He was full of guts. He came at me with his one good hand and his knees and even his teeth. I did not want to be marked. I kept my face away from him and let him hit me twice in the stomach. Then I caught his wrist and flying-mared him over my shoulder. The crack of his skull against the wall was a burst of sharp sweet music. I grinned wide. Then I bent over the other policeman. I had hit him more scientifically than I had known. He wouldn't get up any more.
That made five.
Five murders! Five killings, using no weapons, just my hands, for five violent homicides!
I stood there in the center of that room, which I had made a gory shambles, and for the first (and last) time remorse touched me. I was Bill Cuff, law-abiding writer; if not exactly an altruistic dweller by the side of the road and friend to man, at least I had always been a normally decent guy who would go to a lot of trouble to keep from hurting anybody. What had happened to me?
A voice inside me said, But you are only killing men.
Men? But I'm a man, damn it all!
No, you aren't.
What am I, an orangutan? I asked myself with heavy sarcasm.
No, not that. No more kin to ape than to man.