be so excited he'd pee himself. I swear that kid acted more like Tain than being my actual brother at times. But I couldn't blame him; he needed attention and a father. Ever since Anna died, he hadn't been the same. None of us were. And then Dad right after that...
I sighed and was once again reminded that life likes to kick you in the groin at times. But I needed to move past that and reflect on the positive things, the good things in life: my mom, my little brother Gavin, and my kid brother Aiden.
I was driving from Vallejo to Suisun which, driving the speed limit, takes about twenty minutes. But getting to the house which was at the back end of Suisun took dang near 30 minutes if all the stupid lights were red. My eye caught my gas meter and I smacked the steering wheel. I'd forgotten to fill up the gas. Oh well, I thought, it wasn't as if my pockets were full of money to spend anyway.
Being an adult sure is hard. I used to think my parents were squares because they enforced strict rules just to be mean. But now I realize that they are great at juggling a bunch of different priorities. I on the other hand, was not a good juggler. Hence the near-empty tank. I'd have to be discrete about that though. If she even caught a hint I needed any money she'd give me a $20 or a $50. Mom, gotta love her.
I exited the main freeway down the highway that led to the house. In a half hour the event would start, but I wanted to fire up the barbeque ASAP so I could watch the fight and eat at the same time. Watching UFC at our home was a family event. Chalk it up to the fighting Irish blood in us. We loved to see two combatants battling it out with their fists. May the best man win. It was one of the few things that still brought our family together, small as we were now. Though we didn't say it aloud, it reminded us of times when the whole family was together, when we were all still alive.
I pulled up to the driveway and noticed that Gavin's truck wasn't anywhere in the court. He must be running late, I thought. The front door opened and Aiden ran out to meet me along with Tain.
"Hey Sean," said Aiden. He gave me a big hug.
"How’d you know I was here?" I asked.
"I heard your car."
Tain leapt up and put his paws on my chest, trying to lick me. "Hiya boy." The gray-haired German shepherd loved being scratched behind the ears. "Is Gavin here?"
Aiden looked like he wanted to say something but bit his lip instead.
"He's not here, is he?"
Aiden shook his head. “What’s in the backpack?"
"Mostly homework," I said.
"I’ll go tell Mom you’re here." He then bolted off leaving Tain and I standing there. "Welcome home Sean," I sighed. After entering the house I threw my backpack on the couch and headed for the kitchen to get water, Tain trailing beside me.
Mom came out of her room wearing a flowery blouse and jeans. She looked good and I smiled as I greeted her. "Hey."
"Hi baby." She gave me a hug.
"What’s going on?"
"Nothing much. Where’s Gavin?"
She frowned. "I’m sorry son. He’s not going to make it."
"Why not? We’ve planned this in advance for him."
"Well, unfortunately your brother had the flu last week and used up all his sick days. So when he tried to come down here his boss wouldn't let him off."
"That's weird," I said. "Gavin never gets sick."
She nodded her head in agreement. "He's bummed that he couldn't be here."
"Yeah, me too."
Mom put her hand on my arm. "We'll just make the best of it."
I moved through the sliding door to the back patio. I took off the protective tarp and fired up the pit.
Stinkin' Gavin. Initially when my mom said he was coming for the event I didn't want to face him. But after a while the reunion grew on me and I was ready to make amends, only to find out he'd dodged it completely.
"He could've told me beforehand," I mumbled. It's not like he didn't know yesterday or the day before that he wasn't coming. It's at least a couple days drive.
I left the barbeque pit to warm and moved inside. Nobody turned the TV on yet so I found the remote and set it up. Mom was in the kitchen getting plates and making a salad.
"Why isn't Aiden helping out?"
"Oh, he's playing his mind craft game."
"You mean Minecraft? You got to have him do stuff around the house. You can’t do everything around here."
She chuckled at me. "How would
you know what he does and doesn't do around here?"
"Because I was a kid his age not that long ago and I was lazy. Dad always got on me for not doing my chores. Just because he's the baby doesn't mean he's off the hook."
"You're not his father," she said gently.
In response I yelled, "Aiden! We need your help." I grinned at her.
Somewhere from another room, Aiden groaned.
