Bloodstained Oz

Gayle stood up and glanced around, and again the scarecrow in the cornfield caught her eye. She was nearer to it now, and something made her frown and stare harder. It was the hat, she decided. It was black and pointed and didn’t look right. In fact, she was sure it was not the same hat that the scarecrow had always worn.Slowly, dolls clutched in her hands, she walked across the yard to the cornfield and made her way to the scarecrow. There wasn’t a bird in sight, so it must have been doing its job. The dolls felt strangely heavy in her arms and, where their porcelain faces touched her bareskin, they were cold.

At first, Gayle stood and blinked at the scarecrow. It didn’t look right at all. Their scarecrow had a brown jacket, faded from the sun,and green pants. This one wore different clothes-clothes that had never belonged to her daddy. It was a different scarecrow altogether. And where the other scarecrow – the one that had broken off and blown away – had been hung on its post, arms pinned to the crossbar, this one had no crossbar at all. Its arms hung down by its sides. Instead of being hung to the post, the enormous wooden stake – possibly a piece of broken fence, now that she looked at it – had been driven right down through its body so it stuck through the scarecrow’s chest and up out of its back, right between the shoulder blades. oz_cover[1]

It had an old burlap sack for a face, with a slit for the mouth, stitched at the edges. Gayle was afraid of the scarecrow, now that she’d had a closer look. Its eyes weren’t sewn or drawn on – they were closed. What kind of bird was going to be afraid of a scarecrow that looked asleep?

Or dead, she thought. It looks dead.

The scarecrow opened its eyes and it screamed. Its limbs splayed wide as it twisted on the post, a shriek of terror and agony coming from its burlap mouth. For several seconds it jerked and flailed on the post and then the sudden burst of life seemed to dwindle. Its limbs fell with a flaccid slap and then it seemed to notice her.

“It’ll spread here now, little girl…the darkness…just like in Oz, the blood will spill and it’s never enough…the monsters are here…”

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