Isnt that what youre saying now? If she shot Goliath first, she might very well be able to put a slug in Davids face before he could get that oogy goddam coat unbuttoned and his gun out. His need for her and his vulnerability to her screamed at him to back off, to placate her while there was still time if indeed there still was — as a tribe in one of -those Rider Haggard stories would have placated their goddess when she was angry, by making sacrifice to her effigy. Maybe he could whack her once with the O-Cedar mop or something before she wrung his neck like a chicken.
Maybe the next world is better.
"He noticed how shiny her skin was, like some sort of polymer plastic stretched tightly over stone. Annie rose up from behind the sofa like a white ghost dressed in a nurses uniform and cap.