“ROSE!” Nellie shouted again.
“She will remain in my world. Forever. In a deep sleep.”
The image dissolved and only Nellie and Dorothy’s pale panicked expressions reflected back.
“Come to her, Nellie, if you dare. Come save your little Sleeping Beauty.”
Nellie reached out to touch the looking glass with trembling fingers. But Alice’s last act of defiance struck; a shock like high-voltage electricity passed through Nellie’s hand and sent her flying backward to the floor with a painful thud.
Dorothy ran to Nellie and wrapped the broken and sobbing woman in her arms.
CHAPTER 28
Lifeless bodies littered the asylum floor. Papers fluttered through the air on currents of heat, whipped to a frenzy by the chaos that filled the nearby hallways.
Nellie used her good hand, and all of her remaining strength, to pull her bruised and battered body slowly across the floor toward the once white coat of a recently former orderly of the madhouse. Every inch forward wracked her body with pain, but it had been sheer will that had brought her through this nightmare, and it would continue to push her through what was to come next.
Her hand shook as she guided it into the pocket of the orderly’s coat and found the thing she sought: a pen. The ringing in her ears continued as she pulled herself upward into a sitting position to rest against the wall. Her hand trembled, sliding one of the dirty pages from the floor to her side. Through the terror and exhaustion, she put pen to paper:
It seems strange that through some miracle I find myself alive, and the first thing I do is to find a piece of paper and write. I am, after all, a reporter at heart.
The worlds the girls have called Oz and Wonderland clashed together on this day. They were not fantasy lands or figments of youthful imagination. They were real — and inhabited by demons. This war began even before Dorothy and Alice met. And was I lucky or cursed that I was there to witness it all? What I write sounds absurd to every sense of the human experience. But I’ve seen it, heard it, felt it in my very soul. I know it to be true. And I know now what I must do.
Dorothy ran back from the hallway. “There’s no one left. It’s just us.”
Nellie nodded and pulled herself up onto her feet. Leaning against the wall, she staggered toward the mirror.
“You can’t go.” Dorothy’s eyes filled with tears. “If you go, I can’t protect you. I don’t know how to get into Wonderland.”
“I can’t abandon her. I’m all she has left.” Nellie pulled the paper from her pocket and held it out to Dorothy. “Go … use this. Tell the world what happened here.”
“You promised you would get me out of here.”
“I’m sorry, Dorothy … I have to go.”
“You promised!” Dorothy cried, her lower lip trembling. Nellie opened her mouth to speak, but stopped. There was something in Dorothy’s eyes now, something that hadn’t been there before. It was familiar somehow, and it sent a small wave of fear rippling through her exhausted body.
Nellie closed her eyes. “You need to stay here where you’ll be safe.” She leaned over, kissed Dorothy on the cheek, and turned toward the mirror.
“TAKE ME WITH YOU!” Dorothy screamed, with all of her might, her body shaking.
Nellie did not turn back, nor did she speak. With her head hung, she stepped through the mirror. Instantly, the cracks healed. The looking glass was again just a looking glass.
Dorothy rushed to the mirror, but it was too late. She collapsed to the ground and wept.
With a high-pitched whirring, the lockdown panels sprang to life and lifted up away from the windows and doors. The asylum staff members who had not been on duty arrived at the entrance, ready to assist with the aftermath of the lockdown. But what they found sent some screaming from the door, one to vomit, and others to run for help.
It took hours to clear a path and wheel the bodies out of the facility to be laid side by side on the lawn for identification. Of note, they were never able to find Dr. Henry Braun. He was presumed to have been a casualty of fire.
Only Dorothy remained. The staff found her in front of the large mirror, sobbing and unable to answer questions. They escorted her out onto the lawn into the sunshine and fresh air.
Dr. Braun’s office was another casualty of fire. His research, specimens, photographs, books, files — all were reduced to ash, and irretrievable. All save for one peculiar item.
The orderlies’ normally white uniforms were covered in black soot as they transported burnt remains and debris outside.
A red headed orderly pulled down the rag he had tied over his mouth and nose long enough to speak to his companion. “What in the living hell is this, Randal?” He pulled a soot-covered sheet off of one of Dr. Braun’s machines.
The Cognome Machine remained completely intact, with only remnants of ash littering the normally shiny screen and tubes.
