by S. D. Stuart
Her airship spun in a half circle and she stood on the roof of the gondola. She looked at the chairs still bolted to what, from her perspective, was now the ceiling.
The airship continued to rotate on its central axis and soon the big gaping hole on the side of the gondola would become the floor. If she stayed here she would fall out, and she could tell by the slight bend to the horizon they were still hundreds, if not thousands, of meters above the ground.
She had to think of something and had to think of it quick.
Many of William’s men were killed during the first attack. Those who survived soon fell screaming through the holes ripped out of the walls of the gondola.
A few of them had managed to retrieve rifles from the cargo area and were now firing back at the other airship.
They clung to chairs and railings as they tried to keep from falling out of the airship.
A hand grabbed Dorothy’s ankle. She screamed and looked at who had grabbed her. Her fear turned to instant relief. “William!”
He struggled to his feet in the still spinning airship.
Blood seeped from his mouth as he spoke. “I have to keep you safe.”
He pushed Dorothy ahead of him, through the door, and back into the cargo area.
Every crate had spilled its contents when the airship rolled upside down.
William grabbed the nearest large crate and shoveled handfuls of straw into it. When it was filled nearly three quarters of the way full, he turned to Dorothy. “Get in!”
Dorothy shook her head. “No way.”
He grabbed her, shoved her into the crate and slammed the lid shut. The hammering of nails into the lid drowned out her cries for him to stop.
When he finished, he put his mouth against one of the crevices. “Bury yourself into the middle of the straw and …”
A massive explosion cut him off and Dorothy tumbled inside the crate as the airship tumbled out of control toward the ground.
Chapter 8
It was pitch black.
So this is this what death’s like, thought Dorothy.
She moved slightly and felt the muscles in her face twitch as she grimaced from the pain.
No, she couldn’t be dead. You weren’t supposed to feel anything once you were dead.
And right now, every muscle ached.
She could hear faint voices all around her.
“Do you think she will be better than the last Marshal?”
“Anybody would be better than her.”
“What about her sister? What do you think she will do when she finds out?”
Dorothy’s eyes fluttered open and it was no longer pitch black.
A wrinkled face moved into her field of view.
“She’s awake.”
More tiny wrinkled faces moved into view all around her.
One of the faces smiled, showing only three teeth in the bottom row and no teeth in the top row. “How are you feeling?”
She tried to speak, but her throat refused to respond and she coughed instead.
Smiley looked over his shoulder. “Bring her some water.”
A stubby hand took the back of her head and lifted her up to meet the dented tin cup that appeared before her.
“Drink. It will make you feel better.”
Dorothy hadn’t realized how thirsty she was as she gulped at the rusty tasting water. Her throat soothed, she could finally sit up and look around her.
She was sitting in a tiny bed, her legs dropping over the bottom edge with plenty of room for her feet to touch the floor.
The men gathered around her were no more than three or four feet tall. Their dingy clothing all the same color of gray. They all smiled at her.
“Where am I?”
Smiley stepped forward and bowed. “You are a most honored guest in my home. My name is Munch.” He opened his arms wide, indicating all the other short men around him. “And these are my brothers.”
“How did I get here?”
“Your ship crashed into the center of town. We brought you here and tended to your injuries.”
She looked down at the bandage around her arm. “How long …”
Munch smiled again, the lack of teeth even more evident. “You are welcome to stay as long as you like.”
“Oh, hell no!” Dorothy swung her feet over to the side and grimaced with the pain. “I am not your Snow White.”
Munch frowned. “Who?”
She shook her head. “Never mind. I meant, how long have I been asleep?”
“All of yesterday, most of the night and half of the morning.”
“I have to go.”
“Of course, you must begin your duties as Marshal.”
“My what?”
“Your marshal duties.”
“My marshal duties? Where am I?”
“You are home.”
Dorothy looked around her. “I’m back in New Kansas?”
“No, you are in OZ.”
Dorothy cleared the cobwebs from her brain with a shake of her head.
“That’s right. I crashed in the Outcast Zone?”
Munch grimaced. “We like to call it OZ. Sounds less depressing.”
She pulled back the covers and stood up. The room tilted wildly and she sat back down hard on the bed.
“Don’t try to get up Marshal. You are still weak from your arrival.”
She held her head until the room slowed down enough for her to focus on the one called Munch. At least she thought that one was Munch. Every one of these little men looked identical to each other.
“Why do you keep calling me Marshal? My name is …”
“You are the Marshal of the Eastern Territories because you killed the previous Marshal.”
She couldn’t believe her ears.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Your airship landed on her while she was giving a speech in the town square.”
Dorothy lowered her head and shut her eyes tight and tried to control the thoughts spinning in her head. “I didn’t mean to kill anyone. I am so sorry.”
