The Witch's Brew: A Collection of Hilarious Short Stories Starring the Wicked Witch of the West (8 page)

I read back over what had just happened and realized something was wrong. I went to my copy of
Stephen King Author the First and the Knights of Rock and Roll
and opened it to page ten. I knew it. The Wicked Witch had just played out a scene that had already been played out in another story. I went to the Wicked Witch and tapped her on the shoulder. She turned around and gave me a left hook to the jaw. It floored me and I was taken in the back of an ambulance to the nearest hospital where I was placed under observation.
The Wicked Witch of the West: Star Trekking, Across the Universe
will be written during my recuperation by, ohhh, let me see, former heavyweight boxing champion, My Tie’s on too Tight and Now the Blood Can’t Get to My Head. Take it away, big fella ...

Ummm, duhhh, grrr, dohhhh.

I read what the big guy had written and decided to write the rest of the story from my hospital bed.

The forty-foot Bumpa-Lumpa came to the entrance of the cave, reached in, and grabbed t
he Wicked Witch around the waist. She screamed as it pulled her out of the cave and Wally Winka was powerless to stop the madness that was going on right in front of him. The Bumpa-Lumpa ran off with the Wicked Witch and headed for the Empire State Building. It climbed up the side of the building and then it reached the top. Police helicopters flew through the air, shining their spotlights at the Bumpa-Lumpa who took the chance to show how good a dancer he was by doing a waltz. The three judges each gave him a nine which was good enough for second place. Problem was that second place wasn’t good enough for the Bumpa-Lumpa. He threw the Wicked Witch away in disgust and kicked the podium which went flying through the air and hit David Let’s Beg Him to play just One More Game of Football above the left eye, causing his skin to break and blood to spill. This one incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back and soon the brilliant right winger left the club he had been at for more than a decade and headed for Italy. He finished his career in France and is now thinking of buying a franchise in the MSL. It sure as hell beats buying French fries at McDonalds.

The Wicked Witch ran back to the cave where Wally Winka was laying on the ground waiting for her. “We’ve gotta get away from here, Wally. Now!!”

Wally shook his head. “I was hit, Wendy.”

Wendy reached over and moved away the leaves Wally was holding over his stomach. There was blood and guts all over the place. He would probably die, but there ain’t no way he was dying there. She lifted him over her shoulder and began to run. Along the way she passed a man running in the other direction. In fact, he was running back to the cave. She called out to him, “Stop running, Forrest, s
top running.” But he didn’t stop. He just kept on running. And when he was hungry, he ate. When he was thirsty, he drank. When he wanted to go to the bathroom, he ran right there into the cave. He soon came face to face with Osama’s been Laden with Bullets and stopped dead in his tracks. “Welcome, Forrest,” Osama said. “I’ve been waiting for you.” He threw an arm around Forrest’s shoulder, led him toward the back of the cave, and asked, “Have you ever seen two dogs having sex?” Forrest looked back over his shoulder at Wendy then disappeared into the darkness.

Wendy turned and ran with Wally to where the helicopters were going to land and take them to safety. She laid him on the ground and Wally said, “My whole family have been shrimp boat captains, Wendy. And now it’s your turn.” He coughed up some blood then said, “When
you get back, I want you to ...”

Wendy asked, “You want me to captain your little boat?”

Wally frowned. “Little boat? What the fuck
are
you talking about?”

Before she could reply, Wally closed his eyes and died. Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, a group of bible-bashing Bumpa-Lumpas met in a bar and drank a beer in memory of the man they called, Wizard. Of course, none of them were in any state to drive at the end of the night so they called a cab to come pick them up. They climbed into the cab and it drove off. An oncoming semi trailer veered onto the wrong side of the road and it smashed head-first into the cab, killing both drivers and a group of drunken Bumpa-Lumpas. As their spirits rose toward Heaven, they were heard to sing, “We’re off to see our Father, who art in Heaven, because, because, because, because, because, because we got hit by a semi-trailer, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. We’re off to see our Father, who art in Heaven.” Now, God doesn’t take people that drink so he sent them down to the Devil who answered the door and, upon seeing the group of bible-bashing Bumpa-Lumpas, was heard to remark, “Holy flock in Hell.” And there you go.

