The Witch's Brew: A Collection of Hilarious Short Stories Starring the Wicked Witch of the West

by Darrin Mason

  She pedalled hard and fast, and then she pedalled some more. “C’mon Wendy, you can do it.” She approached the top of the hill and gave that one last roll of the pedal everything she had. She sailed into the sky, passing the moon in one direction as Elli Snott and E.T. passed it going the other way. “Phone hooooome,” E.T. called out. “I’m doing better than that,” the Wicked Witch called out. “I’m going theeeeeerrrre.” E.T. gave the Wicked Witch the thumbs up and he and Elli Snott went on their merry way. At least it was merry until the police opened fired on Elli Snott and E.T., killing both of them instantly. The bicycle fell from the sky, followed by two bodies. The bodies hit the ground and the police covered them. The Wicked Witch watched the officers carry the bodies to a nearby van. One of the officers looked up at her. “You didn’t see nothing,” he called out. “Got it?” She nodded.

  The Wicked Witch turned her attention back to the matter at hand. She approached the rainbow. She was going to make it. Yes she was. Hang on. No she wasn’t. Awww crap. She sailed under the rainbow and headed straight for the grand canyon below. She had one chance to survive. He had to be on time though. She hoped to God he would be.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Empty beer cans lay strewn across the back seat of the car, and cigarette smoke wafted through the air. Ronald Weathley manoeuvred the car through the air like any other teenage kid who had no idea how to drive. Harry Poffertje clapped his hands against his knees in time with the heavy drum beat Metallicake was so well-known for.

  Ronald went white as a ghost. “Holy shit, Harry,” he said. “Look over there!”

  Harry looked out the window. The Wicked Witch was hand gliding through the air. She was on a collision course with Ronald’s car. Here … she … COMES!

  Ronald and Harry turned away from the windshield as the Wicked Witch smacked headfirst into it. The glass cracked and the Wicked Witch’s body crashed heavily against the hood. The car shifted violently. The front end dipped and the car rocketed toward the earth. Ronald let go of the wheel and covered his face with both hands.

  Harry screamed. “Grab the wheel, Ronald. Grab the goddam wheel!”

  The car lurched this way and that. It went into a death roll. Ronald began to cry. The Wicked Witch held on for dear life. Harry grabbed the wheel. The car continued its merry march toward planet Earth where it would crash and turn into a blazing wreck.

  All of a sudden the car stopped moving. Ronald and Harry looked outside. They saw nothing. The Wicked Witch looked around. She also saw nothing. But the camera saw everything. Sooperdooperpooperman looked into it and smiled. His snow white teeth glistened and his eyes twinkled. He gave the camera a two-finger salute then flew the car to the top of a nearby hill. “You’re safe now,” he said to Ronald, Harry, and the Wicked Witch. He leaped into the air and flew away. A Russian rocket zoomed over the hill and gave chase. Sooperdooperpooperman zigged and zagged, trying his best to avoid being hit by the rocket. As good as he was he turned out to not be good enough. The rocket collected him from behind. The explosion tore him in half. The top half went one way. The bottom half went the other way. Either way, it was Russia 1, the United States a big fat donut.

  The Wicked Witch chewed her bottom lip. She looked around the place a bit before turning to Ronald and Harry. “Ummm ...”

  “Uh, yeah,” Harry said. “We’d all better get going, yeah?” He looked at Ronald who nodded in full and wholehearted agreement. Harry looked back at the Wicked Witch. “It was of course nice to meet you.”

  The Wicked Witch nodded. “Indeed. It was nice to meet you also.” She looked over her shoulder then back at Ronald and Harry. She pointed at the rainbow behind her. “I got a … ummm … thing to do.”

  Harry nodded. “And we’ve got to get to school.”

  The Wicked Witch shifted her weight. “Ummm, goodbye then.”

  “Yeah, goodbye,” Harry replied. He turned to Ronald and whispered, “Let’s get the holy hell out of here.”

  Ronald shifted the car into gear and punched the accelerator. The car took off and disappeared over the top of the next hill. The Wicked Witch took out her umbrella and opened it. The wind shifted and it picked her up, lifting high above the rainbow to the sound of Dick van Dyke singing Let’s Go Fly a Kite. While he sang, the Wicked Witch was planning her revenge on Dorothy Gale. And all of a sudden, it blew one.

