Is It Live, or Is It YouTube?

Or, when is a Stewardess not a Stewardess?

By Mongoose750

They say you could see anything over the internet. From stupid juvenile pranks to two women fighting in someone’s backyard, to all types of porn, to naked yoga.

And then there’s the really weird stuff.

In my spare time, I surf the ‘net, like everyone else these days, and every now and then, I find something that really captures my attention. There was this one item that received several thousand hits. The remarks that followed ranged from comments that it was a well done production to shouts of FAKE! It was titled “Homicidal Stewardess,” and it was posted only a few months ago. The name of the person who posted it used as their name, “nobody_in_particular,” as if they wanted to remain anonymous, lest they were in danger of getting caught. Shrugging to myself, I played the clip to see what the fuss was all about.

It started out simple enough; two men were walking through an airport. One of them had one of the latest cellphones, an IPhone 10, or something like that. The company bragged that with it, you can make movies as good as they do in Hollywood. That seemed to be what the new owner of the phone was doing.

“Check it out; I’m making movies on my new phone!” He shouted as he filmed his friend, and everything that moved for the first ten seconds. I was considering turning it off and watching something else when both men heard a loud cry coming from a nearby room. This was followed by a couple of softer sounds, like something hitting flesh.

“What was that?” The friend said.

“Let’s check it out,” the man with the camera replied, trotting towards the source of the commotion.

They trotted down a hallway, and then entered some room they used for storage or whatnot. There were a lot of cardboard boxes lying around, so it could be a number of things. As they entered the room, the two men, and us, the viewers, we’re shocked by the first sight they saw. A man was on the floor lying face down in a pool of blood. The cameraman zoomed in on the sight with shaking hands. There was no doubt about it, the man was dead. They were frozen in their tracks for a few seconds, probably wondering what to do next.

Then the cameraman’s friend said in a low voice, “Look over there, man!”

That’s when they saw another man leaning backwards over a large box, beaten very badly. His face reminded me of bloody ground beef, and the rest of his body didn’t fare much better. Much of what he wore, originally green and black, were discolored with a blood red. There were little blood trails here and there. The only thing that kept him from flopping on the box was someone holding him by the lapels. The camera somehow got to the victim first, and then panned away to show who held him. That’s when the third shock came.

The person holding the lapels was an airline stewardess, or some woman dressed in a stewardess uniform. The uniform consisted of a white long-sleeve blouse, a navy blue vest, a navy blue skirt, and tan pantyhose. There was also a little cap that the stewardesses wear pinned neatly to her head. This woman had her sleeves rolled up and her vest open. Her skirt was unruffled, and her hose had little speckles of red. The navy pumps that were part of the uniform were thrown to one side of the room, by the doorway as a matter of fact. You wouldn’t notice them unless you saw the whole thing a second time at least.

The woman herself wasn’t tall; she stood only 5’1” at the most. She had an olive skin complexion, like the Italians (I’ve been watching clips of Italy lately). She had a stout figure with large breasts. On a flight, I could see where her breasts could distract people from seeing the rest of her body, which was strong, especially in the legs. She had long, black hair that went to the middle of her back.

Taking a wild guess, neither guy knew how to address her. That was taken out of their hands as she slowly turned her head, the stewardess cap still perched perfectly on her head. It almost looked comical.

The woman’s face was pretty, or it normally was pretty. Instead, her face was neutral, like nothing was there. She opened her hands, and the man slid down the box to the floor. His condition was obviously not good, maybe nonexistent. She stood straight, and turned toward the two men. Unlike her hose, her blouse and everything else was untouched.

“Give me the phone,” she said in a calm voice. Lacey was the name on her name tag, but it probably wasn’t hers.

“What are you doing? I can’t give you my phone!” The cameraman said.

“Yeah, what’s going on? Those guys, who are they?” His friend added.

Lacey apparently wasn’t in the mood for debate. “Give me the phone,” she said again. She started walking toward them.

“No, you can’t have my phone!” The cameraman argued. He took one step back.

“Then I will take it,” she replied simply.

