Always Darkest Read online

  Chapter One

  Victoria Clover paced back and forth in front of the mirror in her bedroom. She was wearing a black pencil skirt and a floral patterned top her sister had insisted that she buy. It was low cut in front and fit her body well. Tori thought it was a bit too provocative for a first date, but it was no use arguing with her sister. Tori never wore clothes like this, not even in college. They finally reached a compromise by selecting a fancy red cardigan that perfectly matched the roses in the top that Tori could wear over it to feel a bit more modest. This made perfect sense to Tori since October in Kentucky was a bit chilly. Her sister, Kathy, had spent hours shopping with her to find the perfect outfit and accessories, and then she had come over to Tori’s apartment to help her get ready for her blind date.

  Kathy had been a beautician for a few years, before her first son came along at the age of twenty-five when she quit to be a full time mom. She did Tori’s dark hair, smoothing it with a flat iron until her dark locks were smooth and shiny. She also did her makeup for her, accentuating her green eyes and full lips.

  “Tori calm down hon. This is a date not a death sentence.” Kathy said trying to calm her sister’s nerves.

  “I know it’s just that meeting someone off the internet gives me the willies.”

  Kathy laughed, “Isn’t getting a willy kind of the eventual goal.”

  “You slut,” Tori said teasing her sister. “Does your mind ever get out of the gutter?”

  “Nope and that is why I have two kids,” she said smiling.

  Tori was a tiny bit jealous of Kathy. She had gotten married to her high school sweet heart and proceeded to have two beautiful children. Her husband was kind, faithful and hardworking. She had the life Tori dreamed about.

  On the other hand, Tori went to college and got a job as a high school guidance counselor afterwards. She dated off and on a little in college, but she just never found someone that she connected with enough to warrant a relationship longer than about three months. This trend continued after college so her sister signed her up for an online dating service that was guaranteed to find a compatible mate for her. Tori thought it was all a little silly but Kathy seemed so enthusiastic she decided to go for it just this once to make her happy.

  Kathy had done a lot to make Tori happy. When Tori was eighteen and Kathy was twenty four, their parents died so Kathy took on a kind of mothering role to Tori. Tim and Kate Clover had decided to go on a cruise for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, urged on by Tori and Kathy. They went all out and even hired a charter boat to take them out for a private dinner cruise. There was a storm and the boat never returned for its rendezvous with the main cruise ship. The search continued for months but neither, their parents, the captain or any of the small crew were ever found. Eventually they were declared dead and Kathy had been Tori’s rock ever since.

  Kathy and her husband Randy welcomed Tori into their home for all the holidays and on summer breaks always making her feel more than welcome. When Tori graduated from college, she didn’t even consider looking for work anywhere but close to her sister. Tori’s career was going well but her love life sucked. She hadn’t even been out on a date in over a year. Of course Kathy had to intervene, thus the membership to the dating service and her first blind date.

  Kathy handed her the dangly necklace they had chosen to go with the shirt, “you look gorgeous.”

  “I don’t feel gorgeous. I feel like a fraud and I look like a naughty librarian in this outfit. I think I’m going call and cancel.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Kathy scolded.

  “You are impossible!” Tori said.

  “You’ll be fine. You are meeting him at the restaurant in the Old Castle Inn so there will be lots of people there. You’ve talked to him on the phone before and you said you two hit it off pretty well. Besides, he matched all your compatibility factors. Text me when you get there. Tori, you can do this. After your dinner you come straight here and give me the details. Have fun, but if I don’t hear from you by midnight, I’m calling you.”

  “Okay mom, anything else.” Tori teased rolling her eyes.

  “Yeah don’t have too much fun sis, I love you.”

  Tori pulled her black Toyota Camry into a parking spot in front of The Old Castle Inn. Carson was thirty minutes away from her hometown of Mercy and she always had to go to Carson for one thing or another as it was the closest town with a Wal-Mart. She was really excited because she had never been to eat at the restaurant at The Old Castle Inn before and it was supposed to be really nice. It was the kind of restaurant people went to on anniversaries and special occasions. Most of her dates thought they were going all out by taking her to the Dairy Queen. Maybe Ben, her date, was a classy guy after all. He sounded nice enough on the phone.

  She pulled down the visor to do one last make up check. She popped an altoid in her mouth and smoothed her dark hair one more time. She had one last thing to do, she texted her sister. I made it…wish me luck.

  She opened the car door and stepped out as a voice from behind her said, “Tori?”

  She jumped as she turned around. “You scared the daylights outta me. Are you Ben?” she said as she placed a hand to her chest and tried to catch her breath.

  “I am and I must say you are even more beautiful in person.”

  Tori blushed. In the dark parking lot with only the light from the pole lights and the moon overhead it was hard to tell if he looked like his picture. She could tell he was wearing a suit and could see a basic outline of his tall frame, but that was about it.

  “Well, thank you very much.” Tori said a bit self-consciously as she smoothed her skirt with her hands.

  “Shall we dine?” he asked as he offered her his arm.

  She took his arm and they walked toward the restaurant. She felt so nervous she thought she might just pass out and was so thankful to have the support.

