Karla Wimberton (Cataclysmic Gerosha)

Karla Wimberton is a minor character in Blood Over Water.

Character bio
A physical education major at Ferris State, Karla is also involved in on-campus yoga and the mixed martial arts program. She is a known friend to Hank Froli - the ill-fated friend-with-benefits of one Monica Shelly. Most of what's known about Karla is told to Monica by Hank as he visits Monica one evening.

Karla led a very rough life, but was never willing to give up pursuit of her dreams. However, Karla did have a few things working against her; things Hank only wishes he could do anything about. The first was a medical condition that gave her intense pain. For that, she took advantage of Michigan's 2006 Proposal 1 to become a medical marijuana patient. The second was a feisty mouth, and unwillingness to take crap from others - including RAs on campus. The third, was the fact that campus police often took one look at her and assumed the worst about her.

Karla and Hank mostly met while practicing yoga, and became good friends that way. They had a one-week-long affair at one point; but later agreed they should limit to being mere friends-with-benefits. A few months later, Karla would eventually meet another man named Brendon Stihn, that would become her new boyfriend. She informed Hank of this; and he agreed with Karla to amicably end their sexual relationship.

Betrayed by the campus
In the spring of 2009, just one semester after word had spread on campus about the strange case of Hadley Mint, Karla's personal feud with one mean-spirited RA finally led to that RA crossing some forbidden lines, in a bid to get rid of her. The RA started spreading rumors that Karla was distributing joints of marijuana around campus - which was still forbidden at the time.

Police from the city, working with DPS, staged a no-knock raid of Karla's dorm one evening while she was minding her own business. She was surrounded by SWAT, and pinned to the ground in her room. No drug supplies could be found in her room. Regardless, she had paperwork in her dresser that proved she had a right to liquid medical marijuana under Proposal 1 guidelines.

Begging for the chance to get the paperwork from her dresser and prove it, police manhandled her and hauled her away, denying her this golden opportunity. The RA smiled evilly, as she knew that Karla would be gone for quite some time in the local jail - and would likely miss out on final exams.

Restoration
Alas, police later had to admit that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing on Karla's part. The charges against Karla dropped after two weeks. She lobbied fiercely to avoid expulsion from school, stating that she had in effect been kidnapped. The school, considering the circumstances, relented. Yet, no action was taken against either the overstepping officers nor against the RA who had initiated the swatting. Simply happy to have her good academic name restored, Karla tried to focus on the future. She was encouraged by friends on campus to sue those who'd mistreated her; but she wasn't ready to spend money on the lawyer she would have needed for that.

Encounter with the Straggele
On the same night that Hank would be killed by Gleeful-N'-Young, Karla would find herself snatched by men in black armor from her dorm room, a second time! Only, these men didn't even bother identifying themselves as being part of a law agency. Karla found herself in the back of what looked like a stolen paddywagon, along with several children. She quickly heard a commotion as the vehicle convoy was headed toward Cadillac. Before she knew it, her van was overturned. She was able to free herself from her restraints long enough to peer out and see a child being carried away by some...creature. Similar-looking monstrous beings were in that area, and her old tormentor RA appeared to be one of the others who had been abducted. Alas, that RA chose to antagonize the creatures...and was immediately impaled with a spear.

Aftermath
Karla would later go on to give testimony during hearings on the Sleet Mountain issue, explaining what she saw on the night of her abduction. She made special note to mention the Straggele, though she found that TV news networks seemed to go out of their way to scrub that information from the timeline. She eventually was able to locate and connect with Monica Shelly, telling Monica that she saw the "creatures" carry Annabelle into some floating vehicle and vanish with her. Monica would redirect Karla to her new dark web connections, right before Monica herself wound up facing prosecution.

Karla v. SCALLOP
As Karla and Brendon grew closer together as a couple after college, they began getting involved in charity work - including work related to the St. Jude's hospital in Memphis. Trouble for Karla began in February of 2017, when SCALLOP heard rumors that a child at that hospital who was fond of the great work Candi Flippo had done in Cincinnati made a deathbed wish to be visited by Ciem. Darius Philippine adamantly refused to let Candi receive a furlough from Madison in order to fulfill a child's longing to meet Gerosha's centipede protector. He even ordered agents to keep watch in the area, just in case. Staff and the child's parents were appalled that Darius would be so outright rude and petty to a dying child.

Not willing to sit by idly and let the poor dying Sylvia Reene feel denied in death; Karla returned home and later to the craft store. She hastily crafted a very crude Ciem costume for herself to wear, then returned to the hospital to fulfill Sylvia's wish. Karla's act didn't go unnoticed though. Misquoting the Kirby Act, SCALLOP agents barged into the room seconds after Sylvia's death, and tased Karla into submission. She was quickly arrested, and taken to a SCALLOP base in Memphis for questioning.

Karla later found herself spending a month in jail, before all charges against her were suddenly dropped without warning or explanation. Furious at the level of intimidation and corruption she'd witnessed, Karla vowed to do what she almost did in Big Rapids a decade earlier: sue.

Her lawsuit was partially successful, in that it reaffirmed the rights of charity cosplayers - arguing that nothing in the Kirby Act could be fairly construed to declare certain politically disfavored vigilantes' likenesses illegal for purposes of a charity cosplay. However, the judge in the end decided to only make the Security-Centric Alliance Lending and Learning of Phaelites pay her a paltry $50, plus all her legal and attorney fees, as compensation for all the losses she'd been forced to endure.

News of Karla's lawsuit made its way back to Madison, where the staff informed Candi from her cell about the incident. Candi found it mildly amusing to hear that Karla won the lawsuit. However, Candi also found it disturbing that her half-brother was now committing brazen acts of political persecution against civilians who had not done any serious wrong, all simply for the "crime" of liking her costume!

Death
Karla would later be among the Exodus Agenda band from Illinois to make its way into Oklahoma after crossing Affadidah's "Wall." Much like Candi McArthur and Dolly Malestrom, she was captured after the ambush by Netheeli forces near the Texas border. However, she was in a separate group from Candi and Dolly, and had no access to Remotach. She was beheaded 15 minutes prior to Candi's scheduled execution, with the Navyrope forces running too far behind to save her in time. In another part of that same camp, Brendon was eviscerated, a mere three minutes before Karla's execution. As he was about to die, their captors showed her off to him, hand gesturing that she was about to lose her head in order to taunt the couple. Karla tried to argue back to her captors that killing her would afford them no benefits. However, this last-minute plea didn't stop them from going forward with it anyway. The Navyrope forces were unable to stop the earlier convoy that she was included on; and her severed head and body were delivered to Arfaas' museum.

Personality
Karla can be very feisty and independent. She knows that she wants to go on to teach physical education in high school; and that she's determined to see her plan through. She is all the same able to read men in her life quite readily. She knows who's honorable and who isn't, and is wise and cautious about not letting just anyone get close. She laments that her chaotic family life did her few favors in this regard; and that she wishes she could live life out of a loving desire to serve - rather than just to prove she can survive. However, things seldom ever seem to go her way.

Trivia

 * Karla is loosely inspired by a real-life woman named Cara, who really did attend Ferris State, and dealt with similar betrayal and drama on campus, obviously sans any meeting with the Straggele.
 * Karla's time in jail is mentioned in more detail in the supplementary manual Blood Over Water: Dirty Laundry.