Halloween Fright Fight at the Asylum: FINAL CLIMAX!
By: Supporturgoddess
(Told from the viewpoint of an eyewitness)
My heart pounded in my chest. I stood in a cavernous shower room, facing off against my worst enemy, a woman who hated me every bit as much as I hated her. When the fight ended, only one of us would be left standing. The loser would be lucky to even crawl away.
Ore Creek was called a psychiatric rehabilitation center, but it was really just an asylum, a hole where society dumped girls it could neither use nor control. I was such a girl.
Slap! My enemy smacked her palm across my lips with such force I fell back against the shower wall. She hit me again. I struck her. We seized each other’s hair, spinning each other around in tight circles. Body blows followed. We took turns punishing and being punished. Little by little, my enemy proved too much for me. She raked my face back and forth across the shower drain, cutting me. I screamed in pain. She beat the hell out of me. I lie beaten and bloodied at her feet, looking up helplessly, as she prepared to finish me off!
I sat straight up in bed, suppressing a scream. My body was soaked with cold sweat. I was shaking. I had many such nightmares after my fight with Lea. I thought that fight was the worst night ever. I couldn’t have imagined the fight to come!
Hi. My name is Karen. I got into some trouble a while back. To keep me out of jail, my parents pulled some strings and had me sent to a mental health facility. As it turned out, they didn’t do me any favors.
Ore Creek Psychiatric Rehabilitation Hospital was divided into two huge buildings, with a wide courtyard between them, and fields all around. A river ran through the grounds. The buildings were divided by floors, and the floors into individual units. The East Wing, where I was sent, housed minimum-security patients, girls with relatively minor problems. The West Wing was made from the original 19th Century asylum and looked like a castle from some old horror movie. It housed the worst of the worst, maximum security patients like lunatics, cannibals, and serial killers. The girls from my side had no contact with the living nightmares in the West Wing, but that didn’t mean my life was easy.
I learned my first day that I either had to fight or at least be willing to fight in order to survive in my new home. From the start, my roommate, Kerri, tested me. Kerri was short and painfully thin, with a flat chest and frizzy, strawberry-blond hair. She had grown up on the streets, and it showed. Kerri ran away from home at age fourteen. She always went barefoot, and her big feet were always filthy. She rarely bathed. She was like a little wild animal. At 5’4” and about 115 lbs., I was almost four inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than Kerri. That, along with my flare for diplomacy, kept us out of a fight.
Kerri was friendly, but she made clear from the start that we would never truly be friends.
“Friendships don’t work here,” she explained. “You have to take care of yourself. If you get into a fight, don’t expect me to help you. If they come for us, I’ll happily clock you on the jaw and throw you to them, if it gives me time to get away. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is here. It’s every girl for herself.”
Though I avoided fighting Kerri, fights did happen. Afterward, I noticed something odd. After a fight, the guards and the staff could be very cruel, but only to the loser.
When I asked Kerri about it, she shrugged and answered, “Maybe they lost a bet.”
Every girl at Ore Creek tried to find her specific place in the tiny, closed universe. During the months before my arrival, a dimpled darling named Lea had established herself as the guard’s favorite, the reigning queen of cute. The redhead was shameless in her flirtation and proud of her place. When I showed up with my baby-doll, girl-next-door good looks, I threatened Lea’s hold on the title. We became instant rivals. The guards began paying more attention to me than to her. Lea grew green with jealousy. I deliberately stepped on Lea’s toes, openly flirting with the guards. I had twisted my doctor around my little finger, and hoped to do the same with the guards. Instead of gaining favors, I made a dangerous enemy. You know the rest. Lea beat the hell out of me in the showers and humiliated me in awful ways I’ll never live down.
(See ‘Halloween Fright Fight: Nightmare in an Asylum’ for Karen’s fight with
Lea)
The day after my fight, the staff, doctors, and even the guards who had flirted with me treated me like dirt! They yelled at me, took away my privileges, and worked me half to death. They made my life hell.
When I asked Kerri about it, she said, “Maybe they lost a bet.”
I finally understood the truth! The guards and staff at Ore Creek set up fights between the patients and then watched the fights using their closed-circuit cameras, betting on who would win and lose! Our doctors knew all about us. They knew how to manipulate us, to turn us into raw nerves. They found ways to make me hate Lea and make her hate me, and then they turned us loose on each other in the showers! They sat back, watching the fight on closed-circuit TV! I learned I had been a heavy favorite to beat Lea. When she wiped the floor with me, a few guards and several doctors--including my own--lost big bets. The next day, they punished me for losing!
After I lost to Lea, the staff wanted to set up another fight. They went to work on little Lacey, a girl who was really just a kid and had no business in a fight! They pitted her against a fiery-tempered but beautiful Mexican girl named Jackie.
