Pit stop at the Hilltop Café
Author's Note (or ramblings... it's the first day of Covid19 lock-down here, and I'm already a bit punchy...)
Once, many, many years ago, there lived a small child who both loved and feared the many volumes of books that adorned the walls of her family's home, like family portraits without faces or works of art without frames. You see, this child was raised in a family of book lovers, and there was no end of topics for the child to wet her curiosity on. While this fact alone was exciting and gave the girl potential for many adventures to be had without ever leaving the confines of her small abode, she had one problem. As much as she loved stories, when she opened the pages of a book, she found that her eyes were cursed, and she read the words backwards. Over time, with the assistance of her patient older sister, the child overcame this difficulty, and found that she could understand the words on the pages before her, but her progress was still laborious and frustrating.
The wise older sister found that the child needed some kind of inspiration to get her eyes and mind excited and moving across the pages quicker. After some internal debate, the sister provided the child with a copy of "The Land of Oz," which the child devoured with fervor. After this book, many more followed, until the child grew and began creating stories of her own when she ran out of books to discover.
Alas, although the story contained within these pages is of her own imagining, the characters and their histories are not. The first tales of the Outer Zone, or OZ, were told by the author of "The Land of Oz," Mr. L. Frank Baum. His imaginings were then retold and updated by SyFy in their mini-series, "Tin Man," where Dorothy Gale's greatest great granddaughter, DG, embarks on her own mission to save the OZ and her family from an ancient evil intent on bringing an end to the light for all time.
Whatever other stories I conjure, I always come back to OZ in my heart, for that is where my love of reading began. So, with that sense of nostalgia, I picked up my pen to continue DG's story, hoping that it might inspire me on my own trip down to yellow brick road. I must warn you, dear reader, that the story within is not a children's story, and is meant for an adult audience in every sense. Although not violent, there are definitely adult themes that are not suitable for young readers.
With that said, if you love Tin Man, then I hope you will love this as well.
(I have to note also that although I never truly intended to publish this story, the unusual circumstances presented by the Covid19 Virus has created an atmosphere where many of us are searching for new and different forms of entertainment to pass the time. Hopefully, my little contribution will help.)
Now, if you will, please follow the white rabbit on a little adventure...
Chapter One
The sun was casting a warm glow on the waves of long grass that covered the landscape as it made its steady decent towards the horizon. Grasslands such as these stretched on for miles in this part of the country, and someone driving through might grow complacent with the seemingly calm, steady landscape, where it not for the occasional summer storm that swept through the otherwise mellow breadbasket of the country. This evening was no different from any other summer night in Kansas, and the crickets chirped loudly to welcome the oncoming stars as they peeped into existence. In this remote corner of the state, there were no streetlights and hardly ever any cars to interrupt the natural flow of day to night, so the prairie inhabitants took up their nightly chorus as if ordained, punctuating the otherwise silent dusk with their cries. This concert was accompanied by a humid breeze that swept gently across the land, covering everything in a warm blanket of sweet air that smelled faintly of dandelions and rain.
Without any of the normal warning signs that signaled the locals to find cover from the frequent storms, the cacophony of an oncoming twister brought the nightly melody to an abrupt end, and the winds quickly picked up as a cyclone danced into sight on the horizon. Unlike most twisters, this one left almost no path of destruction apart from where it touched down, and as quickly as it appeared it was suddenly gone again, leaving the general area windswept and barren. In the center of the barren region created by the rogue twister, a woman appeared, crouching low to the ground as if waiting for the winds to disappear. Satisfied that she had been safely deposited, the woman straightened to survey her surroundings. The young woman, no older than a recent college graduate, was clad in a worn pair of jeans and a pale blue t-shirt that peeped out from her equally worn brown leather bomber jacket that hung open. Everything about the woman's attire was worn, in fact, from her blue canvas sneakers to the fatigued expression coloring her face. It was almost as if she had been in a constant state of action for some time, and her eyes darted around with wary concern. Her wide cerulean eyes scanned the area hurriedly, causing her long raven curls to whip around her small flushed face. Her breath came out in shallow pants, as she was anxious, almost expecting some commotion for her mode of arrival, and she would have succeeded in receiving such a reception were it not for the location of her landing. Having no means of determining her location, other than the obvious conclusion that she was very much alone and without any real landmark to assist her in determining her next move, the woman dropped her satchel on the ground and let out an exasperated, yet relieved sigh.
