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Extremely graphic descriptions of blood and extreme violence
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Alicia wasn't sure which of the three Black Violets was the one swinging the chair. At the last possible moment, she dove to the floor with a grunt to avoid all three. CLANG! The deafening smack of steel against steel battered Alicia's headache-addled brain hard enough to feel like an impact. Black Violet took a second to regain her balance after missing a night-ending swing while Alicia threw one arm in front of the other, using the moment of peace to drag herself across the floor and create some separation.
The challenger used the distance to wrap her legs around Black Violet's; one leg in front of her ankles and the other snaked behind her calf. With a sharp twist, Alicia executed a Drop Toehold, sending Black Violet face-first to the ground. It looked like another chance, and Alicia threw herself at her prone opponent, braving the overpowering, ripe aroma somewhere between sweaty athlete's foot and a clogged butcher shop drain.
She wrapped one hand around the scuffed, worn-through blue heel and the other around the ragged, barely white toe of Black Violet's secondhand wrestling shoe. Alicia struggled and yanked at the ratty material to little avail as blood poured down her face; she simply had no power or leverage from her position on the floor. It had been an impulsive decision, and the next dozen kicks to the head were her penance.
Black Violet stood up and dragged Alicia headfirst into the steel staircase with a clang that blurred her vision further. When the champion grabbed another fistful of french braid to drive her bloody foe's head into the steps again, Alicia threw a back elbow that struck her attacker on the point of her nose, causing her to squeal in pain and let go. Alicia scampered on her hands and knees up the steel steps and spilled into the ring through the bottom and middle ropes while a damp wheezing grew louder in her ears as her monster closed the distance behind her.
Just five more feet, and the former hockey player would once again have her favorite weapon in hand. Four feet, and a vice grip clamped onto her right ankle. Three feet, and Alicia felt nails like ice picks in her left calf through her jeans. Two feet, and both sets of claws dug into her back. One foot, and the rabid champion sat her full weight on Alicia's shoulders. With half an inch to go, a pair of contorted, ivory hands shot past Alicia's grasping, outstretched arms and snatched away the unpainted wooden shaft of the hockey stick. In one violent motion, Black Violet slipped the stick under Alicia's chin and dug the lumber into her throat.
Alicia's callused fingers dug at the weapon, trying to pry enough room to steal one more breath before her wits returned. Once again, she reminded herself to stick to the gameplan, and once again she called upon her fast-depleting reserves to push herself and Black Violet up off the mat. Alicia took a moment to steady herself before crawling toward the offensively green nylon gym bag. Darkness encroached on her vision as she starved for oxygen behind the inflexible wooden hockey stick.
Alicia dropped to her left forearm to support Black Violet's shifting weight as she reached her right hand into her sports duffel. She wrapped her fingers around a white hockey helmet with yellow lightning bolts on either side and whipped it behind her, cracking the hard plastic into what by now had to be at least a bloody nose. The ghost of Plunj Arena cried out hurt and loud as she recoiled, permitting Alicia enough slack to slip out of the choke. She took three rapid, greedy gulps of the good stuff before rising to her feet and pulling Black Violet up with her in a waistlock.
Alicia folded the TV Champion's left calf back and hoisted her high in the air before throwing her down knee-first onto the mat. As expected, Black Violet reached with both hands to protect her damaged knee. The challenger used the painful diversion to snap up Black Violet's right ankle and lock in a tight Figure Four. Alicia couldn't afford to let the fight drag out any longer. Unfortunately, she had not consulted the champ before revising the timetable.
As much respect as Alicia had given her opponent's upper-body strength, it hadn't been enough. Black Violet sunk those razor sharp talons into the canvas and crawled for the ropes. Alicia secured a two-handed grip on the remaining shoe and gave it a hard pull. Nothing doing. Two pale arms in shredded straitjacket sleeves stretched for the bottom rope and grabbed hold. With a deafening shout and an equal surge of strength, Alicia yanked the second shoe free, and lunch rose up in her throat in protest. The putrid appendage assaulted her nostrils by its presence, wafting a rancid, overpoweringly sour stench like onion compost. The foulness would cling to her memory for life.
