AN: Hi everyone! Hope you've been having a great summer! So I know what you are thinking. "What does this girl think she's doing writing something other than the third installment? Stone her!" Well, you're right, I should have been writing that instead. I will now duck and cover for the deserved stoning I am due. But as I was writing the third story I realized I was forcing myself to after a while and the writing was suffering because of it. So that story is on the backburner at the moment. I don't know when, or even if, I will get back to it but I felt that you all deserved to know what's going on. I hope to find a spark for it again someday.
In the mean time though I have had a wonderful summer (hot as hell is what I really mean) and this is what has come from all that heat exhaustion I suffered without air conditioning, yay! Yes, it's zombies and yes, the idea has probably been done to death before far better but I hope my take on them entertains you as much as writing this has entertained me. I do have to warn you all though that the characters start off far different and yet eerily similar to whom you recognize them as. I promise they won't be that way forever. ;) I'm going to post up the first couple chapters, as they are a prologue of what's to come. I want to have a majority of this all written before I start posting the rest so you won't have to wait long between updates. :)
In movie announcer voice: This story contains violence, graphic words, sexual situations between sexy people, undiluted Frexspar, and a fun bag of all sorts of other crazy things that will give it it's M rating by chapter 4. If that sounds good to you, then read on and expect an update soon.
I don't own anything, but it sure is fun to play in the Wicked sand box. A super thank you times a million goes out to my awesome Beta this go around, Throppsicle. Seriously, she has made a lot of my madness into sense so she deserves all the thanks really. And now I hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 1
Elphaba Thropp
Elphaba Thropp was born on the third day of the third month during the third year of the Verdigris Plague. The only one to find this ironic was Melena, and not because Frex was too busy praying (for the third time) to have a son by her bedside, while Nanny had her head buried between her raised legs. No, it was because despite all the commotion the only thing she could distinctly feel was the burning flesh she'd hidden beneath a decorative scarf along her upper arm. For this was also the third day after she'd been bitten by one of those green undead monsters.
She silently cursed her luck for the third time that night as Nanny urged her to push just one more time.
Then she cursed her father for not stopping her from marrying the imbecilic man groveling by her side.
And she certainly cursed her bad judgment from three nights prior.
That midnight craving for zucchini bread was certainly not worth the trouble.
As Melena let out a scream, gripping the bed sheets beneath her, a rush of heat flooded to her upper arm. Of everything she'd been cursing over the course of the few hours she'd spent giving birth there was one thing she would be forever grateful for. And that was that without a doubt, she knew her daughter was not of the man quivering pathetically by her side.
Perhaps there was some luck in the world, she thought, as her child finally cried into the night.
"It's a girl!" Nanny squealed.
Melena smiled, satisfied, and let her body sink comfortably into the bed below. She caught the briefest glimpse of green as Nanny wrapped her little girl tightly in a blanket. That was odd but she attributed it to the ever-growing plague her body was surely surrendering itself to.
"Is Melena s-supposed to be bleeding like that?" Frex finally found the words to speak, albeit shaky and fearful.
Melena had no idea what he was going on about. Surely everything had to be fine. Nanny was coddling the small girl and that incessant burning in her arm had finally stopped. So what if she was bleeding a bit down there, she had after all just given birth. Oz, sometimes she believed Frex must be directly descended from Trolls.
"Don't be-" Melena breathed in sharply, surprised by the sudden, painful lack of air in her lungs.
Frex gazed over at his wife, his sweat drenched brow furrowed. Melena found it amusing that he was so absolutely nervous. If he was perspiring this much she could only imagine what her own body must have looked like.
"Don't be… stupid, Frexspar." Melena finally managed to breathe out, frustrated that it had taken her so long to even formulate the correct words.
Soon, she thought. It's happening soon.
Motor functions were always the first to go.
Nanny took her sweet time cleaning the little green baby. She knew of the danger coursing through Melena's veins. She cursed the girl for being so careless… so stupid. Melena would never get to watch the precious gem in her arms grow. Never get to console her when the time would come that she'd need her mother's shoulder to cry upon. Nanny knew that day would come soon. No child would be able to resist taunting the little girl's unusual, yet surprisingly beautiful, skin.
But then again no child would ever want to be near a girl so green. Green just like the pallor of those unmentionable's terrorizing the land.
