The Shadow of Oz Short Read online

  I wonder what it would be like to fly, even if for just a few seconds. Just close your eyes and take a leap of faith.

  Would the thrill of the air rushing up to meet her ease her troubled mind? Could a moment of feeling like an Angel be worth the fall? She wondered if, in hindsight, Lucifer had considered his falling worth it in the end. It would be an end to all her misery, an end to everything. All she had to do was take one... more... step.

  “Hey, you!” a voice cried out from behind her. The sound startled her so badly she almost lost her balance. She tipped back and forth and waved her hands in huge circles as she tried to stay upright. Eventually, she fell backwards, landed on her ass, and burst into intoxicated laughter again.

  Dorothy looked over her shoulder. Oh shit. It was old-man Mitchell. He was one of Uncle Henry's friends, and he already warned her about being on his property. If he realized she was drunk and doped up on pills, she was as good as dead.

  “Dorothy Gale!” Mitchell shouted as he came walking down the dirt road. “What have I told you about that ravine? It's dangerous! Get away from there, girl!”

  Dorothy considered running for it. Mitchell could barely walk. She doubted he could run, but then he'd be sure to tell her aunt and uncle where she had been. She stood up, dusted herself off, and waited on the inevitable shit-storm that was about to hit.

  With sweat beading up on his brow, old man Mitchell tried to catch his breath. “Dorothy, one of these days you're going to break your—" He paused and took a whiff of the air.

  Oh fuck. Here it comes.

  “Dorothy? Have you been drinking?” His left eye twitched and he pulled a discolored off-white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face.

  Dorothy was caught red-handed and she knew it. Her only response was to smile and try not to giggle. There was truly nothing funny about the trouble she was about to get into, but the combination of pills and booze made her want to laugh anyway.

  Old man Mitchell took one look at Dorothy and sighed. He shoved his handkerchief back into his overalls and took Dorothy by the arm. “Come on, girl. If we're going to make you presentable before your Auntie sees you, we're going to have to hurry.”

  Dorothy sat at the kitchen table staring at the sickening concoction old man Mitchell had placed in front of her. “What... the... heck is this?”

  “Olive oil, raw egg yolk, salt, pepper, Tabasco, and lemon juice. I promise, it'll sober you up real quick. That's my grandma's old recipe. Works every time.”

  Dorothy grimaced and pushed the glass to the other side of the table. “I think just looking at that made me sober.”

  Mitchell smiled and took a seat at the table. “Look, your Aunt Em has a lot of experience dealing with drunks. Before your Uncle Henry cleaned himself up, he used to shut down the only bar in town every night.”

  Dorothy almost fell out of her chair, partially from shock, and partially from being tipsy. “Uncle Henry? Are you serious? There's no way he used to drink.”

  Mitchell chuckled. “There's a lot you don't know about your aunt and uncle. Before Henry found Jesus and your aunt found some peace of mind, things were quite different for them. I can't tell you how many times I had to go with your aunt and pick your Uncle Henry up from the jail for public intoxication.”

  She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Uncle Henry had to be the most straight-laced, boring son of a bitch she had ever met. Him? Drink? Inconceivable!

  Dorothy glanced up at Mitchell with doubting eyes. “You've got to be kidding me, right?”

  Mitchell shook his head. “Nope. I've been friends with your aunt and uncle for over forty years, since we were in grade school together. Now drink up. You've got to be getting home soon.”

  Dorothy caught a whiff of the toxic looking cocktail Mitchell had made her and fought back the urge to vomit. Once she recomposed herself, she looked up at him and asked, “Why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?” Mitchell replied with a smile.

  “Helping me get away with getting drunk? Why aren't you turning me in?”

  Mitchell paused and looked lost for a moment. He looked around the room, adjusted his chair, and then sighed. “Because the last thing your Auntie Em needs is to worry about you any more than she already does. Ever since, well… ever since what happened to your parents, she's been a wreck. She's hiding it the best she can, but I've known her far too long for her to pull the wool over my eyes. She's worried sick about you, Dorothy, and I can't say I blame her. People can't go through what you went through without it turning their world upside down. If she knew you were drinking, she'd probably lose her mind, and I can't have that. I won't have that. So, we're going to get you sober and make sure your aunt never has a clue this ever happened. Now drink up.”