Black Violet used her grip on the bottom rope to pull herself over the edge of the ring and dragged Alicia along for the ride. The challenger threw her arms back and snagged the handle of her hockey stick with the tips of her fingers just as gravity took over. The impact onto the woefully thin floor padding jolted the Figure Four loose, but Black Violet left a wide-open target. Alicia jabbed the heel of her stick again into Black Violet's gushing nose, causing the Mother of Nightmares to howl in outrage and pain, but it wasn't a clean hit--only enough to discourage her for a moment. Just as Alicia rose to her feet, there was Black Violet. She needed to slow the champion down.
Too late. The champion slowed her down first by grabbing a handful of braid and dragging her towards the fishhook cocoon. Several stumbling, reluctant steps later, and there it was. A place hostile to the very notion of flesh. Bedlam for human skin.
Alicia slammed the hockey stick blade onto Black Violet's right foot, mashing her pasty, mildew-encrusted toes. The crowd noise paled in comparison to the screech of anguish that followed. Alicia raised the stick again and slammed it down onto the left foot, and then again for good measure. With a fourth brutal slam of the wood down onto the same unprotected digits, the howling, wounded champion shoved Alicia hard to the floor and staggered away to find some respite.
Fishhook teeth raced upward to meet Alicia as she careened face-first toward the body bag. At the last possible moment, she let go of the hockey stick and caught herself with her palms. Her mouth instinctively went agape in a silent scream as rusted, razor-sharp metal sank hungrily into meat. Alicia gasped for breath, but she couldn't scream.
A quick
look back revealed her shrieking, straitjacketed opponent writhing
on the floor in pain. Alicia rose to her knees and then to her feet,
involuntarily carrying the body bag with her. She counted three- no, four hooks in her left hand and two in her right, plus one more in the tip of her right index finger
screaming for the most attention. Alicia lowered her hands, allowing the body bag to touch the floor and grit her teeth as she stepped
on either side of the bag, pinning it to the ground. Breathe in, breathe out. Then she yanked both arms upwards as hard as she could, ripping her pincushioned hands free of all but two of the hooks. Those traveled with her.
At least the one in the heel of her right hand only partially sank in, just past the barb. Alicia brought it to her mouth and secured a tight grip around the metal with her right lateral incisor and cuspid--Dr. Pupe would be proud. The sour taste of rust did little to distract from the newfound, throbbing pain in her hand as she yanked the intruder out with her teeth and spat it onto the ground. The final hook nested deep in the side of her left hand but hadn't decided yet where it wanted to emerge. One more thing for the ER to sort out.
She seized the moment and ran to the opposite barricade, her wrestling boots pounding the floor at ringside as she took a hard right
turn around the ringpost. There was the timekeeper's table and
the title belt, but she had one more stop to make first. Alicia reached under the ring skirt and gingerly inched
out a wooden folding table just enough to open one set of legs and lock them in place.
Black Violet loped around the corner in lukewarm pursuit. Rather than pull the table out further, Alicia turned and sprinted for the timekeeper’s table. With trembling, bloody fingers, she lifted the heavy leather strap and held it high above her head as she turned and locked eyes with its owner. The timekeeper stood up from his chair, raising his hands to indicate a lack of involvement as an audible gasp rippled through the stands. Black Violet froze at the transgression as Alicia took a step closer.
“Uh oh!” said Alicia with another heavy step forward. Those table legs were within arm’s reach. “Sorry, is this yours?”
Champion and challenger stared daggers at each other. Eyes of pure hate, a gashed-open nose pouring blood, and a screeching mouthful of thorns broke off at a run towards Alicia, who threw the TV Championship belt as high into the air behind her as her remaining strength allowed. Those cavernous eyes followed. For the moment, the void stopped staring back as Black Violet charged ahead, eyes trained on the object of her desire rather than contempt until the latter eclipsed the former. The belt clattered to the ground behind Alicia. Once again, the abyss stared into her soul.
