Shadows of the Emerald City

by J. W. Schnarr

  “I’ll ask around tomorrow, see if there’s a farm nearby where I can find them. Then when the time’s right I’ll take it and, if you like, carve it for you and we’ll try it for next time.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thank you, Linnaea. If it wasn’t for you, I think I might lose my mind.”

  I blushed, then said goodnight. I went home with the leftover pie in my basket.

  Over the next few days I continued my experiments, but I also roamed the countryside, asking around at farmer’s stalls and at the market. It turned out that Mr. P’s pumpkins were so readily available (for he couldn’t use all of them for heads) that many of the nearby farmers had stopped growing them.

  I was forced to roam further afield, taking the better part of the week to find a farmer who was still growing them, and at sizes that suited my work. When I did, I was disappointed to discover that they weren’t part of his current crop rotation and if I wanted them, I would have to use some of the Growing Powder, which I’d left at Mr. P’s house.

  By the time I returned to his farm, I could already see the signs of the rot in his face. The color, originally a nice amber-gold, had faded already, and it sagged slightly on his neck. The features I’d carved, while still pleasant, had lost some of their sharpness.

  “Any problems, boss?” I asked.

  He shook his head, merrily. “None at all,” he said. “I’m telling you, this is the one.”

  I decided not to pierce his swollen hopes and instead set about retrieving the Growth Powder. Tucking the little brown paper packet into the pocket of my coat, I returned to Mr. P. “I’ll be gone for a few more days,” I said. “You’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be right as rain,” he said, bowing. “I’ll be fantastic. But hurry back. I thought we might have dinner on your return.”

  I blushed, but nodded and said okay.

  It took several more days for me to return to the farmer and for the pumpkins to grow, even with the help of the growth powder. The farmer must have thought me a queer sight when I sprinkled the powder onto the sprouts, saying the magic words (which always felt strange in my mouth). But soon the vines were stretching out across the field and the tiny yellow orbs of the pumpkins themselves had started to grow.

  By the time the crop was ready, the farmer bade me thanks for the help, let me select the best of the batch, and then I was off back to Mr. P and his farm.

  I kept the pumpkin whole for the trip, though intending to carve it before he wore it. He’d seemed to like that. I carried it in my basket.

  Mr. P came out to greet me when I called, his head in worse shape than I’d hoped. The color had almost completely faded, now brownish-grey, and it sunk low on his neck, the bottom squashed against his wooden shoulders. Tears had appeared in the skin, and his once proud features were distorted yet again.

  “Linnaea,” he said. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Mr. P,” I said. “I brought you a new head.” I held out the basket to him.

  He looked at it without taking it. “But this one is working just fine,” he said. “This is the one you made for me.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I can make this one, too.”

  He shrugged and took the basket, placing it down on his porch. “I’ll look at it later,” he said.

  I scratched my head. “Okay,” I said. “But we should probably see to it soon. To see if anything changes.”

  “Never mind that,” he said. “How was…” He trailed off, looking at a point above my head.

  “Mr. P?”

  His eyes returned to me, as if he’d just woken up. “How was your trip?” he said, as if nothing had happened.

  “Long,” I said. “It took days just to get the crop in shape. But now we have the sample. And I’ll be able to see how it reacts to you.”

  “Yes…” he said.

  “I’m going to go check on the crops here,” I said. “Then I’ll come back and we can do something about that head.”

  Mr. P bowed again, and I saw the deteriorating crown of his head. “I will get to work on dinner, then,” he said.

  I walked down to the fields with my notebook and made a record of how things were progressing. The crops seemed in fine shape, as well as I would expect them to be. What would be important now would be how Mr. P reacted to the new head. If that succeeded, then there was something systemic to the whole field, despite the fact that the fruits and vegetables flourished before being used as heads for Mr. P. If it failed, then it was something else. Some property of the process, perhaps?

  For many years Mr. P’s heads had been fine. So something had changed. Something that affected the field, or…

  The field.

  I looked at the rows of grave markers, walked over to them. Most of them bore a simple marker. Here Lies the Mortal Part of JACK PUMPKINHEAD and the date which it spoiled. That is until the end. Because the heads were spoiling so fast, they had been tossed into something like a mass grave, piled on top of one another with no marker. The last marker bore a date near to when the troubles started happening.

  Between this marker and the mass grave, was an unmarked plot of earth. I looked back to the house - Mr. P was nowhere to be seen, probably busy with dinner - so I grabbed my spade and started digging.

  It wasn’t long before my spade hit something, and as I bent to see what it was, my hand closed on something long and wooden. I pulled it from the damp earth, to find that it was an arm, with a hand, lovingly crafted and jointed, on its end. I turned it over, wiping the dirt from it to admire it.

  The arm had been sanded smooth, letting the natural color of the wood beneath come through, but something in the earth had grown over it, ropy strands of mucous-green vines or roots lacing up over the wood.

  Then it moved.

  I dropped it and scurried out of the hole I’d dug. Then, as my panic subsided, I chided myself for my silliness. It had probably just flopped over as I turned it. I crouched down to retrieve it again, this time, picking it up by the wrist.

