Dorothy In the Land of Monsters

by Garten Gevedon

  Before, I never believed in a heaven or a hell. Unconcerned with those matters, even with my parents’ death, I never thought about it much. If I ever contemplated hell, I never imagined this. So vibrant and rich-hued, I can see how it could be beautiful, but it’s steeped in blood, as if vampires have feasted in every inch of this place. Now it seems the unknowable things I never bothered with are revealing themselves. Hell is a real place, but it’s not all fire and brimstone. It’s this blood-soaked rainbow world before me, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get out.

  3

  How I Saved a Zombie

  My house murdered a woman. They say she was a vampire and a witch and evil, but I still killed her with my house. And then I stole her boots. And then she turned to ash. Dry heaves rack my body as it hits me and I rush inside, falling to my knees in front of the toilet, retching, wishing I could stop thinking about the life lost beneath the floorboards only moments before.

  Once the gagging stops, sorrow overwhelms me. And I sob with guilt, with anguish, and with regret, so much regret, for the life I never lived, for the life I took, for whatever I did to deserve the horrors that await me outside these doors.

  Please, forgive me. For every wrong thing I’ve done, every good thing I never did, every complaint I uttered about my gray life instead of painting my life the colors I wished it were, instead of being the colors I craved. For it all, I’m so sorry.

  Just breathe.

  Stop with the self-pity.

  Once I pull myself up off the floor, I remind myself there is a way out of this. A colorful life is still possible. I could return home, to Earth, or the ‘Civilized Realm,’ or anywhere other than this abysmal death snare.

  Did I go through some kind of wormhole?

  Am I on another planet?

  Maybe the cyclone was some elaborate alien abduction.

  No, I must be dead. That’s the only logical explanation. If so, that would mean I didn’t kill that woman. If she was a vampire, she was already dead anyway, right?

  Thoughts of disconcertion boing around in my brain, sweeping and slicing through me like a twisted game of jacks with Freddy Krueger. Torrents of cortisol flood my system, frazzling my nerves, and I shake, trembling with severe distress. I’m dead, in hell, and it’s so much weirder than I could have ever imagined. Or maybe this is purgatory, like a landing place where there is still a chance to get back to life if I do the right things, make the right moves, think the right thoughts. Maybe this is a test, and I need to ace it, do everything I can to pass.

  As I nibble on some bread and pack what little food we had into the bag of weapons, I remember Aunt Em and I were going to go shopping today. Nothing more than bread, butter, and plum preserves sit on the shelves.

  Do dead people need food?

  Hunger pangs gnaw at my stomach, but maybe it’s only a trick of the mind. Whatever, I’ll eat what I’ve got and figure the rest out later. Into the bag it goes.

  The pungent scent of my frightful journey to this terrifying land wafts from my pits, so I go to my closet to change and am reminded the only clean top in it is a gingham, button down that ties at the waist. My once best friend gave it to me as a joke after my parents died because I was moving to a farm. It came with a pair of denim cut-off short-shorts to complete the look of a stereotypical farm-girl uniform. I have yet to see anyone wear anything like this on a farm.

  This gag gift was her way of trying to make light of my move to a farm in Kansas. I didn’t find it funny, and I think I hurt her feelings when I didn’t even crack a smile because we didn’t keep in touch. Maybe I should feel guilty about that.

  Depression had leeched any sense of humor from me, and I hated everything about life then. My parents had just died, and I was moving away from everything and everyone I had ever known. I was angry at my parents for dying, angry at the world for sucking, so I took my mom’s old riot grrrl patches and buttons that were sacred to her—she kept them in a special memory box with the zine she made with her friends when she was a teenager and told me someday she’d let me have them—and I sewed them all over this dreaded top. It was my way of throwing my middle fingers up in the air to everyone and everything.

  Aunt Emily only offered to take me out of pity, and although it seemed like something terrible then, I don’t think I ever appreciated it enough. The only thing that mattered was that my parents were dead, Emily didn’t love me the way my parents did, and life was officially awful. This stupid top represents that time for me, and it only serves as more proof this must be hell because it’s the only thing I have to wear.