The Devil opened the door wide and the Bumpa-Lumpas went inside. They were dreadfully drunk still and were oblivious to the danger they were in as the Devil showed them to the juicing room and closed the door behind them. If nothing else, you now know where they
really
get orange juice.

Back on the water’s edge somewhere in Vietnam, the Wicked Witch was cradling Wally’s dead body. She looked up at the helicopters flying overhead. One of them was preparing to land. She thought back to when she and Wally first met. He was but a simple man peddling his wares around town while she was working as a chimney sweep. There was a woman he liked whose name was Mary Poppin’ Pimples, but all that pus became too much for him and he left the movie to try his luck elsewhere. He asked Wendy to go with him and she said yes. They caught a wave that took them over the rainbow to a land called Oz where they were soon feted as the new power couple around town. The munchkins bowed to their every whim and it wasn’t long before Wally had been promoted to the position of Wizard. Wendy was offered the position of the Good Witch but she came down with a severe case of hypochromic anemia that turned her skin a deep shade of green. She went into hiding, started hanging out with a group of flying monkeys, and returned hell bent on the destruction of anyone that had anything to do with her coming down with the disease that changed her life, and the color of her skin, forever.

Just then, an instrumental rendition of
Suicide is Painless
started playing in the background and the helicopter landed. Two men jumped out and led Wendy to the helicopter. They went back for Wally’s body, picked it up, and threw it into the back of the helicopter with Wendy. It took off and headed for Korea where a dedicated team of surgeons were playing cards and drinking home-made gin, waiting patiently for the next round of wounded they would put back together so their government could send them right back out again. Sooner or later, these men that risked life and limb would run out of limbs. And they would also run out of life.

CHAPTER
FOUR

T
he helicopter approached the landing pad and Wendy watched as several men and women in white coats ran up the hill toward it. Soon it landed with a THUD and she was helped out by a young man that ushered her to a bus. A doctor came by and asked her if she was okay. She nodded. She looked at the doctor’s name badge. It read, ‘BJ Honey I Cut the Cheese’. The doctor checked the next person whose face was split open and it was covered with blood. Wendy looked around the bus which was full of wounded and dying and it made her sad. Another doctor whose name badge read ‘Hawke Can I Have this Drink with You’ was tending to a young man that was surely no more than sixteen years of age. His right arm was missing which Wendy guessed gave new meaning to the term ‘un-armed’.

Suddenly a siren sounded and the war ended. Hawke Can I Have this Drink with You left the bus and climbed on board a helicopter that lifted off while BJ Honey I Cut the Cheese climbed on his motorbike and rode off. Hawke Can I Have this Drink with You saw that BJ had spelled out the word GOODBYE on the landing pad using big rocks. Hawke Can I Have this Drink with You smiled and the helicopter disappeared into the distance. Meanwhile, Fred Flint Stoned leaped out from behind a bush and clothes-lined BJ, causing him to do a double somersault off the back of his bike and land flat on his back on the ground. Fred dropped a series of elbows on BJ then climbed to the top turnbuckle with one of the rocks BJ had used to spell the word goodbye. He leaped through the air and smashed the rock into BJ’s face, splitting him wide open and causing a great deal of blood to be lost. Fred s
houted at BJ to stay the hell away from the Bedrock quarry then grabbed the fallen doctor’s motorbike and rode it back to work where he was congratulated on a job well done. BJ, on the other hand, was left for dead; Hawke Can I Have this Drink with You was left oblivious to his friend’s bloody condition; and Wendy buried Wally somewhere in the hills of Korea then headed for the chocolate factory where Charlie had some time ago kicked the bucket. The brand had suffered since Charlie’s death and she was determined to make her friend’s line of chocolates number one once again. She would work hard to make sure it happened and she wouldn’t rest until it did. But first she took a tour of the factory so she could familiarize herself with it. Her first port of call in the tour was the television room, home to the famous WinkaVision. This was one of Wally’s favorite rooms in the whole factory and Wendy was not surprised, for it was grand and she was wowed by it.