The abyss should've been watching its step.
With a roar, Alicia tightened her hands around the table leg, yanking the upside-down table out from under the ring. The underside of the table had become a wooden welcome mat of three dozen loaded mousetraps, all super glued in place and presenting eager open jaws.
SNAPSNAP.
Black Violet's eyes flew wide open in horror as she went rigid and fell to the ground, her mutilated feet unable to support her. She tried to break her fall with her hands. It was a bad idea.
SNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNSNAP.
The crowd fell silent as they beheld the gruesome aftermath, and Alicia permanently lost her appetite for chili dogs. She turned from the flesh and wire calamity, stomach revolting at the sight of Black Violet's futile thrashing among the web of destruction below and the image of crushed fingers and disfigured toes seared forever in her memory. Black Violet's primal, anguished screams still hadn't yet fully accounted for it all.
"Count! What are you doing?! COUNT!" shouted Alicia at the frozen body in black and white stripes.
It took a second, but the referee nodded and started a count that might've been a tad fast, "One! Two! Three! Four!"
Alicia threw the ring skirt aside and dug around for some insurance. A folding chair would do, and so it did. She wrapped her hands around the black steel legs and stepped into swinging range. The referee's count was completely lost among the raving, insane screams. What did you make me do?!
"Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine!"
Alicia hoisted the steel above her head as she towered over her pitiful, ruined opponent, ready to swing. Completely unnecessary.
"Ten!"
Paramedics had already gathered at ringside while Alicia remained trapped in the void of Black Violet's eyes. "Let them help you!" pleaded Alicia over the screams of agony and shouted medical jargon, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.
Black Violet thrashed violently on the table in her cruel improvised restraints as Alicia tried to reach her, "They don't want to hurt you! Let them help! Please! Please! Black Violet, they don't want to hurt you! I'm sorry! Black Violet, I'm sorry! But you made me. You made me do it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. You made me. You made me."
That porcelain face had turned beet red. Hysterical shrieking turned to frantic gasps and back again. The void stopped staring back. Now it was staring past her. Black Violet raised a handful of wilted, shivering fingers like an empty surgical glove drenched in salsa. She stabbed at the air, pointing at the white cloth bag in her corner. The hate in her eyes melted away and laid bare a canvas of pain and fear. Her screams rose another octave as Alicia stood up with a little nod and obeyed her victim, retrieving the bag and lowering it before her. Two purpled sets of sagging, bloated digits peeled at the air, gesturing to open it. Alicia did.
Flat, twisted, hairy, smashed legs. The crust of pinkish-orangish-mostly brown smeared across the inside like dried jellies. Alicia recognized the remains of the massive, hairy arachnid bystander she fell alongside and on in Black Violet's boiler room. A pale, misshapen hand lifted and received the bag's strap around her less mangled wrist as the abyss of Black Violet's eyes welled up with genuine tears.
"Oh my gosh," Alicia whispered. Her mouth dropped open as she raised both trembling hands to her face at a realization. Silence. Guilt piled onto guilt, and more silence. "I killed your pet." Alicia staggered toward and up the ramp, past the referee and the belt. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry," she repeated.
It was over. Alicia headed up the ramp as Sabrina and Party Girl burst through the curtain at the top of the ramp, smiles beaming, lost in the moment, reveling secondhand in a glory Alicia hadn’t felt. She was walking on air, but with turbulence. There was Sabrina, in her dark, backstage-friendly attire. It suited her. Beside her stood Party Girl in pink and yellow with her backpack. Party Girl awaited the new champion with her arms spread wide, no doubt anticipating a close-up shot for the cameras. The new TV Champion noticed the folding chair still clutched tight in her hand and dropped it to embrace the ones who were with her through everything.
"Ho-ly shit it worked! We did it!" squealed Party Girl, jumping up and down with one arm around Alicia, seemingly oblivious to her shattered tag partner’s tear-streaked face and frayed nerves. She pressed her cheek to Alicia’s and flashed a Look for the cameras. "Mwa! I knew it would work!"
