341
By SuperCat

Dedicated with love to my Mother, who left this world in 2012, and to my friend and Muse, Shyla, who left us in 2013. The strongest ladies I know.

10/22/11
“She fadin fast.”
“It’s so sad. Such a pretty young lady too. Listen to me, girl, life is so unfair.”
“It’s always so harder with the young ones. I tell you Sheila, I been working here twenty years and it’s always the young ones that still get me right here!”
“Umm hmm Coletta, you ain’t kiddin! I dunno how the nurses in the child care can even manage!”
Lindsey Dalton heard the voices of the floor nurses fade as they walked down the hall of Unit 3 South, away from 341, her room.
The room in which she was going to die, most likely.
They didn’t think she was awake, obviously. To her face they were bright and cheery, always “You lookin good today Miss Lindsey!” and “You gonna lick that cancer yet girl!” But Lindsey knew when they thought she was sleeping, or so out of it from the meds, they told each other the truth.
Not that Lindsey was ignorant of her situation. It was quite the opposite. But then again it’s hard to deny reality when you’re lying on your back in a room that smells of medicine, bleach and doom. She sighed, and, working out a kink in her back, she moved her wasted body into as comfortable of a position as she could manage. Dearly wishing for one night she could sleep on her side like she had all her life.
Just to be herself again for one day.
But she knew that wasn’t going to happen. She was long past hope, but then again she was long past despair. Lindsey lived each day in the apathy of the terminal. She hated herself for it, knew she didn’t want to give up, knew she COULDN’T, but she was just so, so tired anymore. Her body was past the point of fighting, her poor mind hanging on by a string.
But she still had her dreams.
Lindsey had had a lot of time to get inside her mind over the last six months. She had visitors, but they couldn’t be there all the time, and after a while, she had stopped asking people to come. She didn’t want them to see her like this; the desiccated bald husk which she had become. She had no interest in being online, not that St. Matthew’s had some fuckin incredible WI-FI anyway, and most television was just a boring mess. So she lay there and thought. She thought about her predicament, her fate, her life, her mistakes, her loves, of God, and good, and bad, of anger, and of resignation. When she slept, she still thought, but here, so far under consciousness, her thoughts turned into vivid opiate induced landscapes. Frequently in them, she was her old self, lovely and vibrant, vivacious. She ran, she danced and she laughed. It felt more REAL than her waking life, truth be told.
Lindsey was grateful to go there this night as she listened to the beeping of the machine hooked up to her arm and neck and the shuffling of the floor nurses down the hall. She had had a particularly bad day. What treatment they were still giving her was bad enough to make her feel terrible from it, but not nearly good enough to stop the disease from finishing its job of killing her. She was exhausted and felt like she might get sick again. She closed her eyes, slipped away into herself and was taken away.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lindsey felt the sun on her face, then a strong breeze.
Salt air.
She knew this dream, had been here before. Lindsey liked the good dreams. She wrapped them like a warm blanket around herself. In this one she was standing on the beach and she somehow knew she was just out of college, maybe twenty four, and there were dunes as far as she could see. She always assumed this place was down on Hatteras, she and her friends used to visit there at least once a year, and she was with people who were just out of range. Maybe Andy and Bev were over the dunes, maybe Jonas and Terry smoking a bowl in the car. Lindsay smiled into the sun and picked a direction. She knew it didn’t matter which way, she had walked this beach in both directions more than enough to know it was the same, and she took comfort in that eternal sameness. It kind of made her feel better to remember that, no matter what, the waves would still beat upon the shore. The ocean didn’t care that she was sick, the beach knew nothing of cancer, and the breeze would blow on another face in another time.
She wished she had a nice drink to sip on as she walked; wondered idly if she could get drunk in a dream. It certainly made sense, after all, these dreams, she was sure, were induced by the witches brew of drugs she was on, experimental, chemotherapy, and as much morphine as she could squeeze out in a button push as often as she could.
She was already wasted.
So why couldn’t she get fucking drunk?
She had earned the right, dammit.
Lindsey looked down at herself; her legs were tanned and nicely toned, coming down out of her VERY high cut jeans shorts. She could feel the silk of her panties underneath, the fabric moving against her kitty made her a little horny, and she was glad she could still feel that way, if only in her dreams. It had been a long time, after all, she and Andy had just broken up when it all happened, and there had been nobody since. Her boobs were braless against the t-shirt she was wearing, a relic of some bar in Lehigh, where she had went to college. They were full and ripe, sticking out from her chest in all the glory of her youth. She wished she had a mirror. Sometimes in these she found herself able to see herself. Lindsey found it didn’t bother her to see her face in its full glow; her blonde hair hanging straight down between her chin and her shoulders, her light blue eyes sparkling with mirth. The reminder wasn’t as painful as she thought it might be.
Lindsey found herself smiling as she walked up the shore. She had taken off to the left. She always thought that was the direction her friends were in this dream. In fact she could usually swear she could hear them, the iPod tuned to some of the hippie shit Jonas liked to listen to, Phish maybe, or Widespread Panic, their voices joyous as the sipped beer and played Frisbee. She was so eager to join them, to laugh and frolic, maybe skinny dip with Andy in the surf as the sun went down behind them. In fact…she thought this time she DID hear them. Honest and true. The blonde girl stopped and considered this. This was new, these sounds. She swore she heard something over the dunes…
Lindsey cocked her head, a puzzled look on her pretty face. If she had seen herself, she’d have joked that she was having a “blonde moment”, but she was honestly curious.
As she turned towards the dune, though, the sound was amplified because of a sudden bitterly cold wind that had changed direction and come out of the northwest.
Lindsey shivered when she heard with more clarity. She suddenly knew it wasn’t her friends over the dunes.
“No…”
She felt her skin crawl. The look of puzzlement on her face turned to a grimace. She very much did NOT want to know what was over that dune. She barely had noticed that Jonas’s happy jam band shit had turned to the screech of metal on metal. The sound of voices at play had flattened, turned into the incoherent grunting and inarticulate screams of what she imagined a slaughterhouse would sound like.
Lindsey suddenly wanted nothing more than to wake up.
But she was drawn, and there was nothing she could do about it. She found herself walking up the beach, one foot in front of the other. She imagined this was how a junkie felt on the way to their next fix.
“I am a junkie now though, aren’t I? They know I’m done for, so it was all the same to them to turn me into one. After all, I’m probably never have to deal with withdrawal, right? “
She sighed in resignation.
“So even my dreams now. Why? Why shit gotta be like this?”
But still, she walked up the beach. As she mounted the dune, at least twenty feet tall, her calves started to burn. Walking on the beach was great exercise, but walking uphill on the beach was an absolute shredder. Even in her fit and trim dream world, she felt it as she came to the top of the dune and peered over.
The western sky boiled with black clouds out over the bay, advancing quickly and straight towards her. Lindsey gasped as the coldest blast of air yet rushed into her face as their herald. She felt a sudden and overwhelming dread
“Even worse than I thought…”
She looked down into the indentation between the top of the dune and the rise of the next one, which Lindsey imagined led down to the road.
…and almost fell over and back down the dune on her sweet little ass as she saw the woman staring back at her with a look like a physical blow. Lindsey let loose a small gasp and took an involuntary step backwards, her leg almost buckling under her.
She managed to regain her footing, and gaped down at the woman, her jaw hanging open.
Even though her perspective was kinda fucked, Lindsey could tell the woman was a little taller than her own 5’6”, not towering, but tall enough. Her hair was black as a midnight in a coal mine and her skin white as piano keys. Her black dress barely covered an obviously voluptuously womanly body, hanging off her big breasts in shreds and hanging in tatters partway down her thighs. But it was her eyes that caught and held Lindsey…
Her eyes…
Black as pits they were, no pupils that the blonde could tell, just two endless voids in the middle of her face. They shone in their nothingness. They drew Lindsey in like black holes.
The blonde felt the sky melt into the clouds and swirl around her like some psychedelic relic of the days when she had eaten acid and lay on her back to watch the clouds play tricks on her mind. She felt herself becoming dizzy, wanting to stagger, but the woman held her in her gaze.
The woman in black smiled.
“Coming for you, bitch…”
The voice slid into Lindsey’s mind, raspy, yet strong and clear.
“Who…what…” Lindsey tried to make her mouth work, to THINK…
“You know who I am…you little whore. You know…”
“No…”
“Oh yes…and I’m coming for you…”
The woman opened her mouth as far as she could. She looked like she could swallow Lindsey whole.
The blonde felt herself being sucked into that void…
All she could hear was laughter…

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lindsey awoke covered in sweat. She would have shot upright in the bed, but she was too restrained by the myriad of tubes and the tray that was in front of her to move terribly far.
She also would have screamed, but all she could make was a high whistling noise.
She fell back into bed and started shaking in her terror. She could hear the patter of rain on her window and it worked to bring her down from the edge of hysteria. She flipped the switch to put her bedside light on, and the dim glow worked to partially illuminate her small room.
“My tomb…”
Before too long, she had managed to take control of her breathing again, and she took a long gulp of water from the plastic bottle at her bedside.
“What…the…fuck…was…THAT?” she shocked herself by speaking out loud. She shocked herself even more hearing the sudden strength and vehemence in her voice.
Lindsey looked around, took stock of the room. Yep, everything was the same as it had been. Her crossword puzzle book on the nightstand, her few belongings sitting in a couple shopping bags under the windows that was decked out with all the cards she had received.
She took another sip of water and considered for a moment.
“My last place of peace, gone now, I guess. Even there, this disease won’t let me be. Its insatiable appetite even eats my dreams. Oh God, help me, let me die in peace.
She lay back in bed and stared at the ceiling. Listening to the rain bouncing off the window like the drumming of a madman she remembered how it used to be…

