Karen Gets her Way
by Alpesco
Six foot two inch Karen Sandwood can't be stopped.


"I can't move these barrels," I shouted from the outhouse I had been cleaning out. "They're too heavy. What's in them?"

"They're full of nails, screws and steel fixings." The six foot two inch figure of Karen Sandwood rose from the chair on the porch where she'd been poring through her chest of of medical supplies. "I got them in a bulk lot from a bankruptcy auction."

"Full of nails?"

"Yes. Those two barrels weigh about 150 pounds each," Karen strode up to where I was struggling with the first barrel. She was seven inches taller than me, and a full three inches taller than my boyfriend, Vince, who was working on the far side of this remote forest clearing. Our captor was in her late twenties, with straggly blonde hair that fell to broad shoulders. She was wearing a dark pair of sunglasses against the morning glare. Her long powerful arms unfolded as they reached out to grip the barrel that I had been unsuccessfully attempting to move. Her broad shoulders flexed, and the heavy barrel surged forward, scraping along the storehouse floor as it came out into the open air.

I gasped. Even now Sandwood's strength still startled me. I hadn't been able to move the wooden barrel a fraction of an inch, but she had just moved it forward five feet with one shrug of her shoulders!

Seeing my reaction, Karen gave a thin smile as she turned to face me. Her narrow waist rose out of the training shorts she was still wearing following her early-morning workout. Her abdominals were a dense six-pack of muscle, glinting in the sunlight. The shape and power of her long legs was evident.

"I'd almost forgotten about these," she said. "I think now that you're here, this would be a good time to break them open and sort through the contents."

"Have you got a hammer and chisel?" I asked, "or a crowbar?"

"What do I want a hammer and chisel for?" Sandwood said, reaching down to grab the top of the wooden barrel. She tipped it to one side, then bent and took the bottom rim in her left hand. She straightened, curling the 150 pound barrel smoothly up to chest height in her big arms.

I stood back as she heaved the big barrel upward, almost without effort. I still had no idea what she intended to do.

"Stand farther back," she ordered. As I obeyed, the large muscles tensed along her arms, powering the barrel up to head height and above. Up and up it went, until it was supported on her outstretched arms above her head, fully eight feet off the ground.

Karen's arms seemed big even for her height, and she used them now in an impromptu display of raw strength, lowering the barrel to her shoulders, then raising it back again to full extension above her head. She repeated this ten times. The really impressive thing was that the six feet two inch blonde betrayed no strain at all as she pressed the 150 pound barrel up and down. She just breathed smoothly, her rippling abdominals moving gently in and out as she raised and lowered the huge barrel. After the tenth rep she kept the barrel above her head. She wasn't even sweating or breathing deeply. She looked like she could hold the barrel there for ever.

She looked around her for a rocky spot on the ground, then walked across to it, the heavy barrel still held effortlessly above her head. She took another step forward, then hurled the barrel powerfully down on to the rock. There was a massive crash as the heavy barrel burst apart. Shards and splinters flew everywhere, the inch-thick wood shattering explosively, as nails, hasps and screws spilled out across the ground.

"Wow!" I gasped.

Karen looked down at the wreckage of what had been the barrel, then raised her long arms and flexed. I gasped again. Her biceps were huge! Her arms looked strong enough normally, with dense, heavy muscles running along their length. But when she flexed, two solid hills of muscle gathered in her upper arms, swelling and hardening until they were like cannonballs - each bigger than any bicep I'd ever seen up close. Her biceps easily split the tape at seventeen inches, and they were rock hard

I was twenty eight years old, about the same age as her, but I knew from harsh experience that she could toss me around like a three-year-old kid! Vince, my boyfriend, was thirty seven, and five feet ten tall, but this young woman was just as capable of beating him.

It was over three weeks since she'd forced us to come to this isolated farmstead high in the mountains, close to the Canadian border. It was partly our fault for refusing to help her voluntarily, but when we'd tried to resist her, she'd shocked us both by beating us badly. We'd never imagined that the good-looking, if very tall, hitch-hiker we'd picked up on the road was powerful enough to take the two of us on at the same time, and defeat us both. But that was what had happened. Now we were her virtual prisoners, trapped here until she chose to let us go. And we didn't know when that would be. Our failed efforts to escape had made her lose trust in us, and that was bad. She was clever as well as powerful. A survival freak, who hated the authorities, and had mad ideas about surviving alone in these mountains while civilisation broke down across the rest of the world.