I tried to warn Lacey not to fight, but Kerri stopped me, whispering in my ear. “This isn’t your business. The staff wants to see a fight. Unless you want to take Lacey’s place, you’d better stay out of it!”
Lacey didn’t stand a chance. When it was over, she lay crying at Jackie’s feet, missing her front tooth and suffering a few broken bones. The poor kid panicked. Now, you have to understand, little Lacey was our go-to girl. She could smuggle things in, for a price. Apparently terrified of the upcoming fight, she had smuggled in a weapon. When the terrified girl pulled a knife, she changed the rules. Jackie had no choice but to defend herself. They fought over the weapon. Lacey lost. She lost everything.
The staff refused to tell us exactly what went down, but one girl on our floor saw what happened later, late that night. She peered out a rain-soaked window and watched as some orderlies took a stretcher out to a waiting vehicle. On the stretcher lie a sad little 4’10” lump, covered head-to-toe with a white sheet. The vehicle wasn’t an ambulance. It was a coroner’s meat wagon.
Two lives were lost in the showers that night. Lacey was gone forever, and Jackie would spend the rest of her life behind bars for what she had done. When I first arrived, Kerri warned me not to get too close to the West Wing, because it housed living nightmares like serial killer Alexandra Dubois and lunatic Helena Lundgren. After Lacey’s death, I knew the real monsters at
Ore Creek were the doctors, guards, and staff! They were the ones to blame for sweet little Lacey’s death…them, and one other person.
I threw open the door to my room. Kerri, lying on her belly across the bed, glanced up at me. “Do you have a problem?”
“No,” I growled, “but you do.”
Seeing my narrow eyes and clenching fists, Kerri stood to face me.
Kerri threatened, “You’ve already been beaten up once. You better think before you act.”
“Oh, I have been thinking,” I replied. “I’ve been thinking about how I could have stopped Lacey from fighting. YOU stopped me! That sweet, funny little girl might still be alive, if not for YOU! I’ve been thinking about how I ended up in the showers with Lea. YOU begged me to trade my shower time for yours. You never bathe, but on that particular night, you made it sound like an emergency. By trading times, you sent me to the showers at the same time Lea was there. You little bitch! YOU set me up!”
Kerri fidgeted. “The staff ordered me to do it. I had no choice. I did what I had to do.”
I hissed, “Oh yeah? Well, it’s time I did what I should’ve done the moment we met!”
SLAP! My palm smacked across Kerri’s thin lips. She looked up at me from the floor. She shouted like a wild animal and tackled me down. The next thing I knew, we were rolling around on the carpet, scratching, biting and pulling hair in a wild catfight. I still have a scar on my eyebrow from where she bit me. I guess I did about as much to her. I got on top of her, firing fists in a blur. Her eyes looked a little glassy. I thought I had her, but then she shot up her legs and shoved those filthy toes of hers into my mouth and halfway down my throat. I gagged. Instantly the room turned upside down. Suddenly I was the one on the floor. Kerri’s knees pinned my shoulders. I was helpless. She started slamming fists to my face. I was just about to lose my second fight, when guards rushed in. They threw me across the room by my hair, and then they yanked Kerri to her feet and hit her hard in the ribs. She fell gagging and spitting over her bed.
Then came the warning.
“If we see any more fighting from either of you, you’ll be transferred…to The West Wing!”
Our blood ran cold. The West Wing was home to nightmares like Lunatic Lundgren and Black Widow Dubois!
The guards stormed out. At first it seemed strange that they would have broken up a fight, after promoting so many. I would later learn that after Lacey’s death, the hospital was under close scrutiny. They didn’t dare stage another battle while the state police were nosing around.
After a while, I asked, “Why did you do it? Why did you stop me? I could have saved Lacey!”
Kerri looked up at me. “How?”
“I could have gone to--”
“Who? Do you really think the staff would have stopped a fight they had worked so hard to set up? Lacey hated Jackie too much to back down. Who would have listened to you?”
I swallowed. “I would have made someone listen! I could have threatened the staff! I could have threatened to go to the press, and to--”
“Stupid bitch!” Kerri sat up. “Every call in or out of this place is monitored! They would have cut the call off the minute they realized who you were trying to call! If you had threatened the staff, it would have been your body carried out of here! Other than Lacey, Lea was the weakest girl in this place, but she still wiped her feet in your face and used you like toilet paper! If you had threatened the staff, they would have put you up against Jackie, or Big Kathy, or some other girl you couldn’t beat. Hell, they might have made me finish you off! By keeping you quiet, I saved your pasty white butt!”
I used the back of my hand to dab some blood from my bottom lip. “Why did you stab me in the back? Why did you betray Lacey? You knew Lacey was no match for Jackie! Couldn’t you have at least warned her, or--?”