No, Nanny would keep her from such a fate.
She would be the girls' shoulder to cry upon.
She would keep her safe.
Especially from the man that was close to hysterics by Melena's unmoved side.
Soon, Nanny thought as she opened the drawer closest to her whilst holding the newborn tightly against her chest. The pistol was still there, candlelight gleaming off its polished surface. It would happen soon.
Frexspar, for his part, believed he was handling the situation with perfect grace. He showed the perfect amount of concern for his wife; he faked the perfect amount of surprise when Nanny announced that he was father to a girl. That just meant he'd have to pray harder the next time.
Perhaps more time spent with Melena in bed would help as well.
But when he heard a low growl roll off Melena's tongue all pretense of grace was lost upon him. Frexspar leapt to his feet, ripping his hand from his wife's. Melena was a mess of matted hair and sweat, her nightgown slipping off one shoulder as her body rose with a crack of her spine from the blood soaked bed.
"By the Unnaned God!" Frexspar gasped, hands clamped firmly over his mouth as he backed himself up against the nearest wall.
Melena's body was barely in a sitting position when the shot rang out.
A spurt of blood exploded out from behind his wife's head, staining the wall behind their bed.
Then Melena's body fell back to the soiled mattress, stilled.
Nanny sighed as the little girl in her arms began to cry anew. "Well," she said, placing the pistol back inside the drawer. "Whatever shall you name your daughter, Frexspar?"
After the staff of Colwen Grounds received the news of Melena's death, or more specifically, received the news of the cause to Melena's fate, they fled all at once. Within one hour the manor was vacant save for Frexspar, Nanny and little Elphaba. Nanny wished them good riddance. Frexspar lamented their absence.
Who would tend to the little beast now? It was an atrocity! All green, wrinkly and… baby like.
A tiny little undead freak.
"Nanny, hand me it." Frexspar demanded as they stood just beyond the doors to the manor. The last cloud of dust from the carriages of their retreating staff swirled in the distance through the massive iron gates of the estate. He thrust out his arms toward the ancient woman, forcing a smile upon his face in hopes of concealing his disgust.
Nanny was not a stupid woman. "You are not to harm her, Frexspar!" She admonished, tightening her hold on the child.
Frexspar let his arms drop, all affectations lost in favor of a snarl. "She is obviously not of our kind and needs to be taken care of appropriately." He hissed, eyes blazing.
"And by appropriately you mean drowned in the lake, of course." Nanny glared straight back up into his beady eyes.
Frexspar felt an eyelid twitch of its own accord. "It's not of the Unnamed God!"
"Of course she's not, she's your daughter." Nanny said.
Frexspar sputtered then, words lost amongst all the fury building behind his shifting gaze. He tried to recall his sermons of forgiveness, of the Unnamed God's will. This is a test, he repeated like a mantra inside his head. I am being punished and this is my test.
Nanny watched him with her one good skeptical eye. The other was too far-gone from age to bother working alongside its twin. But her sight was sharp, her senses still keen. She could see Frexspar struggling with himself, trying desperately to make sense of his muddled thoughts. Every so often his gaze would flicker to the quiet baby held safe in her arms. Nanny could see it in his eyes then that he would never come to love his daughter and she accepted this as fact.
The dusk sky above their heads is pink with the promise of a clear night. Nanny wondered if Melena was up there somewhere, mocking their existence with perfectly painted heavens. It would be so like her.
Eventually the bundle in her arms began to squirm. Nanny left Frexspar to his silly thoughts as she returned into the deserted manor. Little Elphaba was hungry and Nanny would be damned if she let Frexspar get in the way of her doing what she does best.
Elphaba is five when she encounters her first Unmentionable. Nanny has left her in a cool spot on the grass just outside their small garden behind the kitchens. An old wooden cooking spoon is her toy for the afternoon. Elphaba likes to bite things with her sharp little teeth. The spoons handle is freckled with dents. But today little Elphaba was not interested in biting her toy.
She was far too busy using it to dig a hole.
Nanny had read her a bedtime story the night before about a mouse who dug a hole so deep he wound up on the other side of Oz. Elphaba thought it wondrous. To think all she had to do to get a friend was to dig her way to one. It was so simple! She could surely convince Nanny to let her play in the garden. They were always out there picking strawberries together. And she so did desperately want someone to play with her.
