My Brains!!! ep, 6

"1) Throw away bag, 2) phone in prescription, 3) call work, 4) pick up child," I mumbled and flipped my phone open. He snatched it away and tossed it out the window.

"Hey!"

The sound again.

I punched him.

He bit me.

I punched him two more times.

He lunged for my face. I swear I saw teeny little tentacles flaring out of his mouth.

We crashed into something, but his body absorbed the blow from the steering wheel. I threw open the door and dragged him out, punching him the whole way.

"Hey, you leave him alone, you jerk!"

I was half aware somebody had spoken and had no clue the woman was talking to me. The vendor was prone, but I didn't trust him. He wasn't a man. He was a… a thing, that was wearing what used to be a hot dog vendor. I hadn't even thought of something like that.

"Stop it!"

I looked up and saw the woman was talking to me. I looked back down at him—it. So far as anyone else saw a six-foot two brute was pounding the stuffing out of a frail middle-aged Asian man who couldn't have weighed more than a hundred thirty pounds.

"No wait—you don't understand."

He stretched his arms out and flew into the air. I was still holding onto him at the time and it must have appeared to the middle-aged woman that I had thrown him. She strode over and swatted me with her purse.

"Beast!" she said.

"Someone call a cop!" someone else shouted.

The woman swatted me with her purse again. I wanted to point out the impossibility of a person tossing someone into the air, but considering how ridiculousness of what had actually happened I chose to look up instead.

The hot dog vendor had gotten caught up in a couple utility wires.

He flailed his arms, but was only able to spin around before plummeting back down. He landed a few feet away from me.

"Ohhhh!" several people gasped at once.

"Is he dead?"

"I'm callin' 9-1-1. That guy's goin' to jail!"

"Please don't." I turned to no one in particular. All these witnesses to a crime that didn't really just happen. It was more than enough, I was sure, to land me back in the last place I wanted to be. I picked out a direction to run.

"Hey, he's getting up!"

"Hey man, stay down until an ambulance comes!"

Just then I realized no one was coming over to help. I spotted the woman who had hit me with her purse. She had inserted herself into the gathering crowd and the look was most apparent on her face than the others.

She was afraid of me.

Probably that she was next.

"You saw what I did to this guy." I picked up a piece of asphalt a couple feet away. "If any of you tell on me… I'll find you. I have a constitutional right to know where you live and I don't have a record. I'll make bail and I promise you… I'll find you." More than a couple people shifted backwards. And if I can't find you, I have friends who will.