Shallow Veins (The Obscured Book 1) by Martinez Brian

Author:Martinez, Brian [Martinez, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Bloodstream City Press
Published: 2014-08-27T16:00:00+00:00

**

There's something Franklin Butcher has never told a living soul. It's a secret even Elaine doesn't know.

Only once he said it aloud. It was to his father, at his father's grave, talking to a polished stone, and he got exactly the response he expected out of the conversation. He was two days too late having it, after all, a feeling he wouldn't shake for years.

He stands on the bubbling banks of Shallow Creek and takes a hard swig on his flask, then another, trying to imagine the whiskey flowing through him like the creek through the trees. The truth is, he's always drunk to get rid of these dark things inside. Ever since he was young, the anxieties, the thoughts, the invasive pictures in his head have been there, and over time he found he could wield the booze against them like a fire extinguisher to a flame. He whittles them down, first at the edges, the gross details, the sick flashes and then, when they're weakened, he finishes them off at the base, aiming for the center with a lethal attack until he can't remember what he'd been fighting against in the first place.

He doesn't believe that drinking kills brain cells, however. He could never be so lucky.

Since moving to Shallow Creek he's had more of these episodes than ever in his life, and yet it hasn't turned him off to the town like it might another man. When a person is prone to anxiety attacks he's found they tend to avoid whatever sets it off, yet for Butcher the opposite is true- he's drawn to them. His adult life could be described as a series of days in which he seeks out pain and then kills it. He knows the futility of this path, yet he's been unwilling and unable to veer from it, like a broken bone that's never fixed, just ignored and accepted, the limp a permanent addition to the walk.

And yet, what happened at the Robins house can't be accepted. It can't be ignored like a fracture, because it's as if his very skeleton was sucked clean out his ass. It was a lightning bolt of raw information, too much to process at once, and ever since he stepped off that porch he's been wobbling on his feet like they're made of cherry pie. How he ended up standing on the edge of the creek he can't even recall.

An image kicks him in the eyes, almost knocking him on his back. It's a flash of something he saw when he touched the doorway, but what is it? A blur. A shape. A hand. A hand outstretched, reaching for help. Wet sounds all around and a gush of crimson. The sick snap of bone. In the background, Mary Robins screams. In the background, Kevin Robins doesn't.

Butcher takes another drink and feels the burn in his belly. He doesn't plan to stop until he feels it in his skull.

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