“I warned YOU about this place,” Kerri answered. “There are no friends here. I did what I had to do. How can I make you understand?”
Kerri thought for a moment. “Did you ever hear the joke about the two campers and the lion?”
I shrugged.
“Well,” she went on, “There were these two best friends who went on safari in Africa. At the end of an eventful day, they slept in a large tent in the light of a full moon. In the middle of the night, they woke. They heard a deep, terrifying growl, and saw a huge, ominous shadow on the side of their tent. A gigantic lion was just outside! It was there to eat them! Instantly, the first friend sat up and started putting on his running shoes, as quickly as he could.
The second man said, “Don’t be stupid! You can’t outrun a lion!”
The first man looked at his friend and said, “I don’t have to outrun…the lion!”
Kerri looked up at me. “Do you get it? If both young men took off running, the lion would pounce on whichever one lagged behind. The man in the running shoes only had to outrun his friend. That’s the way it is in places like this. You do what you have to do. It’s every girl for herself!”
During the next several weeks, the guards and staff were on their best behavior. They didn’t allow so much as a pushing match. They couldn’t do a thing, while they were under investigation. The staff even took time to repaint the place. Oddly, high ladders covered in white drop cloths and hanging sheets of opaque plastic meant to catch spattering paint gave the place a ghoulish, haunted look, very much in line with the upcoming Halloween season.
One at a time, the state investigators left. The inquiry ended. The official story put all the blame on Lacey and Jackie. The bastards who made them fight got away with it! After having to wait so long without a fight, the staff wanted to stage something big. Word had it that they considered having me fight a rematch with Lea, or even have me take on Kerri in a fight to the finish, but fortunately for me, no one thought I could last long against either one. There was talk of having Big Kathy fight one of the big women from another floor. Nothing seemed grand enough. They wanted a fight like no other.
When a golden opportunity landed in their laps, they just couldn’t pass it up. Violent storms swept into the state. Ore Creek flooded. The hospital of the same name was built in a valley, with steep hills on all sides. Much of our wing would be underwater within hours. The staff evacuated half the girls to other nearby institutions, but many of us were left behind. I had hoped my doctor would finally transfer me to a humane facility, but he hadn’t forgiven me. He made a huge bet with Lea’s doctor, sure his little darling, me, could beat the other doctor’s little darling, Lea. When Lea kicked my butt, my doctor lost his prized yacht. If left to him, I would have been left in my room to drown.
With water lapping in through the back doors, the staff made the announcement we all feared would come. We were to be temporarily evacuated…to The West Wing! The least violent there would have to be doubled and tripled up in every cell, to empty a few cells for us!
Even Big Kathy was scared! We were taken to a building that could have doubled for a medieval dungeon. The staff had been painting that wing, too. The hallways were filled with ladders covered by white sheets and hanging sheets of opaque plastic meant to catch spattering paint. It seemed the staff had decorated the place for Halloween by making it look like a haunted castle…only the terrors in The West Wing were all too real!
We walked down a wide central corridor, surrounded on both sides by rows of cells. These weren’t cozy little rooms for patients. These were like animal cages, caves in the walls covered by thick bars in front. Narrow walkways jutted out from the cells on the upper four floors. Most of the girls from our wing were taken to cells on the higher floors. They had to endure the taunts and catcalls coming from the killers and lunatics in the cells around them. With no more room available, the guards shoved Kerri and me into a tiny holding cell on the ground floor, a room never intended for long-term use. It didn’t even have a toilet. I remember how violently we shook, as the guard slammed the heavy, steel doors shut in front of us.
I looked down the corridor in both directions. The bottom floor didn’t contain much. There were a few empty administrative offices, a room where the fuse boxes were maintained, a large janitorial room, and a room filled with gardening equipment. The central hall itself was empty, except for a few ladders and a couple of long tables, surrounded by metal chairs. Sheets of plastic hung over the railings above, dropping down to just above head level on the bottom floor. Kerri and I were out of site from the other inmates. We didn’t have to endure their taunts. I thought I had lucked out. I was about to find out how wrong I was!
All the shuffling of patients from room to room and building to building had afforded the staff a golden opportunity to stage the ultimate battle.
About 1:00am, just as the raging storm reached its climax, the elevator door on the far end of the corridor slid open. A beautiful woman entered, surrounded by four guards with rifles drawn. The woman wore a red-orange jumpsuit and stood barefoot, with heavy chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles.
Kerri shook violently. “Oh my god! That’s Alexandra Dubois, the infamous black widow serial killer!”