I opened the fridge but there was no meat anywhere. "Hey Mom, where's the meat?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well I got the barbeque warming up and I was gonna throw the meat on."
She raised her eyebrows at me. "I asked you to buy it, remember?"
I thought about it. When did I last speak to Mom on the phone? Had to be four days ago. "Naw, I'm sure you said you would buy it."
She shook her head. "Whoever said whatever, there's no meat here."
"Dang it!" I looked at my watch. Only 10 minutes till the preliminary fight started, and I wanted to catch all of it. "I'll have to run to the store real quick. Crap, I don't think I'll be back in time!"
"Wait." Mom rummaged through her purse. "Take this." She held out a crumpled $50 dollar bill.
I shook my head. "It’s cool. That was my job."
I ran into the living room, grabbed my backpack, pulled out my keys and ran out the door, slamming it behind me.
Chapter 2
Sidetracked
How did I forget to bring meat to a barbeque? So stupid sometimes.
As I drove closer to the grocery store, my frustration changed to a deep-seated unease somewhere in my gut. I had felt this way before but not in a while. Don't ask me why but I believe in the supernatural. Ghosts, demons, monsters. Not every case is legit but some cases are real. Nausea bubbled up inside and I sensed that something somewhere was wrong.
I drove into the grocery store plaza. There were several other businesses nearby such as a pizza parlor, laundromat, and liquor store. As I drove past the liquor store I noticed a tall black man in a trench coat walking the same direction I was driving. When I say I noticed him I don't mean I saw him, although that's true. All of the nauseated sensation in my gut amplified as I rolled by him. At the last second he faced me and our eyes locked. Chills assaulted me but I shrugged them off. He’s not doing anything and I'm just frustrated.
I looked for a spot in front but had no luck. Parking in the back of the lot, I slammed my door and ran inside. I quickly located the meat section but a plethora of choices ambushed me. I had to choose between buying discounted meat on clearance because it would go bad soon or buying the more expensive, delicious meat that was already pre-seasoned. Since I was in a rush and dinner would already be starting late, I picked the pre-seasoned meat and headed for checkout. This grocery store wasn't up-to-date yet so they didn’t have self-checkout cashiers. And the available cashiers were backed up. Great, I thought. Just great.
My unease lingered this whole time. But I tried to ignore it and kept telling myself I was just feeling overwhelmed because I was rushing to get back to start the meat and watch the fight.
I reached the front of the line, declined the plastic bag they wanted to give me, and hurried to pay in cash. I didn't pay attention to the price because my mind was wandering elsewhere. When they handed me the receipt I groaned realizing it cost a lot more than I intended to spend on barbeque meat. Whatever. It was too late now. Time to rush back home.
As I drew near the car the sense of wrongness grew stronger still and I looked around and happen to glimpse the tall black guy in the trench coat walking into the laundromat. It's messed up, Sean. Just racial profiling. I jogged to my car, fumbling for my keys and started it up. I quickly threw it in reverse and promised myself I'd return home in under 10 minutes. Being at the back of the parking lot I should be able to simply exit another way to get home. But for some stupid reason I drove by the laundromat.
I noted that the black guy was barring the door and that there was a young woman, a quite fair and attractive twenty-something year old I might add, facing him. In the milliseconds that I observed them, their body language showed that they were at odds with each other. What the heck was the guy trying to do to that lady? Hold up, I thought. If there's one thing I hate, it's a helpless woman. I wasn't gonna have it rest on my conscience that I just rolled by and did nothing. A parking space opened right in front of the laundromat. Of course. Not when I need to shop but when there's a damsel in distress, of course a spot's open.
I pulled into the parking spot and hopped out quickly. My heart was pounding fast now and that feeling in my gut grew 10 times worse. Something about this guy was supernatural. Part of me thought I was being crazy, that I was racially profiling, that I was reading the situation wrong. But another part of me deep inside believed that this guy was more than he appeared on the surface.
As I approached them, I saw that he was holding a long staff. Not a stick, not a cane, but an actual staff. It was no Gandalf staff; it was simple and black and might pass as a martial arts weapon, but it wasn't a walking stick by a long shot. That's weird. A second ago he didn't have that. The lady was arguing with him and had a slight grin on her face. They were talking slightly above a normal volume but anyone could tell they weren't exchanging pleasantries.
