Author: R. J. Erbacher

Scott heard the girl’s scream and thought, ‘Oh crap, not again.’

He was taking out the boxes from the new gadgets he had bought for his recently acquired apartment, bringing them into the alley to be disposed of properly. Scott figured it was still too early in the night for the crazies to be out. He’d been wrong.

The woman was on her knees clutching her torn skirt to her groin, her cheeks exposed in the tiny panties. Her button-down shirt was ripped off one shoulder showing half her beige bra. There was blood leaking from her lip and a darkening bruise growing under one eye. Her makeup was mussed from tears and her hair resembled a rat’s nest. Her scream had momentarily postponed the inevitable.

There was a chain link fence separating his alleyway from the adjoining one on the back-to-back buildings. There, positioned in a square around the unfortunate girl, were four ruffians, bandanas covering their shorn heads and drooping jeans. They resembled a pack of hyenas ready to tear into a wounded gazelle. Scott puffed out a breath. He could turn and go back to his comfortable, air-conditioned, new apartment and watch some TV or he could intervene. Really though, there was no choice.

Scott stepped to the fence, placed his palms together at a ninety-degree opposition, spun his hands until the fingers aligned, pushed up from the tips into a steepled position, then let them slip into the gap of the fingers of the opposing hand and slowly pulled them apart to about shoulder length. The fence separated. More appropriately, the space between his hands had vanished into the fold. Scott stepped through the gap.

The gang had not seen the occurrence but as the slackened fence rattled as it unraveled, they took notice of him.

“Hey man, back the fuck away unless you want to get hurt real bad,” the one closest to him said, brandishing a knife of Rambo-sized proportion.

“Now boys, play time is over and it would be better if all of you just went home.”

“Oh, yeah!” The blade wielding thug moved to slash at Scott’s midsection.

Scott had already deftly manipulated his fingers, duplicating the complex procedure. As the swipe came at his stomach – Scott spread his hands to either side. The man who had been holding the weapon finished his swing and then stared at the stump of his arm, everything below the elbow was gone. There was no blood, no pain. It had not been amputated. His hand and forearm no longer existed on this plane. Had never existed here. It was if he had been born without the limb, only just now realizing it. The detached hand holding the knife was now in the fold.

They all stood there looking at the truncated arm. The three unharmed men took off like shots and were out of the alley in seconds. The depleted criminal spent a few extra moments to try and comprehend what happened, couldn’t, and then staggered off in a daze.

Scott helped the woman to her feet, tied the remnants of the skirt into a knot around her waist, pulled the shirt somewhat back into place and gave her his handkerchief to dab against her face.

“I think you’re OK.”

Her face was a blank mask of bewilderment. Scott put his hands on her shoulders which made her flinch. He said, “Go home, my dear.”

She took one last look into his eyes, blinked, and then limped out of the alleyway.

Scott sighed. People were going to talk about this. He’d have to move. Again.