  He pushed the cocktail back to Dorothy's side of the table. She still had her doubts, but she figured why the Hell not. She held her nose and gulped the drink down in two giant swigs. No sooner had the volatile liquid hit her stomach it came back up. Mitchell was quick to move a garbage can over to Dorothy and to pull her hair back.

  “That's it, girl. Get it all out of you.” If it wasn't for the fact that it felt like she was spewing battery acid out of the pit of her stomach, she might have tried to kill the old man. His intentions were good, but his methods were cruel—just like life.

  Chapter Ten

  Dorothy had to give it to old man Mitchell, he knew his shit. By time she was walking home, just before dusk, she was sober. Okay, she was mostly sober. The four Klonopins she took were still making her a bit woozy, but it wasn't anything she couldn't fake her way through. Add a touch of body spray and a few breath mints, and Dorothy was ready to go back to what had become her home since that terrible night with her parents.

  Auntie Em and Uncle Henry lived on a small farm in Horse Creek, Kansas. It was in the middle of nowhere, but worse, it was more than six hours away from Katie. She fought the move, even begged to let them live with Katie's parents, but the court wasn't having it. She had to move in with her closest of kin, and that was Auntie Em and Uncle Henry.

  Em and Henry were nice enough people, don’t take Dorothy wrong here. They were just a poor replacement for her father. He was her world—but he was dead now, murdered by her mother right in front of her. Nothing was going to change that. Nothing could make that nightmare go away. No amount of Auntie Em's famous apple pie could fix what was wrong with Dorothy. She missed her father, and the one person who might even have a prayer to make her feel better, Katie, was a lifetime away. It was being sentenced to Hell, yet still being alive.

  Dorothy slipped in the front door, hoping to do one of her 'sneak to the room unnoticed' routines, but Auntie Em was too slick for that. “Dorothy!” she cried out from the living room. “Is that you?”

  Dorothy held her breath and eventually replied, “Yes, Auntie Em.”

  “Where ya been girl? I been worried 'bout ya.”

  Dorothy chose her words carefully. “I was over at Old Man Mitchell's place. He was showing me… he was showing me some of his grandma's old recipes.”

  Well, that wasn't a lie. She just failed to mention the fact that she had been drinking and that he was sobering her up before letting her come home. So, she was technically telling the truth.

  “Well how is ole Mitchell? I been meanin' to go see him for weeks now.”

  Dorothy's stomach rumbled. Apparently, his sobriety cure wasn't quite done with her yet. “He's good, Auntie Em! But if you'll excuse me, I've got to go to the bathroom!”

  “Okay, dearie. Oh, by the way, you got some mail today! It's laying on the phonebook!”

  Mail? Could it be a letter from Katie? She hadn't heard from Katie in almost a month. What started out as a letter every other day had slowed down to a trickle. This was the longest she had ever gone without hearing from her. She hoped everything was okay.

  After another session of Old Man Mitchell's grandma's secret formula tearing her stomach to pieces like barbwi
re, Dorothy picked up her letter. She saw the handwriting and she knew instantly that it was indeed from Katie. Her heart raced as she ran up the stairs to her room with Toto hot on her heels. She slung her boots off and leaped onto the bed. She tore the letter open eager to see what Katie had written.

  It read: “Dear Dee, Hey. I'm sorry I haven't written in so long. Things have been rough here. I miss you more and more with each passing day. I feel like a part of me is missing and that missing piece is you. You have no clue how bad I want, no, need to see you. I feel like I'm dying here.

  “The other day, I actually thought about killing myself. Living without you is ripping my soul to shreds. I thought I could hang on until we turn 18, but that's a year and a half away. I don't think I can make it, Dee. I cry myself to sleep each and every night. I wake up and go to call you, but you aren't there. This life… it's going to be the death of me. Your memory haunts me and the pain of it is driving me mad.