  They walked arm in arm toward the entrance when he felt his back pocket and said, “I forgot my wallet in my vehicle. I feel like such an idiot. Do you mind if we make a little stop by my van on the way inside?”

  “Of course not,” she said.

  Ben led her around the corner of the building to where he had parked his vehicle. He released her arm as he unlocked his grey van. He slid open the sliding door to the back and Tori wondered who keeps their wallet in the back seat? That is a little odd. She was patiently looking up at the full moon as he rummaged in the back of his van.

  Pain exploded from the back of Tori’s head. Within seconds Ben expertly gagged her and shoved her into the back of his van. He closed the door and finished by tying her hands behind her back and securing her ankles with duct tape.

  She tried to scream, but the gag did its job and all she could manage were muffled murmurs. The back of the van smelled like oil and alcohol. She could feel broken bits of glass cutting into her legs through her pantyhose.

  Ben got into the driver’s seat and pulled out of the parking lot. He was silent. All Tori could hear were the sounds of the tires on the pavement and his breathing. The drive seemed to take forever as she lay on the floor of that van unable to cry out and unable to save herself.

  With each turn in the road her body would shift slightly allowing the broken glass to penetrate into her skin through her pantyhose. Tori tensed as the pavement turned to gravel. She knew he was taking her into the woods to kill her. She had seen enough crime stories on the television to know that. Then the van stopped.

  He grabbed her and roughly dragged her into the woods. Frantically, she looked around to try to determine where he had taken her and where she was. The glass from the van dug even farther into her legs as he dragged her across the rough ground. When he stopped after what seemed like an hour she was gratef
ul and terrified. He did not speak as he went about his task.

  He first cut away her shirt and bra, exposing her bare breasts. The sight seemed to piss him off as he slapped her across the face. He slapped her until she closed her eyes and lay still. She felt the duct tape binding her ankles being cut and waited for what would be her best chance to get away. She waited and listened as he unzipped his pants. She could feel him as he positioned himself over her. She knew any second he would rip her pantyhose and then not only could she wind up dead but raped as well. Her impending fate emboldened her. If she was going to die, she would be damned if he raped her too. She was prepared to fight to the death.

  She kneed him in groin with all her might and that was enough to get him off her for a moment. Tori got up and ran as fast as she could. She had no idea where she was going or where she was. She just wanted to get away from that monster. Without her hands to aid her, branches stung and bit at her face. She just kept running, and then she tripped and slid down the side of the hill. As she rolled, she felt branches and rocks bite into her skin. She just kept rolling and rolling, falling and falling. Save me, please get me away from him. That was the last thought Tori had before blackness overtook her.

  Chapter Two

  Justin Parker walked out of his apartment in Carson, Kentucky with a sort of grim satisfaction. When the company he had been working at closed he never thought it would take him this long to find a job. He had been unemployed for ninety-eight weeks. Next week, would make ninety-nine and it would be the last of his unemployment benefits. He had tried to get a job. Everyday was spent combing the paper and the internet looking for and applying for jobs. So far, he had gotten three interviews and none of them had panned out. He was twenty-eight, with a four year degree in Accounting and he had his CPA certification. He had six years of experience working for the same company and had worked his way up from the mail room job he got right out of college to the manager of his department. Last week he lost out on a job at a fast food joint to a sixteen year old.

  He got into his silver Mustang knowing full well where he intended to go. The clock on the dashboard glowed showing him it was almost midnight so he had to hurry if he was going to make it to the liquor store before it closed. Justin wasn’t ever much of a drinker, preferring just to be in full control at all times, but that was in his other life. He had never even finished an entire beer. His father was a loser drunk and he promised himself he would never be like that. Things change. He sat there for a moment rubbing his left hand. He did that every time he thought about his old man. His father broke it when he was sixteen.

  John Parker had come home one night, drunker than a skunk. The bartender had cut him off early that night, and that was enough to set him off. John didn’t take his frustration out on the bartender who was a man that matched him in size. No, John Parker directed his rage at his family. Emily Parker had just gotten home from her job at a call center where she made just enough to support her family. They might have gotten ahead a little but John drank anything that might have been left over every month without fail. He never did hold a job for more than a month. It was kind of hard to do when he spent most mornings puking his guts out into the toilet. She was busy fixing dinner for her and Justin when John walked through the door slurring his speech.

  Justin was sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework and he cringed when his father slammed the door. John stumbled across their tiny living room and caught himself on the kitchen table.

  “What are you looking at boy?” his father said as he leaned on the table. His face was inches from Justin and he could smell the sour mix of beer and cigarettes on his father's breath. It smelled like rotten fruit and it made Justin nauseous. He just looked back down at his algebra book and continued to do his homework.

  He felt the smack on the side of his face before he had a chance to react. “I’m talking to you! You think you’re too good to talk to your dad?” He raised his hand to strike Justin again and Emily’s voice stopped him.

  “Don’t you ever touch him!” Emily shouted. She had turned around and was holding the big kitchen knife she was using to cut vegetables.