Munch, or at least she thought it was Munch as he was the only one who did any talking, came forward and put a stubby hand on her knee.
“Don’t be. She was as wicked as they come. A real witch with a capital b.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is customary in OZ that whoever kills the Marshal takes their place.”
“So am I the new target for the next yahoo who wants to be Marshal?”
Munch smiled, his three teeth glistening in the light streaming in from the window. “Oh no, you are perfectly safe. Nobody wants to be a Marshal in OZ.”
Dorothy stood up and caught her reflection in the mirror. Her mouth gaped open as she looked down at the brown leather corset, leather pants and boots.
“What happened to my clothes?”
“Your clothes were torn and bloody from the crash. Not to mention the fire. It would be indecent for you to walk around as you were. And besides, you’re the new Marshal. You had to look like one. It was your good fortune that I was the official tailor for the previous Marshal.”
Dorothy felt around her neck. “My emerald! Where is it?”
“What is an emerald?”
“It’s small. It’s green. It was in a silver necklace.”
Munch’s brothers all looked at each other and shook their heads. She looked around at all of them. “Where are the clothes I was wearing?”
The little men all looked at the ground. A couple of them blushed.
Munch refused to look her in the eye. “We have no women in the house. We took no liberties, I assure you.”
“My clothes. Where are they?”
One of the men pointed to a pile of tattered rags in the corner of the room. She knelt and felt all around, pushing down on the scorched and shredded fabric hoping to hit something solid inside them.
Munch watched her dig through the tattered clothing. “I am sorry; we
did not find anything in your clothes.”
Dorothy shook her head in total disbelief.
William was dead.
Her necklace was gone.
There was no way she could find her father without it.
She could go back to New Kansas and listen for the radio signal that had sent them here in the first place. Her father had reached out once before and he could do it again. Maybe he would tell them exactly where he was and she wouldn’t need the necklace to find him.
“I have to get out of here.”
Munch brightened up with the change of subject. “I will show you to your palace.”
“I don’t mean out of here. I mean out of the Outcast … out of OZ.”
“There is no way out of OZ.”
“There has to be a way out.”
“There is no way out.”
She looked around at the small group of men. “Alright. Let’s try this a different way. Who is in charge here?”
“You are.” One of the men said abruptly.
“No, no. I mean who’s in charge here?”
“As long as you wear that shield,” Munch pointed to the Marshal shield attached to her leather corset. “You are the law and we will do as you command.”
“Then get me out of the … out of OZ.”
Munch dropped his shoulders. “There is no way out of OZ.”
Another one of Munch’s brothers laughed. “Right. Unless you can fly.”
That’s it, Dorothy thought. The crash cannot have been too bad. Nothing’s broken and I’m only slightly scratched up. I can repair the airship and get out here.
She smiled to herself. It paid to be the daughter of a scientist. She’d mastered mechanical engineering skills around the same time most kids were mastering finger painting.
She looked at Munch. “Take me to the airship.”
Dorothy stared at the twisted metal, some of it still burning.
The gondola had broken apart into several pieces and was scattered throughout the center of the tiny town.
A leather boot attached to a bloody leg protruded out from under the largest of the gondola fragments.
Munch pointed to the bloody boot and smiled. “Your handiwork.”
Dorothy clenched her jaw. “I told you, I did not mean to kill anyone.”
Munch nodded. “That is good news indeed. The previous Marshal had no problem killing any of us when the mood struck her.”
“I won’t be your Marshal for very long. I don’t plan on sticking around any longer than I have to.”
“We already told you, there is no way out of OZ.”
She pointed to the one who spoke earlier. “He said I could get out if I could fly.”
“He was joking. The security systems would shoot down any airship that attempted to leave OZ. There is no way out.”
“There has to be.”
“There isn’t.”
The other man spoke up. “What about …”
Munch cut him off. “Shh, brother.”
Dorothy looked back and forth between Munch and his brother. “What was he going to say?”
Munch walked away from her. “Nothing. He wasn’t going to say anything.”
She caught back up with him. “He was going to say something until you shut him up.”
He stopped. “No. It will not work.”
“What won’t work?”
He turned to her and looked her in the eyes. “You know why OZ was built, don’t you?”
“It is a centralized global prison.”
“No. It was built for one man and one man alone. He had escaped from every prison they tried to put him in until they built this place. We are only here because it was cheaper and more agreeable to the human rights activists than killing us outright.”
“Kill you? What did you do?”
“That’s the thing. I didn’t do anything.”
“Then why are you in the … in OZ?”
“We are clones.”
She looked around at the identical men gathered around her. “Cloning is illegal.”
“And so, by proxy, we are illegal. Well, they are anyway. I am the original. They are all clones of me, so technically, I am okay. But it wouldn’t do any good to have me running around telling everyone about illegal cloning experiments. So, I was sent here with them.”