A moment later, the elevator door on the near end of the corridor slid open. Two doctors rolled a woman in on some sort of cross between a mover’s dolly and a hospital gurney. The woman wore only a white straight jacket with arms tied behind her back. She wore nothing from the waist down, though the jacket was just long enough to offer her a tiny amount of modesty.
I knew at once she could only be the infamous cannibal, Helena “Lunatic” Lundgren!
The doctor removed a black hood from the woman’s head. She shook out a bird’s nest of frizzy, tangled brown hair. Despite the tight straight jacket, it was obvious Helena possessed an incredibly sexy, voluptuous body. She struggled excitedly, snapping her jaws and trying to reach Alexandra.
Black widow Alexandra Dubois stared back at her, unimpressed and unconcerned. Guards unlocked the shackles around Alexandra’s wrists and ankles, letting them fall at her bare feet. At the same moment, the doctors cut the arms off Helena’s straight jacket and disabled the restricting parts, setting her free. The guards, keeping their weapons aimed at the women’s heads, nervously backed into their respective elevators as quickly as possible and vanished, leaving two living nightmares behind!
In a place like Ore Creek hospital, there could be only one top dog. There could be only one scariest of the scary, deadliest of the deadly. This was Jason vs. Freddy, Frankenstein vs. The Werewolf, Godzilla vs. King Kong, all rolled into one!
With a cold, condescending voice, black-haired Alexandra taunted, “You must be as crazy as they say, or you’d never face me. I warned you what would happen to you if you challenged me. Your time is up.”
Helena spoke in excited, even frantic tones. “Come and get it! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
Kerri pulled me away from the bars. She turned off the lights in our cell. We tried to hide as best we could, then set back to watch the unfolding nightmare.
Two legendary murders walked slowly together, looking like jungle cats stalking each other. Helena spread her undeniably delicious thighs wide, crouching low with arms wide and palms open as though ready for a wrestling match. Alexandra, the taller of the two by a few inches, stood straight, her arms down by her sides, hands slightly behind her. She held her enemy in utter contempt, acting as though Helena posed no threat to her at all. Helena charged…and fell into clever Alexandra’s trap. Whang! Alexandra suddenly brought one of her chains out from behind her back and struck her enemy in the face! Helena staggered, falling to one knee. Alexandra wrapped the chain around the little lunatic’s neck and began choking her. From all sides came a chant. “Fight! Fight!” Helena choked and gagged, her feet kicking madly in the air. Alexandra whipped the end of the chain around and started slamming the lock on the end of the chain into Helena’s forehead, again and again. Suddenly the cannibal spun on her hips and rose up between Alexandra’s legs, biting Alexandra’s upper thighs, and anything else she could get her razor-sharp teeth into! Alexandra screamed madly. Helena’s attack ripped most of one of Alexandra’s pant legs off. Alexandra seemed genuinely impressed by the leg beneath. Helena took a huge mouthful of Alexandra’s thigh. Alexandra threw her head back, screaming in pain! Wham! Wham! Wham! Three brutal strikes of the lock across Helena’s forehead broke off her attack.
The scene was horrific. Two true monsters circled. They leapt back together and began a fierce battle. Alexandra stood about 5’6” and weighed about 130 lbs., compared to Helena at about 5’3” and 120 lbs. Alexandra had size, strength, and certainly cunning, possessing a genius-level IQ. Helena had the advantages of being younger, faster, and far wilder. Each time “Lunatic” Lundgren cornered her beautiful opponent against a wall or railing, the lunatic leaned in, biting at any part of Alexandra she could reach, leaving the lethal beauty screaming in pain. Alexandra countered with brutal punches, kicks, and chops. While Helena’s attacks were wild and random, Alexandra’s were well aimed and precise, hitting Helena in her most vulnerable areas. Soon Helena was reeling back on her heels. We lost sight of them, as Helena whirled back and Alexandra pursued her.
After a few moments, we heard a noise. Whang! Whang! Whang! Whang! Whang! A few seconds later, we heard it again. We learned the source of the sound seconds later, as Alexandra ran back down the cell block, dragging Helena’s face back and forth along the steel bars! Helena fell to both knees, right in front of our cell! Alexandra brutally raked Helena’s face back and forth along the bars, directly in front of our eyes! The action suddenly stopped. Both murders stared at us, suddenly aware of our presence. I’ll never forget their eyes! At that point Helena was a rag doll in Alexandra’s hands. Blood ran down her face. She stared at us with blank, almost mindless eyes, dark and soulless, like a dolls eyes. Unable to think clearly enough to try to think of a way out, she just accepted the punishment. Alexandra’s eyes made my blood run cold! She was heartless and merciless. Her lips curled up on one side into a vicious smile, happy to see she would have witnesses to her greatest kill!
Both women held a pathological hatred of other women…and they knew we were within their reach!