Suddenly the friend stepped in front of the woman and the camera. “You ain’t taking nothing, bit-”

That’s as far as he got. Lacey, or whoever she was, struck him some type of blow that sent him staggering back. She followed up with a blow to the stomach that bent him over. She grasped his neck, and held it at an awkward angle. Awkward for him, that is; it looked like one sudden move, and she could break his neck.

“Last chance,” she said calmly, not even breathing hard. “Give me the phone.”

I will forever wonder what went through that man’s mind. Did he think if he refused, someone would get beat up and that’s it? That this woman would shrug her shoulders and say okay? My best guess is he had no clue of what he and his friend stepped in. He probably thought this was some woman who was just ticked off that day at some passengers, and got a few lucky shots in.

“Let my friend go, man! I can’t give you this phone, I just got it. Let him go!” He demanded and pleaded.

Lacey took one second to consider his answer, and then threw the other man to the floor by his neck. He hit hard, but aside from a possible strained neck, he seemed to be all right. Until Lacey raised her right foot and stomped his head. The man twitched a few times and grew still.

She has big feet, I said to myself.

“You should’ve handed me the phone,” she replied.

The cameraman started babbling at this point, but started doing something sensible; he started to back up. Lacey started walking toward him slowly, like a cat cornering a mouse. She stepped in one of the puddles of blood, leaving red foot prints as she walked.

“You didn’t have to do that! He was my best bud, man! I’ll give you the phone! Don’t hurt me!” He pleaded.

Lacey said nothing as she continued to stalk him. And then you heard a loud “thunk.” The camera guy trapped himself by backing up against a box. That’s when Lacey lunged. You see her throw a punch with her left fist into his side. He replied with a grunt as he still miraculously held on to the phone. The next thing you see is this brown blur head toward the camera. Then the world turns topsy-turvy as the phone bounces along the floor, and lands at just the right angle to catch the rest of the action.

It dawned on me that Lacey’s kick didn’t hit the phone; it hit the man’s face, his jaw it looked like, and sent him flying into a pile of other boxes. Lacey walked over, straddled his back, and wrapped an arm around his neck. His squirming seemed to make the chokehold worse. Just when I thought he would turn blue, Lacey grew impatient and broke his neck. She let the body fall to the floor, then walked over and picked up the phone. There was a view of her impassive face as she turned the camera function off.

I admit the clip had me stuck to my seat. After taking a minute to compose myself, I started reading the description of the video. According to the guy, his friend was showing him a live movie (another feature of this super phone) while he and his other friend arrived from the airport. He posted this in their memory.

Some tribute.

Next, I read the remarks viewers posted. It’s amazing how many armchair critics will sit back and tear everything apart, while explaining why it couldn’t happen. And then you have those who had their mind on other things.

“I’d like her to have her arms around me,” one remarked.

“I’d like her to smother me with her bosom,” another wrote back.

Oh boy.

In their defense, the critics do have some valid points. If this was real, this little video would be sent to the authorities. And if it was me, I would’ve handed, no, tossed that phone to her, and got out of there. You can call it cowardice if you like, but I at least would be a live coward instead of a dead hero. Or rather a dead idiot. That woman was depicted as a professional. But of course, that’s assuming it was real. On a whim, I watched it a few more times.

I do not claim to be an expert of video, but the way it was filmed, it looked too raw, and unpolished to be staged. As far as the fight scenes go, they were over quickly. If you blinked, you’d literally miss them. If someone took on a karate master for example, how long would the fight take? Not long, really. It’s only in the movies that you see fight scenes drawn out.

But one big question occurred to me. If this little video was actually sent to someone, wouldn’t the woman, who now had the phone, be able somehow to trace the location of the guy who uploaded this drama?

Following a whim, I looked up some news site in that area, and searched for stories involving that airport. Expecting to find nothing, there was a few stories at the top of the list involving a multiple murder investigation. Clicking the first story I saw, I read that the local police were stomped at a crime scene involving the dead bodies of two Arab nationals, and two men who left their flight not long ago that day. All four were beaten to death.

Feeling a chill, I clicked back to that video site, and went down to the bottom of the screen to type my response:

‘Dude, turn that video over to the authorities before that woman finds you!’

