Kathy Interrupted
My Merz
Kathy starts an unusual day

"No," Betty Hunt suddenly blurted out.  "This is a terrible 
mistake.  You have to leave Š now!  You're in great danger here."  
She sounded almost as if she were pleading with the two gunmen 
and their companion.  I drew my jacket more tightly around myself 
and tried to curl down inconspicuously across the table from her, 
not looking toward the thugs but still following their every 
movement.

"No mistakes, bitch, and we'll be in and out before any trouble 
arrives for us.  Everybody just do like you're told and nobody 
gets hurt.  I want to see wallets and purses emptied in front of 
you - now.  And don't give us any more lip, blondie."  The 
hoodlum with the bandana mask and the ball cap pulled low above 
his eyes reached our table in three long strides.  He rudely 
grabbed Betty's collar and tried to jerk her out of our booth.

She resisted the direction of his pull, clearly surprising him 
when he realized he couldn't budge her if she didn't want to go 
with him.  Now she sounded truly desperate.  "Stop, don't touch 
me.  You can still get away from here!  It might not be too 
late."  

But it was too late.  The largest chap, the one with the nylon 
stocking over his head who had not yet displayed a weapon, 
started quickly over to assist his fellow, looking impatient that 
Betty was causing some hitch in their smooth, simpleminded plan.  
As the saying goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer then 
everything looks like a nail, and this hammerhead seemed certain 
that a hard rap to Betty would smooth this rough patch.

"Forgive me," I whispered across the table.  It broke my heart to 
behave so.  We had wanted a pleasant breakfast in a quiet little 
cafˇ after our long workout at the gym, and it was being spoiled.  

It broke my heart, but just as she feared I don't know any other 
way to react when my dear friend looks to be in danger.  Betty's 
blind eyes couldn't tell her that one or the other of these 
creatures was at the point of striking her, and therefore she 
hadn't put up her defenses against the blow or reacted with her 
phenomenal strength and fighting ability to flatten them both.  
She knew the defense I had to mount would keep her safe but at 
great cost to her conscience.  My conscience?  Nobody seems to 
have detected such a thing, although I do have a heart that was 
in agony as I made my move.

The large man arrived seething next to our table. He had just 
started to pull back his hand to strike Betty when I surged to my 
feet and swept up the butter knife from my table setting.  
Neither he nor his companion had time to react before I drove it 
upward under his chin, through the soft flesh, into his mouth, 
through his tongue, through his upper palate and into the cavity 
above.  

"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," I could imagine Betty 
confessing at her first opportunity to reach a church.  "It has 
been a week since my last confession."  

My first target jerked backwards in pain and confusion as he 
found his mouth pinned shut and blood running down his throat. 
The armed man's attention was split between his suddenly helpless 
comrade and my form lunging toward him.

"What was the nature of your sin, my daughter?" the priest would 
ask.  

As the gunman started swinging his automatic pistol toward me I 
intercepted it with my left hand, nutted him in the face with my 
forehead, stepped behind him and circled his neck with my right 
arm.  Pistols of the design he carried have a useful little 
button on the side that when pressed ejects the magazine smoothly 
from the grip.  His load of ammunition hit the floor with a thud 
a moment after my thumb depressed that button, and I jerked him 
around so his body was between our table and the third member of 
the gang who stood gaping by the cash register.   

"I knowingly led a vicious killer into a pleasant cafˇ one 
morning, and she proceeded to tear apart three men."

I held his gun arm wrapped across the front of his body while my 
forearm twisted his head to the side with all the strength I 
could pour into the effort to break his neck.  It was a thick 
neck that refused to snap so when my twisting brought his ear 
next to my face I followed some feral instinct and bit deeply 
into it even as I stared blood and death across the room at my 
next victim. With its packet of bullets lying somewhere on the 
floor, the automatic pistol couldn't fire but was still a 
dangerous weapon weighing nearly two pounds and capable of caving 
in a skull from a single blow.  At least, that was what I was 
hoping as I wrested it from the grasp of the man in my arms.  

"Was this a sin of commission or omission?  Was it your intent 
that she should harm others, or did you merely fail to take 
precautions?"