"I'm really going to have to talk to Glitch and Az about installing some kind of GPS in these travel storms. I have no idea where I am," DG grumbled to herself as she rifled through the leather backpack that looked somewhat less careworn than the rest of her person.
DG let out a bark of satisfied laughter when she found the treasure she was hunting for. In her hand, she held a battered cell phone. The screen was cracked in one corner, and the camera lens in the back of the device was similarly broken. This did not dissuade DG, and she popped up from her crouching position to turn the device on. As she waited for the home screen to come to life, she muttered the same silent prayer over and over again, hoping that it still worked after an annual – year – of little to no attention. DG was again delighted when the screen burst to life, singing in greeting as the glass screen lit up her face in the pitch dark. DG grinned happily at the small machine in her hand, but the gleeful flutter in her stomach was quickly replaced with some fear, as it suddenly occurred to her that she hadn't paid her cell phone bill in just under a year, which would make determining her location by GPS rather difficult. Her only hope was that she had miraculously managed to deposit herself close enough to some farmer's homestead where she might be able to piggyback off a Wi-Fi signal.
DG held her breath while the phone searched for a signal. When the phone finally picked up a weak signal, DG squealed, dancing in a small circle as she held her phone aloft to the heavens. Eager to depart her location, DG suddenly stopped and opened the map application, typing in an address as quickly as her thumbs on either side of the device would let her.
"There's no place like home," DG whispered repeatedly, "There's no place like home."
Immediately after the map pinpointed her location, DG stooped down and swept her backpack back onto her shoulder, and turning abruptly to her left, she began to trudge with determination through the high grass. The grass quickly turned to corn, and although only halfway through its growing season, the stalks were already becoming taller than their visitor. DG did not stop to admire the vegetation, and instead continued on with some urgency. Her sneaker-clad feet were quickly becoming wet from the grass, and the constant unease of being watched that she had carried with her for the past year had yet to release its grip on her psyche. So engrossed in following the track of the digital map in her hand was she that DG nearly ran headlong into a tall, unmoving man blocking her advance. After a moment of alarm, DG breathed a sigh of relief. It was only a scarecrow, and it had been expertly dressed in a trench coat and fedora.
DG stopped to admire the man for a moment before moving on, drawn to the hat on the analogue man's head that shadowed his painted face in the moon's light. DG reached up to touch the brim of the hat, imagining a similar hat not so long ago. For a moment, she imagined a pair of warm blue eyes looking down on her as she pulled the hat down further on the man's head. The glimmer in the man's eyes was accompanied by a deep rumble of laughter in response to her attentions, and DG's face flushed a pleasant pink in reply. This autonomic response caused DG to withdraw from the scarecrow abruptly, and she pulled her hand back as if burned.
"Stop! Get out of my head!" DG cried out in agony, drawing her hands up to her face, covering her suddenly wet eyes in an attempt to hide from the ghost that haunted her.
Her one-sided argument was interrupted, and DG's ears pricked up at the familiar sound of a car passing speedily on the other side of the high rows of corn. DG managed to spy the headlights as they passed, and she quickly abandoned her acquaintance, moving towards the fence line that had briefly been illuminated by the headlights as they moved on to some unknown destination. DG reached the aluminum fence after just a few paces and hopped over it to stand on the side of the recently abandoned farm road. DG let out another sigh of relief, knowing now exactly where she was. Without further ado, DG switched the phone off, giving it a loving kiss, before shoving it deep into her coat pocket.