Turning back, Karen dragged the second barrel out into the open.

"Are you going to do the same with that one?" I asked, standing farther back.

"No," Karen said, lifting it smoothly to chest height and carrying it out in front of the main cabin. She set it down upright on the ground. "Shattering the barrel like that was a bit too dangerous. I'm going to break this one up in a more controlled manner."

As I watched, Sandwood lay down on the grass beside it. Then she stretched out her long, thickly-muscled legs, clamping them around the middle of the heavy barrel, completely encircling it.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I'm going to crush the barrel," she said.

"You can't!"

"Can't I?" She tensed her legs. They were immensely long, and full of muscle. "Feel that."

I bent and touched her thigh. I drew a breath. It was like stone! The thick slabs of muscle were rock solid! There was no give anywhere.

"My legs are real strong," she said as her ankles crossed and her legs began to squeeze. At once there came a cavernous creaking and groaning from the inch-thick timbers that made up the second barrel! She was certainly strong. I hadn't expected the barrel to give a fraction of an inch. Barrels were strong - specifically designed to resist pressure. Karen's legs must be like steel. I didn't know if I was imagining it, but I thought I could see the thick struts beginning to bend inward under the crushing pressure. Then I was sure. The struts were actually bending!

I looked to Karen's face, which was quite serene and confident, and without the slightest sign of strain. She was concentrated, but it was as if she was writing a letter, not applying immense pressure to a solid oak barrel. The muscles of her upper body were thick and defined, but the work was being done entirely by her long, powerful legs. Sandwood increased the pressure - and to my disbelief I began to hear a low, continuous cracking coming from the barrel timbers.

I gasped. At first I could see nothing, just hear the continuous cracking noise. But the cracking, tearing sound didn't stop. It went on and on as Karen's legs started to move imperceptibly together. I could see the thick barrel timbers bowing visibly now, beginning to tear away from the metal rings that held them in place. Karen's legs were implacable. They just kept on applying the pressure. The cracking, tearing noise grew louder and louder as her legs kept bearing inward. Now I could see the curved timber planks beginning to crack and split under the immense pressure. The tearing sound grew even louder, interspersed with loud cracks and bangs as whole timbers started to give way. Karen allowed herself a half-smile as she squeezed again, and the rest of the big timbers began to crack in half, tearing themselves away from what remained of the metal bands. As I watched, the wooden lid split apart, the whole barrel transformed into firewood as her poweful legs engulfed it. More nails and bolts poured out onto the ground.

Karen stood. "I used to do that with guys, but it got too easy by the time I turned fifteen."

"Goodness!" I gasped, overwhelmed by Sandwood's appalling strength. She was so much more powerful than me or Vince, or any man I'd dated.

"Both of you can go through the screws, bolts and nails and sort them into separate boxes," she pointed toward a room off the main cabin where several large wooden drawers awaited.

We had to do what Sandwood ordered. We both knew that. If we disobeyed her, she had a huge choice of ways in which to punish us. On this mountain, we had painfully learned, she was the boss.

We were still sorting through the pile of fixings an hour later when the figure of Mitch appeared on the edge of the clearing. Mitch was a 40 year-old drifter who Karen allowed to live in a cabin lower down the mountain in return for doing a few odd jobs.

"Hey, Ms. Karen!" he called out. "I called up to tell you that the Maxwell's boy's chest infection isn't getting any better. They've asked if you can spare any more of your pills." He reached into her open medicine box. "These look like the ones you gave them last time."

Before his arm had fully emerged from the box, Karen's hand had shot forward and grabbed his wrist.

"Owwww! Owwwww! Owwwww!" Mitch shrieked at once as Sandwood's fingers gripped tight.

"Don't even look at my medicines without permission!" she said, drawing his arm out of the box with one hand and twisting it backward. "These things can be dangerous!" Mitch was a bulky guy and nearly as tall as Sandwood, but she seemed to be much stronger.

"Owww! Owwww! Please. I'm sorry!" Mitch howled as Sandwood tightened her grip on his wrist. He dropped the box of capsules, which she caught in her left hand. But Karen still didn't release him. The muscles in her forearm defined as they continued to pour on pressure.

"I've told you about this before," Karen said, examining the packet as he fell, moaning, to his knees. "I don't like it when people disobey me. And these aren't the right pills. They're not even close."

