Read Online Five Minutes Alone by Paul Cleave - Free Book Online

persistence paid off. In the middle of the afternoon Dwight Smith climbed into one of those cars and the adventure started.
    Smith was working at a service station. He started work at four p.m. and he finished at midnight. When he finished he visited a massage parlor, spent an hour upstairs, then reemerged a happier man. The Five Minute Man followed Smith back home, and he kept thinking W hy should.
    Why should life be okay for Dwight Smith?
    Yesterday was looking a repeat of the day before, but then Kelly Summers showed up to get gas. Smith saw her purely by chance. Christchurch is like that—purely by chance happens a lot in small cities.
    Smith walked off the forecourt, got into his car, and followed her home. The Five Minute Man, well, he followed them too, and in that time he was very aware of not calling the police, was very aware he could feel the engine inside him running, the hiccups were further apart, the fuel lines were clear, all systems were go—all he had to do was put his foot down. It was ten o’clock. It was dark. It was overcast. There was no natural light anywhere, only what was provided by streetlights and other houses. It was perfect breaking and entering and raping conditions. A good night for getting what was owing to me, which is what Smith said five years ago. Smith sat in his car for fifteen minutes doing nothing, maybe thinking, thinking the kind of thoughts a man like Smith would think. Then those thoughts led him out of his car and onto theproperty. He put his face against one window of Kelly Summers’s house, stared inside, then moved on to the next. He made his way around to the back. He was carrying a crowbar.
    He didn’t come back.
    The Five Minute man sat in his car only a few houses away with the car engine running, and the engine inside him running, and he knew what the right thing to do was. He needed to call the police. Why should had nothing to do with it anymore. A woman’s life was on the line.
    Only the police would never get there in time. He didn’t have a weapon, but felt surprise would be a good enough one. He got out of his car and moved around to the back of the house. There was a gate. It was six feet high and the same height as the neighboring fence. It was closed and when he reached over to open it, he found it was locked. Smith must have climbed it. So he climbed it too. At the back of the house there was an open window. The wood around the lock was splintered away. Locks were strong, but window frames and door frames often weren’t. He didn’t know it then, but Summers hadn’t heard the lock break because she had been in the shower.
    The Five Minute Man went inside with a pretty good idea of what he was going to find, and he found exactly that—it was taking place in the bathroom. Kelly was face down on the floor. Smith was crouching behind her. They were both facing the other way.
    Then Dwight sensed him. He twisted around and looked up. “Who the fuck,” he said, but that was as far as he got. Those were his final words on this earth, not exactly words to be inscribed on a gravestone, but they were the ones he owned right before Death owned him too. A man is easier to subdue when he’s naked with his dick in his hand. Smith was knocked unconscious and then dumped in the bathtub.
    The woman had made her way into the corner of the bathroom. She was sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall. She was staring at him, her eyes wet, her hands were shaking, she was trying to cover herself.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    “Thank God,” she answered. “Thank God you saved me,” she said, and she was crying, and there was snot streaming down her face, and her cheeks were flushed and she was scared and confused and grateful and a whole bunch of other things he didn’t know how to feel anymore.
    He handed her her robe. She took it quickly and covered herself with it.
    “I know you,” she said. “I’m sure I know you.” She did know him, only he looks