Alexandra went back to the beat down, again running Helena’s face along the bars. Then the “Black Widow” leaned down and whispered, “I can beat you at your own game.” Alexandra viciously bit Helena’s forehead wound. Helena screamed high-pitched in anguish. Helena thrust her hand into our cell through the bars. Both Kerri and I screamed, but she wasn’t reaching for us. She seized the sharpest object she could find and stabbed it down into Alexandra’s bare foot. Alexandra cried out, but went back to biting. Helena twisted the object deeper into Alexandra’s foot. Alexandra lost the battle of wills. Wailing, she fell back, pulling the sharp splinter from her foot.
Helena spun and pounced on Alexandra. Helena was all over her, tearing and biting at her like a wild animal. Helena pinned her and choked her until she was blue in the face. Tongue out, Alexandra coughed and spat, desperate for a breath. Alexandra got her bare foot under Helena’s chin and slammed Helena’s head back against the bars to our cell. The Black Widow pulled back and kicked again, but Helena ducked. Alexandra’s foot shot into our cell, stopping inches from my face. Instantly Helena reached in, pulling Alexandra’s foot back out and wrapping her knee around the bars, tying Alexandra’s leg around the bars. “The Black Widow” could neither run nor fight back effectively. Helena stared hungrily at Alexandra’s delicious leg, salivating. She stared at it as if facing the most succulent feast ever imagined. The crazy little cannibal sank her teeth deep into Alexandra’s foot. Alexandra wailed. Helena slowly moved up Alexandra’s leg to her upper thigh, biting it savagely. I never believed a heartless murderer like Alexandra could cry, but she did, hard. I almost felt sorry for her.
Kerri watched, transfixed, hypnotized by the horrid scene. Sickened and repulsed, I leapt to the back of the cell. I startled Helena, who froze, losing focus. That was all Alexandra needed. She grabbed the wood splinter left from the hospital renovation that she had pulled from her foot and returned the favor, stabbing into Helena’s bare foot. Helena howled, falling off and trying to pull the splinter out of her foot. By then Alexandra’s leg was covered with blood. Wounded and losing, Alexandra retreated, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Helena rose, but rather than pursuing the “Black Widow”, “Head Case” Helena glared at me. She seemed more offended than angry. Assuming I favored Alexandra and had deliberately distracted her so that Alexandra could get away, Helena stamped her feet and shouted, “I’m better than her! You’ll see! Everybody will see!” Then she ran off in search of her enemy.
Alexandra reached the second floor, limping past rows of cells filled with inmates taunting her for running from the fight. Alexandra tried to hide, but the inmates on the second floor roared, telling Helena exactly where to find her. They just wanted to see which legend would come out on top.
I heard Alexandra shout, “Shut up! Stop it! I’ll get you for this! I’ll come back and kill you all!”
Helena raced up the stares after her enemy. Alexandra cleverly crawled under the railing, lowered down, and hopped down to the lower floor, biting down on the back of her hand to suppress a scream brought on as her wounded leg hit the floor. She looked around, found a mop, and, showing tremendous strength, easily snapped the bottom off. Alexandra grinned, wickedly. Her genius-level IQ paid off. She hobbled out into view, kneeling and sobbing to appear far more wounded than she actually was. Helena appeared, staring down from the second floor over the guard rail. The lunatic leapt over the railing to land on top her prey. Suddenly Alexandra pulled the sharp pole out from under her, wedging one end on the floor but leaving the jagged end she had snapped off straight up. The stake stabbed up through Helena’s thigh and into her side, as she leapt down onto it! Helena’s scream could have shattered glass! The lunatic jolted and twitched like a speared fish. I almost fainted. Alexandra had her! She moved in, but Helena let out an insane cry, pulling the stake out of her side and jamming it into Alexandra’s wounded thigh. Alexandra cried out in agony, and fell. Alexandra hobbled away. Helena dragged herself off around a corner.
Helena may have been a crazed animal, but Alexandra was not. Rocking back and forth and clutching a bare leg turned dark red with blood, Alexandra began to consider her options. She looked to one end of the corridor and then to the other. She then hobbled over to the janitor’s room. She exited a moment later, and hurried to bar both elevator doors, jamming them shut! She locked the staff out of the bottom floor! She found a fuse box and turned out the lights in the cell blocks! Cheers and jeers from the inmates upstairs turned to screams of terror, as the hospital plunged into darkness. Alexandra wasn’t hiding from Helena. The darkness hid her actions from the staff watching on the closed circuit system.
