Where Darkness Dwells Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  Where Darkness Dwells

  First Edition. August 24, 2015

  Copyright © 2015 Lynnette Brisia

  Written By Lynnette Brisia

  CHAPTERS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost

  The dark is, as ever, pervasive. It encroaches on my mind as well as my sight.

  My clothes, which she clings to with all that is left of her strength, are tattered, barely hanging together. And hers are worse.

  They'd taken great pleasure in ripping at them while we stood, tied to the rafters, pleading for mercy.

  But it didn't stop them. The more you cried out, the more joy they took from their actions. And with our shredded clothes went our dignity.

  "We have to get out of here," she cries into my chest. "I can't take any more of this."

  "I know, baby, I know," I whisper, my lips brushing over her hair. I try to comfort her, but it's useless at this point. I can't even reassure myself anymore.

  "I wanna go home. I just want my mom," she cries. Her sobs, although as quiet as imaginable, are growing stronger, her nails digging into my chest.

  She's so close to breaking. They've gotten so very close to destroying her. And watching her fall apart is what they're using to break me. They know it too. They know that the things they do to her, these things will kill her. But they also know, making me watch, on top of what they've made me do, that's what will kill me.

  The door opens, light as bright as the sun, pouring into the room. It blinds us, all part of their tricks. We're never able to get a good read on where we are, or who it is that's arrived. Plays with our heads so we can't think straight.

  I can barely make out the silhouettes in the doorway. My eyes hurt so much trying to focus, that I can't really see anything. She stiffens in my arms, her whole body going completely rigid as their presence looms.

  We wait, on the breath of bullet, to see what they want now.

  "You. Your turn." I see shadows grab for the body near me.

  "Fuck off," he tells them, the hint of southern in his accent nearly lost in his fear. Still, he tries to struggle free.

  "Little Missy sure gonna like his mouth today," one of them laughs.

  I hear him grunt against their hands, as they've no doubt punched him, before forcing his body up and then dragging him out of the room.

  The door slams shut with a sense of finality. I don't think we'll "see" him ever again.

  Every time they've come, it's gotten worse. I don't know how much longer either of us can survive this.

  Once it's all over, I don't know if either of us will want to.

  ONE

  Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

  ~Confucius

  I was born and raised in Palisade, Colorado. With a population of less than 3,000 people, it’s not exactly a thriving metropolis, though it’s not far from Grand Junction, which is growing.

  But Palisade was home. My place of birth. Where I grew up. Where I made friends. Where I lived and played.

  I have one sibling. A sister, Carmen, who is three years older. She resides in North Carolina while she attends Duke for medicine. As a side note, mom really liked the musical Carmen, managed to somehow convince dad to name their firstborn after it. I thankfully, was named by my father after his grandfather, so my name is not so…out there.

  It’s Caleb, by the way. Caleb Sutton.

  My parents have always been homebodies. They like where they live, enjoy what the state of Colorado has to offer. And it’s plentiful, don’t get me wrong. With snow skiing and boarding in the winter, hiking, tubing, waterskiing, mountain biking and swimming in the summer. We have mountains and beaches, sand dunes and history. And the fruit the state produces is some of the best you’ll ever taste. Especially the peaches – not that I’m bias or anything.

  It’s a gorgeous place to live.

  So we’d visited lots of attractions within it. Just name a place, I’m sure my family has vacationed there at least once.

  The only time I've ever left to travel anywhere outside of the state, that wasn’t Durham, where Carmen moved, was the one time my family went on vacation to Chicago. I was seven, and my dad thought we should visit some ailing aunt of his before she died.

  They called it a vacation, which is a time when you’re supposed to have fun. But really, how much fun can you have when visiting a sick person?

  My dad is a family practice doctor and my mother is a medical transcriptionist. Both work out of Grand Junction. They make a good income so I never grew up wanting. I had a happy, regular childhood with good memories. Even the memories of having an older sister aren't bad ones. We fought like cats and dogs, but we love each other.

  Evangeline “Evie” Drake moved to Palisade from Tucson when we were in the eighth grade. Her mother had passed away from breast cancer a year earlier and wanting a change, her dad moved the two of them to Palisade so he could take the open Sheriff’s position since old man Arthur was finally retiring. It also helped that Sheriff Drake had grown up in Palisade once upon a time.

  Evie was cute and spunky and made friends quickly. Well, she made female friends quickly.

  She and I, we weren't friends. Our school might be small, compared to say a school in Denver, but there were two major cliques in it. I was in one, she was in the other. And they were divided by sex for some reason.

  I don't really know why it happened that way. I don't know why boys and girls didn't "hang out," at least in the two big cliques. Because it wasn't like that with everyone else.

  Even still. That's the way we were though.

  My friends were my teammates; kids I'd grown up playing baseball, football, and hockey with. Her friends were volleyball players, cheerleaders and an occasional nerd or two. Though even those nerds played some type of sport, so they lived in the gray area.