I considered making the message in all caps, but I don’t think it would’ve made much difference. A minute later, I did feel a little silly. After all, the clip was a month or so old. They probably found the woman by now. I won’t go into the inane responses I got soon after. I typed my plea.

It was getting late, so I shut things down and went to bed. Little did I know things would become more bizarre.

My day at work came and went, and at first, what I saw last night didn’t faze me at all. Then somewhere in the middle of lunchtime it hit me. I actually watched a woman kill four guys on live video. The even more disturbing thing about it was the guy who was in a position to do something about it decided to broadcast it to an uncaring public instead of the police.

When I got home, I did the first thing I usually do, get online. Like a moth to a flame, I found myself drawn to that video site, even though I didn’t want to see that woman kill those men again. I told myself I wanted to see if the man who uploaded the clip responded to my message. Whichever the reason, it soon became a moot point.

For instead of the video, there was a message saying in polite terms the video had been discontinued because it violated the sites’ rules of conduct. In other words, someone else discovered the video was the real thing, taken it down, and was probably handed over to the authorities. They probably also smelled a possible lawsuit coming a mile away, so the quicker this time bomb was taken away, the better.

I found myself breathing a sigh of relief, and then stopped as I saw that the clip had a video response; another way of saying the clip had a sequel. It was said to be uploaded by the same person, and was entitled, “Fools’ Fatal Folly.” Assuming it was something silly, I clicked it.

I was greeted with a garden scene, an entrance to a nice apartment or duplex. The small trees and bushes near the front of the place provided nice scenery, some shade, and a little privacy as one went in. It was a sunny day, and I wondered if this was being shot in Florida. The description didn’t say, so I had no idea. It looked nice though. For about a few seconds, we were watching everything sway in the wind, until the star of the show appeared. He was, I guess the man behind the name nobody_in_particular. He was a white guy of normal height, 5’6” or 5’7”, a little skinny, and had long red hair, along with a matching mustache and beard. Judging from the white T-shirt and blue jean shorts with red trainers, he could’ve come from the park, lunch with friends, or Frisbee golf. Whatever the case, he was humming a happy tune to himself as he adjusted his glasses and dug in his pocket for his keys.

Suddenly, almost from nowhere, this woman appeared in front of the door to his place. No, it wasn’t a woman, it was the woman. There was no mistaking her. Her long black hair was down, blowing in the breeze with no stewardess cap to keep it in place. She wore a black spaghetti strap tank top, black gym shorts, and was barefoot. My first assessment of her was correct, she had big feet. She also had big muscles too, like someone who lifted weights in a gym on a regular basis. Still, I had chills when she looked up and flashed a small grin.

“Hello Warren,” she said in her quiet voice.

“Do I know you?” Warren asked, a little confused.

The woman gave a small laugh and replied, “Of course you know me. I’m Lacey.”

A look of both confusion and dread formed on Warren’s face. “L-Lacey?”

“Yes; you should know my name, you’ve seen my name tag on that video John sent to you.”

All the color drained out of Warren’s face, and he started backing up. “Now look, the authorities have that clip, and they’re looking for you,” he said with the pace of a machine gun.

Lacey smirked. “You mean now they have it. You know, anyone with half a brain would’ve sent that clip in, not flash it across the internet. What, were you trying to shame me into turning myself in? You’re just like your two friends. If they just handed me the phone, they’d still be here. But no, they had to be stubborn.” She stepped forward, doing so in a way that cut off Warren’s exit. “And you, instead of doing the right thing, you get your fifteen minutes of fame, showing your little video to the public. It’s a good thing I don’t have friends like you.”

Warren didn’t respond to those accusations (what could he say?), and said, “But they have the clip now. They’ll find you, Lacey, they’ll find you!”

If this bothered Lacey, it didn’t show. In fact, it made her smirk turn into a grin. “But the trail is cold, Warren. You played the clip on this website for what, a couple of months? That’s more than enough time for things to calm down, me to leave the area, and for me to find you,” Lacey explained calmly.

This of course, made Warren break out into a sweat and nearly go hysterical. “But they know you’re a murderer, Lacey, a murderer!”

Lacey moved her left hand in a dismissive gesture, making Warren jump.