As warm as it was that night, DG looked somewhat strange wearing a leather jacket, but she was too focused on her destination to give the stifling humidity any thought as she walked purposefully down the old road. She had been down this road many times over the past fifteen years, having lived on a farm not more than a mile away since she was ten years old and only having been away for the past year. As she listened passively to her own footfalls, she pondered this fact. How would she explain the past year to anyone she happened upon? Would anyone have come to the check on her and her parents when they abruptly disappeared in the middle of the night? DG sighed heavily at these thoughts. She didn't have the answers to her own questions, but she knew she would have to come up with something quickly. DG searched the stars above her head hoping for some insight, but there weren't any, apart from the very real reminder that these were the heavens she remembered, not the weird and wonderful starscapes that she had been watching for the past year, and the thought brought a bittersweet expression to her face. She was glad to be back after all, and she breathed deeply of the air as she walked, absorbing as much of her surroundings as she could.
Her return to Kansas was indeed bittersweet though, as many things had changed since she had last been here. While Kansas hadn't changed, DG had. The past year had aged DG internally, bringing a deeper understanding of herself and her history, which until the last summer, had been somewhat hazy and unsatisfying in its reluctance to reunite with her own recollections. She now knew exactly who she was – she was no farm girl, no matter how rough she could talk or how proficient she was with machines. She was a princess from another world, the OZ in fact, descendant of a long line of kind, free spirits like herself that shaped the land of the OZ as much as they had her very being. DG was insanely proud of this fact and had spent the past year trying to live up to that legacy. She had succeeded in some fashion by vanquishing an evil witch and saving her homeland from certain lasting peril, and had in return, been hailed as a heroine of her people. While that adventure had been life-changing and had given her more life-long friends than she had ever made in all of her years in Kansas, the resulting year following her success had been filled with more politics and pomp than she could handle. She may have looked like a princess, and played the part well, but in her heart she was still a farm girl from Kansas, and the constant succession of balls and glad-handling dignitaries made her feel just two steps shy of a battle worn soldier suffering from PTSD. All of this would have been bearable were it not for the overwhelming loneliness she constantly felt.
Her friends made during her adventure; Ambrose, known to his traveling companions as Glitch, the harebrained and forgetful advisor to the Queen; Raw, the warm and extraordinarily gifted viewer; and Wyatt Cain, the stalwart lawman who protected her and their companions with fierce determination and guarded his own large (but damaged) heart with similar fervor, were always nearby. Her family; the Queen, her consort, and her sister Azkadellia, were as warm and comforting as she had hoped, and had by some miracle, been able to restore the memories of the parents that she remembered – Hank and Emily, the robotic nurture units that had stayed with her in Kansas - in an effort to assuage the broken spirit of the displaced princess. Comforting as they all were, they could not fill the space that had formed in her heart, and in a final effort to heal her own wounds, she had finally decided to depart the OZ for a time. Her friends and family were all now safe and well and were in no need of her particular brand of ingenuity in order to work. So, she settled on the one thing she knew had been left broken. The home that she had known for the past fifteen years had been left rather abruptly and had had violence done to it in her departure, so she happily determined that this was where her abilities would be best put to use. Here, she could get her hands dirty without reprimand. Here, she could feel useful again. Here, she would not need the protection of a certain lawman who plagued her thoughts and haunted her dreams, because here she was just DG, the artistic young waitress with a flair for fixing machines and causing harmless trouble. She only hoped that she would be allowed to do so without being found out by those that normally gave her such comfort.
DG was just reminding herself of this as she neared her destination. After walking down that lonely stretch of highway for about a half an hour, DG finally stopped and turned down an equally quiet and interminably long road. After a few more minutes, DG's feet hit gravel as she turned down a private lane. The grass on either side of the gravel had grown out of control and swished in the light breeze created by DG's swift walk. The grass, fortunately, had not overtaken the worn gravel that had once been frequented by DG's own motorcycle and Hank's farm truck, and DG easily made her way closer to number Thirty-Six Windswept Lane. The grass had overtaken the fence that surrounded the homestead, and DG could barely make out the tin heart with the number stamped through the middle of its organ, but she didn't need to see it to know where she was. She was home.