  The Wicked Witch was tossed about in the heavy wind like a raggedy old doll. Round and round she went. Where she stopped, nobody really cared. But she had to stop somewhere, so let’s have her stop in, oh, I don’t know, the middle of Wembley Stadium just after kick-off in the Rugby Union World Cup final. After all, she didn’t take her sister’s rugby slippers for nothing.

  She looked around at the fit, young men smashing into each other. “England versus Australia?” She kicked the hallowed turf. “I fucking hate England.” An English player tried to sidestep her as he chased the ball up field. The Wicked Witch stretched out her arm and clothes-lined him as hard as she could. The player did a double somersault and landed on his head. The referee blew his whistle and pulled out the yellow card from his pocket. He showed it to the Wicked Witch. She screwed up her face. “Fucking hell, ref. What a load of shit.” The referee pulled out the red card and showed it to the Wicked Witch. The crowd booed and hissed. The Australian manager went wild. He threw his water bottle to the ground in disgust. The Wicked Witch pleaded her case but the referee was having none of it.

  The Australian captain came over and guided her away from the referee. “Just do the right thing and leave the field, Wendy,” he said. “We’ll discuss it after the match.”

  The Wicked Witch was irate. She couldn’t believe it; red-carded in the opening minutes of the World Cup final. “Fuck the lot of you.” She gave the referee the bird and stormed off the field. She pushed past the manager and walked down the tunnel to the dressing room. She kicked a chair out of the way and it hit an official coming the other way. Two police officers ran up to her and grabbed her arms. They handcuffed her hands behind her back and began to read her rights to her. “You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right, anything you say may be used in any of the Wizard of Oz movies yet to be made.” They dragged the Wicked Witch to a cell underneath the stadium where they locked up rowdy spectators and players that kick the crap out of things. They left and closed the door behind them. The Wicked Witch turned to the other person in the cell. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw who it was.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “You all know me,” the world’s greatest author of horror and suspense said. “You know what I do for a living. I'll go out and get that referee for you. He’s a bad one and it's not like goin' down the pond chasing blue-gills and tommy-cods. This is a man that can kill a game with one blow. A little shuffle, a little jab, and – BOOM! – down it goes. You gotta get this guy and get him quick. If you do, it'll bring a lot of fans just to see him covered in blood and then you've got your business back on a paying basis. A guy of that reputation is no pleasure though and I value my neck at nuthin’ less than ten thousand. I'll catch him for three. But I'll kill him for ten. The bastard is costing you more'n that every day.”

  The Wicked Witch sat there with her mouth wide open and her bottom lip clear dragging on the ground. It was him. It was really him. “I really liked your, ummm, first novel, ummm, Carrie on Killing Your Momma with a Kitchen Utensil. Oh, and It, It, What the Fuck IS It? scared the shit out of me.” Stars were in her eyes, along with a bit of conjunctivitis that had gathered into a yellow ball of goo. She wiped it from her eye and slung it onto the floor.

  Stephen King Author the First looked at her. “I’ve skinned ’em alive in any one of my books, and I can sure as hell do it to the referee that sent you off the field. Do we have a deal?”

  The Wicked Witch looked at him. She stared deep into his bespectacled eyes. She was hooked on him, wholly, fully, and totally in love with him. “I’d have to sell a few of my winged monkeys, bu
t, yeah, we have a deal.”

  Stephen smiled. “Good.”

  The Wicked Witch could see the referee’s blood already.

  Yes. Game on.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Oh, jailer,” the Wicked Witch called out in her sexiest voice. Stephen giggled.

  The man standing at the other end of the corridor turned to them. “Yeah, waddaya want?” He was a big, burly fellow, and he was armed with a great big gun.

  “Could you come here a moment, please?” The Wicked Witch waved her hand. “Come on. Don’t be shy.”

  The man began walking toward the cell. He rested his finger on the trigger of his firearm, in case he needed to use it.

  “Keep coming,” the Wicked Witch said. She raised the hem of her dress to reveal a stockinged leg. “That a boy.”

