Dorothy In the Land of Monsters

by Garten Gevedon

  Dorothy in the Land of Monsters

  Oz ReVamped Book One

  Garten Gevedon

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

  DOROTHY IN THE LAND OF MONSTERS

  Copyright © 2019 by G. G. Hale, Inc.

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  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Convention. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether it be electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  www.gartengevedon.com

  EBook Edition © 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-0-463-11266-3

  Paperback Edition © 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-1-099-01192-4

  Hardcover Edition © 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-0-578-51498-7

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  THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ Copyright © 1899 by L. Frank Baum

  Cover and interior design by Schatten Studios

  For Tuesday

  Contents

  1. The Cyclone

  2. And I Thought Kansas Sucked

  3. How I Saved a Zombie

  4. The Blood-Soaked Road Through the Forest of Deadly Things

  5. My Run-in with the Heartless Axe Murderer

  6. A Civilized Education for the Axeman

  7. The Company of Zombies

  8. The Cowardly Shifter

  9. The Haunting of Nick Chopper

  10. The Journey to the Vampire Free Zone

  11. The Deadly Poppy Field

  12. The Queen of the Wererats

  13. The Magical Transport to Emerald Station

  14. The Guardian of the Gate

  15. The City of Emeralds

  16. The Emerald Palace

  17. The Great and Terrible Wizard of Oz

  18. The Enchanted Hollow

  19. The Calm Before the Storm

  20. The Search for the Vampire Witch

  21. In the Service of Evil

  22. The Liberation of the Winkie Slaves

  23. The Vampire Bat Monkeys

  24. The Discovery of Oz the Fraud

  25. The Emerald Balloon

  26. Into the Undead Jungle

  27. Through the Zombielands

  28. The Country of Bisque and Bone

  29. The Shifter King

  30. The Redwoman Army

  31. The Red Witch

  32. Home Again—but not for long

  Acknowledgments

  Letter to the Reader

  About the Author

  Also by Garten Gevedon

  1

  The Cyclone

  Gray everywhere. As I stand on the porch of my aunt and uncle’s home, all I can see is the great gray expanse of prairie on every side. No trees, houses, buildings, people, nothing at all breaks the broad sweep of flat gray country that reaches to the edge of the gray sky in every direction. The sun scorched the plowed fields into a dusty mass that expands to the horizon line, the endless gloom broken only by the little black shadows of the fissures running through it like the marbling of a corpse.

  Even the grass is dead and gray—the hot sun singed the blades until they were the same lifeless color that blankets everything. Years ago, the house was a pristine white, but the torrid summer sun burned and blistered the paint and the heavy winter rains battered it away, and now the house is as weathered and gray as everything else here. It’s fitting for what it’s like to live here in Middle of Nowhere, Kansas. It looks like what it is—bleak, leached of any color, any excitement, anything interesting at all—drained of life. Gray is gray is gray is my life. It surrounds me from all sides, all the time. And it sucks. Thanks a lot, climate change.

  I came to live with my Uncle Henry and Aunt Emily on a crappy little farm when my parents died in a car accident. I was thirteen. Because Emily was the only family I had left, she got stuck with me. She could have refused me and left me as a ward of the state, but she was kind enough to take me in. Even though I don’t share the same connection with Emily and Henry that I did with my parents, they’re still family—the only family I have—so, I may complain about this being the middle of nowhere, but it’s better than being in an orphanage or foster care or some group home. Yeah, their place is tiny, and old, but at least it has four walls, a floor, and a roof.

  The two-bedroom farmhouse I live in is as weathered and brittle as the farm it’s set on. One story with no attic and no basement, the only feature it has is a cyclone cellar which we’ve had yet to use since I’ve lived here. It may lack color and any of the luxuries most people in America have these days—cable, wifi, consistent hot water to shower with—but I am grateful I have somewhere to live, even if life here is so gray that the grayness proliferates, turning everything in it to a gray as dry as dust.

  When Aunt Emily came here to live with Uncle Henry, she was a young, pretty, vivacious woman with golden hair and bright emerald green eyes—or I thought I remembered her that way. Even she’s gray now. Just like it changed this once green land, the sun and wind have changed her, and her once sparkling green eyes are now dim and muted, tinged with a melancholy gray. Living here in this sweltering, exanimate world has stolen her radiance and left her ashen. It’s exhausted the red from her cheeks and lips, and now they’re pallid and gray too. Once she was curvy and a little plump. Now she’s gaunt and never smiles. Can’t blame her for never smiling, living in this dull, gray crap hole.

  When I first came to her, Aunt Emily would startle when I laughed. She’d scream and look at me like I was nuts, shocked I could find anything to laugh at in this gray place. Uncomfortable and bored out of my skull, I’d laugh trying to entertain myself, trying not to let the depression get the best of me, but after being here for four years, I get it now—what is there to laugh about when all that’s here is gray?