"I won't do it again!" Mitch pleaded. "Please! You're breaking my wrist!"

"Okay." Sandwood released her grip on his wrist almost as an afterthought, letting it drop to the ground. Mitch gave a sigh of relief, seizing his lifeless right hand in his left and massaging it.

"I can't move my hand!" he said. "I think you broke it!"

"Don't make such a fuss!" Karen said, "And stand up. I'd know if I'd broken your hand, and I haven't. I was only using about sixty percent of my gripping strength. You'll be able to use your hand again in a few minutes, and it will be as good as new in a day or two. No," she said, poring through her medicine box. "I'm out of the best antibiotics and antivirals." She fished out a large packet of capsules from her medicine box. "Take these back to the Maxwells. I think now's the time to go and acquire a real good stock that will last."

As soon as Mitch was gone, Karen told me to get in the passenger seat of her battered pick-up truck. Ordering Vince to continue working, she went to the house to change her clothes. But the moment she was inside, I saw Vince creep over toward the truck.

"She'll be going somewhere we can get help," he whispered, looking round furtively. "I'm going to hide in the back, under the tarps, and sneak out when she stops." I watched nervously as Vince clambered in the back of the pick-up.

I prayed that Karen wouldn't notice that Vince was missing as she emerged from the cabin. But she seemed in a hurry. She had changed into a black miniskirt and dark red top - an alternative to her normal jeans

"These will be more suited to where we're going," she said as she climbed into the drivers' seat. "You're coming along with me, but you're not to speak a word to anyone at all unless I tell you to. Understood?"

I nodded.

We drove for half an hour along the bumpy trail down the mountain, and then turned south on the metalled highway for three hours. Karen was driving at around fifty, so we were quite some way from her farmstead when we came to a mid-sized town. There were plenty of cars and a good sized center. Karen drew up across the road from a modern plaza with a shopping mall, a hotel, and what looked like a medical facility.

"Come with me," Karen said, getting out of the cab. I followed, glancing back to see whether Vince was visible in the back of the pick-up. I saw nothing.

As I followed Karen across the road toward the hospital, I kept looking back. There were a lot of people here. What would happen if I called out for help? I wondered. But Sandwood's presence was so dominating, I didn't dare think about it. "Don't speak to anyone. Don't look at anyone," Sandwood said. "Even if they speak to you, say nothing."

I glanced back once more, just in time to see Vince climb out of the back of the pick-up truck, and run across the road toward the shopping mall. A car swerved to avoid him, honking its horn. Sandwood turned round and saw him for the first time. With an angry scowl she strode toward him. But there were thirty or forty people milling about the front of the mall. Vince was over the road and approaching a group of people. Surely our captivity was over. Once Vince had alerted those people, Sandwood wouldn't be able to force us back!

I remained rooted to the spot as Sandwood strode toward him. But surely it was too late? What could she do to him in this crowded plaza?

Vince had grabbed someone in the crowd and was talking agitatedly, waving his free hand wildly. The man was not reacting well. Vince looked a disconcerting sight, unshaven, dirt-faced and grubby, dressed in torn work pants, his top rumpled and travel-stained. I heard him say, "Stop her! She's holding me prisoner!"

"What do you mean..?" the man struggled to free himself. Others in the crowd were looking more alarmed than helpful at the sight of this raving, unkempt figure.

And then Karen was behind him, her right hand closing into a large, heavy fist. She took a long stride forward. Her left arm took his shoulder and spun him round to face her. Then her long right arm powered upward and across.

CRRAAACKK! People nearby gasped at the force of Sandwood's blow as it crashed into the base of the five foot ten man's jaw. The noise of the punch seemed to ring round the open plaza, echoing back from the nearby buildings . I cried out in alarm as Vince's body was stretched upward and then hurled violently backward by the awesome force of the blow. The big man crumpled, collapsing like a rag doll as he lost consciousness.



In a fraction of a second, Sandwood bent, catching the falling figure in her arms almost before he hit the floor. She shuffled the limp body into a cradle, and then straightened, lifting him up in her strong arms.

The watching crowd were clearly startled by what had happened. Surely they couldn't let Sandwood get away with this?

But the tall young woman had already turned back to the startled onlookers. "I'm sorry if you were alarmed," she said, as the body of Vince lay like a giant rag doll in her arms. "I'm a psychiatric nurse, and this man is my patient. He just OD'd on some drugs and broke out of the secure unit."