A Bumpa-Lumpa gave her a white jumpsuit which she put on, then led her to the middle of the room where another Bumpa-Lumpa was waiting to flick a switch that would turn on what looked like a very big ray gun. When they got there, he flicked the switch and the very big ray gun turned on. The first Bumpa-Lumpa placed a Winka Bar on the table in front of the ray gun and the second Bumpa-Lumpa pressed a button. The ray gun whizzed and whirred and a beam of blue light shot out of the end of the barrel and hit the bar of chocolate. The chocolate disappeared into thin air and soon hundreds and thousands of twinkling particles appeared above their heads. The particles floated over to the transporter and when the particles came back together Captain James in Nothing but a T-Shirt Including No Pants was standing before them. He looked around, wondering where he was.

The Wicked Witch stepped forward and poked the Captain in the chest. He was real, alright. She turned back to the Bumpa-Lumpas. “Where’s the fucking chocolate gone?” she asked.

The Bumpa-Lumpas looked at each other then back at the Wicked Witch and shrugged.

The Wicked Witch shook her head then said to the Bumpa-Lumpas, “You guys can’t get anything right. No wonder Wally’s brand name has gone to shit. Get the hell out of my sight and don’t come back.”

The Bumpa-Lumpas stormed off. They left the room and slammed the door shut behind them.

The Witch turned to the Captain. “I’m truly sorry about this, Captain. You just can’t get good help these days.”

The door opened up again and the Bumpa-Lumpas the Wicked Witch had just fired came back into the room and they were armed with M60 machine guns and a hell of a lot of bullets. They began firing and the Captain and the Wicked Witch ran for their lives. Augustus Septemberus and Octoberus Gloop tried to run too but someone so fat they took up three whole months had no hope of getting anywhere at all let alone fast. As a result, he was hit in the back several times and fell head first into the chocolate river. His body got caught in a chute but the pressure behind it soon forced it out the top. It went flying through the air and banged into the side of Apollo 13 which was making a return trip to the moon following its ill-fated last trip on which it was hit by a cow trying to jump over the moon. The astronauts surveyed the damage and came to the conclusion that, “Houston, you ain’t gonna believe this, but now we have
another
problem. Damn it.”

The Captain and the Wicked Witch ducked and weaved as bullet after bullet whizzed by. They dived behind a bush and the Bumpa-Lumpas ran by. The Captain soon realized he had hurt his toe and removed his boot. He saw that his toenail had split and a small amount of blood had been spilled. The Wicked Witch looked at the Captain and toenail whose chart success spanned much of the 70s and early 80s and said, “I’m a huge fan. Can I please have your autograph?”

The Captain signed his name then handed the pen to toenail who refused to sign on the grounds of religious differences. He thought he was God and she disagreed.

The Bumpa-Lumpas soon realized they were no longer chasing the Captain and the Wicked Witch
, and turned back. They found the twosome hiding behind the bush and aimed their machine guns at them. The Wicked Witch waved her wand. The Bumpa-Lumpas pulled their triggers and out came soap suds instead of bullets. The Captain smiled for the Wicked Witch had thought fast and turned their weapons into
washing
machine guns. The patent for this wonderful new invention in which America’s guns are used to wash clothes instead of blowing away people is pending, by the way.

A police car pulled up and arrested the Bumpa-Lumpas, charging them with attempted murder. They were sentenced to twenty years behind bars and have since proven themselves to be model prisoners. Their only complaint is they have to get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars a day.

Captain James in Nothing but a T-Shirt Including No Pants returned to the Starship Enterprise to finish his bowl of Spocketti bolognaise that was topped with mozzarella cheese for extra taste. Snotty, on the other hand, had topped
his
bowl with a great big matzo ball. I have been assured the matzo had nothing on the mozzarella.

The Wicked Witch of the West sold the chocolate factory and paid off all of Wally’s Bills. She also paid his Andrews and Stevens and Garys and Davids and the fact Wally was gay would now go to everybody’s grave. Everybody’s but mine, that is, because I just cannot keep a secret.