  My laundry was hanging on the clothesline back at the farm, and I always wait until there’s nothing left to wear to do my laundry, so this stupid shirt I would never wear under normal circumstances is the only option—my deodorant did not hold up under the trauma of flying away on a cyclone.

  I bet this is another reason I am here. Laziness. Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins, isn’t it? Although I wasn’t always lazy about laundry. There was no washer or dryer on the farm, no laundromat in a twenty-mile radius, and having to wash my clothes in a bathtub and hang them on a clothesline outside to dry made me never want to do laundry. So, yeah, I’d wait until the last stitch of wearable clothing was too dirty to wear. That isn’t so bad I should go to hell for it. No one is perfect. Or are they? Do you have to be a Mother Teresa or a frigging monk to avoid a monstrous hell in the afterlife?

  Even if I had a clean pair of jeans, which I don’t, I couldn’t change into them because no matter how hard I pull, I can’t get these damn boots off. I can still wash up though. Too bad I can’t change my underwear.

  I pour some water from one of the few bottles I have left into Toto’s dish, drink some, and use the rest to brush my teeth and wash pertinent parts.

  After packing my toothbrush and toothpaste, the rest of my bottled water, and Toto’s dish into my bag of weapons, we set out on the terrifying journey to the City of Emeralds.

  “Come along, Toto. Let’s go to the City of Emeralds and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again. Sound good?” I say, and he jumps up, excited for the journey, unlike me who is trying hard not to panic. “Let’s hope we can get back home,” I say, and Toto barks in agreement.

  I take a deep breath, close the door, lock it, and put the key in the small pocket of my jeans. With Toto trotting along at my side, I start on my journey through this horrific land.

  There are several roads nearby but it’s easy to see the one paved with yellow bricks soaked in red blood. Scared of running into a vampire or zombie, we start out in a brisk walk, my unremovable silver-plated boots clunking on the bloody, yellow road-bed.

  Throughout the walk, the sun shines and the birds sing, and after a while, I find I’m not so frightened anymore. This isn’t anywhere near as awful as I expected.

  I’m surprised as I walk along to see how pretty the country is around me, aside from the bloodied blue painted fences at the sides of the road. If I don’t envision the events that cast the generous gory spatters everywhere, it’s fine. But if I do, dread seizes my insides and every step I take is nerve-racking. So I do my best to focus on something else.

  Beyond the houses that line the road, overgrown fields of grain and vegetables in abundance rustle in the pleasant breeze. The Munchkins must be good farmers, able to raise large crops, but are perhaps too scared to come out and gather what they yield.

  Every once in a while I pass a house, and every time I do, little people come out to catch sight of me and bow low as I go by. The homes of the Munchkins are odd looking, round, with big domes for roofs. All of them are blue, stained with blood. It seems as if blue is the on-trend color here—blue fences, blue houses, blue outfits, blue pointy hats.

  Every time I pass a Munchkin they say, “Good-day, Dorothy of Kansas, Great Sorceress.”

  Every time, I respond by saying, “Hi. No need to bow, thanks. I’m not a sorceress. Just a girl from Kansas, not a sorceress.”

&nbs
p; This happens again and again, and it happens at every house I pass.

  Toto and I walk all day, and as the night draws near, the sun dipping below the horizon line, I wonder where I will sleep tonight. It doesn’t seem smart to sleep out in the open with vampires running around, although I have yet to see one, but maybe that’s because it’s daytime. Nightfall is liable to be the most dangerous time to be out and about in a land of monsters.

  Just a short way down the road stands a lit-up house larger than the rest. It looks like a big blue Fabergé Imperial Easter Egg with a yolk of glowing gold luminance that pours out of the filigreed windows onto the blue-green lawn before it. In the large yard, people dance, laugh, and sing as five little fiddlers play. Two long tables, one on either side of the yard, stand loaded with delicious fruits and nuts, pies and cakes—a grand feast.