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

9/18/10 1:45PM

“Oh my GOD, I totally aced that interview! Hey, asshat watch out where you’re walking!”
“Get off the cell phone bitch!” the voice trailed off as the man in the Phillies jacket strode away from her down Market towards 14th street.
“I tell you Cori, fucking Philly. Why’d I move here again? Oh that’s right, that KICK ASS JOB I’M GONNA GET!”
Lindsey stood in front of one of the glass towers that dominated the landscape of downtown. She could barely contain herself. Three years of plugging away at low paying menial jobs while she sharpened her coding skills at home at night, being a good girl and only going out on Fridays and Saturdays…well, ok, Thursday…and the occasional Monday…maybe a Tuesday or Wednesday…
And it was finally going to pay off. Having to find out the hard way that her ComSci degree wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on was bad, and being stuck with tens of thousands of student loan debts was worse. But in her heart the pretty blonde could feel it…today she turned it all around.
The company she had just interviewed for seemed to really like her, and she was thrilled with them as well. The office appeared to be stocked with enough hot, intelligent, kinda geeky guys to make her forget Andy had ever existed, and the pay was phenomenal! She had to call Cori as soon as she got out, her friend, former college roommate, and nerdy coder buddy had helped to arrange this for her because she knew some of the guys in the dev team.
“They didn’t even undress me with their eyes Cor! They actually listened!”
“Uh huh! I told you, professional babe.”
“Thanks so much homegirl! I owe you one big time! It’ll be good to get health insurance too; I got this weird rash right between my tits. It’s kinda freaking me out, must be some food allergy or something.”
“Uh huh, shitty spot for it too.”
“Well, whatever, it’ll go away I’m sure. I wish you were here Cori, I’d love to go sit and have a drink with you right now.”
“Why not call Terry? Or Megan?”
“I think I just may! By the time I get back out to Northeast it’ll be high time for a drink!”
“Ok Linds, I gotta go, thanks for callin. Give me a ring later if you don’t celebrate too hard!”
“Sure thing sweetie, I’ll DD you later! Peace in the middle east bitch!” and Lindsey killed the call and put her iPhone back in her purse.
She idly scratched where the red rash had appeared on her chest two days before and nodded to herself in satisfaction.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lindsey Dalton didn’t think she was on top of the world quite yet, but she at least could say she was starting to climb. She had gotten her wild oats out over the last six years after she had moved out to go to college at Lehigh University and had moved back to Philly after graduation to get her life going in computers. A talent she evidently inherited from her Father, who was a software engineer and worked out in King Of Prussia coding happily away. Her looks, she had gotten from her Mother, a former beauty pageant winner and part time model who had settled down after becoming smitten with the shy geeky, John Dalton. “Besides, I wasn’t tall, skinny, or dumb enough to make it there anyway, let that be a lesson to you little angel, it’s not about what’s outside.”
But of course, Lindsey’s outside was a wonderful wrapper. She wasn’t what guys called “hot”, but she was able to get “cute as FUCK!” without even trying. She had grown into her medium sized frame with not too many pains. Her tits weren’t huge but they were very nicely set on her chest, her stomach was never flat and toned, but nor did she carry anything extra there, and her legs were soft and long. In fact she considered them her best feature. Top that off by blonde hair she would put darker highlights in that hung straight down to her shoulders in a cute shag cut, and sparkling blue eyes that showed her vivaciousness and intelligence and she was what the guys liked to quietly call “a great package!”
She had heeded her Mom’s advice to be as nice as she could to everybody, but beware who she let get too close. Even the grumpy Goths who she went to High School with would describe Lindsey as ‘yeah, she’s cool and all…” before adding the de rigueur “…for a blonde chick.”
Blessed? No. She worked for what she had accomplished. She had worked her way through college in restaurants and bars to pay for her drinks and the occasional bag of weed she could share with her friends, a genial and wisecracking group of party hounds and mild and lazy intellectuals. While it never came easy for her, she found she was able to do very well by just letting it BE and trusting in herself to do the right and good thing.
She had gone through a few boys after losing her virginity at 17 on the beach in Wildwood, her longest lasting being with Andy Knowles, who was more or less the leader of their little clique. They had dated for three years and everybody seemed to assume they were going to end up married.
But then she walked in and found him screwing Bev Lourdes in their apartment.
It hadn’t been easy to get past that, but in the end she forgave him; though she wasn’t naive enough to go back out with him. She never let it shake her belief people were good and the world wasn’t that bad of a place. She had finally felt that she was ready for a new man in her life as she prepared for the interview Cori Blevins had gotten for her at CalCom.
The sun shone down on her face, peeking in between two skyscrapers as she walked down Market towards the SEPTA station. She lifted her head to it and smiled.
“God, even in old dirty Philthy it’s such a pretty da…”
Before she could finish the thought, Lindsey Dalton dropped to the sidewalk and screamed in utter agony, her hands going for her lower belly.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Yes, yes, you are beautiful as ever today young lady! How are you feeling?”
Lindsey knew Dr. Sanjeet Khan was full of shit, but she still appreciated that he made the effort.
“I’m not doing bad Dr. K. Truth is I’ve felt a hell of a lot worse.”
She wasn’t lying to him either, as she had many other days. Why she lied to her doctor, she didn’t know. The impetus to be a fighter, to be unremittingly positive, was so ingrained in her being that it just kinda popped out of her mouth when he asked her that, even when she felt like absolute shit.
He raised a bushy eyebrow and made some notes on his chart. He was a squat, jovial, man in his early 50’s. Salt and peppered in the hair with a close cut goatee. Lindsey found she genuinely liked him and she was glad, even if he could do nothing for her, that he was her doctor.
“Hey, you make some progress and we get onto another experimental. The more we can try my lady, the better the chance we find one that work, ok?”
Lindsey wasn’t really confident any of it was going to work, but she admitted she was game to try pretty much anything,
“I’ll keep hanging in here as long as I can Doc; you just do your part.”
Lindsey scooted up on her butt in the bed and leaned forward over her tray, bracing herself on the side rails.
“If nothing else Doc, I wanna spend another night in a bed that isn’t THIS! Owsies, my poor butt!”
She smiled, a true smile, and he gently reached out and touched her shoulder
“We will do everything in our power to make that happen. Ok, I will see you tomorrow. You know the routine.”
“Yeah, same bat time and channel Doc. Thanks.”
He turned and walked out to the hallway. She saw him hail down a nurse, Alvitra Logan by the look of it, and they walked up towards the Unit desk.
Lindsey shifted around till she was more comfortable. She had never had a bubble butt, and her little white girl ass had gone down to pretty much nothing. It was tough going to get into a good groove, but with a little shifting, she managed. Truthfully, she had a headache and felt a little chilly, which was, she supposed, better than nauseous and hot, which were her other options. She decided it was best to just lie back for a few minutes and she reclined into the raised bed, and then lowered it a bit until she was staring into the joint of the wall and the ceiling.
“Oh God, seriously buddy, don’t let me go out looking at this. Not in this room, my man.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It was all such a blur to her, those first few days. The ER, then the room with the old lady who would wake up screaming for her kids at 3AM, then the tests…oh dear, the tests. Lindsey was poked, prodded, sampled, scraped… then the dizzying journey to the private room on the 6th floor.
That was when they finally told her.
Fucking cancer.
Some variety with six syllables she could still barely pronounce a year later, so rare they didn’t even have a catchy name for it yet.
One in two hundred million.
She was twenty five years old.
Fucking cancer.
She often wondered what her initial reaction would have been if she hadn’t been so doped up to kill the agony in her lower stomach. As it is, she remembered dreamy disbelief, like she was having an out-of-body experience.
It HAD to be happening to somebody else. Right?
Seriously. Fucking cancer?
Things like this don’t happen to super cute middle class blonde women fresh out of college ready to start their careers.
Right?
Then there was the parade of well wishers, the sympathy, the offers of help, and they were all wonderful and sincere and Lindsey was grateful for every one of them. She held them near in her heart and they gave her the strength to help her through those first terrible months.
The chemo, the awful days when she showered and her hair came out in her hands. The nausea, the pain, the exhaustion.
Lindsey fought with every inch of her body. She tried so hard, tried to be positive, tried to believe. But the chemo failed, then the first of the experimental treatments, then the third. Then the fourth. That one worked for a few months, and Lindsey had been able to go home for a spell, enjoy the spring, her twenty sixth birthday.
Then, the week after Memorial Day it all went to shit. Her treatment failed and the cancer came back harder than ever. That was the week she came to room 341, perhaps to stay for good. After a while the visitors stopped coming so much, and that was fine by her. It was nice to see her parents and friends, but she wasn’t in any condition to talk much of be good conversation when she could talk, and she didn’t want people to see her so pathetic and wasted. Lindsey didn’t want sympathy, she wanted a cure.
She had been through every stage so many times she had lost count, denial, anger, acceptance; they all ran together into a big moosh of emotional exhaustion, to the point where it simply just WAS. She supposed that would be what was called “just fucking dealing with it.”
So she just fucking dealt with it.
For almost six months she had dealt with it. She had fought and tried as hard as she could. But now she was just tired.
And scared.
So very, very scared.
*CRASH*
The tray clattering to the floor of the hallways outside broke her from her reverie. It didn’t do much for her headache, which was now a crushing throb. Lindsey contemplated her options. She knew it was almost dinner time, but she had no appetite. Honestly, she wished she could just smoke a big fucking joint right now. It helped, and she could probably eat something if she was stoned, but obviously St, Matthew’s didn’t believe in herbal treatments, just endless pharmaceuticals.
Lindsey sighed. Most of the drugs weren’t helping much, but she did know one drug that did.
She pressed the button and waited for the morphine to hit her and take her away to dreamland.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She was in a dance club, it was full, but she moved through the crowd with lithe grace, not bothering a soul. Lindsey loved to go out and dance. The beat of the music and the way she could move her body, it made her fell free. She was wearing tight black pants that clung to her ass like a second skin and a silk white top that rubbed against her braless nipples. She noticed people noticing, and it made her feel hot. Lindsey wasn’t hung up on her looks, but she knew she was attractive. “Hot” wasn’t a word she would use to describe herself, but it sure worked to describe her feelings.
She still didn’t know if she could get drunk in a dream. Either way she thought a Captain and Ginger would be mighty tasty right now though, so she bellied up to the bar. The bartender was a hot little number with brown hair and huge tits she rested on the long wooden bar as she took Lindsey’s order.
Lindsey surveyed the scene, and of course it was her dream, why the hell wouldn’t everybody here be incredibly attractive and energetic. She smiled to herself and collected her drink, loving the feel of the condensation on the glass. It felt so REAL. She waved at the bartender to put on whatever dream-tab she had and took a sip. It tasted simply marvelous and she could feel the rush of alcohol hitting her system.
“Maybe I CAN get drunk in a dream!”
She decided she had to get out on the floor and shake her ass. Hell, maybe see if she could get laid in a dream. She giggled at the thought and took a big sip. She wished the DJ would play a song she could get into and was immediately rewarded with a hypnotic pulse punctuated by sharp stabs of synthesizer.
“Tee hee! MY dream, right?”
“Wait, did I just say “tee hee” in my mind? Shit I must be feeling the booze.”
She sat her empty glass on a table and stepped onto the floor. Warming to the beat she began to move her body like a slinky, she knew she wasn’t on the beat and she didn’t care, it was the freedom of movement and loss of self consciousness that had always appealed to her far more than making sure she had the best choreographed moves. Lindsey twisted and turned through the other people on the floor with her, locking eyes with cute guys and loving the feeling as they responded by moving with her for a few measures before spinning away.
She idly wondered if any of her friends were here with her, and then decided it didn’t matter. This was for her and what she wanted to do.
“MY dream, right?”
Lindsey closed her eyes and let the music take her. She knew she wasn’t going to bump into anybody and cause a scene here. She twirled in circles and moved her hips saucily.
Then the beat changed, it began to slow, become muddied.
“Hey now, let’s pick this back up!”
The air around her *changed*. She could feel it, heavier, and the music churned into a downward spiral like an old record suddenly turned down in rpms.
Lindsey suddenly felt icy dread.
She opened her eyes.
The dance floor was empty. There were people there, but they had been removed to the perimeter. The lights still strobed but the music had died down to nothing.
Lindsey felt the room swirl around her, everything melting together, and then it stopped.
SHE stood across the dance floor, staring back at Lindsey, a smirk on her full ruby red lips.
“You dance like a white girl.”
“So? I am a white girl. What do you want from me?”
The woman strode across the wood towards Lindsey. She was still wearing the same tattered black dress and torn stockings. Her hands were on her womanly hips, as if in challenge.
“What do I want from you?” she laughed mirthlessly. “What do I want from you?” and she stopped as she got within an arm’s reach of Lindsey.
“YES!” Lindsey fairly screamed. “WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?”
The black haired woman reached out and touched her hair. Lindsey recoiled.
“Such nice hair…whatever could have happen…oh…that’s right!” and she threw her head back and laughed. Then she snapped her head back and the black pits of her eyes bored into Lindsey’s frightened blue ones.
“What I want, you little cunt…I want to finish the job. I want it ALL. ALL of you.”
Lindsey stepped back. “No…no…you can’t…”
“Oh yes I can slut. Oh yes I can. I take it all, swallow every bite. Eat you alive. You’re nothing to me, just another bitch. And there is NOTHING you can do about it. Loser.”
“Ffff…fff...fuck you.” Lindsey stammered.
“No. You’re the one who is fucked. And I’m the one who gets to do the fucking. You will submit to me blond…oh wait, yes, not a blonde anymore. Your little brown bush fell out too, didn’t it?” the woman snorted derisively.
“FUCK YOU!’ Lindsey screamed, and without her even being aware of it, her hand swung out and slapped the black haired woman in the face. The sound was like a pistol crack in the dead silence.
The woman’s hair flew as her head twisted. She squawked in what for a moment to Lindsey sounded like shock and pain.
The woman smiled at her and Lindsey saw blood on her teeth.
“You can try to hurt me you cunt, but I’m the one who does the hurting.”
“Why…” Lindsey could feel the tears start down her face.
“Because it’s what I DO, YOU STUPID BITCH!” And the black haired woman came for her.
Lindsey again could barely contain her scream as she woke up.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