So when Elphaba asked with a point of her finger out the window that morning, Nanny immediately understood. Hand in hand they walked to the garden, little Elphaba with her spoon wielded proudly in her hand while Nanny let their old wicker basket swing lazily from her arm. As always, she told little Elphaba not to wander to the fence and to stay within sight of the kitchen windows.
Elphaba nodded, she knew enough about the horrors outside the walls to follow the directions she was given. Her father certainly preached about them enough, sometimes even scaring her a bit with the details. Elphaba thought there was no one in Oz more frightening then her father.
He would always stomp around the manor, as opposed to walking. Nanny always rolled her eyes at his surly demeanor whilst Elphaba shrunk to hide behind her Nanny's skirt. Frexspar rarely dined with the two ladies of the manor, preferring the company of his books instead. Yet on the rare occasion that Nanny forced him to eat with the small family he could never quite meet his daughter's gaze, eyes always skirting just over her hairline. Elphaba kept her head bowed anyway, eyes focused on the meal in front of her. If she were quiet enough maybe he wouldn't come at night.
She preferred his indifference to the other side of him she'd encountered. The one that would sometimes emerge well after the sun sunk beneath the hills and the sky had turned as dark as her hair. He was always loud when he was in this state and she could hear him heading toward her room like the thunder of an approaching storm rolling through the countryside. Nanny would be hot on his heels shouting after him. Their voices would grow louder, harsher until Frexspar finally would burst into her small bedroom, screaming of abominations and death.
Elphaba would pull her blanket up to her face, hiding as much of herself underneath the thin layer of protection as she could. She knew she was different. She knew she wasn't like all the other children of Oz. She wasn't stupid like Frexspar always said. But on these nights, when she can smell a strange odor pouring off her father so bitter it makes her want to close her eyes tighter and hold her breath, she believes him.
She hates that her stupid little heart beats so fast she has to clutch the blanket closer to her chest, for fear that her heart would run right through her skin if she didn't. She hates that her eyes cry stupid tears and stain the blanket Nanny gave her for her birthday. And she especially hates when Frexspar gets close to her because the only time he ever touches her is on these nights.
He grabs her by the wrists, yanking her from her underneath the safety of her sheets.
Elphaba is always too paralyzed with fear to make a sound as he drags her across the room. It's only when Nanny finally smacks one of her cooking pans across his head that he lets go. Her father crumbles to the ground in a heap, a trickle of blood running slowly from a fresh cut above his brow. There's a similar one beside it and it reminds Elphaba that this isn't the first time… nor will it be the last. Nanny manages to move Frexspar into the hallway before she takes Elphaba back to her bed, tucking her safely in her blanket and sings to her until the girls' eyes fall closed from exhaustion.
When she's sure Elphaba is asleep Nanny gives the girl a soft kiss to her forehead. On her way out the door she slips the frying pan back under the dresser, ready for the next night Frexspar decides to drown his life in alcohol rather than the lake out back.
A swelling of shame settles inside little Elphaba's gut at the memory of those nights. There is obviously something wrong with her, otherwise he wouldn't be so angry with her. None of the fathers in the books Nanny reads her ever act the way hers does.
She's sure her father hates her.
It makes her tummy squirm in that weird way it does when she sees Nanny killing a chicken for dinner. Elphaba feels ashamed at the way her father so easily belittles her presence. He acts as if the mere sight, no, the mere thought of being within reach of his child would cause him to become infected with the disease of the Undead and hurl him toward an early and unforgiving grave. Not to mention it would mar his perfectly respected position as priest in the local Unionist church. It is for this reason alone that no one outside the walls of the manor knows of Elphaba's existence.
To Nanny the seculsion was a means to keep Elphaba safe from harm.
To Frexspar it is a means to keep his reputation safe from harm.
To Elphaba it is simply the way things are.
But that is going to change today because today will be the day Elphaba leaves Colwen Grounds via the hole she shall dig to the other side of Oz. Nanny is invited to come, of course, once it's finished. Her hole is almost up to her elbow when she hears a strange noise coming from down the hill. It isn't strange like the noise Nanny makes when she falls asleep reading her a story. That one is all rumbles and warmth. This noise is different. It makes her feel cold even though she's sure she's sweating all over her dirty dress. No, this noise was like the one she sometimes hears in dreams… in her nightmares about her mother.
