The man she buried is back and knocking; a pair of facts that would bother most women when home alone in the woods, at night, but Dorothy had long ago grown accustomed to the Scarecrow’s ways. When one was corrupted by black magic and constantly searching for fresh brains, it was expected that one would lose their ability to understand or engage in polite social interactions. He’d been a simulacrum at one point, a literal brainless Scarecrow, but then terrible magics twisted her good friend into something…else. He stood on two legs, wielded great strength with his two big arms, and had impossible endurance to enact his endless hunger upon. Because although Scarecrow had been given a brain by the wicked wizard, it had done nothing to help her friend. Instead, he’d become insatiably hungry, but slowly enough over time that Dorothy hadn’t realized it at first.


In her own defense, those that had known Scarecrow when he was still a brainless, loveable fool tried to hide the truth of his corruption from her and the world. Although Nick had become a great leader, had found his heart and his home, he sacrificed it all to help Scarecrow, his dearest friend. He believed that being made of metal might be a boon for him after all, as he was supposed to be impervious to harm. But that heart, the heart he had built for himself from the scraps left behind, it left him all too vulnerable.

Toto had barked and growled, but Toto had always barked and growled. He was a dear, sweetheart and she should have realized that all this noise was trying to keep her safe, but Dorothy still believed in the power of friendship keeping them all secure. But then Toto stopped barking. He stopped growling and charging or even approaching the Scarecrow; instead, he whimpered and trembled. Dorothy’s once brave and beautiful boy, the very reason she found this wonderful world at all, had become the coward the Lion used to be. And still Dorothy thought there was only a matter wrong with her dog, not the friend that seemed to inspire such fear in a once dauntless dog.


By this point Nick had become withdrawn as well, complaining that although he was metal, his heart hurt; its beat had become strained and stained. He warned that although the wicked had been felled, the friends triumphant, something dark still crept its way into their ranks. And although he had a heart and was once a mortal man, Dorothy had brushed it off as the misgivings of metal instead of the realities of the moment.


But it was the Lion, her beautiful, brave, doomed Lion that finally revealed to Dorothy just how far her friend had fallen. Nick hadn’t come from up the trail to Scarecrow’s in days, and then Lion brought Dorothy the rusted, ruined remains of their departed friend. He had been peeled open, resembling the tin can he’d once nearly become, and the heart he’d built for himself have been ripped out. The gore of the little human parts left of Nick horrified Dorothy; he’d bled oil and rust that trailed along after Lion like splattered footsteps.

But worse, Lion had found the remains being hovered over by Scarecrow himself, hissing and snarling at Lion as if he were the animal instead. Lion had used Nick’s own axe to keep Scarecrow at bay, chasing him back to his tree house and bringing Dorothy what was left of Nick.


They buried him in the shade of a weeping willow and Toto cowered behind his gravestone whenever the wind blew through the leaves.


Finally aware of the need, Lion gave Dorothy Nick’s axe and told her to keep her door locked until he came back. He was no longer the coward he’d believed himself to be for so long, and even if Scarecrow was their friend so had been Nick. They owed it to both to stop Scarecrow’s decent into rabid destruction. His laying to rest would be the only peace they could offer Nick’s ghost now if it lingered, their Tin-man had so loved Scarecrow that he’d be desolate to see what he’d become.


Once straw and old shirts, a lumpy rope belt and a worn down hat. Once a laughing, living friend. Now something dark and ravenous.

Lion went down the trail to settle the matter and Dorothy never saw him again.


Sometimes cowardice is the better option.


That was the night the knocking first started. A hollow, haunting rap-a-tat-tat on her door and the sound of bloodied straw being dragged across wood. He wouldn’t speak. Wouldn’t leave. Wouldn’t die.


She tried. Dorothy had felled wicked wizards and witches, found her way through all manner of impossible, unbelievable events, and yet even with Nick’s axe she couldn’t keep him down for long.


Dorothy would hear the knocks. She’d smell the rotting straw and clotting blood. And she’d sharpen Nick’s axe and open the door, swinging with all her might. In her own world decapitation would stop a zombie, but Scarecrow wasn’t mortal; had lived a long time without a brain. And now he craved hers.


She would kill him, drag his straw filled, gore covered corpse to the same patch she’d buried the remains of Nick, her Lion, and eventually Toto into, and bury him deep. It’d buy her time to rest and sharpen the axe again.


Because he always came back. It didn’t matter if she burned the straw, buried the corpse, or chopped it all into bits and scattered it far and wide. Scarecrow would always come back. He’d eaten Nick’s heart, used Lion’s no longer cowardly ways to trap him, even wore Toto’s strength down until he was literally scared to death. And the last meal he wanted was her brains. She knew it in the same way she’d known that there was no place like home.


So, the man she’d killed was knocking at the door, and it was once again time to open it. Her silver shoes were stained ruby red with blood and her axe was sharp.