  The people greet me with kind smiles as I approach, saying hello and bowing.

  “That’s unnecessary. There’s no need to bow.” There must be some serious oppression here if they all feel the need to bow to people.

  “Dorothy of Kansas, Great Sorceress who rid the land of the evil and wicked Vampire Witch of the East, is it you?” one Munchkin asks.

  The little man approaches, clinking as he comes, dressed in fine looking clothes with silver-plated armor regaled with medals that seem to be honors of some sort or another. His hairstyle is very Flock of Seagulls. On his bright, hopeful expression, I smile.

  “Just call me Dorothy, please.”

  “Dorothy, I am General Boq the Great, Mayor of Munchkin Land. It is my honor to have you here. Dine with us, please, and rest here for the night before you continue on your journey to the Emerald City tomorrow. We are celebrating in your honor and we were hoping you would pass along your way in time for the feast.”

  “Thanks, I’d love to. This is Toto, my dog,” I tell him.

  “It is an honor,” General Boq says to Toto, bowing his head to him, and Toto barks acknowledging his courtesy.

  General Boq leads me to the head of the table and I am served an amazing meal of a corn soup, lamb, fruits, a salad, roasted vegetables, cakes, and pastries. I eat and eat and when I can’t eat another bite, I sit back in my chair with Toto at my feet, who has also stuffed himself with an abundance of lamb. We watch the little people dance and celebrate, and after finishing a dance with a little woman who I think may be his wife, General Boq kisses her cheek and with a broad smile on his round face, he comes and sits beside me.

  “You must be a great sorceress,” he says, staring at my silver-plated boots.

  “I wish I knew why everyone keeps saying that.” What’s with the sorceress label?

  “They say it because you wear the silver boots and have killed the Vampire Witch of the East, and because you have white in your frock. Only witches and sorceresses wear white.”

  “My shirt is blue with white checks and patches sewn all over it,” I correct, smoothing out the wrinkles in it.

  “It is very kind of you to wear that. Blue is the color of Munchkin Country, and white is the good witch’s color, so we all know you are a good and kind witch.”

  What do I to say to this? All these people seem to think I’m a witch, and I keep saying I’m not, but no one cares what I tell them. No matter how many times I say it. I am only an ordinary teenage girl who has come by chance of a cyclone into a strange land I thought might be hell, but it has been a nice day except for how it started, although the hell argument is still a valid one considering that little detail of everything being soaked and stained in blood.

  A yawn escapes me—I’m tired from all the food and all the walking—so General Boq asks, “Would you like to retire for the evening?”

  “Yeah, I’m ready to crash out,” I say before I think of my phrasing and how I came into this land. His eyes widen, not understanding what I meant, so I clarify. “Crash out means go to sleep where I come from.” He smiles, sighing in relief, and stands proffering an arm toward his house, so I stand with him.

  “A place called Kansas?” he asks as he leads me and Toto into the house.

  “Yeah,” I say with a smile.

  “Kansas,” he repeats as though he’s committing the name to memory, “What is it like?” he asks, brimming with curiosity.

  “Gray. Very gray. The land, the sky, the foliage, grass, all gray, burnt from the sun. It’s not even close to how colorful it is here.”

  “Gray like silver, like the boots you wear?”

  “No, a dull gray that doesn’t shine or sparkle like a metal. It’s dreary looking compared to here. But there are no vampires or zombies or werebeasts or twinkles and quadleys,” I say, and he laughs.

  “Winkies and Quadlings,” he corrects, amused.

  “Right,” I say with a nod.

  “It must be nice to live free of such terrible plagues.”

  “Plague-free is a plus. There are diseases, but none that turn you into monsters. They make you sick, but we have medicines to combat most. I wouldn’t mind more color in my life there though. Other places in my realm outside of Kansas, also free of monsters and vampire plagues, are far more colorful than where I live.”

  “If you return to your land one day, perhaps you may go to the more colorful places.”

  “I will if I am lucky enough to get home, although I thought maybe… Could it be that I’m dead? That this place is the afterlife?” I ask and he laughs.