The next two days brought more of the same for Lindsey. Any time she tried to sleep, she was dragged into another variant of her dream worlds, and waiting for her, like a snake coiled in the tall grass, was the black haired woman.

One time, she was walking through a forest, and she woke up breathless and sweating as the woman dropped from a tree onto her.

Another, she was in the middle of a meadow and although she never saw the woman, she felt her coming up behind her in the rustle of grass behind her.

Another, she found herself in a boxing ring, and waiting for her in the other corner...

She had discovered a few things along the way. As the black haired woman verbally sparred with her in the boxing ring, she gave Lindsey her name.

"They call me Candie you little whore. That's with an "ie" on the end. You figure it out. I'm sure you will. You used to be a bright girl."

Lindsey got it.

But she had also discovered that this beautiful version of Freddy Kreuger could feel pain. She had suspected it when she had made the bitch bleed in the dream of the night club, but she hadn't been sure until she lashed out with her foot and kicked the woman between her tattered black-boxing-trunk clad legs. Candie was caught off guard and screamed, falling to the canvas of the ring holding herself. Lindsey had almost gone after her some more at that point, but she was still too uncertain inside and she, somewhat regretfully, came back awake.

When she awoke from that dream she found she wasn't scared anymore though. In fact, for the first time in months she found she had the energy left to be mad.

She had no doubt that this Candie was dead set on ending her struggles for good. Lindsey frankly had no doubt that her cancer was in its last stages regardless and even if this vile manifestation didn't kill her outright, she still wasn't likely to make it much past Halloween, which was five days away.

She set herself up in her bed and watched the sun rise through the window. She took in its beauty, the wonders of the world's color palette.

Lindsey resolved one last time that she wasn't going to give up. She wanted to fucking live, not to die lonely and in pain in this place.

The woman in 341 reached for her laptop computer. She hadn't been online in ages, but the internet was useful for many things. She connected onto the guest network and brought up Google.

"Ah, it's amazing what we have at the touch of our fingers. We have a world of information, and maybe, just maybe..."

She entered "dream control" into the search box and hit "Enter".

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

10/26/11 5:02PM

Lindsey found herself dozing as Dr. Khan came in for his standard 4 minute check in.

"Ah my little beauty! You had best watch yourself on the internet! There is no telling what you can run into out there!"

She gave him a sardonic smile and tried to wake herself up. She wasn't ready yet to go to sleep this day.
"I think I'll be fine in cyberland doc. There's nothing out THERE that I see the need to be afraid of."

He gave her a quizzical look. "Are you ok? You seem different this day."

"I'm the same as I've been for a while doc. Hell, I'm dying. Nothing is different."

"No more of that Miss Lindsey. That kind of talk does you no good."

"Well, we'll see about that tomorrow doc. Hey, you know what I'm craving? I want a Mountain Dew doc. I haven't had any real caffeine in ages."

He studied her again, like she had perhaps lost her mind.

"I will have the station nurse bring you up one. I cannot see why not."

Lindsey smiled at him, a genuine smile.

"Thanks doc. You're the best."

He smiled back and began to turn to leave. "It is not a problem, you are my patient and I want you to have comfort. I will see you tomorrow. Take care little one."

Lindsey waved him farewell and pulled the laptop up onto her legs again. Trying to read it on the bedtray was a pain in the ass (literally) and this was far more comfortable. She was pretty psyched to feel a nice sugar rush again, truth be told. She needed to be awake just a little while longer. She shook the mouse pad to bring the screen back up and relogged herself back on.

"Now, where was I..."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

10/26/ 11 11:11 PM - Make a wish.

Lindsey could hear the rain splattering on her window like blood falling to the ground.

"Perfect weather. Or at least appropriate."

She grabbed the last of the 20oz bottles of soda she had on her bedside and opened it. She swigged back about a third of it.

"Well, if the last thing I ever taste in the world is sugar sweetened battery acid, it still went down pretty good."

Lindsey composed herself for a moment. Gathering all the reserves of strength she had. She knew full well the mission she had set forth for herself was an all or nothing proposition.

"I will either wake up tomorrow, or I will die tonight. But if I die, I want to know I did every, and I mean EVERY fucking thing I could. Nobody can say Lindsey Dalton went down without giving it one hell of a fight."

She closed her eyes and centered herself, felt her ravaged body come together one last time, felt the sensations run from her very core out to her extremities.

She exhaled.

"You ready Lindsey?" she asked herself.

"As ready as I'll ever be." she answered herself.

She hit the button on the morphine drip one last time.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

 
This time, she came to in a plushly appointed penthouse, looking out the window over a city. She had no idea what city, and frankly it didn't matter. The lights twinkled off as far as her eyes could see but there was no huge edifice like the Sears Tower or Empire State Building to mark the place. It was coldly beautiful, and she could see the light reflect back into her blue eyes as they reflected through the thick glass.

"I always wanted to live in a place like this. Of course, who doesn't? The girlish dreams of youth, when princes and material possessions matter."