  The man was standing in front of the cell now. “So, waddaya want?” he asked. He held the gun in front of him, almost as if to scare the Wicked Witch.

  “I want you to let us out.”

  “You know I can’t do that,” the man replied.

  The Wicked Witch ran her hand slowly up and down one of the cell’s bars. “Oh, come on now. Sure you can.” She began running her hand up and down with greater speed. The man with the gun watched her hand move up and down the bar. Up and down. Down and up. Up and even further up. Stephen placed his hand over his mouth to hide his ever-widening smile.

  “Yeah, baby,” the Wicked Witch said. “Give it to me. Oh yeah. Oh fuck. Holy mother of God. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!” Her orgasmic shrill echoed up and down the corridor like a bullet. It pierced the man’s ear, bounced around the inside of his head a few times, and exited through his other ear. Blood splashed from his ears like someone was doing a piss from inside his head. He fell forward into the Wicked Witch’s waiting arms.

  She pulled the keys from his belt, let him fall to the ground, and unlocked the cell door. She ran out and Stephen followed. They leaped over the man’s motionless body and rounded the bend at the end of the corridor. Standing at the other end of the second corridor was Jesus Christ: Shooting Star. He let the lit cigarette fall from his lips and pulled an automatic rifle from the folds of his robes. “I hear you want to off a referee and some munchkins.”

  The Wicked Witch and Stephen looked at each other. They shrugged and turned back to Jesus.

  “Maybe,” the Wicked Witch said. “What’s it to you?”

  Jesus pulled a cartridge filled with bullets out from behind his back and loaded it into the rifle. “It says in the Bible that Judas hung himself. Nuh-uh.” Jesus aimed the rifle at the Wicked Witch. “I shot the betraying son-of-a-bitch right between the eyes.”

  The Wicked Witch was horrified. “But … I believed in you. You were my hero.”

  “You don’t need no stinking hero,” Jesus said. “What you need is a gun. And not that popgun piece of candy shit the jailer was using.” He held out the rifle to her. “Here. Take it.”

  The Wicked Witch looked at Stephen. “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s right,” Stephen replied. “I think Judas was a betraying son-of-a-bitch.”

  The Wicked Witch frowned. “I meant about the gun. Should I take it?”

  Stephen reached out and took the rifle. He looked at it this way and that. Upside down, right way up. He looked down the barrel of the gun. It was dark down there. He turned to the Wicked Witch. “Jesus, it’s dark down there.”

  The Wicked Witch was confused. “Why did you look at me when you said that?”

  Stephen replied, “Because I was talking to you.”

  “No you weren’t,” the Wicked Witch said. “You were talking to Jesus.”

  “No I wasn’t,” Stephen said. “I was talking to you.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Stephen,” the Wicked Witch said angrily. “You said, ‘Jesus, its dark down there.’”

  Stephen rolled his eyes then looked at the Wicked Witch. “You’re weird. In fact, not only are you weird, you’re fucking weird.”

  “Fuck you, Stephen,” the Wicked Witch fumed. She grabbed the gun off him and shot him in the chest. He fell back against the wall then slid down to the floor. Blood poured from his chest. She turned to Jesus. “You’re next.” She pulled the trigger and shot him in the throat. He grabbed his neck. Blood dripped between his fingers. His body began to convulse and he started to orgasm. He fell to the ground. The Wicked Witch shot him again. He came again. The Wicked Witch smiled. She had just witnessed the second coming of Christ. Yee-hah, baby.

  The Wicked Witch tucked the rifle into the folds of her dress, left the building, and hailed a cab. One pulled over and she climbed in. “Oz, please,” she said. “And don’t spare the horse’s ass.”

  The driver looked over his shoulder. “You know, you don’t need me to get to Oz. Besides, it’d cost you a trillion gazillion dollars in a cab.”

  The Wicked Witch was perplexed. “I don’t get it. What do you mean, I don’t need you?”

  The driver smiled. “You’ve always had the power to get back to Oz. Them boots you got on. All you need to do is click the heels together seventy two thousand, three hundred and eight times, and say, Fuck where I am, get me back home.” His smile widened. “Fuck where you are, Wendy. Get you back home.”