"Everything okay here?" I said in a gruff sounding voice like I meant business.
The black guy barely turned his head to look at me, eyeing me out of the corner of his eye. "Back off kid, you don't know what you’re getting yourself into. Stay out of our business," he said.
I glanced from him to her, gauging what to do next.
She must've seen the confusion on my face and hers changed to desperation. "Please help me," she said, "this man's harassing me."
"Hold on a minute," said the man. "Mind your own, kid. This isn’t your fight." Again he didn't even look at me but kept his eyes locked on the woman.
The word fight stuck out like a sore thumb. It sounded wrong. Was he intending to beat her?
"Please," she pleaded. She was dressed in a white leather jacket with grey jeans with stylish holes in them. Her skin was just a shade darker than the jacket but there was no denying her beauty.
"Look, dude," I said, "stop messing with her or it's about to go down."
It got tense. That strange sense became stronger and there was no doubt in my mind it was emanating from the guy holding a staff, who was apparently about to fight a young woman for no reason.
If he won't move I have to do something. I resolved that if it needed to escalate to violence I would go there, to protect this helpless lady.
"I won't tell you again, kid," said the guy. "Back off. The situation is under control. You're about to mess things up.”
The woman looked at me eyes wide, a silent pleading for me to help.
I walked up and grabbed the man's staff and the moment I did, three things happened. A jolt of raw energy flooded my body. Next, the man twisted his body away from me and tore his staff out of my grip.
I had no way of expecting the third thing. The woman jump kicked the guy's face. I'm not exaggerating. He flew out of the laundromat and onto the asphalt, rolling over several times before he stopped moving and his staff fell to the ground.
To say I was shocked was an understatement. I mean, the lady wasn't much taller than me but she had just power kicked a guy three times her weight. If something was wrong when he said the word fight, it was all wrong now, especially when the woman backhanded me and I flew into a washing machine, denting it. The side of my face where she hit felt like I had hit a brick wall. She was a damsel but she wasn't in any distress. I realized then that the wrong feeling I had was clearly misdirected.
"Foolish mortal, you consider me too weak to handle myself?" She said. She then left me leaning against the dented washing machine and strode in confidence out to the parking lot to finish the black guy.
I tried standing but was sore all over. I watched as she grasped him by the jacket and swung like a shot
putter, launching him through the front window. Then she quickly advanced through the gaping hole she created.
At that moment something inside me snapped. Though I had seen this lady manhandle a grown man, I knew I could take her on. As she moved to kill, I felt power and raw energy coursing through me.
She bent down and lifted him by his throat and pinned him against the wall. He was struggling to breathe. I pushed energy from within my chest to my left hand and it emanated with a kind of green energy. Intertwining lines danced around my hand, almost like Celtic knots. I kid you not. Before I could question what was happening, I balled my fist and threw a punch at the lady. Energy unleashed across the room and hit her square in the chest, flinging her to the ground. Don't ask me how I did it because even I didn't know what I was doing.
Now before you judge me for shooting a blast of energy at a woman, just remember gender equality. Plus I'm pretty sure this lady wasn't entirely a lady. At least, that's how I justified it in my head.
Either way, my energy blasted her. I looked at my hand in amazement and the magical energy fizzled out. The strong lady, however, did not fizzle out. But she did flicker. I don’t have any other way to describe it. For a moment she was a Forever 21 model, but when she flickered I glimpsed a young woman with sunken eyes in a tattered white dress. The image was burned in my mind, but it vanished as soon as it happened. She looked right at me, opened her mouth wider than any woman should be able to physically open their mouth, and screamed. It wasn't a plea for help or a desperate cry. This was a sonic blast that rocked my soul. The remaining glass in the laundromat on the windows and on the washing and drying machines shattered, and for the second time I was knocked back and smashed the drying machine.
While I was reeling from the impact, the tall guy recovered. He stood, held out his hand and the staff whisked through the air to him like he was Darth Vader summoning his light saber. As soon as the staff was in his grasp, purple magic amassed itself around him. The she-demon lady thing looked from me to the black guy, then turned and bolted.