“How come I never heard about this?”
“This is OZ. It is a one way trip. They send us here to ease their conscience and then forget about us.”
“What about contacting the news media or getting an appeal?”
“There is no contact with the outside. Once you are here …”
“But he was about to tell me something before you shut him up.”
“It was a stupid idea.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He let out a big sigh. “There is someone who seems to be able to contact the outside. If you could get to him, he might be able to get a message to someone that you are here.”
“Who is he?”
Munch lowered his head and was quiet for a moment before lifting it again and looking at her. “OZ was created to contain him. He is called the Wizard.”
“The Wizard?”
Munch shrugged. “It was a nickname the newspapers gave him because no prison could contain him. You see why it’s a stupid idea?”
“Why do you think he can help me?”
“He helps lots of us in OZ. People ask him for favors and he helps them, if they pay his price.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“He never asks for money.”
“What’s the price?”
“It’s different for everyone. Most people, when they find out what he wants in return, give up. He rarely has to do what is asked of him.”
“That doesn’t sound very fair.”
“He’s the Wizard. I don’t think fair is in his vocabulary.”
“What makes you think if he can’t get out of OZ, he can help me get out?”
Munch shrugged again. “I told you it was a stupid idea.”
Dorothy watched the burning wreckage of the airship in silence for a minute. “But if anyone can help me, he can?”
“I guess.”
“Then I will go see this Wizard.”
“No. You can stay here and be our Marshal. You have earned that right.”
Dorothy looked down at Munch. “I don’t belong here.”
“Neither do I. But what can you do?”
Dorothy placed her hands on the side of Munch’s face. “When I get out, I will tell the world what has happened to you and get you out of here too.”
A tear formed in the corners of his eyes. “If you could do that, I would serve you forever.”
Dorothy smiled, fighting back her own tears. “Seeing you freed from this place will be enough.”
An explosion blew through a wall on the far side of the town square and a massive steam-driven armored carriage with a forward facing carronade, a short smooth-bore cast iron cannon, rolled through the jagged hole it had just created.
Munch’s brothers scattered in all directions.
Dorothy grabbed one as he ran by. “What’s going on?”
He struggled against her grip. “It’s the West Marshal.”
She looked at the armored carriage as it rolled to a stop in the middle of the square. “There are other marshals?”
“One for each region.” He wriggled free from her grasp and disappeared into the surrounding buildings.
Dorothy stood alone in the town square as she faced the smoking behemoth.
The hatch opened along the top. A woman climbed out and jumped down to the ground.
She stalked over to the wreckage of the gondola and knelt to inspect the bloody boot that poked out from under it.
She stood back up and looked around. Her eyes glossed over Dorothy and kept going as if she wasn’t even there. She walked over to a crate lying half broken in the wreckage. She lifted the lid and peered inside. From her vantag
e point, Dorothy could see that the crate was now empty. Whatever was inside was stolen or possibly destroyed when the airship crashed.
The West Marshal dropped the lid and kicked the crate.
She finally acknowledged Dorothy’s existence and walked over to her. She cocked her head to the side and stared at her for a while before finally speaking.
“I take it from that uniform you are the new Marshal?”
Dorothy looked down at her leather corset. “I guess so.”
The West Marshal took a long step forward and came face to face with Dorothy, their noses nearly touching.
“Then I guess you are the one who killed my sister.”
Chapter 9
Dorothy opened her mouth several times and closed it again, unable to speak.
The West Marshal took a step back and regarded her with a tilt of her head. “What is your name little girl?”
“Dorothy.”
“Tell me, Dot, why did you kill my sister?”
“It was an accident. My airship crashed into the … into OZ. I didn’t mean to kill anyone. And my name is Dorothy, not Dot.”
The West Marshal leaned back in close. Dorothy could smell her rancid breath.
“You, are an insignificant little dot. You are most certainly not worthy of being a Marshal.”
“I don’t want to be the Marshal.”
The West Marshal looked at her in surprise. “You don’t?”
“No. I just want to get out of OZ.”
The West Marshal smiled sweetly. “I can help you with that.”
All the stress of the past few hours melted instantly. “You can?”
“Of course I can. But you have to give me what is rightfully mine.”
“I’ll give you anything if you get me out.”
The West Marshal held out her hand. “The shield. Give it to me.”
“The what?”
“The East Marshal shield on your chest.”
Dorothy removed the shield attached to the front of her leather corset.
“That’s right little girl. Give it to me.”
A voice echoed from the doorway of a nearby building. “Don’t do it.”
The West Marshal hissed at the short figure standing in the doorway. “Stay out of this Munch! You were always trouble for my sister, and yet she let you live. I will not be so forgiving.”