She smiled at her own foolishness. Yet this was the place she had chosen to come to tonight. Halfway between her youthful dreams of opulence and the cold realities of adulthood, reflected by the fact that the place was empty, no furniture, only the lights of the city for electricity.

She stepped back and looked down at herself; she had done well, this was what she had wanted. Her blonde hair hung straight to almost her shoulders, full of body and volume, swept back from her brow and gently parted in a wave on one side. Her breasts were braless and they poked at the fabric of the light blue t-shirt she wore. It would have felt erotic the way her nipples played off the fabric, but she wasn't in the mood for love. She had on a pair of navy terrycloth workout shorts that were cut well up on her thighs, hugging her ass tightly yet giving her legs freedom of movement. She liked the way the tan coloring of said legs set against the blue banded tube socks she wore up to her knees and down to her white sneakers.

She had had no experience preparing to dress for war, so she decided that the clothes she wore on the infrequent occasions when she worked out would do. She remembered she got more looks from the guys than normal when she dressed this way and had always liked it.

"If I'm going out tonight, it's gonna be on my terms and I want to know I did my best; and I'm still a woman goddamnit, I want to know I looked the best I could too."

She stretched for a second, unwinding the tension in her body.

"Lindsey, its time." she said to herself and found she was ready.

She opened her mind.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Within seconds she heard a rustling from one of the back rooms and Candie emerged. The black haired bitch had the usual smug look of contempt on her face, but Lindsey swore she could see a different cast to the black pits that were her eyes.

"She didn't like it that I learned how to hold her away until I was ready for her."

Candie glided behind the big granite tabletop in the middle of the kitchen that was opposite where Lindsey stood. She turned and faced the blonde and crossed her arms on her well endowed chest. She was wearing the same tattered dress and stockings she had worn for every one of these encounters except the one in the boxing ring. Her bone white skin gleamed with a light of its own.

"So slut. You have decided on THIS?" and she swept her hand across the living room.

Lindsey nodded. A small smile on her lips.

"You have no chance, you know that, right? You're still just a wasted husk in a hospital bed whether you think so or not, and I am your mistress whether you think so or not. I WILL take you. You have no option in this matter. You can fight all you want. In fact cunt, I like it when they fight. It's all so...sporting to feel another victim crushed by my power. I do this all the time. You, you little shit, have never fought anybody in your whole sorry short life." and she threw her head back and laughed with a sound like the hounds of hell.

"Oh shut up. You can be beat. Yes, even you, you third rate bad pun and whack ass metamorphic skank. I'm not afraid of you anymore Candie. I was, but now I'm not. Even if I die tonight, I'm still not afraid. In this place you can hurt me, even kill me, but I can do the same to you, and you fucking cunt, I AM going to hurt you, and if I can, I'll end you entirely."

"You stupid little twat. You can't end ME. I am eternal. I am the eater of bodies, and the likes of you are nothing to me, you're just another useless crushed soul to me."

"Well then let's do this. I didn't come here to exchange bon mots you diseased piece of shit." and Lindsey crouched slightly and bade her enemy forward with her right hand.

Lindsey could see the subtle shift in Candies depthless eyes and tensed. Then she leapt forward and met the black haired woman as she flashed in front of her.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 

Lindsey had never been in a physical fight in her life. It didn't fit with her usual happy-go-lucky attitude towards the world. Even when Andy had left her for Bev, she hadn't even been remotely upset enough to want to resort to fisticuffs. But this was different. Up until now nobody had been so dead set on fighting HER.

So as she looked into information on her dream worlds, she also made a point of going to YouTube and finding whatever she could on the subjects of both sanctioned female combat and knock down, drag out catfighting. Lindsey hoped she was a quick study; she couldn't afford not to be. She had gotten lucky when Candie had left herself wide open to be kicked in the crotch in her previous dream encounter. The blow had been one of panic and survival as much of anything and she had been left with no clear idea of what else to do, so she had bailed.

Relying on her instincts and reaction reflexes, she grabbed deep into Candie's long raven hair with her right hand, but she took a vicious smack to the left side of her face from the black haired woman's fist. She staggered to her right, but was able to pull Candie off balance with her. Lindsey pulled her rival's hair for all she was worth and with her left hand, swung wildly and scratched while trying to fend off Candie's wild blows.

They whirled around the large empty room in a mindless mass of flashing arms until Candie sent her ankle behind Lindsey's feet and sent the blonde crashing to the carpet with the black haired woman on top. Lindsey tried to groan as the air was driven from her body and pain flared in her ribs, but she was unable to catch her wind. She still was able to use her grip on Candie's hair to pull the bitch in close, minimizing her ability to score a telling blow with her fists, but Candie changed tactics and used her superior position to force a hard knee into Lindsey's already breathless torso, right above her flat belly.

Lindsey whimpered and released Candie's hair, but managed to nail the bitch with two sharp right hands to the side of her head between her ear and her temple. Candie hissed, but the punches didn't have enough leverage to knock her senseless and she was able to use her own hands to force Lindsey's arms down. The black haired bitch used her left hand to tie up Lindsey's hands at the wrist and she shifted so that her knee rested in the comfy arch between the blonde's legs.

"I owe you one, you little cunt. Then, I finish destroying you for good."

She quickly pulled back and then her torn-stocking covered thigh slammed into Lindsey's pussy.
The blonde bucked as her body spasmed in its pain, her blue eyes going huge with terror. Her hands splayed behind her head as she lost all control for a split second. As Candie pulled back for another shot of pussy punishment, Lindsey tried to roll away with a sound that was halfway between a moan and a scream. She managed to get her hips over to her side and Candie's knee only hit the terry cloth of her little ass. With the strength of desperation she got her body away from immediate danger and over towards her right as she rolled, but she lost most of her shirt as Candie still maintained her grip on the fabric. Lindsey tried to swallow back the pain in her poor pussy and her humiliation at losing most of her shirt, she knew she had to get free of this or there was a strong possibility she would be dead before she even had a chance to fight for her life. The blonde swung her left elbow back as hard as she could and she got lucky with the blind shot, feeling it *crunch* into the side of Candie's face as the raven haired woman came in close.

Lindsey heard a yelp of pain and then "Shit" and she was free. She rolled over twice and came to her knees with her hands out like claws in a defensive posture. As soon as she opened her eyes she saw Candie coming for her in a hurry. She launched herself forward, leading with her nails, her head not far behind.

The black haired bitch had not been ready for her prey to go on the offensive and she stopped in her tracks as Lindsey's head smacked into her lower belly and the blonde’s arms wrapped themselves around her shapely hips. Lindsey drove herself forward like she wanted to come straight out Candie’s back, and the black haired woman gagged and folded forward over Lindsey’s back.

They staggered backwards until the blonde drove the night haired woman into the far wall. Lindsey could hear the audible *crack* as Candies head smacked into the wall. Lindsey felt Candie lose body control for just a moment, all she needed to throw her enemy to the floor.

Lindsey stood still for a moment, just a moment, she had never been in physical control of another human being in her life and she was, frankly, just a bit stunned. Then she remembered what this was all about and her blue eyes grew ice cold as she saw Candie lying there on her side, trying to roll away but too out of it to manage.

Lindsey gave a yell and kicked the bitch in the ribs as hard as she could, then again. Candie gave a squawking groan and fell face first to the carpet, trying to hold her battered body. Lindsey followed up with a savage kick to the side of her head, rolling Candie over onto her back.

The black haired woman stared at the blonde with ferocious hate. Then she smiled evilly and…nothing.
Lindsey grabbed the stunned woman’s legs and pulled them apart. She smiled down at Candie and said “That trick won’t work you vile whore, this is MY dream and I set the rules. You can’t cheat and I won’t, we settle this woman to woman. “

She stomped her foot into Candies silk panty covered pussy. The black haired woman howled and Lindsey did it again, and again.

Candie lay on her back, sobbing real tears of agony; her hands beating a tattoo on the carpet. Lindsey stepped over her enemy and hooked her ankles. Then she sat down HARD on Candie’s stomach and pulled the rest of her body over behind her, into a classic matchbook pindown. But Lindsey added a little extra and drove her head forward, smashing it into the black haired woman’s face. Lindsey could feel Candie’s nose crunch, and she pulled her legs all the way over until they touched the ground over Candie’s head. The brunette let loose with a keening moan, made mooshy by her battered nose and she tried to squirm under Lindsey’s dominant position.

The blonde pulled for all she was worth, pulling the shreds of Candie’s stockings free in her grip as she tried to snap the vile cunt in half. She strained, wanting to end the fight quickly, fearful of the stamina she had even in this dream-reality. Lindsey grunted with her exertion, pressing her lovely body down onto Candie.

Then her right breast exploded into pain. It took her a moment to figure it out, then, Candie’s teeth redoubled their efforts and Lindsey had no doubt. The raven-tressed cunt bit down as hard as she could and often, rabidly biting Lindsey’s well shaped globe all over, but when the teeth closed around Lindsey’s long nipple, she couldn’t take it anymore.

With a scream of frustration, the blonde dismounted the black haired woman. She punched and slapped at Candie’s head as Candie continued to bite at her boob, and the two women rolled across the carpet, tangled together. Candie tore and scratched at Lindsey’s tits, Lindsey threw her fists at every opening she could get trying to dislodge Candie’s teeth.

“OH YOU PIECE OF SHIT, LET MY TIT GO!” She cried, nearing panic that her nipple was going to be torn completely off.

Finally, she was able to get her shin up Candie’s dress and between her legs, driving the bone into the black haired woman’s vulnerable pussy.

