Five Minutes Past Hell

Still three blocks to go.
Shadows imbued with life, courtesy of each, as yet unbroken street light
tease her every rearward glance,
smell her fear,
sense her youthful vulnerability.

Was that a follower - one who might do her harm perhaps?
or just an overly wrought and fanciful imagination?
The rain sleeting down covers her tracks
covers HIS tracks perhaps?
Another sound 'midst the torrent,
this time the wind howling its dire warning.
But two blocks to safety now

"Be sure to get home by eight" her mother's words echo forever
in a world suddenly ruled by violent precipitation,
approaching thunder - the inclement forces of nature freely conspiring together.
Again she turns, her own shadow leering up at her
Yet no-one's there, no monstrous shape creeps nearer

A sudden flash of intense brilliance, lights her way but momentarily,
the thunderclap reverberates beneath the sidewalk,
she feels the insecurity of her mere eighteen years tenure
on so unprotective a terrain.
But one block to navigate!

She chides herself for harboring these gestating fears,
No ogre abroad on such a night,
no cars patrol the sodden road
and there not fifty yards ahead, her own front gate
exudes its cosy familiarity, negating her frantic heartbeat,
calming her funk

Running headlong, she cries out in happiness
seeing through the pouring rain now, her father undo the latch,
a figure of safety - the ultimate protective sentinel.

"Thanks dad," she utters, before the cruellest of deceptions makes known its hideous reality.
Even as the coarse hand seals off her scream
the devil's accomplice pulls into the kerb, a door opens....

Not half an hour passes - two parents stand at a gate
......scanning an empty street