“Aside from what they see, they know nothing. There’s nothing that sets me apart from most women, besides these,” she sighed, looking at her breasts, “I’m not from here,” and suddenly she switched to an unusual accent, “and my name is not ‘Lacey.’”

Warren finally figured out a way of escape. He made a dart for the side of his place. Lacey however, was faster still, and gave him a tackle that any football coach would be proud of. She placed some sort of armlock on him, and frog marched him back to the center of the area where the camera was filming. Taking a good grip on his hair, she steered his head to I guess where the bushes on the other side were. To us viewers, you could see his fear-stricken face.

“Do you see that, Warren?” She demanded, pointing to the camera phone with her free hand.

Warren saw it. He knew what it was, and he became even more scared than before. “What are you going to do?” He asked.

“Why, I’m going to make you famous, Warren,” she replied. “I’m going to title this clip, ‘Fools Fatal Folly,’ and upload it in your name, or rather the name you go by. And thousands, maybe millions of people will get to see it. And the funny thing is most will think it’s fake. I’ll do that tonight. By this time tomorrow, I’ll be on a flight traveling somewhere as a tourist, and you, well you’ll be in the news, famous again.”

It didn’t take a detective to know what she meant by that. Warren knew, which was why he started begging and pleading.

“Please Lacey, I’ll do anything you want! Please don’t hurt me, I’ll give you anything!” Warren cried.

“But you are giving me something, Warren,” Lacey replied. “An audience. And a subject lesson.” She threw Warren down to the ground.

She patiently waited until Warren climbed to his feet, and to put it crudely, put on a clinic of her skills. She delivered ten punches in five seconds to his chest, and then delivered a couple of spinning kicks to his head. She had to pull him up after each one. Next, she delivered several throws, including picking the man up in the air, and throwing him to the ground. Finally, she subjected him to a variety of painful holds. For his part, Warren did fight back. It just didn’t seem to matter very much. It was like a ragdoll fighting a cougar.

It was painful to watch, and yet I watched it all in every painful detail. The woman had a talent for not having much blood splatter on her. Then again, I said she was a professional. She’s obviously done this type of thing before.

She finally held Warren by the front of his T-shirt, and faced the camera. “It is now time for Warren to say goodbye,” she began. “I don’t think he’s in any shape to say any final words, but I think he learned his lesson. Now to not offend the sensibilities of this website too much, or viewers with sensitive systems, I will take Warren behind this bush, and finish him off. Oh, and Dell56, thank you for the compliment on my legs. I wore these shorts for you.”

I remember Dell56 making remarks on how buff her legs were. So she read those remarks. That spooked me a little bit, because she read mine too. The funny thing about it was she agreed with me.

She half-dragged Warren behind the bushes, and let him fall. Only his legs were visible. Lacey got down on one knee, cocked her right hand back, and struck. Whether it was a fist, an open hand, or two fingers, I have no idea. What I do know was once she struck, the legs twitched, raised up in the air for a second, then fell still.

Lacey rose, brushed off her hands, and walked up to the camera until only her head and shoulders could be seen.

“So the moral of the story is this, boys and girls,” she said in her quiet voice, “is when you see something suspect, especially in a video, you report it to the authorities right away, not put it on a website to show your friends. And always do what you are told. Farewell.”

She reached forward and turned off the camera. That was the end of the video.

I sat in my chair silent, and glanced at some of the comments that came in. “Fake!” a number of them cried. “I liked the first one better,” another one said. No woman could do that, someone remarked, and some other guy said she should have smothered him with her breasts.

All I know was in the space of two days, I saw the death of five human beings on the internet, and most of the world thought they were badly done videos. And as Lacey (whoever she is), gets on her flight to go back home (wherever that is), she’s secure knowing that despite being seen in action by thousands of viewers, they’ll never find out who did it.

I turned off the website, and I turned off the computer. I don’t want to be online anymore.

***

If you enjoyed this story, perhaps you may want to read other stories from the Barefoot Heroines collection. There are a variety of stories to choose from. They can be found at http://thevalkyrie.com/stories/mongoose/index.htm.

For suggestions, comments, or story ideas, email the author at shrewsberry@juno.com.