  “This is the hardest thing I've ever written, but for my own sanity, for my own well-being, I've got to let you go. It's the only way. I have to block you out of my mind and move on. You will always have a special place in my heart, and my time with you will forever be some of the best of my life, but if you love me… please, please let me go. I'm so fucking sorry for this. I never meant to hurt you, Dee. Please forgive me. Love Always, Katie-Bug.”

  Dorothy's hands trembled and the letter slipped from her grasp. It glided from side to side until it landed on the floor right next to the shattered pieces of Dorothy's heart.

  Dorothy stared blankly into the bathroom mirror and didn't recognize the person staring back at her. This person was weak and broken. She felt hollow and devoid of any emotion but misery. She had once been strong, but that seemed a thousand years ago.

  “Shut up, Toto!”

  The tiny terrier was scratching at the bathroom door and whimpering up a storm. He knew something was wrong and he wanted in the room badly, but he didn't need to see what she was going to do. It was best if he wasn't there.

  Dorothy carefully braided her long black hair into pigtails. She knew Auntie Em or Uncle Henry would be the ones to find her, and she didn't want to look a complete mess when they did. Sure, they would take it hard, but they had been through worse and survived. She would simply be just another tragedy in a long line of tragedies that had struck the family. Still, all things considered, she thought this was her best course of action. She just couldn’t take anymore. She was fucking done.

  She had traded a watch she had stolen from her aunt's jewelry case to Smurf for a bottle of whiskey and enough sleeping pills to knock an elephant out. In a few short hours, it would all be over. No more memories. No more pain. No more broken promises from the people she loved.

  Dorothy jumped as there was a knock at the door. It was her Auntie Em. “Dorothy, there's a bad storm coming!”

  “Okay, Auntie Em.” she replied as an automated response.

  Her aunt said something else, but Dorothy wasn't paying attention. There were bigger things to worry about. It was time to finish what she had started.

  She stripped down as the thunder rolled outside, shaking the house. She turned the water on in the tub and got it scalding hot. She took from her purse everything she needed to complete her macabre mission: the whiskey, the pills, and a razor blade. It was all there. All that was left to do was not to pussy-out and finish it.

  She grabbed a handful of the pills, maybe twenty or more, and chased them down with the cheap whiskey Smurf got her. It tasted like shit, but, if it got the job done, it was totally worth it. She took the last of the pills and repeated the process. It wouldn't be long now. Soon she'd get to see her father again.

  She thought, I miss you, daddy, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  She climbed into the tub and sank into the water. It was relaxing, a fitting way to end her days on this fucking shit-hole of a planet. She took the razor blade from beside the tub and took a deep breath before digging the tip into her left arm. She cut deep and in that moment of physical pain she forgot all the reasons she wanted to cry. Sadly, as soon as she stopped cutting, it all came rushing back to her.

  She dug the blade in, over and over, carving herself up as the pills began to kick in. Soon she was laughing as the blood trickled down her arm, turning her bath water shades of pink and red. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. Why not be creative in her last moments? She took her time and carved the word “death” into her left arm. When she finished, she giggled at her work and then cried for reasons she couldn't explain. To be fair, she carved the word “life” into her right arm. She thought of it as one last cruel joke to play on the world. She would be the tapestry and her cutting would be her artwork.

  The sleeping pills started kicking in. She soon found herself fighting to keep her head held upright. The winds howled outside like a banshee and the sound of rain pounding on the roof roared like a lion. She wondered what death would be like. She wondered if the next world would be any better than this one. She thought about her mom, dad, and Katie as everything slowly faded to a color that mirrored her soul—black and decayed.

  Do You Want More?

  Want more? Want to see what happens to Dorothy in the land of Oz? Until the release on June 1, 2018, The Shadow of Oz is just 99 cents to order! The demonic Scarecrow, charming Tinman, and the cowardly Lion, along with a host of other characters await you in Oz. You can order the book by clicking here: viewbook.at/shadowofoz