DG scoffed quietly at herself for this sentimental thought. A year ago, she reminded herself, she had proclaimed rather adamantly to Hank and Emily that she had never felt at home here. A year later, she was silently proclaiming the opposite. The irony was not lost on DG, and she smiled ruefully as she neared the darkened house. While true that she never felt like she quite belonged here, finding out where she was really from had only brought her more quickly back to Kansas when it came crashing down around her ears again. The Outer Zone was home, and still held sway in her heart, but Kansas was a haven that she desperately needed in order to heal from the heartbreak that currently plagued her. It was home for now, she reasoned, and her eyes gleamed in the dark as she surveyed her surroundings in the moon's light.
Under the shroud of night, DG couldn't see very much, but she could at least make out the forms of the turbines in the near distance. Neither were moving in the wind, so as DG suspected, she would not have any electricity on her first night back. This also meant that she would have no water, as the turbines powered both the house and the well that supplied water to the property. DG turned her attention back to the house, recollecting with unease how close the twister had come on the night of her hasty exit. Her fears were confirmed when she spied a dark spot in the roof over her bedroom on the second floor – even in the dark she could make out the gash made by the twister's harsh winds. The house was otherwise fairly unscathed, apart from a few broken windows where either wind or bullets from a small band of Longcoat soldiers had come crashing through her quiet haven. DG stood silent for a few moments longer after taking inventory of her home's predicament, listening for any sign of company that may have joined her in the night. Apart from the crickets and the occasional distant moo of a cow on the neighboring farm, DG did not hear anything, so she gathered her courage and mounted the steps to the farmhouse.
After a moment of forgetfulness where DG seemed to forget that almost no one locked their doors in farm country, unless they were actually intending to be away for an extended period, DG stopped searching for the hideakey and rolled her eyes.
"Stupid," she whispered to herself as she grasped the doorknob, pushing it open easily.
The dark oak entry just inside the door was dark, and the air was filled with the smell of stale dust that was stirred to life by DG's arrival. DG sneezed lightly in response to this greeting and stopped abruptly to listen within the house. Even though unlikely that anyone would have taken up residence in her absence, since the homestead was a good ways away from the main road and the only other neighbors were long time family friends, DG still could not shake the caution that had become instilled in her in the past year. Alone as she was, she could still hear Wyatt's deep rumble in her ear whispering, "Don't let down your guard until you've scoped out your surroundings. You don't know who might be around the next bend in the old road."
DG groaned with this thought, seeing that the voice in her head was normally right, so she set her pack down and tip toed to the closet directly to her left. In a moment she produced a shot gun from within its depths and checked quickly to ensure that the light attached to it was still working. After checking these components, she fumbled with the box of shells still perched on the shelf over her head and quietly loaded the barrel, wincing at the noise made by pumping the weapon into order.
This noise did not seem to stir anything, and DG grumbled incoherently as she picked her way around the armoire laying on its side in the hall as she moved from room to room, scanning each with her light before moving on. "Can't let any wild farm animals take me by surprise, after all," DG whispered sarcastically, imagining Wyatt's grimace in return for her usual insistence that his need for caution was overblown.
DG usually saved the caution for Wyatt, who served as her personal guard and forever companion despite the fact that he was now a man of some importance in Her Majesty's Royal Army. She usually found it almost compulsory to tease him through the course of what was just good sense and required by one charged with protecting royalty. Given her current situation though, and obvious absence of the practical Tin Man (the title given lawmen in the Outer Zone), DG was left to taunting herself while she went about the necessary task of securing her surroundings. After successfully sweeping the bottom floor and finding nothing more than a few spiders and a half-wild farm cat on the back porch, DG gingerly climbed the steps to her bedroom. DG was more worried about the possible damage caused by the gash in the roof, but quickly decided that surveying this damage would be best left to daylight. Tonight's survey was primarily driven by a need for security, so she focused on ridding her room of any unwelcome guests. There were none in the relatively open space upstairs, so DG turned and headed back down the stairs, intent on camping out in the living room for the night.
As if the ghost of Wyatt Cain was haunting her, she again heard his cautious tones as she approached the threshold of the stairs and made to lock the doors of the house before finally collapsing on the couch. DG coughed as she kicked up dust, and she slapped the throw pillows on the side of the furniture before turning them over so her face wouldn't be completely inundated with stale dust. This was sufficient enough for DG given her current mental and physical unrest, and she fell onto the throw pillows, exhausted from her latest adventure.