  The hand swiveled and gripped my arm. I swatted at it with my free hand, but it held firm. Then it began to squeeze.

  Pain shot through my arm, and I felt the pressure on my bone. I slammed the severed arm against the ground, but that only caused a white blossom of agony that almost made me pass out.

  I reached for the spade, closed my hand around the part where the shaft met the metal blade and brought it down on the arm. Each strike sent blinding pain streaking through me, but I closed my eyes and hammered at it until I heard a splintering sound that I hoped was the wood cracking.

  The hand loosened and I yanked my arm back, scrabbling out of the hole. With my feet, my good hand, and then my body, I pushed the exhumed earth back into the hole on top of the still-moving limb. Before it disappeared, I thought I saw more wooden fragments pushing themselves up through the soil.

  I ran for the house, my left arm useless, dangling at my side, each step sending new pain ringing through it. I thought it must be broken.

  I ran into the house, to Mr P. He was busying himself with some food, fussing near the oven.

  “I know what it is that caused this,” I said, breathless, and wincing with the pain.

  “What?” he said.

  “Your companion. The one you made. Whatever was in that powder, it went horribly wrong. That thing is still alive. And when it attacked you, I think, something must have happened. To you. To make your heads rot and decay. I think that’s what it is.”

  Mr. P tilted his head to one side. He clasped his hands in front of him, and I saw that they were bare, with no gloves. The wood of the arms and fingers, little more than branches with crude extensions, was riddled with strands of sickly yellow. They wove up the arms like turgid veins.

  “Mr. P,” I said. “Jack. You need help. Maybe Ozma, or someone, can help you. It might be possible to fix this.”

  “It doesn’t need fixing,” Mr. P said. “You’re here now. That other one, she was a mistake. I didn’t need to make
her, I just needed to find you.”

  “You’re not listening to me.”

  “I have something for you,” he said. “Come.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me into his kitchen. There, on the counter, was the pumpkin I had brought him, carved. Like his old mismatched face, its features spread across the skin of the pumpkin, the eyes jagged gashes that skewed apart from one another, the nose little more than a slit, the mouth a grotesque slash.

  “What is that for?” I said.

  He looked at me, the smile stretched across his face, the way I had made it. “Why for you, of course.”

  I stared, uncomprehending. I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “So you can be like me,” he said. “So we can be together.” He reached down below the counter and brought up an axe. “We just need to get rid of the head you have now.”

  I screamed.

  I ran.

  He stumbled after me. I ran for the fields, for the open sky.

  “Come back,” he called. “We can be together.”

  I pushed my legs as hard as I could, but he was taller and his legs longer and I felt him crash into me, and push me down to the fresh soil. He rolled me over, straddling me with his wooden legs. Up close, I could see that the wood beneath the cuffs of his trousers was also covered with the same veiny growths.

  “Hold still,” he said, his voice still merry. “It will only take a moment.”

  His sagging face hovered over mine, the smile wide. A brown slug slithered from his open mouth, like a tongue, dripping slime. It plopped onto my neck, writhing.

  I screamed again.

  My left arm was useless, broken, but I pulled my right hand free and clawed for his face. I hooked my fingers into his right eye cavity, and pulled. Great chunks of rotten pumpkin pulled away. The sickeningly sweet scent of rot filled my nose. I saw into the dark cavity of his head. Maggots squirmed and wriggled through the decaying pulp.

  He gripped my broken arm with his hand and pain roared through me. My eyes rolled up in my head and everything went black for a moment.

  When they flickered open, he was standing over me, the axe in his hand. “It will only hurt for a moment,” he said. “Then we’ll be together.”

  I scrabbled with my free hand for something, anything that could help me. I stuffed it down into my coat pocket.

  “You’ve eaten of me,” Mr. P said. “I’m already inside of you.”

  My hand closed on the Powder of Growth. I threw it at him and screamed the magic words. But the wood of his body was long dead and the pumpkin, too.

  He brought the axe back. The veiny growths pulsed along his arms. They spread, coursing across the wood.

  He toppled back.

  I scrambled up and, using my good hand and all my weight, pulled on the axe gripped between his twig fingers. It came free. Then, turning, I brought it down on him. Again and again. Wood splinters flew into the air. Then maggot strewn pumpkin pulp. I hacked and hacked away at him until he was all splinters.

  Then I thought about passing out. About giving into the pain and the weariness that gripped me. But I couldn’t.

  Instead I gathered the splinters and other pieces together, using the shovel to push them into a pile on top of the tablecloth. Then I took them inside to the oven and pushed them all in to burn.

  I would have to leave. To flee. Mr. P was a close confidant of the queen and I wasn’t sure that anyone would believe me as to what had happened. So I snuck out in the night again, thinking that perhaps I should visit Munchkin or Gillikin country for a change. I would need to find a doctor at least to set my broken arm which I bound in place with some cloth.

  It was only later, days after I’d left the pumpkin fields, that I remembered the wooden limbs in the unmarked grave still moving, ceaselessly moving, beneath the soil.

  The End.