  Time seemed to slow down for Justin and the next few moments were burned into his memory for eternity. John stepped back and didn’t hit him. Instead he turned his rage onto Emily. He ran at her and she managed to cut him on the cheek, but he got the knife away and began hitting Emily in the face over and over, slurring every profane name for a woman Justin had ever heard as he continued to pound on her. Emily screamed for him to stop.

  Justin jumped up from the table and tackled his father from behind. John threw him across the room and grabbed Emily by her red hair, yanking it so that her neck was bared and she was looking straight up at her husband. Justin saw his father grab the knife and he hold it to his mother’s throat. “I should have killed you a long time ago,” he slurred into her face.

  Justin had landed hard on his left hand and pain shot through it. He saw John with the knife and his mom looking terrified. He pulled himself up from the linoleum floor and grabbed the iron skillet his mom had set out to cook in and swung it as hard as he could at his father. John dropped the knife and let loose of his mother’s hair. Blood ran from the side of his face and he looked up at Justin with the strangest look. He looked like a puppy that had just been scolded. He didn’t say anything as he used the kitchen counter to pull himself up and stumbled out of the kitchen and made his way through the front door.

  Justin called and ambulance for his mother and himself. John never came back and things were good after that. Justin worked hard and made something out of himself. His mom told him all the time how proud she was of him. She remarried a few years later to a nice doctor who was widowed with two kids. She would help him if he asked, but it just didn’t seem right to Justin. He was a grown man. Bending over as he drove he opened his glove box to make sure the thirty-eight revolver was still there.

  He thought about all of this as he made his way through the crisp October night to the state liquor store. He had on a country music station and some song about drinking started playing. “Everything has just gone to hell and it is not fair!” he shouted to himself. He was just about a mile away from his destination, when the van came barreling around the curve on his side of the road. Justin was so caught up in his grief, anger and self pity that he didn’t even try to make evasive maneuvers. The van hit him head on and Justin was thrown through the windshield. I’m not ready to die. Please don’t let me die.

  Justin landed on the soft grass on the side of the road. He slept right through the slight tremor that pulsed through eastern Kentucky. Most people slept through it. Not enough to notice really. A slight vibration of the earth that would later be classified as a 2.1 on the Richter scale, it wouldn’t even have made the news if it wasn’t odd for earthquakes to happen in Kentucky.

  Chapter Three

  Willa woke up early in the morning as she always did and made herself a glass of tea. When the tea was ready she would go outside to sit on the porch of her small cottage and watch the sunrise. In eighty-seven years she never tired of seeing the sunrise. While the tea brewed she took a moment to tidy her grey hair into a neat bun at the top of her head. Still in her nightgown she walked onto her porch holding her cup of tea, enjoying its warmth.

  She noticed a large dent in her bed of red geraniums. As she wandered closer to inspect she saw that it was a girl. Willa put down her cup and looked at the girl. Her hands were tied and black streaks ran down her face where Willa knew tears had been shed. The bound girl was completely naked from the waist up and it was hard to tell where one bruise ended and the other began. She wasn’t dead as she could see the rise and fall of her chest. Willa thought she had seen it all up until this point apparently she had not.

  It didn’t take her medical skills to be able to determine what happened to this poor girl. Willa made her way into her little cottage as fast as she could. She wet some rags, grabbed a blanket and her big
knife from the counter.

  Her knees popped and crackled as she sat down next to the girl. She covered her nakedness with the blanket. Gingerly she began to wipe the blood off the girl’s face, a beautiful face despite the bruises.

  Slowly Tori opened her eyes. She saw the old woman and screamed.

  “Calm down child. It’s okay. I am here now. Whoever hurt you is long gone and I’ll be Creator damned if anyone will hurt you while you are under my care.” Willa said.

  Tori let her screaming melt into quiet sobs as the old woman continued to clean her face. She was grateful for the blanket as she remembered every single second of last night’s horror.

  “Your face is clean now dear, now do you think you can sit up?”

  “I think so.”

  Willa assisted Tori to a sitting position. Every movement hurt.

  “I’m going cut your bonds, don’t be frightened.” Willa said using a soothing tone. She cut the bonds from Tori’s hands and Tori brought them around the front of her body and inspected them. Blood oozed from the deep gashes worn by the ropes. Looking at them tears welled up in Tori’s eyes anew.

  Tori looked at the old woman and the cottage not quite sure what to make of it. “Who are you? Where am I?” she asked.

  “I am Willa and you are in my front yard.” Willa said. “And who are you?”

  “Victoria Clover but everyone calls me Tori.”

  “Well Tori if you can stand we can go inside my cottage and I can get you properly cleaned up.”

  “I think I can stand.” Tori said as she slowly pushed up to her feet.

  “Come with me,” said the old woman as she gently guided Tori into her home.

  Tori did as she was told.

  The inside of the cottage was very homey. The downstairs was one big room with a huge fireplace at the back of the room with a plush couch directly in front of it. There were also several chairs scattered about the room and rugs covered most of the floor. Half of the space was taken up by a large kitchen. Tori noticed the back two walls were lined with shelves and various herbs in jars all lined up in neat little rows.