"Oh." People in the crowd nodded and began to look reassured.

"I had to render him unconscious," she went on, "..before he hurt someone. But don't worry. It's okay now. He won't give you any more trouble."

I watched, open mouthed, as the people seemed to accept Sandwood's words without question. She sounded so calm and believable! And she looked the part in her neat top and short black skirt. What other reason could a tall young woman have for so efficiently knocking out this wild, bedraggled looking man?

The crowd drew back, forming a corridor to let Karen carry the unconscious Vince toward the hospital building. There was nothing at all he could do about it. Karen had knocked him out stone cold with that one huge punch, and now she had him helpless in her arms.

"That was some hit!" a man said.

"We're trained to apply swift and effective restraints sir," Karen smiled, turning away. She shifted the dead weight of Vince slightly in her powerful arms. "That's to protect both our patients and the public."

She began to walk toward the main clinic building. I couldn't believe that the watching crowd were just letting her carry Vince out of there. They believed her every word, assuming that she had just calmed a potentially dangerous mental patient. She strode toward me. I considered crying out for help, but I knew that Sandwood could knock me out with even more ease than she had done Vince, and I would have gained nothing. We'd both be unconscious, and Sandwood would be free to explain her actions away anyway she liked, with neither of us able to contradict her.

"Follow me," she said as she carried Vince up a flight of steps to the upper level, Behind us, the crowd returned to their business.

Karen walked into the hospital by a side door. She seemed to know exactly where she was going. I wondered what to do as she carried Vince along a series of busy corridors. I'd hoped more people would stop Karen and question her, but the people we passed barely seemed to notice her carrying the still-unconscious Vince.

"Is he okay?" someone said at last.

"He's fallen off a ladder," Sandwood answered, striding past. "I'm taking him to casualty."

"Do you need a trolley?"

"It's easier this way," she said. "I have to climb some stairs!" She turned and climbed a stairway to the next level, and then to the floor above that, ensuring that I was walking in front of her.

"Is he okay?" I asked, looking at the unconscious figure in Sandwood's arms. "He's still not moving!"

"I hit him pretty hard," she said. "He'll stay out for some time, but he's breathing okay."

It was quieter on the second floor. This was the Admin floor, but most of the staff had already left work. We walked toward a pair of doors labelled, Pharmacy. Karen walked right through into a large room divided by a broad counter.

"What are you doing in here?" a tall man in glasses demanded. "This area is for hospital staff only."

"I am staff, and I need to get the following medicines," she said. She put Vince down on the wooden counter, then turned around, producing a handwritten list.

"You can't get any of those without authorization," the man said.

"It's an emergency," Karen said.

"I haven't heard about any emergency. Who are you? I'm asking you to leave."

A second man entered the room in the uniform of an orderly. "Is anything wrong?"

"See that this woman remains here, while I go and call security," the first man said. "We're going to have to hold her for checks."

"Don't touch me," Karen warned, stretching out her long, muscular arms as the orderly approached.

I hoped that the two guys would have a chance against Sandwood, but deep down I knew she was way out of their league. Her reach was astonishing, and combined with her speed and appalling hitting power, they had no chance at all.

"Oooouuurrrgghh!" the first man made a horrible gurgling noise as her blow impacted just below his ribs. She'd hit him before his outstretched hands were within a foot of her. He doubled over, clutching his stomach, gasping for breath and continuing to groan in pain as he fell to his knees. I saw a smirk of satisfaction cross Karen's face.

In an instant, she had swung round on the other assistant, drawing her long arm back as she did so, to unleash another crushing blow that cut through his defences to explode in the side of his head. The man flew sideways into the counter and then dropped like a stone. He was out cold, before he hit the ground. She turned back to the first man who was moaning in pain on the floor. She reached down and dragged him back to his feet.

"Now go and get me the drugs I asked for," she said calmly.

"I can't!" he spluttered. I was shocked to see that the first man was shaking with fear. The pain from that one harsh punch of Sandwood's had reduced him to a quivering jelly. He was so terrified of receiving another one, that he would have done almost anything. "The system is computerised. You need the correct codes." He pointed to a terminal.

"Oh." She put on her sunglasses, then wrapped her left arm around the butt of the male assistant, lifting him off the ground and carrying him over to the terminal.

"What's your entry code?" she said.

"AZ245963D," he answered at once.

"That better be right." She continued holding him upright in one arm as she punched the code into the computer with the other. The screen flashed into life.

