Hour Of Darkness

At age ten, Clarice Stuart is rescued from a potentially traumatizing experience by a mysterious stranger who seems to appear out of nowhere and then disappear just as suddenly. Fifteen years later, on a cold November night on an icy mountain highway as Clarice is on her way to her parents' home for the holidays, a black clad rider on a black motorcycle deliberately strands her on the highway.

While Clarice waits for help to arrive, miles away her parents and brother are brutally murdered in their home. At the funeral, a man approaches her and offers his condolences, claiming to be a friend of her brother's. Clarice has a sense of recognition but can't place where she might know him from.

As a precaution, three deputies are assigned to watch over Clarice until it can be determined whether or not her family was a target or simply victims of a random attack. Staying at her deceased brother's home, Clarice soon learns that even police protection can't save her from the evil that took her family. When her family's attacker appears and kills the three deputies who were meant to guard her, Clarice is certain she will die as violently as her parents and brother. But standing face to face with the killer, she is shocked to be staring into the face of her recently dead and buried brother.

Before he can take her life as well, the black rider appears and saves her from the fate of her family. It is then that she realizes that the black rider is the man from the cemetery - and her guardian from the past. Suddenly she finds herself and her guardian in a deadly, terrifying game of cat and mouse with a killer who won't stay dead.

NOTE: This is a complete story, so it won't be distracting me from my other works-in-progress :)