  Tin

  by Barry Napier

  He watched her as she slept, being careful not to make a sound. His joints had been making the occasional odd noise ever since he had started walking again and at times, he felt as if his legs weren’t his own. So he knelt there, his old knees against the ground, watching the sleeping girl.

  Her dog lay curled beside her. Its ear had twitched for a moment as he had approached and there was a panicked moment where he feared the dog had heard him. But the mongrel had settled down and remained asleep by the girl’s side.

  He watched the girl breathing—in and out, simple yet somehow so complicated. He admired her for her anatomy and the way her mind worked. She was rather daft at times but there was a brilliance about her that he did not understand.

  After all, he was not made of flesh. He was pretty sure he used to be, but that had been a very long time ago.

  The closest thing to human anatomy he possessed were his hands. The joints were flawless and moved like the human girl’s. When he had been created, much detail had gone into his hands. At one time, they had been his most imperative feature.

  But not now. Now he was old, decrepit and of little use.

  Or so everyone thought.

  He grinned. His face made a slight sound as his mouth moved but it was so miniscule that not even the dog heard it.

  He watched them a bit longer—the girl from a place called Kansas and her annoying little pet—as he tested the reflexes of his hands.

  He tested them by squeezing the handle of the axe he held. His axe, just like his tin body, reflected the moonlight in a peculiar shade of white.

  He could do it now, if he wanted. He could just plunge the axe into the girl’s chest. He could squash the dog into a bloody mess with his heavy foot. It would be over in a matter of seconds.

  He peered back over his shoulder, his neck making another of those slight rusted sounds. The Scarecrow was several yards behind them, snoring and oblivious. By the time that imbecile got to his shaky feet and rushed to the girl’s rescue, it would be done.

  His shoulders seemed to flinch in anticipation of raising the axe into the air and driving it into the girl’s body.

  But something inside of him told him to wait.

  He looked away from the Scarecrow and focused on the copse of trees that they had selected to camp behind. He could see the magnificent yellow glow of the road through the trees. He wondered if the bricks of gold that comprised the road were speaking to him, telling him to wait and to properly fulfill his destiny.

  Looking at the road made him feel sick. He may not have a heart, but he knew pain. And to him, the Yellow Brick Road was nothing but pain and suffering.

  He looked back to the girl and her dog. He clenched the axe one final time and then relaxed his grip.

  In time, it would be done. But not just yet.

  Hundreds of years ago, when Munchkinland had been nothing more than a bald spot within the forest, there had been plans to unify Oz. According to the Wizard of that time—a beloved man by the name of Rondolpho—and his council, it was illogical for such a diverse scope of citizens living in such seclusion from one another. For Oz to truly be great, it was believed that everyone in the land should live as one rather than as individual societies.

  It was also believed that witches, Munchkins, common folk and all races in between should be able to live in a harmony that was befitting of the Land of Oz. There had been talk of clearing out much of the forests and connecting the villages and small towns with the rest of Oz. For Munchkins that needed to travel to the Emerald City, there was no sense in having to hike for eight days through the grueling and terrifying forests. There should be an easier way, a way for everyone to share the same conveniences of travel.

  The Tin Woodsmen had been hired to work with transportation personnel from the Emerald City. Together, over a very tiresome period of four years, a great portion of Oz’s woodland was knocked down. As the Tin Woodsmen chopped down the trees, Emerald City employees followed behind them, leveling the earth and laying down brick. When work was not going as fast as planned, mill workers and magicians from the Emerald
City worked overtime to create new Tin Woodsmen.

  It was a gruesome process, one that required actual human woodsmen to be transformed. The legs and arms were magically altered into large chunks of tin, molded to resemble something akin to human appendages. Most of the real work had gone into the eyes and hands—the finest detail ever created by the wizards within Oz.

  And that was how he had been made.

  Formerly a man named (rather aptly) Nick Chopper, he remembered very little of his human life. With his transformation into a Tin Woodsmen, he had easily forsaken his mortal memories for a life of immortality. But his was a life that hadn’t been worth remembering.

  His shrew of a wife had broken his heart and left him with nothing. So when the Wizard’s men came calling, he gladly accepted the task. It gave him purpose and made him feel important for the first time in his life. And from what he could tell, the majority of the other Tin Woodsmen were there for the same reason—to escape a life that had been less than hospitable to them.

  Of course, when the offer had been extended to Nick and the hundreds of other participants, they’d had no idea that they were agreeing to participate in a life of servitude.

  The first glimpse of this life of slavery came two and a half years into the construction of the Yellow Brick Road. The crew at that time consisted of just over eight hundred Tin Woodsmen and three hundred employees from Emerald City. They had come to a clearing in the woods that, according to the topographers and mapmakers of Emerald City, had never been discovered.

  The clearing was specked with small huts and shanties and was populated by a race of Munchkins that Nick had never seen. They were actually a bit smaller than typical Munchkins and looked rather like trolls. As the Tin Woodsmen awaited instruction, Nick heard murmurs from those around him.

  “I’ve seen these creatures before,” said a Tin Woodsmen named Alzo. “Several years ago in the village of Yull. There were perhaps a dozen of these creatures living among the people. They are called Woodkins.”