Her aching chest free at last, Lindsey grabbed a handful of Candie’s tattered dress and PULLED the fabric as she scrambled away and across the room. The garment came free with a loud *shrrrrip*, leaving Candie in just the remnants of her shredded stockings and small black panties. Lindsey got her feet under and squared off to where Candie was. Her dark blonde hair hung down in front of her face as she breathed heavily. She was terrified Candie was going to be in high speed pursuit again. But the black haired woman was slow to recover and didn’t seem to be in a huge hurry to engage the fray anew.

Lindsey did a quick self-inventory: she ached in every muscle, there were scratches all over her torso, her poor boobs were black and blue, her right one was bleeding around the nipple from Candie’s teeth, and she tasted blood in her mouth from a cut lip. Her shoes had become hopelessly untied in the last scramble; she kicked them off.

But on the whole, she wasn’t feeling too bad at all.

“I HURT HER! I CAN HURT HER! I CAN BEAT HER!”

Lindsey had been afraid her attempts to foil Candie’s tricks would be for naught. If she hadn’t been able to stop Candie from fighting this fight woman to woman she knew she was lost. But she had made the bitch scream, cry in agony, and she noted with pleasure the red blood standing out starkly on Candie’s porcelain face as it ran freely from her smashed nose.

Lindsey began circling to her left, towards the bank of windows overlooking the city night. Candie circled with her, her eyes like black fires in the lights.

“Come on you asshole, you want me so bad, come and take me!” Lindsey feinted in low and Candie moved backwards. Then back into circling.

“Fuck you, you little slut, I NEVER lose and I’m gonna hurt you SO bad before I take you for good!”

“You’ve hurt me enough, I’m not afraid of you and I’m not afraid of what you can do to me!”

“YOU SHOULD BE!” And Candie changed direction and came for Lindsey, fists flying.

The blonde was ready for the attack, but she wasn’t very good at defense yet, and took some shots to her body and face as she backpedaled. Before too long, she ran out of room and her back hit the far wall. She swung wildly as she tried to get away. One of her nail slashes cut across Candies tits, but the black haired woman grabbed her wrist and threw Lindsey across the room. The blonde tripped and fell, sprawling on her face and rolling across to carpet.

She came to and barely had time to look up, catching a glimpse of Candie’s foot as it smashed her straight in the face.

Lindsey saw stars and tasted blood. She felt herself on her back and then she felt nothing as Candie knocked all the wind out of her by dropping her ass directly on the blonde’s belly. Lindsey whimpered and tried to curl up, but she was pinned by Candie, who bounced her ass up and down on the blonde. The black haired bitch reached down and pulled Lindsey’s shorts off with one smooth motion. The blonde cried out in humiliation and fear as she felt the cold rush of air onto her now panty covered pussy.

“Yes, you SHOULD be afraid! I think after I take you tonight you little piece of shit, I’ll rape your soul forever. You’ll wish you had only let me kill you naturally!”

Lindsey felt the terrycloth of her shorts covering her face as Candie rubbed them on her sensitive flesh, and then her pussy exploded into agony. Lindsey kicked her feet wildly, trying to buck her way free, but she was winded and Candie had her strong white thighs pinning her arms to her sides, so she didn’t have great leverage.

Once, when she was seven, Lindsey had fallen out of a tree and broken her arm. They numbed her down pretty quickly, but up until now she had thought that was the singular standard of pain in her life. She now felt terrible for all the times she had jokingly racked her various boyfriend’s nads over the years. Her silky panties were torn to the side, and Lindsey felt sharp nails inside her and pressing onto her clit, then sawing back and forth and raking at her insides. It felt like she was being turned inside out. This was even worse than the lowest points of her cancer treatment. Lindsey felt pain and despair, trapped and powerless. Unbidden, the tears began to flow from her eyes.

In her pain, Lindsey felt reality *SHIFT*. She knew she was in some sort of alternate state and she really had no idea how all this worked, apparently, even though she herself felt “real” the background “wrapper” was a little amorphous. She felt what seemed to be leaves on her back.

She could hear Candie through the fabric of the shorts over her face, muffled, but clear enough.

“RIP YOU INSIDE OUT. DESTROY YOUR INSIDES, OH YES SLUT, I DO THAT VERY WELL AND THERE’S NOTHING YOU CAN DO TO STOP ME!”

Her hands worked frantically but she was pinned tight. She was sure she was in some sort of woody clearing as her hands crunched down on autumn leaves and her ass and the backs of her bare thighs bounced off ground.

It didn’t matter where she was, she had to survive and find a way out of this living hell. She whipped her head back and forth, trying to get free, get air into her lungs. Between her legs there was a ball of fire that she couldn’t lessen. She was grateful when her shorts were removed from her face and she could breathe again. Candie evidently couldn’t let her prey go too long without gloating down into her pained face. But Lindsey saw the deep blue sky in snatches as Candie’s hand was a violent fan, slapping her back and forth in the face. She felt the burn as her head went back and forth.

“Is this how it all ends? Please God, no…”

Tears flew off of her face as her head whipped back and forth. She was dizzy and nauseous, her body wracked with pain. She wanted to just give up, to make it all go away.

“I can’t, I can’t die like this. Please, don’t let me die like this.”

Candie grabbed her by the chin and stared down into her tearful eyes. Lindsey noted her eyes didn’t have the same otherworldly shine. They were just flat, black and merciless, but they weren’t the black holes that sucked the will to live from her that they used to be.

Lindsey found herself taking hope from this.

“I can…hurt her, I know this. She is not undefeatable. Like the disease she personifies, she CAN be beat. The cunt is nothing more than a tough but mortal woman here…”

But right now, the bone white woman with the midnight hair was in charge, and she was going to let the blonde know it.

“You should have just lay down and died. Now you’re going to die anyway, but you’re going to die in agony. You could have gone peacefully, not you die screaming. This is your choice you blonde whore. I just fuckin ruined your pussy, now I destroy your pathetic tits…again.”

Lindsey squealed in fear and Candie adjusted herself on top of her body, moving backwards to free up Lindsey’s full tits for her painful attack. Lindsey realized this was maybe the last chance she would ever have to save herself. As soon as Candie was moving, she put both of her tube socks on the ground and rocked off her ass, bucking upwards and shaking her body side to side. Candie was thrown just enough to where she had to lean to her right to brace herself as she snarled a curse. Lindsey made a returning wordless cry and with all her strength she shoved her right arm until it was free from Candie’s thigh. She immediately made it into a “blade” and she jabbed her sharp nails straight into the brunette’s side and then in her lower belly. Candie grunted and tried to move herself upright again, but Lindsey caught her on the side of the chin with a wild but powerful punch. The blonde felt her enemy’s teeth *CL-ACK*, and she was free as Candie’s body collapsed off of her to the ground.

Lindsey quickly noted they were indeed in a wooded clearing. Sunlight shone through the trees that ringed the small circle. The leaves were in full turn and Lindsey could feel the October breeze on her naked skin. She had no time to enjoy it though. She knew she had to get an offensive going. She got to her knees in the leaves and saw Candie lying a couple feet away, holding the left side of her face as she propped herself up on one arm. She was panting, and Lindsey could see blood flowing onto her chin freely. The blonde’s own pussy was still throbbing intensely and she could taste blood in her own mouth. Lindsey felt a rush of the energy one gets from seeing their mortal enemy helpless and in pain. She got to one knee and dove on the brunette.

Candie tried to roll away from Lindsey, but the blonde grabbed her by the panties, stopping her. The panties gave up the fight however and ripped in her grasp. Lindsey tossed them to the side and quickly wrapped herself around the raven haired bitch from behind. Her legs locked around Candie’s lower belly, thighs squeezing together with everything she had. Lindsey wrapped her right arm around Candie’s throat and locked it under her left, which she now used to return some of the hateful violence previously inflicted on her. Her nails traced red slashes all over Candie’s chalk white skin, her taut belly, and especially her well formed tits. She made sure to savagely go after Candies red nipples and areola. Lindsey for the first time in her life just wanted to inflict pain. She had been powerless for so long, and had suffered so much, she hated to admit it, but she liked giving it back.

She ground Candie down into the leaves, grass and dirt of the clearing. The evil black haired cunt thrashed like a fish out of water as she tried to free herself from Lindsey’s death grip. The blonde tucked her head behind Candies ghostly neck so the woman couldn’t get her hands on her to inflict the damage she needed to do to unlock her hold or to use her head to smash Lindsey’s nose. This close, the blonde could clearly smell the bitch’s decay. It smelled like an ashtray dumped on a grave.

Lindsey was aware she was hyperventilating and inarticulately blubbering as she tried to put Candie out for good. She may have been praying, or speaking in tongues, she really didn’t know. She squeezed her strong and sexy legs as tight as she could around the black haired bitch. Her hand had settled on Candie’s left breast, and she was utterly destroying her enemy’s mammary, digging her nails in as hard as she could, then using them like 5 tiny swords to every place on the cunt’s chest she could reach. The black haired woman was choking and making a high pitched noise that would drive a dog insane. Her struggles were getting weaker.

“Give up and leave me be! Let me live or die in peace you fucking piece of shit whore slut cunt bitch!”

Candie replied with an animal growl Lindsey knew was “fuck you.” or something along those lines.

“Then I’m going to put you out for good then, damn you!” and Lindsey sunk her teeth into the meeting of Candies neck and shoulder. The coldness of her flesh and the taste that came with it disgusted her, but she loved feeling the vicious brunette’s back stiffen and she used the opportunity to cinch up her choke another notch.

“NOW, QUIT, STOP THIS, GET OUT OF MY MIND AND GET OUT OF MY BODY!” Lindsey nearly sobbed.
Candie was actively gagging now, blood and spittle flying from her lips. The blonde couldn’t believe she was about to win this.

“I never fought before! I had no idea! Me, peaceful little Lindsey! A FIGHTER! A winner!”

