Read Online In Darkness We Must Abide: The Complete First Season: Episodes 1-5 by Rhiannon Frater - Free Book Online

only people living within the house were the elderly couple that were her landlords.  Lately acts of violence had not been isolated just to ‘bad’ neighborhoods, but were spreading into the suburbs. She’d just read about a young woman her age getting raped in the mall parking lot. All day she had felt nervous and wasn’t exactly sure why, but now, staring at the unlighted house, she felt uneasy.
    “Hey, lady, can you spare some change?” a young voice taunted from the shadows.
    Rachel stiffened. Slowly, she swiveled about to see a young man, unusually pale and gaunt staring at her.
    A junkie! Great!
    “No, sorry,” she responded, rapidly walked up the drive to the porch. The fear inside of her rose steadily as the kid paced her.
    “Hey, lady, I’m sick. I need medicine. Just a couple of bucks.” The young man wiped his face on his filthy shirt. “Come on, lady, hand some money over. I’m needy.”
    The punk stepped in front of her, directly in front of the porch, blocking her way. She stopped in her tracks, her mind racing. She c ould run for the back door but if he were to catch her, things would be far worse.
    “Okay, fine. Maybe I do have a few dollars. Let me check,” Rachel said.
    Setting her groceries down on the gravel drive, her mind was whirring with possible escape plans. She reached into her purse and fumbled about for her wallet. To her relief her hair spray bottle was in there too. Pulling the money out with one hand, she kept the other in her purse around the hair spray. “Here you go.”
    The young man moved forward and took the few bills. His pale face suddenly flushed and his eyes become crazed with anger. “Five dollars! Are you fucking joking? Look, bitch, hand over the rest! This isn’t enough!”
    Rachel’s eyes narrowed. The rest of her money was for her tuition and she was not going to turn that over. “That’s all I have. I’m in school and barely making it.”
    The junkie’s face contorted with anger. “I need my medicine real bad, lady, and it costs more than five fuckin’ bucks! Give me everything that’s in your purse!” He grabbed her arm, his sweaty face twisted in his desperation.
    Rachel whipped out the hair spray and squirted it directly into the young man’s eyes. He screamed with anguish, ducking away from her, his hands rubbing at his eyes. Rachel ran the second he let go of her.
    “Get back here, bitch!”
    She ran as fast as she could with her purse clutched to her breasts, her shoes slipping on the gravel drive. When she heard the junkie coming up behind her, his tennis shoes scattering the loose gravel, she let out a desperate cry.
    “Now you’re going to pay, bitch,” the addict’s hateful voice hissed in her ear as he grabbed hold of her hair and painfully pulled her against him.
    Rachel let out a terrified scream.
    The junkie jerked her head back, nearly tearing her hair from her skull.  The stink of his rotting teeth and rancid breath almost made her gag. “Shut up, bitch!”
    There was no way she was going to obey him. “Somebody help me!”
    Slamming her into the side of the house, the attacker pressed his body against hers, trying to grab her purse. “I said shut up.”
    “Fuck you! Somebody help me! Somebody call 911!”
    “I said shut-” The junkie’s words were cut off by a scream of absolute terror.
    Abruptly released, she fell to the ground, the gravel cut into her palms and knees. The sounds of a scuffle sent her crawling toward the back door. There was a gasp, then abruptly, silence.
    Rachel was almost to the back steps when she was lifted off the ground and pressed against the side of the house. A man loomed before her, his face hidden in the shadows. His large hands were on her shoulders and he was breathing heavily.
    “Don’t hurt me, please!” Rachel sobbed, raising a hand before her face.
    The stranger unexpectedly took hold of her hand and sniffed it. Rachel became aware of the fresh blood seeping through the abrasions