  Uncle Henry never laughs either. Morning to night, all he does is work hard. If he knows what joy is, he doesn’t let on. From his gray beard to his rough boots, Henry is also gray, stern, and solemn. With a permanent stone face, he almost never speaks. It’s like he’s made of hard, gray stone. If he didn’t work so much trying to make this gray land yield something, I’d think he was stone—a gray statue of a man.

  Sometimes I wonder if it’s me that’s gray, or the lens I see the world through. Before my parents died, my life was a bright white, like a pristine sheet of paper wishing for a colorful story to grace its surface. Then the black smear of tragedy struck, and it’s as though the thousands of tears I shed diffused the black that blemished my bright whiteness, spreading it over the unsullied parts like watercolor, leaving my world gray. But I don’t think I’m gray. Not yet. I don’t think it has spread to me yet.

  If I didn’t have Toto, my bloodhound, who I’ll admit makes me laugh often, I’d already be as gray as everything else that surrounds me. Small and black with some reddish brown around his face and paws, Toto is not gray. His twinkling black eyes are framed by the longest lashes I’ve ever seen. Feisty for a bloodhound, and smaller than most, I’m sure he’s a mutt but I have no clue what he’s mixed with. My best guess is he’s a bloodhound terrier mix of some kind because he’s scruffy and small and so darn cute, but I can’t be sure. Whatever breeds he may be, he’s my dog, and I love the little guy. We play catch, go on walks, and if
I didn’t have him, I’d be a complete mess in this life of chronic grayness. The only thing about living on a farm in Ash-Gray, Kansas that doesn’t suck is Toto.

  Today we’re not playing catch. Henry sits on the porch steps in front of me looking nervous for once. He stares at the sky, which is even grayer than usual. I’m standing on the porch with Toto and I’m looking at the sky too. Aunt Em washes the dishes inside. What an exciting life I live.

  From the far north, a low wail of the wind rolls across the plain, and the long gray grass bows in waves before the coming storm. From the south, a sharp whistling resounds through the air, rippling the grass behind me. Uncle Henry shoots up to his feet and calls to my aunt through the open front door of the house.

  “Cyclone’s coming, Em. I’ll go look after the stock.”

  With that short word, he runs toward the sheds where we keep the cows and horses.

  Aunt Emily drops her work, comes to the doorway, and glances outside.

  “Quick, Dorothy! Run for the cellar!” she screams like a banshee.

  Startled by her loud shriek, Toto bolts into my room.

  Wonderful.

  Emily rushes to the trap door in the middle of the living room floor and scurries down the ladder that leads into a small, dark hole. I go to get Toto, bursting into my room and doing my best to coax him out from under the bed.

  “Come on, Toto, let’s play!” I say, keeping my voice light.

  He inches out, creeping toward me, and when he gets close enough I grab his paws and lift him into my arms before rushing toward the trap door that leads down into the cellar. We get halfway across the room when a great shriek from the wind, even louder than Emily’s, resonates through the space, and the house shakes so hard that I fall right on my butt. A loud screech then a hard crack reverberates through me as Toto howls, frantic and afraid.

  The north and south winds meet right where the house stands, or I guess stood, making it the exact center of the cyclone, the eye of the storm. Three times, the house whirls around like it’s landed on the minute hand of a fast winding clock. We rise through the air in the updraft, spinning countless times as we ascend, the rotation so fast, so forceful that the pressure drives Toto and me back against the wall. Inside the funnel, the air is still but the force of the wind on every side of the house pushes it up the vortex higher and higher until it’s at the top of the twister. And here it remains, carrying us miles and miles away, preparing to drop us hard when it stops so Toto and I can plummet to our deaths.

  My gray flicker of a life will end insignificant. An achromatic waste.

  Darkness falls, and the wind howls around us, but we’re riding this twister with ease. Nothing is busting apart, we’re not flailing around, so that’s lucky.

  As if the fates heard my thought and felt the need to set me straight, the house tips on its side, and I slide across the floor. Right before I hit the wall, I grab hold of a floor board with one hand while holding Toto in the other.

  “Please,” I whisper, and it tips back, thank goodness.

  On its counter-swing, a swaying begins and the house rocks like a rocking chair, or like a pendulum swinging back and forth, back and forth.

  Terrified by the motion, Toto escapes from my grip, running and barking all over the living room while I sit still on the floor awaiting my death. It sucks to die like this, so young, having accomplished nothing, seen nothing, been nothing but a girl who lost her parents.

  I’ve led a colorless life. A gray existence.