Alexandra hobbled toward my cell. I shrieked, but she passed without a glance. She looked up as if searching for something. Then I realized her eyes were following some power cables on the ceiling. She pulled a drop cloth from one ladder and used the tall ladder to climb a wall. Once again, her genius was on full display. Though she had turned out the lights to help her hide from the staff, she had cleverly left almost everything else on. Though she had jammed the elevator doors to keep the guards out, the triple doors to the front of the hospital were not blocked. She used a gardening tool to slice open the wires and began splicing them, trying to cross circuit the lines to unlock the triple doors…so she could escape! Doors began opening and closing.
Suddenly the doors to my cell slid open!
Kerri leapt up, pulling me by my hand. “This is our chance! Let’s escape!”
I pulled away. “Are you crazy? Those two maniacs are out there!”
“Yeah,” Kerri said, “but pretty soon, they’ll be in here! You know Helena thinks you helped Alexandra escape, when she might have finished her. What do you think Helena will do if she comes back by our cell and finds you here, with no bars to hold her back?”
I swallowed hard. “Let’s go!”
I followed Kerri out into the dark corridor, whispering, “Where are we going? Alexandra has the elevators jammed.”
Kerri answered, “We’ll hide until Alexandra gets the front doors open. As soon as she leaves, we’ll slip out behind her!”
Having seen both madwomen downstairs, we crept up to the second floor and searched for somewhere to hide. The far side of the floor was full of inmates, though we couldn’t even see them in the darkness. The side we were on was still being renovated. It was dark and empty. White drop cloths covered towering ladders, and opaque sheets of plastic hung from the ceiling. We quickly became lost in the unfamiliar maze. Lost in the darkness, we went upstairs and downstairs. We watched Alexandra move from floor to floor too, looking for just the right wires to use to open the front doors. We lost sight of her. For some time we hid in the darkness of the ground floor, but when Alexandra returned, we decided to leave.
I followed Kerri back up to the second floor. Kerri and I screamed in unison, as the silhouette of lunatic Helena Lundgren appeared at the far end of the corridor. With no time to use the stairs, my streetwise roommate rolled under the guard rail and dropped down over the edge to the floor below. I followed, and instantly regretted it. I held in a shout as I landed, twisting my ankle on impact! I toppled down.
Kerri whispered, “Get up! You have to get up, before--”
“My ankle’s busted!” I whined. “Oh god! Of god! Kerri, you’ve got to help me!”
Kerri’s eyes bulged. I looked back over my shoulder and saw Alexandra Dubois, standing twenty feet behind me! Kerri began to back away from me.
I pleaded, “No! Kerri, you can’t just leave me! Help! I’m begging you! Help me!”
Kerri shrugged. “Sorry, but you know my motto. It’s every girl for herself.”
Kerri ran off! Alexandra charged! I braced for a fight I couldn’t possibly win! Just as Alexandra reached me, I realized she hadn’t been charging me. She leapt over me, clashing with Helena, who had been charging from behind me! The two women engaged in a terrifying battle…directly over me! They trampled me, both stepping directly on my busted ankle, but I didn’t dare make a sound.
Helena quickly got the upper hand, sending Alexandra reeling. Helena grabbed a chair and slammed it across Alexandra’s back. Alexandra cried out, staggering forward in a desperate attempt to stay on her feet. A second chair shot made that impossible. Alexandra looked up through glassy eyes. Helena prepared to finish her by sending the chair down over her forehead, but Alexandra rolled under a table at the last instant, causing the chair to catch on the tabletop.
As the fight moved on, so did I. I crawled away and went back upstairs. Just as I reached the top, I came face to face with Kerri!
I gasped, “How could you? How could you just leave me like that?”
She rolled her eyes. “I told you. It’s every girl for herself. Look, do you want out, or not? With that bum ankle, you’ll need all the help you can get!”
I couldn’t argue.
The sounds of battle below ceased. I assumed that either Alexandra had broken free and was hiding, or that Helena had finished Alexandra off and was savoring an especially delicious meal. Kerri and I groped our way through hanging plastic sheets and around cloth-draped ladders. Then I heard an agonized moan. We followed it and found Big Kathy lying on the floor to her cell, bloody and horribly beaten!
“Oh my god! What happened?”
“Alexandra opened the door to my cell. W-We fought. She (cough) did this to me! She got me in a bear hug. I-I think she broke my back! I’m hurt…bad!”
“I couldn’t believe anyone could have done that to Big Kathy! Alexandra and Helena weren’t human!
Kerri started to pull me away.
Kathy sobbed, “No! You can’t just leave me here!”
Kerri pulled hard on my arm. “We can’t help her. Let’s go.”
I snarled. “Do you even have a heart? You stabbed me in the back, sent poor little Lacey to her doom, and now you want to leave Kathy behind?”
“It’s every girl for herself!”