  “Oh, goodness, no. You are very much alive, my dear. We all are, at least those of us who are not undead or bitten. The living in this realm are very much alive,” he says with a giggle and I sigh with relief. “I do not know what is to come once our lives are over, although it seems neither do you,” he says and giggles again.

  “Yeah, I sure don’t. I thought maybe this was some twisted and absurd hell.”

  “Hell? I do not know of this realm.”

  “I’m not sure it exists.”

  “It appears you are from the Civilized Realm, or at least that is what we call it here. There are no witches or bitten or undead there. Just the living.”

  “That sounds like the place.”

  “It may not be as colorful, but it has its advantages I imagine. If I knew how to travel there, I would. Perhaps we all would to avoid the plague. Even if it is gray and dull, it is a far better alternative to becoming undead or a werebeast, and a much better alternative to being bitten,” he says as he opens a door to a beautiful bedroom with a plush bed adorned in blue linens that is calling my name. “This room shall be yours. You are welcome to stay here whenever you are in Munchkin Land. My door is always open to you,” he says, and I smile.

  “General Boq, thank you so much.”

  “Oh, please, call me Boq,” he says, taking a cue from me. I nod with an appreciative smile, and he leaves me and Toto to have a good night’s rest while he rejoins the celebration.

  I drop my bag of weapons on the divan and walk over to the bed. It’s short, which is a good thing considering I can’t take off the boots. Ready to conk out, I pull down the plush comforter to reveal blue sheets made of a fine cloth. When I pull up the linens and get in, my boot clad feet hang off the end, uncovered. Toto curls up on the lush blue rug beside the little but very comfortable bed and we both drift off to sleep.

  Toto wakes me up by licking my face, as usual, and I almost forget where I am, but the memory comes back soon enough.

  “I’m up! I’m up,” I say as I sit up in bed.

  After a yawn and a stretch, I go into the bathroom attached to the room, wash up, brush my teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste I brought, and head out into the house with Toto at my heels.

  In the dining room, General Boq sits at the table set with a beautiful breakfast of pastries, fresh milk, warm bread, butter, fruits, juices, eggs, and bacon. As I watch a tiny Munchkin toddler play with Toto, who loves it, I eat a heartier breakfast than I have ever eaten. When she pulls his tail, he spins in circles, chasing it to amuse her, which it does. She squeals and laughs in
excitement. It’s adorable and I have a blast watching this display of abundant cuteness.

  Part of me wonders if I’ll ever fall in love, get married, have a kid. I might never make it out of here. I could get blood-sucked or eaten by a werewolf or a zombie just trying to travel home. General Boq insists I am alive, and if that is the case, then finding a way home is a possibility, and according to that tablet-hat of Gayelette’s, the way there is by going to the City of Emeralds.

  “Toto is quite a curiosity,” General Boq says, sitting beside his wife at the breakfast table across from me, watching his daughter play with him.

  “He is?”

  “I have never seen his kind before, and he speaks a language I have never heard.”

  “Toto is a dog. He is my pet. My companion,” I explain.

  “Your companion? As in your husband?”

  “No! Goodness no,” I say laughing. “He is my pet, an animal who lives with me, who I care for, and he cares for me too. He is like a bird or an animal you might find in the forest, but he is a domesticated animal, meant to live in a house, with me, although he could live in the wild, perhaps far better than I could. Dogs travel in packs when they are wild though, and Toto isn’t wild.”

  “Ah, I see,” he says, getting it. “We do not have his kind in our realm but there are similar things that exist here. We call one a cat,” he tells me.

  “Yeah, we have those in my realm too. Cats and dogs are the most common domesticated animals. People also have birds they keep in cages in their homes, and some keep lizards, snakes, many animals.”

  “Oh my! What other animals do you have in the civilized realm?” he asks, his curiosity piqued.

  “Well, we raise cows on the farm where I’m from in Kansas, for meat and for milk.”

  “We have cows. We also have pigs, which is what you are eating now. Do you have pigs in your realm?”