Frexspar sometimes blames her for what happened to Melena. He shouts horrible things at Elphaba that make her want to cry because she knows it must be true, especially when Nanny looks so upset. No matter how much Nanny whispers in her ear that her father is wrong Elphaba can't help but feel responsible anyway. How can Nanny say otherwise when she's green just like them?
The hair on the back of Elphaba's neck stands to attention as the noise grows louder, closer. Elphaba turns to look behind her, hoping that Nanny has heard it as well but she's alone.
Then she sees a figure down by the fence along the lake. Elphaba thinks it could be a woman. The hair is long enough. It whips in the wind much like the tattered Munchkin flag that still flies above the manor. Elphaba doesn't realize she's gripping her spoon tightly until it snaps completely in half. The woman's neck snaps up just like Elphaba's spoon, then falls at an unnatural angle along her spine.
The woman is missing an eye. Elphaba's breath catches at the sight of flies emerging from the socket. And when the other glazed over eye meets Elphaba's fearful gaze, the woman growls and launches her body at the fence, gnarled hands clawing through the spaces.
Elphaba scrambles to her feet, tripping over her small hole as she screams for Nanny.
This is the first time she's seen her Nanny use a gun. She is afraid it won't be the last either.
What Elphaba doesn't learn from Nanny she learns from the books in the Colwen Grounds extensive library. History is her favorite. She finds it incredible that the world was once free from the plague of Undead that by now has gotten so bad that Nanny shoots down at least two or three of those monsters a day. Elphaba wishes sometimes that Nanny would teach her how to use the gun but Nanny always tuts her away, saying there's no need for such a young girl to wield a weapon so destructive.
Elphaba becomes saddened by the news but perks when Nanny promises to teach her upon her 11th birthday.
Which Elphaba notes happily is a mere three days away.
Nanny sets off with a wink after that, muttering about needing to polish the old weapon for the grand event. Elphaba heads back toward the library once more. She finished reading the entire East wall just this past Spring. She feels up for the challenge of tackling the West. She's noticed Frexspar has been adding to the collection over the past few months. It wouldn't be odd save for the fact that these books are clearly of the scientific kind and quite unlike the religious tomes he usually has his nose buried in.
It makes Elphaba feel a bit nervous. Change is not something she's accustomed to in her life. Of what she knows of change in her home it only has ever brought upon bad things. She's watched enough people's lives ruined by change through the windows on the deserted street beyond the gates. They march slowly down the road, all their belongings stacked high on a cart, hoping to make it someplace safe.
Maybe they are going someplace where change won't bring bad things anymore.
Elphaba asked Nanny once where such a place might be. And even though Nanny tells her she's already there, Elphaba doesn't quite believe her. The displaced people are going somewhere and she wonders how far it is. Sometimes when she's not busy reading she imagines what that place looks like.
But then another Unmentionable rattles at the gates and Elphaba is always pulled from her thoughts at the sound. With a sigh she closes the book in her lap and calls for Nanny.
Elphaba has never seen a fire so big in her life as the one now consuming half of her home. What had started as a mere nuisance of a few Undead quickly escalated into a horde. Nanny must have fired off three-dozen rounds before the empty click of her pistol signaled the last of the bullets. Frexspar was of no help down on his knees as he prayed to the Unnamed God for salvation.
The gates finally gave way under the weight of the horde and Elphaba barely had time to think before Nanny grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back inside the manor.
It all happened so fast after that and Elphaba is so terrified that she can't stop long enough to think about what's happening. A blaze erupts up along a wall to her right, the heat burning her skin. She turns to see Nanny dropping another canister of oil along the hall, a box of matches clenched between her teeth. Frexspar is coughing beside her, lungs full of smoke from his journey to the library. His shoulders are slumped with the weight of the bag of books slung across his chest. A flame ignites in front of Nanny's lips as she throws a lit match to the floor.
The wall of flames explodes so fast and so high Elphaba has to shield her eyes from the heat. She stumbles back, squinting to see. Beyond the wall of fire Elphaba can see the Unmentionables, relentless in their path toward them. Some are burning and the smell of their rotting flesh melting to the wood floors finally hits her senses. Not a second later, the wave of nausea hits her and she finds herself retching in a doorway.