  Now, when I say we weren't friends, I don't mean we hated each other. Because we didn’t. Not even close. We just didn't hang out with each other.

  There was no grand design in why. There was no rivalry that said we couldn't intermingle with one another or unwritten line separating us. We didn't rule against each other. There was no “us against them” mentality. We just hung out with the kids we knew, the kids we figured shared our main interests and that was the extent of it. Well, to be honest, most of the guys I hung out with, I started hanging out with when girls were gross and still had cooties. So, there's that.

  But we didn't think that way anymore, about girls being gross and having cooties, that is. We were seniors. Girls no longer grossed us out. If anything, we probably grossed them out now. I know some of my friends tended to gross me out from time to time.

  But again, there was no fight or blockade in place.

  We just kept to separate groups.

  Of course there were times when one of my friends and one of her friends "crossed" the line between cliques and went out. In fact, her best friend, Mandy, was dating one of my good friends, Jared. And my best friend since childhood and fellow football teammate, Troy,
was trying to win over volleyball playing Bethany-it was a slow process, last I'd heard. She was making him work for her affections and he seemed to enjoy the technique.

  There was no hostility. Evie and I just didn't hang out.

  We had classes together on and off through high school, but never really had much time for interaction. We never actively sought the other out, and usually didn't sit near each other in those few shared classes, since more often than not, a friend or two also had the class.

  As far as I knew, we didn't really have anything in common.

  Then this year came and we ended up in the same AP Biology class together after lunch. And my idea on who Evie was and whether we shared any common interests changed.

  One of the girls, who, it’s important to note, was not a part of Evie’s group of friends, was chomping at the bit to be my lab partner. The moment I sat down, and she walked in, I could see her eyes zero in on me.

  She might have been book smart, always getting good grades, but I could also see the way she salivated at the sight of me. I'm not trying to be egotistical here, it's just the way she was. And it wasn't just me. Any member of the opposite sex she seemed to fall all over herself for. The last thing I wanted was to waste and entire year of class trying to fight off any of her advances. So I did what was necessary to avoid any and all awkwardness.

  To this day, I haven’t regretted it either.

  "Hey! Evie!" I yelled across the loud room. She had just walked in to the room with Mandy and another friend, Cara, a small smile on her face – she always seemed to be smiling, it was nice – and turned her head in my direction. I watched her cock her head, her light brown eyes zeroing in on me, as I finished the reason for getting her attention. "Saved your seat for you."

  "Uh, thanks, Caleb." She looked at her two friends, who merely shrugged at her before moving toward a table of their own. I could see she was confused by my action as she approached the table. Again, we didn't ever really hang out, so my calling out to her was a big deal. That is until she saw the short-skirted blond practically draped across the table. Her eyes immediately flashed to mine, a laugh playing in them. "Sorry, Maribel, Caleb was saving this seat for me."

  The girl pouted her painted pink lips pathetically at me for a moment, batting her eye lashes, hoping I would contradict the statement, take back my first words, but seemed to admit defeat when she saw I kept my eyes on Evie the whole time. Like I said, Evie was part of the other major clique in the school. And Maribel was not – the girls had some type of rule about not wanting a bad image, and the fact that Maribel seemed so desperate for male attention was a big turn off for them. Once Maribel walked away, finding another seat, Evie looked at me with a smirk taking the seat I had "saved" for her. "You're welcome."

  "Yeah, thanks," I laughed, feeling my cheeks heat in slight embarrassment. "Troy was supposed to be in this class with me but bailed to take Chemistry instead.”

  “Makes sense. Bethy’s in that class.” Evie laughed and I joined in.

  “I wouldn’t have put you on the spot otherwise.” I motioned toward her friends who were watching our interaction with giggling curiosity.

  “Eh, don’t worry about it. One of us would have had to sit separate anyhow. This saved us the trouble of deciding.” She was still smirking at me, laughter playing in her eyes as they drifted toward where Maribel had decided to sit. It was next to Matt Yates, the marching band’s Drum Major. She hadn’t wasted any time draping herself all over him, seemingly ignoring his desire for her to not be so close.

  I shuddered at the thought that might have been me, “Kinda didn’t want to have to fight her off the whole year, ya know? I’m sure you understand."

  "Not really, but if you say so."

  "I'm sure you're joking. I've seen guys trailing after you like lost puppies," I commented back. I knew Evie was hot. So did a lot of other guys at school. Thanks to her Caucasian father and African American mother, she had dark, almost mocha colored skin, long wavy light brown hair that was usually kept in a ponytail, and the most expressive brown eyes I’ve ever seen. As if that wasn’t enough, her body was…damn. It was perfect, if I was being honest. Perfect and wet dream inducing, if I wanted to be crude. Which I didn’t, because I knew my mother would know if I were.

