By Benjamin GroffMedia© | benandsteve.com | 2025 Truth Endures©
The Town Called Serenity
In a remote corner of the state, the roads grow narrow. The trees lean in like they’re sharing secrets. There lies a town called Serenity. The name is a cruel joke—there’s nothing serene about it. This is a place where street signs double as target practice. The law has long since departed. No one has noticed. The welcome sign on the outskirts used to say, Population: 312. Someone scratched it out and replaced it with Too Many.
In Serenity, bars outnumber churches, and the only thing thinner than a promise is a badge. It’s where outlaws hide not from the law but from one another. It’s a haven for grifters, gunmen, and ghosts of good men who didn’t make it out.
And into this outlaw’s paradise rolled Chester Finch.
Deputy U.S. Marshal Chester Finch was not the image of frontier justice. He didn’t ride in on a stallion or a dusty pickup truck. No, Chester arrived in Serenity on a cherry-red moped. It’s the kind you’d see zipping through suburbs. You also find it parked at a vegan coffee shop. He wore regulation boots, a broad-brimmed hat, and a badge that gleamed as if it still held some hope.
The moped sputtered as it crossed the town’s crooked boundary, its two-cycle engine whining like a mosquito. Chester parked outside the Rusted Spur Saloon. It was half brothel, half bar, and all trouble. Eyes were already watching him from behind dusty windows and cracked doors.
On the porch, an older man with a shotgun across his knees spat into a tin can and said,
“That there’s the funniest damn thing I’ve seen all week.”
Chester dismounted, kicked the stand down, and brushed the dust off his badge.
“I’m lookin’ for the sheriff,”
He said.
The older man cackled.
“Ain’t had a sheriff since Mad-Eye Morgan got shot for winnin’ too many poker hands. That was six months back.”
“Then I suppose I’m it now,”
Chester replied, squinting at the sun.
“By order of the U.S. Marshal Service, I’m here to restore order.”
The laughter that followed came from more than just the porch. It drifted from second-story windows and behind swinging doors. It came from a town. The town believed the law was something you threw in a ditch. It was buried with the rest of your conscience.
Chester knew this wouldn’t be easy. He knew his badge would draw more bullets than respect. But he also knew Serenity was on the brink of something worse. The federal files hinted at growing ties to outlaw syndicates. There were whispers of gun-running. A name kept popping up: Braddock Cain.
Cain ran Serenity like a private kingdom. Tall, scarred, and charming as a rattlesnake in a bowtie, he was the unspoken king of vice. No one crossed him unless they wanted to disappear.
Chester had crossed worse. Or so he told himself.
His first night in Serenity ended with a knife fight. There was a horse in a bar. The moped was set on fire by a drunk named Julep Jake, who claimed to be the mayor. Chester arrested him anyway. This unpopular move earned him a cracked rib and a bloodied lip. It also earned him the first sliver of respect from the few decent souls still buried in Serenity’s mess.
By morning, Chester had taken over an old sheriff’s office. It was half caved in and smelled of rot and regret. He nailed his badge to the door. It was symbolic more than anything. And in this town, symbols were dangerous.
He had come for peace, riding on two wheels and carrying a quiet resolve. He found a town at war with itself. It was a fight that takes more than a badge to win.
But Chester Finch wasn’t here for symbolism. He was here to end the laughing.
Will the laughing continue? Will Chester live? And what about the town will it still be standing? Find out tomorrow when Chapter Two is presented.
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