She raked her nails down Candies body and back up again.

The black haired woman went into the last throes of consciousness, Lindsey could feel it. All she had to do was ride…

Then she felt all the air driven out of her lungs and her arms and legs unclasped reflexively. Then it got worse and she lost even more air. She had no idea what had happened and then she saw stars and she could feel the dirt on her back again.

You see, in her last ditch effort, Candie had twisted her body and had gotten herself above Lindsey with the blonde on her back. She knew she had one chance and she pulled her hips in the scissors and DRIVE her hips and ass straight down into Lindsey’s lower belly, and then again as she moved upwards, right into Lindsey’s solar plexus. As the blonde lost her grip, her head lolled backwards, and Candie used the back of her head and smashed her way free at the expense of the blonde’s nose and forehead.

Lindsey felt reality *TWIST* again.

She had no idea where she was, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting air into her body and clearing her head.

She heard Candie rise slowly and snarl as she lay on her back and tried to open her eyes. She knew she had to wake up or Candie was going to finish her now. Lindsey could taste blood now from where the black haired woman had smashed her nose.

“Oh God, I must look horrible. I came here thinking I was looking do sexy too...and now, look at me…”

“Are you insane Lindz? You’re lying in a hospital bed bald and you weigh about 80 pounds tops and you’re worried about how you look HERE?”

She felt Candie’s hand on her left ankle, still in her tube socks. The brunette pulled her limb off the ground. Or whatever it was, the surface she was laying on was smooth and rather hand, but Lindsey didn’t know right offhand where she had landed this time except she was flat on her back and fucked.
She felt pain in her poor crotch as Candie tore her little panties free at last, along with a good clump of her little dark blonde bush.

Candie spread her legs as far as she could. Lindsey felt like a wishbone as her thighs burned in agony. The blonde opened her eyes at last and realized she was on mats in the middle of a gym. She thought she saw ghosts on the outside of the mat wishing her towards her own demise, but she eliminated them with a mental wave. She was losing control over reality as her pain, fatigue and humiliation began to overtake her.

Then Candie hauled off and kicked her in the pussy as hard as she could with her legs spread as far apart as possible.

Lindsey found at least she had the lungs to scream.

Then the black haired bitch let loose with a torrent of kicks, into the insides of her thighs, her stomach, up to her tits, and of course, into her poor tormented kitty.

The blonde knew she was crying. The lights on the ceiling were getting watery. She tried to get her hands to cover the worst parts of the assault, but it didn’t matter.

Then she was alone. Candie had dropped her let back down to the mat.

Lindsey tried to get a bead on where the brunette was, but she couldn’t. She could hear footsteps, but she couldn’t place them. She pulled her with her mind as best she could, but nothing.

And then from what felt like everywhere. “You stupid blonde cancer ridden slut. You took it away from me, but it didn’t matter, did it. I’m simply better than you, I’m killing you in your world, and now I finish the job here.”

Lindsey could feel her hair being pulled and she was dragged across the mat. Candie had grabbed her right ankle as well. After she had gained a bit of momentum, Candie released her leg and threw her, still holding on to her hair. Lindsey’s head was jerked back by the motion and she felt the back of her head hit the mat, which wasn’t nearly as padded as the blonde would have hoped. Lindsey felt the red fog bloom in her head followed by a bolt of pain. She felt Candie wrap her hair around her hand twice, giving her a better grip, and then she felt her head yanked back again by that same hair. She waited, trying to prepare herself, Lindsey knew a SAVAGE blow was coming but she had no idea wher…

The knee connected directly into her spine with such force Lindsey feared she would be paralyzed. The blonde yelped in shock and pain, and then all she could do was whimper. Candie ground her knee into the blonde’s back, still pulling her light locks for all she was worth, and then she wound up and sent another knee into Lindsey’s pained body, and another, and another.

Candie rolled Lindsey over onto her stomach and used her hair as a handle to smash the blonde’s face into the mat, while effectively pinning her with the knee solidly in her spine. The cruel black haired woman pulled Lindsey’s head back and the blonde felt her hot breath in her ear.

“I won’t be able to torture much longer, so I’m going to enjoy this!”

Candie cupped her left hand under Lindsey’s chin. With her right she grabbed Lindsey by her thigh and she PULLED back for all she worth. The trapped and agonized blonde let loose a long keening wail, her hands grabbing without purchase on the mat, then she started gasping as Candie’s hand constricted her windpipe. Candie bent her spine into some semblance of a “U”, rubbing her knee across her vertebrae to magnify the pain.

Lindsey was barely aware the raven haired woman was laughing. She could feel a mixture of blood and spittle running from her mouth, dripping to the canvas below. The world started to turn gray with the red.

Then she was free, huffing in air as she rolled over, trying to massage every inch of her body with hands that refused to work properly. She felt the kick coming as she heard Candies feet on the mat and was able to block her first couple shots, but then a couple more got through and Lindsey’s ribs creaked as she tried to scramble away. Ironically, this seemed to bring Lindsey back into herself; the stabbing bolts of pain waking her out of her near unconsciousness. She knew she had to do something now, the pain was a slap of water to her face, but she knew that wasn’t going to last forever.

She rolled over one more time and stopped herself with her left foot, bringing her right hand up as she stopped, nails flashing. She heard the squawk of anger, shock, and pain as her little daggers slashed up and caught Candie at the top of her pussy. Candie couldn’t stop herself fast enough and fell over Lindsey’s prone body, assisted by the blonde’s helping hand.

Candie tried to break her fall, but she *SPLATTED* face first to the mat. Lindsey let loose an animal cry and tried to haul her battered and broken body forward as fast as she could. She was amazed with herself and the fact that she could even move and hadn’t submitted yet.

“Maybe I’m a fighter after all! I can’t believe this! I might live through this night yet!”

Lindsey wasn’t sure what the future would hold if she could beat Candie, but she’d at least knew she had done everything she could have to live.

She kicked the black haired woman in the back of the head again, and Candie’s forehead smacked off the mat. She shook and went limp as she lay there, her hands twitching as she tried to find purchase.

Lindsey mounted the black haired woman in a reverse posture, facing her feet. She used one hand to brace herself, using Candie’s neck to squash the bitch’s face to the mat, rubbing it back and forth to increase her discomfort. What increased her discomfort more though, was Lindsey’s attack on her lower back and kidneys. The blonde pounded her fist into Candies body as hard as she could, then she pinned Candie with her sock clad foot (red now blotched the one pristine white fabric) and she sent her hands like hammers into Candie. Lindsey was vaguely aware she was whimpering inarticulately and tears were coming out of her eyes again in her exertion.

Winded, she stopped her assault for a moment. She caught her breath and prepared herself for what she dearly hoped would be the final assault. Then she saw a flash and her face exploded.

Candies foot, still incredibly in the last shreds of her stocking, caught Lindsey in the nose. The blonde gave a nasal “AAHH!” and her hands went to her nose to make sure it wasn’t broken.

With a roar, Candie gained her hands and knees and threw the blonde from her back. She smacked Lindsey in the face with her elbow as Lindsey went to her side. A look for fear in her black eyes, she scurried away and turned, braced for Lindsey’s attack. But the blonde was just making it to her knees herself, rubbing her jaw, smearing crimson all over her already stained hands and face.

The two women mutually snarled a curse and went for one another. As if by instinct, they both sent one hand to the others chest, and with the other, they went between the legs. Once again, Lindsey felt the fire in her most sensitive areas, and she doubled her determination to hurt this cunt as much as she herself was being hurt, not only that but to hurt Candie for all the hurt she had had go through, she and all the others who had been hurt and destroyed, dying scared and alone in a bed like the one her corporal body inhabited.

Lindsey threw herself past the pain and let her fingers guide themselves.

The world *TWISTED* again, swirling into dissolution.

Lindsey could feel something solid under her knees as things came to rest. She opened her eyes as she jammed a nail into the soft area between Candie’s pussy and asshole. She saw the brunettes face looking back at her still her eyes closed in her own pain and exertion.

Lindsey looked around quickly and realized immediately where they were, the dance club of course. If she had been thinking about it, she would have wondered when this was going to come up in the rotation. But right now she had other problems, like Candies hand in her crotch and on her tits.

Lindsey decided it was time to stop this. This wasn’t going to do anything but hurt her as well, no matter how much she liked tearing Candie’s womanly targets to shreds. She released her hand on Candies tit and started punching the woman in the face. Candie tried to dodge the blows, but she was defenseless with her own hand on Lindsey’s firm globe. Than Lindsey made her hand into a claw and wrapped it around Candie’s face. Her other hand was still buried in the black haired woman’s pussy, still doing damage. Lindsey’s pussy and tit were on fire, she could feel blood running freely down her thighs and on her poor boobs.

“Oh my poor kitty and titty. Well, if I don’t win this it won’t matter anyway right?”

Candie had finally had enough, she grunted and squealed, releasing Lindsey’s pussy with a yank of her little dark blonde bush and twisting her nipple as she pulled away. Candie rolled to the side of the dance floor and Lindsey scurried away to the other side.

They stood on weary legs and faced each other across the dance floor, the lights strobed around them to a beat that neither woman could hear.

Candie made a couple dance moves, mocking “Saturday Night Fever.”

“You have zero taste. You know that right? Disco is dead you stupid whore.”

Lindsey was breathing hard, winded by the whirlwind of savagery that had evidently prompted her mind to change scenery again. Her brain was exhausted and her body was starting to fall apart. At this point, she was carrying on by sheer will.

“I can’t do this anymore, and this fucking cunt, she mocks me. Oh no, oh God what was I thinking? I tried to be a fighter, but I guess I’m just not.”