  Toto goes haywire, bouncing off the walls as he runs around the room barking, and when he gets too near the open trap door, my heart leaps into my throat. I dive for him, but before I can grab him, he falls through the hole. All at once, I gasp and scream, sorrow and terror clutching my chest. I collapse in a sob as one of his ears sticks up through the hole, the strong pressure of the air keeping him up so he doesn’t fall but floats instead. Relief and gratitude wash over me, and I creep to the hole, catch Toto by his ear, drag him up into the room, and slam the trap door shut so no more accidents like that can happen again. When we go down, and we will soon enough, we’re going down together.

  I hold Toto tight to my chest and pray that death doesn’t come too quick. There was a time when I wished for death, right after my parents died, but it was fleeting. Hope for a colorful future soon replaced the depression, and it breaks my heart the future I wished for on so many stars will never be.

  As I cherish the final moments of my life, I kiss my best friend atop his head while he trembles in my arms, and I pin the last of my hopes on a painless demise for us both.

  Time passes and death doesn’t come, at least not as fast as I expect, so I take these final moments to take stock of my life, of what I have gone through, of what I’ve done, for myself, for others, and aside from the loss of my parents, there’s not much to account for.

  I loved my parents, even my gray aunt and uncle, and Toto who has been my most trusted friend and the pride and joy of my life these past years. School was far away with only a few students from neighboring farms of varying ages, and making connections to others was difficult for me—the distance between our homes, the age differences, and my discontent with the life they didn’t seem to mind kept me reclusive, unable to relate. But I did my work, and I tried to help on the farm. I even learned to milk a cow, cook a little, but I had no great friendships, I didn’t go to any great parties, and I had no great adventures.

  There was a guy for a while, a boyfriend type, but it was an unremarkable relationship. Billy and I liked each other, but it was not anything near love. He lived on a neighboring farm, the closest farm to ours, went to my school, and he was nice enough, but we weren’t more than friends. A gray relationship had in a gray area between friendship and convenience. This horrific incident is the most excitement I’ve ever had. Solitary and uneventful describe my life too well. In so many ways, it’s been a disappointment.

  Hour after hour passes away, and as time moves on without my death, the fear, the depression begotten from recollections of a sorrowful, banal, inchoate life melts away. But the loneliness remains. I’ve been lonely for as long as I can remember, even before my parents died, and in these last moments of my existence, I’m more lonesome than I’ve ever been. It’s as though all the isolation I’ve ever felt looms, haunting me, reminding me of the connections I lost, and the ones I never made.

  Could this be the afterlife? Maybe I already died, and this is my existence now—an eerie, endless limbo, a ceaseless purgatory, or some peculiar version of hell. Even though I did nothing too terrible, I did nothing great either. I didn’t fall in love. I did nothing exceptional or noble like volunteering at a homeless shelter or joining the peace corps or anything like that. My life has been a selfish one, I guess, except for rescuing Toto from the pound. But my relationship with Toto is selfish, considering I get so much from it. Self-sacrifice isn’t something I’ve done too much of. If I live after this, if this isn’t death, if I survive, that’s something I will make it a point to do—be altruistic and live my life to the fullest, experience exciting things, great things, wonderful things like falling in love and traveling to places filled with the colors my life lacks.

  Deafening shrieks of wind scream, echoing in my eardrums as Toto howls in my lap. Terrified and heartbroken my life is almost over, tears fill my eyes and I clutch my ears waiting for the house to crash to the ground, expecting to meet death at any moment. Instead, the earsplitting screeches ebb to a low whistle.

  More time passes, hours and hours, and in that time, even though the house still sways, I resolve to wait, to stay calm and see what the future will bring. This strange, phantasmagorical event, these last hours spent hurtling through the sky is the most surreal and spellbinding situation I have ever faced. Hopeful that whatever comes next will be better than the dull, gray life I’ve lived these past four years, surrender washes over me and I resolve to have a more colorful future, whether it be in this life or the next, in an
afterlife, a purgatory, a hell, or a heaven.

  All this swaying is making me sleepy, so I crawl over the rocking floor to my bed and Toto follows. We get into bed and cuddle up under the covers. The house sways, the wind wails, and I close my eyes to rest so I am ready for the next chapter, praying whatever that may be is not gray. Soon after my head hits the pillow, I drift off to sleep.

  2

  And I Thought Kansas Sucked

  Slam! Toto and I fly up at least five feet above my bed and crash back down hard.

  What the hell happened?

  Toto puts his cold nose into my face and releases a dismal whine. I sit up and take a breath trying to calm my racing heart.

  The house is still in one piece. It isn’t moving, and it’s not dark anymore. Bright sunshine floods in through the window of my little room. I spring up out of bed and, with Toto at my heels, run and open the door.

  “What the…” I spurt out, looking around me in befuddled wonderment, my eyes growing bigger and bigger at the sight of my surroundings.

  The cyclone must have set the house down, as soft as a cyclone could, amid a land made of beauty and horror. Chills run up and down my spine as I take in the macabre landscape before me.