There was comfort in her friends' arms, but the screams still rang loud in Alicia's ears. Party Girl turned and sprinted down the ramp to retrieve the belt, leaving Alicia side-by-side with her mentor.
"You're insane, you know that?" Sabrina couldn't help but tighten her arm around the new champ's shoulders. Alicia paid careful attention not to let the fishhook in her hand snag on anything. "Fuckin' mental. Hell of a way to win a belt."
"I'm done with this," mumbled Alicia. "No more hardcore stuff. I'm done with no-DQ matches."
"Never say never in pro wrestling," Sabrina cautioned with a smile. She turned to look her former student over and finally seemed to notice the lingering horror in Alicia's eyes. "But why for God's sake did you pick Black Violet? Because she bit you? You touched her belt, right? That's what she does. It wasn't personal."
"When was anyone going to tell me about this?!" Alicia lashed out in frustration, her voice and hands trembling from the adrenaline dump. "And yes, it was personal. She bit me. She stalked me," she continued, half-whimpering. "She came to my house. She killed Party Girl's cat."
The concern on Sabrina's face turned to befuddlement, "She left the arena?"
Alicia shrugged Sabrina's arm off her shoulder. "Did you hear what I just said? She stalked me!"
The stern reply met a pair of raised eyebrows as Sabrina again tried to clarify, "You saw her?"
Alicia shook her throbbing, gashed-open head in frustration. "No. Party Girl said-"
Sabrina's expression turned to shock a split-second before a pink sneaker smashed into her jaw and sent her sprawling to the floor. Alicia turned just in time to get an up-close look at the ten pounds of silver, steel, and gold barreling toward her. The belt crashed into her forehead with a sickening smack, sending the new champion to the ground.
Party Girl knelt beside her former tag partner and swung a fistful of hot pink brass knuckles into her temple. The blow caused Alicia's vision to flash white and go dark before blurring back into focus. She watched as Party Girl picked up the discarded steel chair and approached Sabrina as she attempted to push herself up off the floor.
"Bring back any memories?" asked Party Girl, flattening Sabrina with a brutal chair-shot to the back before tossing the weapon aside. "Hm. Here, let me remind you!" she spat, punting the former wrestler in the ribs.
Party Girl took a moment to admire her handiwork before driving those brass knuckles into the back of Sabrina's head. She rolled Sabrina onto her back and sat on her chest, hammering metal-reinforced haymakers down onto the veteran's forehead, opening a number of bloody, weeping gashes. Rivulets of crimson poured down Sabrina's face and pooled on the stage as she fell motionless.
"No?" the fashion icon pouted. "Oh! I know!" Party Girl said with an impish smile as she wrapped the folding chair around Sabrina's cast.
Alicia struggled to sit up, to pull her mentor away, to do anything other than watch helplessly as Party Girl jumped on the folding chair, crushing the bone and hyperextending the trapped elbow. The horrific finale elicited no response from her victim. Sabrina was totally out.
"Hey bestie!" cooed Party Girl, looking meaningfully at her former tag partner. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you!"
She peeled the chair off Sabrina's arm and seemed to savor the slow walk as she approached. Party Girl hoisted the chair high above her head and brought it down with a massive swing, crushing Alicia’s right knee with the impact. The new champion's eyes screwed shut as she writhed on the entrance ramp, howling in pain. Party Girl lifted the chair and struck Alicia again, this time on the side of the knee. Searing pain exploded from the wounded kneecap and connective tissue as Party Girl again hammered it with the steel. Alicia screamed her throat raw, groping for her injury with barely responsive limbs.
Party Girl reached into her backpack as she stood over her former tag partner with the title belt on her shoulder. Through hazy vision, Alicia could read the Look on Party Girl's face as she clutched the Queen's Decree in her hand.
"So," Party Girl chirped sweetly. "Let's talk about that title shot."
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