  The Wicked Witch looked down at her boots. She clicked them once. Only seventy two thousand, three hundred and seven times to go. Twice. Thrice. Four times. Five times.

  “Can you get a move on?” the driver asked. “Time’s a wasting.”

  The Wicked Witch looked up at him. Six, seven times, eight, nine, ten times. Fuck it. She would hitch a ride.

  She climbed out of the cab and started walking. She held out her thumb, hoping someone would stop and give her a lift. Someone did.

  “It’s alright, momma,” the man said in a heavy southern accent. “The ol’ Kentucky rain’s behind us now.” He was dressed in a white, sequinned jumpsuit. He looked like he might have stole it and he was on the run from the jailhouse rock. She wasn’t scared though. After all, she was armed with an automatic rifle. She climbed in and sat next to him. She accidentally trod on his foot. “Whoa, momma. Don’t be cruel. And stay off my blue suede shoes. Shee-it.” He switched on the radio and they got a blast of rock and roll. Oh, yeah.

  The Cadillac roared down the highway. Oz, here they come.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Cadillac tore across the hills surrounding Munchkinland. Up and down it went. The Wicked Witch bumped her head on the roof. She rubbed it better then slapped Elvis across the face. “Would you slow the fuck down a little?”

  Elvis slammed his foot on the brake and the car came to a screeching halt. He turned to the Wicked Witch. “You know what, ma’am? A little less conversation and a little less action would go a hell of a long way right now.”

  The Wicked Witch climbed out of the car and slammed the door. “Eh, go eat another fried peanut butter and banana sandwich, ya bloated oaf.” She turned and started for the little village where she would find more munchkins to kill and hopefully Dorothy too.

  Elvis called out to her. “You’re dreaming the impossible dream, momma. You’re gonna end up in the ghetto, that’s for Goddam sure.”

  The Wicked Witch turned to him and gave him the finger. “Up yours, you Kentucky fried fuck.” She turned away and continued her march toward the munchkins. She pulled the automatic rifle out from underneath her dress and slung it over her shoulder. She was going to get her some munchkins and make a munchkin pie, followed by a slice of Dorothy Gale for desert.

  It turns out the Wicked Witch was indeed wicked, but she wanted to share her glory with those who had served her well, so she put two fingers in her mouth and blew. The whistling sound carried high upon the wind to her castle. The winged monkeys heard the call and took flight for Munchkinland. They flew over the hill and landed as one behind the Wicked Witch. With a broad smile, she marched on, followed closely by several hundred monkeys that were followed closely by several hundred drug-testers, each of them tr
ying to get a urine sample from the monkeys to prove true or not the rumour they had been taking illegal drugs. After all, how the fuck else does a monkey grow wings? For that matter, how the fuck does an elderly woman with green skin manage to not die at a much earlier age? And if two by two and two plus two both equal four, why can’t the same be said for three by three and three plus three?

  Son of a BANG! Son of a BOOM!

  The munchkins ran for their lives. So did Dorothy. She dived behind the house and pulled out the bazooka from underneath it. Dear God, please let the training Glinda gave me serve me well. She came out to the front of the house and aimed the bazooka at the Wicked Witch.

  “Oh, you are fucking kidding,” the Wicked Witch said. She wet herself and the urine ran down her leg. She turned and ran. So did the monkeys and the drug testers.

  Dorothy pulled the trigger and the rocket flew past the Wicked Witch. It raced through the air and entered the Wicked Witch’s castle through a second floor window. The Wicked Witch could only watch as the rocket exploded and the castle went up in flames.

  Dorothy loaded another rocket into the bazooka and aimed it again at the Wicked Witch. She pulled the trigger again and the rocket went zooming through the air. It struck the Wicked Witch and she fell to the ground clutching her chest.

  “I’m bleeding,” the Wicked Witch cried. “I’m bleeeee-ding.” She started to melt then disappeared into a pool of blood. What a world indeed.

  “She’s dead,” one of the winged monkeys said. It looked at Dorothy. “You killed her.”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Dorothy said, stepping back from the monkey. “It was an accident.”

  Much to Dorothy’s surprise, the winged monkeys cheered and clapped her for killing the Wicked Witch. Dorothy smiled. She punched the air in jubilation. “YES!”