“Hypnotic Machine: For Mass Use” he read from the label inside its metal frame.
“Oh yeah, Doug told me about it,” Randal laughed. “Apparently he called it a,” he held his fingers in the air indicating quotes, “’A Tele-Vision’. He said in the future everyone would have one in their house. It shows moving pictures, I guess, like at the theater.”
“Oh! Just smaller and in your house? That sure would be the bees knees! But you’d hafta play your own piano music, I guess?”
“It’s just a bunch of junk. Nurse Ball said so.”
They both shrugged and wheeled the Tele-Vision out to the entrance on the way to the courtyard.
Dorothy stood in the doorway and smiled.
“’Scuse us, Miss,” Chris nodded to her. “You gotta go back outside now.”
Dorothy shook her head and stepped inside, shutting the door. The orderlies looked at each other. “Look, we don’t want to get rough with you. C’mon, just listen, for once.”
Dorothy stood before them with her arms taut at her sides and her fists clenched. She closed her eyes.
A wind surged around their feet, whipping and circling around the orderlies and sending papers flying and spinning about them.
“What the hell?” Randal said lifting his arms as the gale rose up his torso. Dorothy’s aura began to emanate from all around. But this time, the gentle and calming dark blue was gone. This time, it was black. Like Alice’s.
The orderlies dropped to their knees, screaming. Chris banged his head against the floor holding his ears while Randal pressed on his eyes.
And just as suddenly as it had begun, the pain stopped. Chris collapsed to the ground. Randal sat up and tried to see the door through his blurred vision. But the door was long gone. He rubbed his eyes and fell back.
EPILOGUE
It was nighttime, and they were outside on a brick path, under red skies filled with black storm clouds.
“What in God’s name??” Chris cried, scrabbling up to his hands and knees. They were stationed at the bottom of a pedestal, upon which Dorothy reposed on a throne. Gone was the beautiful girl with rosy cheeks and perfect brown braids. In her place sat a female adorned by human skin and rubber-looking material stretched over her body. She was, in effect, wearing a macabre second skin. The throne was of metal, barbed wire, and chains with hooks that held her in place and tore at her flesh.
Dorothy leaned forward, pulling against the hooks and further stretching her gaping, pink wounds. “I’m your only god, here.” She kicked one leg over the arm of the throne and leaned back. “Nellie said my powers are fueled by blood. I have to save her. I’m going after her.”
Chris sprang to his feet to dart toward the tall black grass, but chains with hooks shot from the throne and latched into his shoulder blades. He cried out and collapsed to the ground.
Unfazed, Dorothy pointed to air above them. They followed her finger to the object suspended above them by chains: the ornate mirror from the asylum entryway. It radiated a powerful, black aura.
“But to go after Nell, I’ll need an army …”
Randal followed her blank stare down the brick path to the bottom of the hill. There, stood thousands upon thousands of snarling, snapping demons. Looking at them as they stood, line by line in formation, he could not see a beginning or an end.
“ …and lots of blood,” she finished, leaning back down toward them.
Chris stammered, hanging on to the chains that dug into his back. “Wha — what? Who — who are you?”
Dorothy stood, towering over them. She crossed her arms and looked out upon her armies. “I am Dorothy Gale, from Kansas. And you will be my sacrifice.”
Their queen raised her arms over her head and shouted, her voice echoing over their masses. The black shadow rose up behind and all around her throne.
The orderlies’ screams of anguish and terror were instantly drowned out by the thunderous roars and cheers from below.
“Wonderland will regret the day they ever crossed us, the armies of OZ!”
The Universe of Bedlam Stories
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Author
Christine Converse has been a freelance writer since 1994. Publishing credits include dozens of magazine articles, video game strategy guides and books.
For the next several years, she wrote magazine articles for top gaming magazines and published multiple guide books for games about very popular plumbers, zombie apocalypses, vampires with swords, aliens, replicants, jedi and more.
Creator
Pearry Teo is a film director who has worked on such films as Necromentia, Dracula: the Dark Prince and The Gene Generation. He is well known for his dark aesthetics and visuals in his work.
Pearry first envisioned Bedlam Stories in 2009 and created a visual compendium as a reference. In 2011, Together with Nicole Jones and Chad Michael Ward, they created the genesis of the script and laid out the foundation of what became Bedlam Stories.
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