Five Minutes Alone

The last thing I remember was reading the newspaper. There had been another body discovered, this one a fifteen year old girl. She had been raped and her neck had been broken.

"Another one." I said to my wife who was drinking her coffee and ignoring me. "Why can't the police do anything?"

"They're trying dear." she said humoring me. "The police are doing there best."

"Well there best obviously isn't good enough." I muttered across the table.

"Not nearly good enough as far as that little girl is concerned. You know what would be best?" I said feeling self-righteous and indignant.

"No dear." she said indifferently.

"Give me five minutes alone with that bastard."

With that, the world spun.

Initially I thought I must have lost consciousness or had some sort of seizure. I was completely disoriented and at a loss to explain my surroundings or how I had gotten there. It was dark and I was sitting on concrete. The light was bad but it seemed like some sort of basement or workshop. I was still in my bathrobe.

I heard a door open and light flooded in from the top of a wooden staircase. A man was coming down the steps dragging a girl behind him by her hair. Her mouth had been taped but muffled sobs and whimpers escaped dying in the air in front of her. He pulled her roughly down the stairs and she crumpled into a ball at his feet. He stood above her grinning.

He was a monster.

He was easily six feet tall, his head shaved and looked solid and muscular. His eyes were set too close together under a thick low brow and he wore greasy mechanics coveralls and dirty work boots. He looked every inch the criminal psychopath that people from good homes should never have to deal with.

I inched behind a pile of cardboard boxes, holding my breath and praying I was out of sight.

The man reached down and pulled the girl to her feet. She stared at him with huge eyes, shaking with fear. He took hold of a corner of the tape across her mouth and pulled hard making a loud tearing sound as it came loose.

The girl stood motionless staring at the monster in front of her. The monster stared back and smiled.

The girl closed her eyes and screamed, her face buried in her hands desperate with panic. The man leaned towards her face, pulled her hands away and screamed back mocking her. She sobbed pitifully.

"No one can hear you." he growled at her.

"Please." she sobbed over and over, her breath hitching.

The man cupped her face in his hands, almost lovingly, and slammed his forehead into the bridge of her nose. She hit the concrete floor with a dull thud, a pool of blood forming a red halo around her head on the grey floor. The man pulled his coveralls down around his ankles and fell on her tearing at her clothes and grunting out animal sounds. He lasted only moments then rose to his knees and once again took the girls head in his hands and twisted violently. There was a sickening crunch and she dropped to the floor once more.

I curled into a fetal position behind the cardboard boxes and screamed inside my head, shutting my eyes and tightly as I could.

I heard the cardboard boxes being kicked out of the way and a voice came from above.

"Alright asshole" he said calmly and evenly, "were alone. You've got five minutes."


End.

M. Stafford 2005