Since my first move a lifetime and a dozen heartbeats before, a 
roaring had filled my ears, deafening me until the man in my 
grasp overrode it with his screams.  I felt Betty's hand touch my 
back and was aware that she was speaking to me, but couldn't make 
out her words.  At her contact I suddenly felt transported out of 
my body, levitated so I was looking down and seeing the entire 
tableau unfold.  Intuitively I realized I was seeing the scene as 
it played out in Betty's mind, a colorless blurring in the 
general outlines but vividly detailed elsewhere.

My own body was the most vivid detail, confirming this was indeed 
Betty's view that was being shared through her hand on my back.  
In this version I was a naked harpy, my body bulging and pulsing 
with strength as I had fancied it when we entered the shower 
after our workout.  I seemed larger than life, my muscles 
incredibly ripped as I crushed my victim against me.  My skin 
gleamed as it would from the sweat of our workout and glowed with 
an internal fire.  I saw myself release the remnants of the man's 
ear and bend to whisper in his other ear, telling him to send the 
third robber away.  My claw-like hand shifted from his head to 
grip his throat, ready to rip away his windpipe and shred his 
carotid arteries.  He recognized his vulnerability and ceased his 
efforts to free his arms that I pinned next to his body.  The 
more feeble his struggles the stronger I felt myself becoming.

"I have witnessed her actions in the past and knew what a danger 
she could pose.  She can't control her violence.  The guilt is 
mine because I knew what might happen if she were brought to a 
peaceful place."

The hallucination broke when a dot of blood appeared on his shirt 
collar, and I realized it had dripped from my mouth.  I was 
abruptly occupying my own fully clothed body again with no 
blurring of any detail around me.  I clearly saw that spot of 
blood, one droplet from the bit that had flowed from his tattered 
ear onto my lips.  I saw the heap of the wounded man, curled up 
in shock and pain as he tried to comprehend the dull knife I had 
skewered through his mouth.  He didn't dare pull it free but kept 
his hands clamped on the handle to prevent anyone else from 
moving it as a pink froth bubbled around his closed lips through 
his stocking mask.  If his mouth weren't pinned shut he would be 
screaming in pain, but the shriek was locked inside for now.  Had 
he gathered the wit to pull out the knife himself I would have 
been forced back on the attack: first killing the man I held, 
then leaping to smash the pistol against the skull of the fallen 
one and finally attempting to bound across the distance to the 
cash register before the third man could solve the riddle of 
raising his own gun and shooting me in mid-air.

"For God sake, Michael, put down the gun before she kills us 
all!"  My prisoner's scream sounded garbled because I was 
compressing his throat and because my initial head butt likely 
broke his nose resulting in a free flow of red from beneath his 
mask.  I eased my pressure as I felt him weakening.

"Bugger off!" I shouted across the room and noticed a fine red 
mist spray from my bloody lips.  I hadn't taken in much blood at 
all, just enough to be disgusting when it flew in an aerosol 
burst.  That extra bit of drama broke the spell that held the 
third robber in place and he obligingly left his pistol on the 
counter while sprinting to the exit.   I released my captive and 
mumbled, "Take your friend and go.  The police will be here 
soon."  I nearly offered him back his gun, but he was already 
stumbling to my first victim and then helping him to rise.  They 
clung to each other as they made a slow, shuffling departure into 
the morning filled with the sound of approaching police sirens.

Our waitress had filled our coffee cups just before the trio had 
interrupted the genteel breakfast atmosphere of the little cafˇ.  
I took a gulp from mine, sloshed it around in my mouth and then 
thoughtlessly spat it on the floor to clean the blood from my 
mouth and lips.  "I don't suppose you're in any mood to order 
now.  And I seem to have lost my appetite as well.  I'll see you 
to your bus stop."  Wordlessly Betty stood and placed a hand on 
my elbow as I led the way to the door.  

With her touch I again was picturing myself as an impossibly 
muscular she-beast, and my heart still hammered with strength 
from overmatching three men.  I fought to contain a roar of 
triumph as I left my arena.   A couple of diners started to speak 
to us, but froze at my glance and looked down at their plates as 
we passed.