  I knew Evie had probably been beating the boys away with a stick since the moment she showed up in Palisade five years ago. Not wanting to show any…physical…signs of just how provocative I found her form, I redirected back to our initial topic. "I just don't understand her deal. Doesn't she know how she comes across? Wearing those clothes, drooling over every guy she sees. I mean she flirts with some of the teachers, and they're old!"

  Evie shrugged, her eyes shooting back toward Maribel for a second before landing once again on mine. "She's too smart for her own good. Book smart without the common sense to go with it,” she said with another shrug. “I think she thinks she's being appealing by dressing the way she does and essentially throwing herself at people. It makes her not seem so book smart, so people, mainly you males, pay attention to her. Cause why would a guy like a girl with a brain?"

  "Because brains are hot," I blurted before righting myself. It was true, but yeah, I’d said that too fast. Evie smirked at me again, but didn’t comment. "Good thing you walked in when you did, then. Wouldn't want to encourage her any. God only knows what she’d have tried."

  She laughed at me that day, and I let her. It was nice to see her carefree and laughing, even if I was the cause of it. Now that’s not to say she was unhappy. There was just something so…enjoyable about being the cause of her smile, the reason for her laughter.

  It was one of the first times Evie and I really interacted with each other. And it was nice. Honestly, it was more than nice.

  So yeah. We became lab partners and it was a good fit. Evie is really smart, nearly top of the class, with common sense, so I knew I wasn't going to be stuck doing all the work.

  We got along just fine. Shared little details about ourselves here and there whenever we had a chance. Got to know one another a little more. Became friendly with each other. Became classroom friends, one could say.

  Because outside of Biology, we still didn't hang out. And it didn't bother me because I didn't think anything of it.

  Like I said, she had her friends, and I had mine.

  It's not like we never acknowledged one another. If anything, we said hi to one another more in passing, but not a whole lot else changed.

  We just weren't real friends. Again, we didn't hate each other, as obvious by our ability to be good lab partners. We just didn't hang out. I really didn’t know her other than the time spent in class. Until one day in November, just before Thanksgiving, changed everything.

  TWO

  Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.

  ~Buddha

  I can't remember now, why I didn't realize what was about to happen, when it all seemed so obvious. Or perhaps not obvious, but ominous.

  The memories of that peril are hazy at best. Shrouded in something bigger than a moment. Shrouded in someone more important than vigilance. Again, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

  There weren't any real signs to look for. Nothing that jumped out at me and screamed danger ahead. Nothing that acknowledged a threat in the periphery. Regardless, I should have been paying better attention to my surroundings. How many cars were left – three, and I only recognized two of them, how dark it was. I should have been more focused on what was going on and who was possibly nearby. But I was too focused on who was in front of me to realize I should have been paying attention to what was behind me.

  Regret is a terrible thing to live with.

  We were a couple months into school. Football season was over – Bulldogs state champs this year, meaning I was ending my high school football career on a win. Hockey was just beginning. While the school didn’t carry hockey as a sport, there was enough interest that an intramu
ral league had formed through the high school, ice put in at school thanks to community donations, and the facilities available to us. Most of my friends were playing alongside me.

  I'd just left the gym, after coach had given us the rundown on the game we had coming up that weekend against Aspen. I wanted to go home and eat. I was starved after our practice, but coach had kept me a little longer, since I was team captain, wanting to make sure I had everything down for our matchup. Had me go through the game plan “one more time” and all.

  Walking out of the building, my stomach grumbling, I saw a familiar bright blue pea coat resting over sinfully tight blue jeans and snow boots. Instantly I recognized it was Evie walking to her car. Watching her walk, I remembered she had a form-fitting baby blue flannel long-sleeve on today, to go with those tight jeans that really accentuated her curves.

  Groaning at the imagery, I checked the time, saw it was almost seven, and wondered what she'd still be doing at school. I knew she wasn't in any sports. Evie was a good figure skater, at least that's what she claimed during a brief chat in class, but Palisade High didn't offer ice skating as an elective or a sport, and there was no way for her to use the ice with hockey season upon us. So I couldn't figure a reason for her to be at school so late, and coming from the athletic department of all places.

  "Hey, Evie! Wait up!" I called as I jogged over to her, my equipment bag banging against my back. She slowed, turning to look at me with that same smirk she always seemed to wear whenever I saw her. Though this time her cheeks were tinted a lovely shade of pink, even breaking through her dark skin. I was sure mine were the same, the cold of late Fall beating the pale flesh of my face. As I caught up to her, I slowed to her pace as we made our way to her car. "What are you still doing here this late?"

  "Hey, Caleb. Oh, I was just finishing some stuff for Student Council. Supposed to be the health fair this weekend and it took forever for these stupid things to print right. Had to leave a bunch with the gym teachers to hang. Figured it’d be good to fill them in since it’s their gym space I’m stealing this weekend," she answered, and I noticed the fliers in her hand. They made me remember that Evie was Student Body President of our class. "Have a good practice? Hear you're playing Aspen this weekend."