“Shut up Lindz. You’re an incredible fighter, you made it this far. You’ve gone three times as long against cancer as anybody else ever thought, you can win this!”

She caught her breath and smiled up at Candie.

“I like to dance and have fun. And I’ll be doing that soon after I whip your black hearted ass and kick you out of my life. Come on Candie…let’s dance slut,”

The black haired woman screamed and came for her.

Candie came in swinging like a lunatic. Lindsey gaped at the assault and put her arms up to defend herself, trying to back away. She took a looping left to the side of her head and then a right as she tried to turn. The blonde took a hard shot to the kidney’s which finished totally spinning her around. Lindsey was driven back across the dance floor. More hits to the head, face and all over her body from both rights and lefts. Candie sent her reeling back across the seating area of the empty club with a combination to the body/head, and then the black haired woman connected with a hard left that drove the blonde back into the bar. Lindsey hit the wood hard and her back erupted in pain. Standing her upright by grabbing her by the hair, Candie sent blow after blow into her stomach and tits, softening her up. Finally a savage uppercut to the jaw knocked the blonde fighter off her feet and onto the bar itself.

Candie grabbed Lindsey’s hair again and pulled her upright. She spat in Lindsey’s face and slapped her as hard as she could. The blonde twisted and fell over the bar, landing in a bloody heap of flesh and hair in the puddles of spilled beer. She quietly sobbed.

“I hate you, you know that?” Candie sneered. “I never make this personal, but I’m glad I killed you.”

The black haired woman stalked around to the other side of the bar and kicked Lindsey as she tried to rise. Blood flew onto the mirror behind the bar and Lindsey rolled onto her stomach. Candie dragged her from behind the bar by her blonde and bloodied hair. Lindsey came with because right now she had no choice and had no idea what to do. She was hurt and humiliated and she was scared. Lindsey had never been terrified of death through her whole ordeal, had feared it, but she had been good about not letting her despair get the best of her and let her be frightened. But right now, Lindsey was more than afraid.

Terrified of pain.

Terrified of death.

She didn’t want to die here a loser, never see her friends and family again.

Candie threw her onto the dance floor. Lindsey tripped over her feet and fell. She opened her eyes and could see nothing but flashing lights.

Lindsey was on her hands and knees. Her hair hung in front of her face and her breath was short. She knew she was fucked, again. She also knew she couldn’t take much more of this. This had already been far beyond anything she ever could have expected and even in her dreams Lindsey was no superwoman. She had brought Candie here to fight her woman to woman with all the inherent limitations, and that went for both of them. She had suddenly wished she had rethought her strategy. And then she felt Candie jerk her head up by her hair and then the remnants of Candie’s stockings on the sides of her head, and the black haired cunt locked her ankles and fell to the lashing dancefloor, taking Lindsey’s head with her.

Lindsey rolled with Candie, her head far up the black haired woman’s thighs. So far up there, in fact…

“You gonna admit you’re dead yet blondie?”

“Fuck you hate you, hate THIS!”

Lindsey bit down on the top right of Candie’s pussy, getting her teeth into the top of her vagjayjay and getting good coverage on the bottom of her clit. The black haired woman screamed and released the scissors, then they two women rolled over and Lindsey’s own legs spread. Candie returned the favor and the blonde’s already maimed pussy exploded into agony beyond belief.

Like two terriers they went after each other. The two women rolled across the flashing dance floor, mouths biting away savagely at each other’s most intimate and tender parts, hands grabbing asses, trying to tear into whatever they could with their nails, to pull each other closer to their own doom. Lindsey was lost, her mind torn away in a whirlwind of violence.

She wasn’t Lindsey Dalton anymore. Truly she knew even if she lived, the woman in the bed in room 341 was dead. She could beat cancer and live to be 100 and Lindsey Dalton would never be the same again.

Reality *TWISTED* yet again. Lindsey could feel the carpet again and she knew she was back where the fight had started.

Lindsey knew neither one of them would win like this, right now they were doing nothing more than inflicting pain on each other for the sake of inflicting pain, The object not to win, but to torture. Lindsey reluctantly released Candies vagina from her teeth and used her legs to knock Candies head away from her own pussy. She rolled over twice on the carpet and came up with an anguished gasp. Candie was glaring back at her, massaging her own maimed womanly parts.

The two women nodded at each other and came to their feet. Through the blood sweat and tears on their faces, they stared daggers of utter hate. Lindsey began to move to right, trying to get around on the staggered brunette. They circled each other, staggering and panting, pulling their energy reserves. Neither had much left at all, Candie had never had to fight as mortal flash and blood, and even with her ability to alter her dream state, Lindsey was still a very sick woman and she couldn’t fight here forever.
Lindsey put her fists up in a classic pugilist pose and nodded at the black haired bitch. “Come on, either fight or quit and let me be!”
Candie smiled through her bloodied lips and raised her right hand, beckoning the blonde forward with her left. She stuck her jaw out a little in an open challenge.
Lindsey took the bait and came in swinging with her right. She immediately realized she had made an error.
“oh god, tired…dumb mistake!”
Candie saw her commit and easily ducked around the wild punch. She brought up her left leg and slammed it directly into Lindsey’s hurting stomach. The blonde let loose an “UNFH!” and stopped in her tracks, her eyes going wide as she tried to suck in air that simple wasn’t forthcoming.
She braced herself, widening her stance as she tried to keep her feet. But in doing this, she gave Candie an invitation to switch feet and follow up with a crippling kick directly into Lindsey’s poor pussy. She exploded into agony as the force of the kick nearly lifted her off of her feet.
Lindsey felt the world *TWIST* again and she sank to her knees…in sand.
“back to the beach, where all the dreams began…”
She heard Candie grunt with effort. She barely felt the knee that nearly broke her jaw she already hurt so much. The next thing she knew she felt the cool, cool sand on her back and she was staring up at a sky of purest blue. Lindsey was dimly aware she tasted fresh blood. She was more acutely aware she was hurt badly, probably fucked, and her chances of ever waking up again were greatly diminishing.
She suddenly longed for the comfort of room 341. She heard the gulls calling, as if mocking her pain and distress.
Then she saw a shadow cross the sun and an ocean breeze chilled her to the bone.
“So, you little fuck. You thought you could beat me?” Lindsey could hear the edge of hysteria in Candie’s voice even in her triumph.
“I came so close and she knows it. Well, I did my best and fought my hardest.”
“ME?! Do you know who I am cunt? DO YOU?”
Lindsey cracked open her eyes. Candie was silhouetted by the sun but Lindsey could see the look of sheer hate on her enemy’s face.
She could barely move, but she flipped the black haired woman the bird.
“Fuck you. Fuck your disease.”
“Oh no. Fuck YOU!” Candie growled. “And now I take you like I take all the others. You thought you could strip me from my power here, but you’re no more a fighter here than you were in the mortal world. You are NOTHING to me, just another victim.”
She kicked Lindsey in the side. The fading blonde felt her ribs nearly crack and she gasped and tried to roll over.
“Oh no you don’t.” and Candie dropped to the sand next to Lindsey and pinned her left arm with one leg, her other she slid across Lindsey’s strong shapely thigh.
“It doesn’t matter to me where it is.” Candie hissed. “I can be anywhere.”
“I can destroy your tits.”
And she grabbed Lindsey’s battered breasts and with one hand, pulled each one out as far as she could by the nipple, and with the other, she used her sharp nails to slash and gouge the soft flesh, cutting into skin.
Lindsey mewled and tried to defend herself, but Candie easily slapped her hands away.
“I can destroy your womanhood.’
Now it was Lindsey’s clit that felt the agony as again, Candie’s fingers and nails went to work. She dug them deep into the top of the blonde’s pussy, and raked both hands savagely across and in and out.
Lindsey knew she was bleeding there. She began to sob incoherently.
“As YOU well know, I can eat your guts!” Candie laughed evilly and clawed at Lindsey’s flat belly. Then she drove her fist into the blonde’s lower belly, the place this had all started for the poor blonde, several times.
All Lindsey could do was lay there spread eagled on the sand. She felt the coolness of the wind on her tears.
“Outside of the agony and humiliation, it almost feels nice. I could die here. Oh dear, oh God, please, don’t let me die here though, let me say goodby…”
She felt Candie’s fingers inside her mouth, clawing at her mandible.
“I’LL EVEN TAKE YOUR MOUTH IF I WANT YOU LITTLE FUCKING CUNT! YOU CANNOT BEAT ME! I AM FOREVER!”
Lindsey could feel Candie shift and as she kept her hand in Lindsey’s mouth, the black haired woman straddled the blonde in the sand.
She wrapped Lindsey’s long blonde hair in her free hand and pulled the blonde’s head forward. Lindsey’s blue eyes were bulging out of her head as she started to panic as she was choked.
“OH YES, I THINK I’LL TAKE YOUR HAIR…AGAIN.”
Lindsey felt reality start to swim again.
She didn’t know if she was going to land anywhere this time is it shifted.
She knew she had one chance if she wanted to fight for her life. Well, more honestly, it was that her survival instincts suddenly overruled her mind, which had been scattered to the winds in agony and despair.
Lucky for Lindsey, this time Candie hadn’t pinned her arms next to her body as she straddled her. Her hands clawed at the sand and she felt the granules sift through her fingers…
“My fingers? My nails?”
Lindsey gave a strangled squeal and with the last strength she had, she swung an arm. Straight across Candie’s eyes. The black haired woman shrieked in shock, then again as Lindsey followed that with a fistful of sand.
Lindsey felt the hand leave her mouth and hair as reality *TWISTED* and she again felt the deep plush carpet on her back again. She bucked her hips and rolled free across the penthouse apartment.
She rolled twice and ended up on her red and aching belly. She glared out through the sweaty blonde hair that hung down in front of her bleary eyes. Candie was holding her face a few feet away, she was hissing and had one hand out trying to fend off any attacks.
Lindsey’s deep blue eyes hardened and she gnashed her teeth. With a feral roar she brought her right hand over top and lunged through Candies outstretched hand. She brought her hand down as hard as she could and was rewarded with a solid *cr-ack* as it hit home on the black haired woman’s cheek bone, and then her body drove the reeling bitch back. Candie’s head bounced off the floor; even though the carpet saved her from the worst of the blow, the damage was done, and she jolted like she had been shocked as she landed on her back.
Lindsey was panting, totally spent. She lay across the shaking cunt, one arm draped over her stomach, her face next to her heaving tits.
“Melons…I always enjoyed a good melon.”
She bit down. Candie gave a wet moan. Hearing it, Lindsey felt one last boost of energy come into her broken body. She mounted her enemy, her tormentor, and used her knees and thighs to trap Candie’s arms to the carpet. Candie was weakly struggling under her, her face a smashed mess. Lindsey shifted so the black haired woman’s tits protruded from her straddle. She looked down into Candie’s eyes, and Lindsey saw dawning realization in those toxic black holes.
“Give up and let me be!”
“Fuck…kill…you…” Candie spat blood with each word.
“NO! I WANT TO FUCKING LIVE!” And with that Lindsey went into a frenzy. She swung back one hand and mauled Candies pussy with mindless violence. She dug her thumbnail into Candies womanly hood and sawed it across the tender bud. Then her three middle fingers worked terrible agony into the walls of her vagina. With her other hand, she pinched, slashed at, and dug her knuckles into Candies tits.
“LET ME LIVE YOU FUCKING DISEASED CUNT! GIVE UP AND GO AWAY!”
Candie was beyond screaming. She beat her feet against the floor, but she had nothing left, and eventually her long smooth legs, still in the shreds of her stockings, splayed open under Lindsey.
The blonde redoubled her efforts. She let loose a howl that would terrify the devil himself. She could feel Candie try again to use whatever forces she could command to do SOMETHING, but Lindsey blocked her mind and took it down. As she did this, she could feel reality swirl into a tornado of the mind and she felt grass, carpet, sand, concrete underneath her. Lights swirled around her head every other thing became a blur.
She brought her hands above her head and laced her fingers together to make a double hammer. The blonde bared her teeth and growled at Candie. The woman was sobbing silently, pink streaks running down her smashed face, the light and depth had gone out of her timeless eyes, they were flat and dull as the grave.
Those eyes locked with Lindsey’s.
“You win.” She eked out.
Lindsey screamed and drove her fists into Candies face...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