“No way,” I insisted. “Give me a hand! I’m hurt too, but together, we can--”
I felt Kerri’s hands on my back. She pushed me down into Kathy’s cell. “Fine! Stay! I’m not gonna’ die because you were too stupid to escape! Go on, stay here! They’ll kill you!”
Kerri headed for the far end of the corridor. A silhouette stepped out from around the corner. Kerri came face-to-face with “Lunatic” Lundgren! A single backhand sent Kerri flying halfway back to me! Helena came forward, standing over Kerri. Kerri looked back at me. “We’ve got to take her together! It’s our only hope!”
I began to back away.
Kerri cried, “No! There’s nowhere to hide! You know that by now! You have to help me! If you run, she’ll kill you, too! You can’t outrun her!”
My eyes narrowed. “I don’t have to outrun…HER! Say hello to Lacey.”
I ran, leaving Kerri to certain doom. Behind me, I heard the sounds of a terrible battle. I heard both girls screaming. Then only Kerri screamed. In under a minute, there was only silence.
I couldn’t escape both killers on a busted ankle, so I hid in a dark corner, pulling some garbage cans around me to further conceal me. I was near enough to the ledge to look over the edge and see the floor below. I saw Alexandra, covered in blood with barely a stitch of clothes left on her battered body, but alive…and active. At either end of the hallway, guards hammered at the blocked elevator doors, trying to get in. They couldn’t use their weapons without risking a deadly ricochet. They could have been killed by their own bullets.
Evil but brilliant, Alexandra finally worked out a way to open the main doors. She stood in the open doorway, inches from freedom…but she turned back. Alexandra Dubois considered herself superior to all other women. Only Helena Lundgren had ever challenged her. Alexandra could not run from the fight. She still planned to escape, but only after she had Helena’s head as a trophy.
I watched Alexandra enter the gardener’s utility room. She exited a minute later, sporting a wide, evil grin and concealing a huge machete under her, a blade large enough to chop Helena’s head off!
“Oh Helena,” Alexandra practically sang, “come out, come out, wherever you are! I’m not finished kicking your sorry, second rate butt! You’re no match for me! Now everyone will know it! Come out, so I can finish you!”
Alexandra was bating her! Helena was badly hurt, but she would never sit still for that! I almost felt sorry for the little lunatic. She was about to walk into a final trap!
“Aw,” Alexandra taunted, “are you hiding? Are you that scared of me? I guess that proves which one of us is the better woman!” All the while, Alexandra readied he machete she held concealed under her crouched body.
A wicked grin widened on Alexandra’s face, as she found a trail of blood and followed it. It led to an overturned table. Alexandra crept up, raised the machete, and then kicked the table away! What was left of Kerri’s body fell out! Alexandra’s eyes almost popped out of her head! Only then did I catch site of Helena, dangling from the bottom of one of the plastic sheets hanging from the ceiling, right over Alexandra’s head! Helena dropped. Her feet slammed into Alexandra’s back. Alexandra let out a loud “Ugh!” and fell. The machete flew out of her hand and slid away into the darkness. I couldn’t believe it! Crazy Helena had outsmarted Alexandra!
With no tricks left, it finally came down to Alexandra vs. Helena, toe to toe. Already gravely wounded, blood spattered from both women with every blow. They hit, kicked, and ripped into each other.
Both women kept screaming, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!”
Helena bit chunks of flesh from Alexandra’s beautiful body, but Alexandra was the bigger, stronger woman. Helena went where Alexandra sent her. She bounced Helena off walls and steel guard rails and punched and kicked her hands and feet almost straight through the smaller woman’s gorgeous body. Helena had Alexandra on her heels, until “The Black Widow” found her target. She reached down and dug her fingers into the open wound in Helena’s side. Helena started to scream but it was choked off, the pain too great. Helena responded by digging her thumb into the wounds in Alexandra’s thigh. Alexandra found her voice, and her cry of agony will haunt me for the rest of my life. They faced off in a toe-to-toe battle of endurance and wills. Alexandra simply couldn’t take it. Tears pouring, she cried out and pulled away. She tried to run, but Helena was faster, running her down. A brief fist fight had Alexandra reeling back wildly on her heels, but as she fell, she looped one arm around Helena’s neck, taking her down too. Alexandra fell with her back against a steel guard rail. Helena’s throat landed over the bottom steel rod. Alexandra leaned back, using all he remaining strength to force Helena’s throat down over the rod, choking her out. Kicking and spitting, Helena fought back with only one hand, driving fist after fist into Alexandra’s stomach. Neither woman had any defense against the other. Helena’s legs were straight out, her feet shaking in violent spasms. Alexandra’s open mouth filled with blood. Tears poured. Shaking her head “No!” Alexandra’s body lost. Her grip weakened until her arm dropped. Helena rose, stomping Alexandra’s ribs to chalk dust.