"Go, child!" Nanny shouts, pushing her along the hall.
Elphaba obeys, stumbling along the corridor to avoid her mess, one green hand sliding along the wall to keep her from crashing to the floor.
She feels a hand wrap around her wrist and looks up through the smoke, which is quickly engulfing the hall, to see see her father urging her forward.
If this weren't the end of her short life Elphaba would be sure she must be hallucinating.
But Frexspar takes her by the hand for the first time and tugs her along behind him as they duck outside the back entrance to the kitchens.
Elphaba collapses to the ground, gasping in giant lungfuls of the fresh afternoon air.
Nanny bursts through the doorway a moment later, face covered with soot and eyes clear as the sky above.
"Fuck it all!" Frexspar shouts to the clouds lazily drifting above. "If this is still your will, if this is still my test, then I beg of you to end this misery now!"
Nanny smacks Frexspar across the back of his head sending him face down into the dirt. "Stop shouting you silly man! Do you want them to come charging through and have at your brains?"
"No," Frexspar mutters, shaking his head as he rights himself to his feet once more. Elphaba watches the adults from her spot huddled on the ground. She has to stick her hands between her knees to stop them from shaking so hard. This was never supposed to happen. Nanny had promised their home was safe and now look! It's burning to the ground!
Where will they go? How will they survive?
As tears cloud over her vision an explosion in the kitchen sends the small family flying back into the garden. Elphaba can hear her father groaning from somewhere off to her side; the bag full of books is obviously not cushioning his spine.
But what Elphaba hears next stills the very core of her being. For Elphaba has never heard Nanny's voice hit the pitch of a scream before. Not ever. And before Elphaba can get to her feet she watches helplessly as one of the horde sinks its broken teeth into Nanny's neck.
"Come on!" Elphaba hears her father shouting now but her blood has run so cold and she is so rooted to her spot in the strawberry patch that she couldn't move even if she tried. It's as if the vines of the leaves have wrapped themselves so tightly about her ankles that the very thought of severing her tie to them will send her collapsing into an unconscious bundle to the ground.
Nanny's life is fading before Elphaba's eyes. But despite the Undead now latched to her shoulders, Nanny looks up and smiles at her, almost serene. Nanny shoves them back with the last of her strength, giving Elphaba and Frexspar the chance to flee.
The smell of the fresh strawberries crushed beneath Elphaba's feet swirls into the air above. Elphaba will forever think death smells of sweetness. As Frexspar finally grabs a hold of his daughter, tearing her from her spot in the strawberry patch, Elphaba thinks the feeling beating in her heart must be the love Nanny would always read to her about…
She is saddened as she escapes from the estate with her father that she never got the chance to let her Nanny know of it.
Frexspar is beside himself with panic as he pulls his green daughter along behind him, brushing aside the overgrowth that has been left unmaintained along the edge of the estate. He steals a glance behind him. Elphaba's eyes are still focused on the flames destroying their home; destroying what's left of her Nanny.
There's only one place safe enough from the scourge of Undead in the land. He hates that it's also a place filled the other scourge of Oz, those following the Pleasure Faith. But he must get them both to safety and Unnamed God be damned if he lets those deserters of faith keep him from his goal. The Verdigris have taken everything from him and it's time he took action against this injustice. Frexspar plows through the tall grass, unlatching the hidden gate with a single kick. He feels a weight lifting from his burdened shoulders as they exit the manor. Elphaba is the key to stopping all of this, he thinks to himself.
His horrid daughter was not delivered to him without reason.
This is his test.
This is what he was put on this land to do.
Ever determined, Frexspar marches them onward. He will take them to the Emerald City where he will demand the use of the Munchkin Consulate as him home. After all being the sole heir to the land did have some perks right? And there, locked inside the gates of the Emerald City, protected behind the doors of the consulate's thick walls Frexspar will uncover the cause to the madness sweeping over Oz.
Elphaba is the key, he repeats like a mantra in his head. She is the key.
Elphaba learns they are heading to the Emerald City. She has read of the place. It is a giant metropolis of the Wizard's creation. A safe haven for those whom need refuge from the Undead.
For the first time in her life Elphaba feels safe within the presence of her father.
He's unquestionably leading them to salvation.