…and they smashed into the mattress of the hospital bed.
She was barely able to stifle the scream. She sat there, bathed in sweat and breathing heavily, her eyes bulging out of her thin face. Lindsey calmed herself down as best she could. She didn’t want any attention right this second; that was for sure. She absentmindedly went to brush her hair out of her face and it took her a moment to realize why she didn’t have hair anymore.
“A dream?”
“Was it?”
“Whaaaa…”
She looked over at her bedside.
7 minutes had passed since she had fallen asleep.
“Water…” she managed. But settled for the last of her Mountain Dew, she took the rest of the bottle in long gulps. The caffeine didn’t even matter. As soon as she put the bottle back on her nightstand, Lindsey Dalton’s eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed back onto her inclined pillow, so deeply asleep only the beep of the heart monitor let the world know she had not in fact passed on.
She did not dream.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

12/19/11

“Oh my lord, I say Coletta, I never thought I’d see…”
“I tell you Sheila, this is truly the season for miracles. Praise God almighty.”
Lindsey Dalton smiled as she heard the voices trail away for the last time. She put her toiletry bag into her dark red suitcase and looked around, making sure she had left nothing but memories.
Lindsey Dalton was going home for Christmas.
Going home to stay.
Well, home in this case would be at her parent’s house for a bit. She wasn’t strong enough yet to be on her own full time. But she thought she’d be able to fend for herself soon. She looked in the mirror, and she had to grin at herself one last time. Her face had started to fill back out, and, incredibly, her hair had started to grow back.
Instead of her old blonde though, Lindsey’s hair had grown back pure white…except for one spot over her left eye. That hair was as black as a raven at midnight. She considered herself for a moment…
“”The miracle in room 341”. That’s what they call me. The woman touched by Jesus himself for Christmas.”
“If they only knew…”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Lindsey had slept for two days.
Her vital signs had slowed down so much Dr Khan had called Lindsey’s family and told them to come in because the time was close. The floor nurses clucked and wept over how much of a shame it was for such a pretty young woman to be taken from this world so soon.
She woke at 3AM. She knew exactly who and where she was. She also knew she was thirsty as shit. There was no glass of water to be found though.
“What the fuck, was I so far out they didn’t even think I was gonna wake up for a drink?”
Lindsey stretched her back out. Obviously, it was rather stiff. But outside of that, she immediately realized she felt BETTER than she had in maybe 4 months. But she still needed a drink.
She pressed the call button and Risha, one of the night nurses with whom Lindsey would discuss Top Chef and watch Chopped with when it was on and she was able, poked her head in like she was going to see a ghost.
“Ah…may I have some water, please?”
Risha’s eyes went wide and she turned and Lindsey could hear her footsteps racing down the hall. Within 5 minutes her room was abuzz. Dr. Khan was there in 15 minutes, pulled from his bed and disheveled.
“Can this wait until tomorrow?”
“But…”
“But nothing, tests tomorrow. You know what I want? I want a 5 Guys cheeseburger and a milkshake.”
They ran batteries of tests. And the astounding results didn’t lie. In the two days she had slept, Lindsey had gone into full remission. Her tumors had shrunk 20%. Her numbers and counts were as vibrant as a healthy 16 year old.
Nobody in medical science could recall anything quite like it.
Specialists from all over the world had come to Room 341. Lindsey remembered face after face and the melodious song of their accents as they peered at her and studied the charts, often they argued in front of her in languages she couldn’t understand. Often heatedly, like she wasn’t even there. The whole time all she could tell them was “I guess I just wanted it so much it just went away.”
They all raised an eyebrow at that, and walked away shaking heads. Some looked at her like they didn’t believe her. Some looked at her like she was divine.
They raised more than eyebrows as her condition did nothing but improve. By Thanksgiving, she was out and about, still weak but getting stronger every day. She ate a mammoth Thanksgiving Dinner her parents cooked and brought for her, and then she walked them to the door with a strong and steady hand.
Two weeks later, they told her she was more than well enough to go home.
The most amazing thing…

6/17/12

The woman stands on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, letting the wind blow back her hair.
Her hair…
She calls herself “inverted skunk girl”. With her one long tress of the deepest black set against her otherwise full head of absolutely white hair.
But fuck, she has HAIR.
And she has boobs again, and pubes, and a sex drive, and an appetite.
What she doesn’t have is cancer. Lindsey Dalton has been officially cancer free since March 6th.
“Whoo…that wind is CHILLY. Hey Keith can I have that shirt.”
The man standing behind her turns and rummages in a bag at his feet. Lindsey notices how much lighter his hair is getting in the sun. She had met Keith Bennerd when he had come up to fix the computer they had hooked up next to her bed. He had smiled and said: “You beauty wasn’t overstated.”
She smiled back and said “oh you are SO full of shiottt.”
He had come back up the next day, making an excuse that he thought he had left something the day before. Eventually he asked if he could see her after she went home. She gladly agreed. They were planning on moving in together if things were still as up and up on Labor Day.
He grabs a black t-shirt and throws it over to her.
“So…sun’s going down. You know what I want Keith?”
“Nothing would shock me Baby.” He says with a grin.
“Shower, crabcake, minigolf, a funnel cake, and hot savage sweaty jungle sex.”
“Whatever you want babe, sounds like a great night at the shore to me.”
“Maybe not in that order!” she licks her full lips at him and smiles lasciviously.
“Hey I can go for a funnel cake right now.” He sticks his tongue out at her and she laughs heartily.
She pulls the t-shirt over her bikini. Her body is strong and lean. Not muscular, but smooth as silk. Her breasts are full as oranges on her slim frame.
And she feels better than she ever has in her life.
It makes her cry sometimes. She has no idea why she was given a chance to fight for her life, and her heart breaks for those who lost their struggle. But Lindsey Dalton knows every day how lucky she was and how wonderful life is. They had tried to make her a celebrity. They had tried to use her as a miracle of Jesus. But she had quietly turned them all away. Nor would she sell her story. She had finally worked up the gumption to tell Keith the month before, but she had left out a LOT, an awful lot. She wasn’t sure if he bought it, but he obviously was sure SHE believed it. To his credit he hadn’t laughed at her or called her crazy, he had just held her close and said how grateful he was that she was there with him.
She grabs Keith’s hand and pulls him up the sand towards the beach house they are renting in Wildwood. He stumbles while picking up their bag and she giggles at his awkwardness. A couple people eye up Lindsey as she strides up the beach, a striking, vibrant woman who shines like the sun. Her looks usually catch eyes, and then they read her shirt and comprehension dawns on their faces.
She had just gotten it made last Saturday, the first day they had gotten to the beach, at some shore store on the boardwalk. She doesn’t like to draw attention to herself, but she just couldn’t resist, and she finds people would come up and give her random hugs and a kiss on the cheek, often with tears on their eyes. It seems to have a positive effect on people and she likes that.
On the front it says in big white letters on black:

I KICKED THE
S H I T
OUT OF
CANCER!

Then, on the back:

FIGHTER

SURVIVOR

R.I.P. MOM
1948-2012
‘