The fight appeared over, but then Alexandra saw what I had not. The machete lay only a few feet away! She lunged forward, and when Helena rolled her over, she swung the blade blindly! Helena screamed, as the machete sliced deep into her leg. Blood spurted. Helena caught herself on the guard rail, desperately pulling away. Now Helena was in tears…and all but beaten! Alexandra rose, mouth dripping blood but sneering and shaking with fury.
Alexandra shouted, “Get back here, you little bitch!”
Both women were on fumes. Helena dragged herself back up the stairs. Alexandra hobbled after her, slashing at her with the machete.
At the top of the stairs, Helena must have realized she couldn’t escape. She spun. They fought for the blade. With her life on the line, Helena managed to take Alexandra’s wrist and crack it down over the metal guard rail twice, until the blade fell over the edge, back to the floor far below. Alexandra charged forward, forcing Helena back. Helena then charged forward. The women spun madly, until they lost their footing, slipping on their own blood and falling together over the edge! They caught up in ropes used to hang one of the drop cloths from the ceiling! The sheet wrapped tightly around the struggling fighters, leaving them in a kind of cocoon. There was nowhere to run! Escape was impossible! They were body-to-body and eye-to-eye, locked in a final, horrifying battle! Blood curdling screams and cries of anguish came from both women. The white cloth turned red. Drops of blood ran down and spattered on the floor like drops of rain. In seconds, the drops grew to a torrent! They were tearing each other to shreds! The cocoon jolted around madly, dancing about, suspended high over the floor below.
Then, suddenly, the sheet grew still. A terrible silence set in. That silence only ended when a terrific crash echoed through the corridor. The guards were almost through the elevator doors.
A lone figure shimmied down out of the cocoon and dropped catlike to the floor. Helena had won. She might have preferred to feast on her defeated enemy, but the sound of the guards breaking in warned her that her time was short. She stared right at me!
She said, “See? I told you! I’m better than she was!”
“Lunatic” Helena Lundgren ran into the storm, laughing maniacally. Just as the guards broke in, I escaped, too. I looked back just long enough to see the sheet pulled off. Alexandra’s limp, blood-covered body hung motionless from a hook. The guards lowered her. I ran, getting my first taste of freedom in months.
***
I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. I couldn’t run forever. I did my time…but in a humane facility, where I got the help I needed. I finally got my act together. I now have a good life.
Big Kathy survived. My backstabbing roommate, Kerri, didn’t. I try not to think about her. It’s like she said. It was every girl for herself. I did what I had to do. I have no regrets. There were investigations, of course, but the cover up was monumental. Alexandra and Helena were assigned most of the blame. The fact their bloody war had been staged by the staff was never proven. A few low level staff members lost their jobs, but the bastards truly responsible got away with it!
Well…they got away with it…but only for a while. I wasn’t the only one who escaped that terrible night. To make sure Helena and Alexandra were worked up into a frenzy and ready to fight, the staff at the hospital had tortured both women. They picked the wrong woman to torture. A few months after the fight, Helena found out where the chief of staff lived, and paid him a little visit. The police found him in his living room. They also found him in his den, in his kitchen, and they found a few pieces scattered down the hall. Helena must have been especially hungry that night. To date, Helena has killed and partially eaten five members of the old staff. The rest had better keep looking over their shoulders!
I wouldn’t have believed anyone could have lost so much blood and lived, but Alexandra survived. Rumor has it her incredible will to live was due to a maniacal obsession. She lived for the chance to hunt Helena down and finish her off!
Helena was not the only target of Alexandra’s rage. When Alexandra was losing her fight with Helena, she tried to hide, to catch her breath. The other inmates laughed and roared, alerting Helena to where Alexandra was trying to hide. Alexandra shouted that one day she’d come back and kill them all!
Eight months after the fight, Alexandra Dubois escaped.
Seven months later, Alexandra had her revenge. Using her genius-level IQ, she found a way to overload the locks on Ore Creek dam. The result was catastrophic failure in the dam. At 3:00 am, an fifty-foot-tall wall of water swept through the valley. This time, there was no warning, no time to evacuate. Almost every inmate and staff member present perished. In a single night, Alexandra’s body count increased by eighty-nine.
Alexandra’s body count dwarfs the number of murders Helena has committed, but of course, Helena has defeated Alexandra in a toe-to-toe battle. Then again, Helena was fixated only on tearing Alexandra to pieces, while much of Alexandra’s focus was on escape. If Alexandra had focused only on fighting Helena, the end might have been different. Who knows?
I think we will, someday. After all, they’re both still out there, somewhere. They’re probably stalking each other, hunting each other down at this moment. Someday they’ll meet for a final, horrific battle. Pity anyone who gets between them!
***Happy Halloween!!!***