"You still won't release the products," the man said. "You'll need the surgeon's authorization codes."

"Give me a few names, home addresses and dates of birth."

He did so, and Karen began typing. "What are yo doing?" "

"I'm working out the sequence," she said. "Most of these codes and passwords are easy. Just a few simple substitution cyphers should do it. There... Bingo!"

There was a deep click and a hum from the back of the room, as packets of drugs began to pour in on a conveyor belt. "Pack them up in that box." She pointed to a large plastic beneath the counter.

I started to pack up the boxes of pills and ampules of liquid into the container, helped by the injured assistant. Sandwood had ordered a lot of materials as the packages just kept on coming. The three foot square container was two thirds full when the far door opened and a large man came in.

"What's going on?" he demanded. "I'm Jed Kirkby, Head of Security."

"She's stealing drugs," the assistant said. "Stop her!"

"Right lady," Kirkby strode toward her. "Put your hands behind your back and face the wall."

He was a big man. He was Sandwood's height, and must have weighed 300 pounds to her 180. Surely now she had met her match? However I knew that Sandwood's 180 pounds was solid well-honed muscle.

"You better just sit down over there and let me leave," Karen said. "You saw what I did to your assistants."

"You're going nowhere," Kirkby said, pressing the button of a remote unit in his hand. "You see what I've just done? I've sealed off this whole floor of the building, and that order can only be countermanded from my office computer. Now just put your hands behind your back and wait for the police to get here."

"Stay back!" Karen warned, taking a stance as she raised her big fists into a defensive position. "I don't want to have to hurt you."

"Think you're tough girlie?" the large man spat, drawing his right hand intoo a heavy fist. "I'm just going to have to spank your britches." He made a surprisingly quick move forward, lashing out with his left. But Karen avoided it with a limber sidestep and swerve of her long body. Then she unleashed.

Karen's first punch struck like a sledgehammer. I could see that Kirkby was shocked by the speed and the power. The accuracy was pretty good too. The blow crashed into the side of his head, sending him staggering three paces sideways and grunting with pain. And she followed through immediately. Her long arms landing a sequence of massive, shuddering blows.

After the first blow the fight was already over. Kirkby was dazed, disorientated. He was unable to recover quickly enough, as he tried to cope with the pain, dizziness and shock. Instinct made him try to protect himself from Sandwood's harsh, powerful blows, but his short, heavy arms seemed incapable of hitting Karen's slim, fast-moving body, or even of shutting out Karen's devastating blows.

Sandwood's long, arms were like missiles, powering in from what seemed well out of range, delivering shockingly heavy blows to his body with bone-shattering force. Two... three... four... five... six... big blows slammed into him. Each impacted like a small bomb, making his whole body groan and shudder. You could tell by the sound of the impacts that they were doing a lot of damage. In a way, Kirkby's size and his strength were acting against him. A smaller man would have crumpled and fallen quickly under just two or three of those shattering blows. But his heavy body just absorbed the devastating punishment Karen's arms were handing out.

I watched, open-mouthed. The power with which Karen hit, did things to me inside. Nobody seemed able to withstand her crushing blows. Three more massive blows crashed home. I heard bones crack, somewhere deep in his broad chest. He staggered backward, raising his arms in a vain attempt to shield himself. But with the ninth massive blow Kirkby buckled. His knees gave way and he sank to the floor.

Sandwood drew a deep breath. "Okay!" she said coolly, "Now are you going to unseal this floor?"

"It can only be done from my office."

"Where's that?"

He pointed through a door. "Along the walkway. But I don't think I can get there.."

"No problem."

Karen bent, wrapped her arm beneath his legs and lifted. The 300 pound security chief came smoothly up in her arms as Karen straightened. The half-conscious man was amazed.

"You can't do that... Nobody can pick me up..."

"I'm very strong" Karen said, taking his 300 pounds securely in both arms. "There's not many people I can't lift."



I could see that he hated being carried, but he didn't dare resist her now. Sandwood took him out through the door he had entered by, then out along an outside walkway to his office.

Once she had unlocked the floor and tied Kirkby up, she came back to the pharmacy. I carried the big container of drugs, which must have weighed around sixty pounds. Karen studied a map of the premises, picked up the still-unconscious Vince and led the way, along empty corridors back to the pick-up.

It was dark by the time we were ready to leave, and Karen drove out of town without incident.