SoNF Chapter Ten

A Nightmare Before Christmas fanfiction.

Spreading His Name

He was walking alone around town, like he had done not too long ago.

Billy was coming back from the police department. He wasn’t in trouble or anything, he just simply took to visiting there once in a while. Maybe he hoped to hang around with that police officer and watch him do cool things and possibly have some of his cool-ness rub off onto him. Unfortunately, nothing interesting had happened yet, and Billy quickly realized that whatever awesomeness the police officer had, it wouldn’t somehow transfer to him just by hanging out together. (The evidence for this was Knobbs and Teal and Collins.)

As the boy mused about how to be cool and how he really shouldn’t be wandering around so late anymore, there was a sudden chill in the air. And, even though he thought it very cliché, he could feel somebody giving his neck a cold stare. Hands shaking, Billy walked faster, but no. Now he could hear the person behind him easily keeping up. In fact, it sounded like the person trailing him was catching up.

Billy turned the corner suddenly, hoping to shake off this stalker, but it was too late. A clammy hand caught his shoulder and the stranger pulled himself closer and he could feel a chilly breath near his ear and he could hear the rattle of the man’s teeth as he said, “Your Time Has Come.”

He screamed. It was embarrassing, but he screamed loudly and struggled out of that cold grasp and turned to see his attacker, who, as he had imagined, was wearing a black, hooded cloak and a long, sharp scythe, and Death was putting down his hood to reveal his face and –

“Gotcha.”

Mr. Unlucky was giving him that happy, nothing-is-wrong-here grin.

Billy grabbed at his chest, and yes, his heart was still pounding so fast, it could probably jump out and flop about on the ground like a fish. “Holy crap,” he breathed out. “Please don’t do that! I thought I was gonna di – I mean, that really scare – I mean...uh…please don’t do that.” The officer had explained him all about these doors on these trees leading to holiday worlds or something like that. It sounded crazy, and Billy wasn’t sure whether he believed it or not. He wasn’t even sure how the officer knew himself. But so far, it was the most plausible explanation he had. Because it was the only explanation he had.

Mr. Unlucky’s smile faltered. “You don’t like to be scared?”

“Yeah,” Billy said, averting his eyes from the skeleton. The officer had also told him how much fun they thought scaring was. “Most people here don’t, actually. Only when they’re in haunted houses or watching scary movies or something like that.”

“Hm. Really?” Because Billy had turned away, he didn’t see how Jack’s grin widened or the way his eye sockets somehow glittered for a second.

“Yeah. Some people pay to go through a haunted house, and sometimes there’s a creepy one that kids keep daring people to go into. And there’re people who are hired to act like monsters or act scared for a film. I don’t really get it though…hey, uh, by the way, can you tell me your actual name…? It’s kinda weird to keep calling you ‘Mr. Unlucky.’”

“I like it,” the skeleton commented. “But if you don’t want to call me that…then my name is Jack.”

Billy blinked. That was an amazingly…normal name. He had several classmates named Jack. A crooked smile grew on the boy’s face as it dawned on him that this creepy, monstrous figure was rather normal.

“Skellington. Jack Skellington.” Billy’s smile dropped.

“Okay…uh…Jack. Um,” said Billy, looking around wildly for some other topic of conversation they could start. “Um…uh…is…that a…tissue floating around your legs…?”

“What?” Billy stared at the floating thing some more and realized that there were holes for eyes and a…glowing pumpkin nose…if it was a nose. It was glaring up at him, glaring at everything else, and rotating nervously around Jack’s spindly legs. “Oh, that’s my dog, Zero.”

“…It’s a ghost…”

“Yes,” said Jack with the polite tone that people use when someone is being ridiculously obvious. “For some reason, some people call him Homicidal Maniac.” Billy chuckled nervously, as if unsure whether he was joking or not. “So what about these haunted houses? Do you have one here?”

“If you’re thinking of scaring a few kids, I think it’s too late now…or not,” Billy hastily added, seeing Jack’s disappointed expression. “I mean, it’s not midnight yet, I think. Some kids might’ve taken a dare to go to that old Sinistham house. It’s creepy, it’s abandoned, it’s dangerous…so yeah, some kids go there every year.”

“Great! Sounds perfect! Do you mind showing me where it is?”

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This was weird. They just walked underground, into a grave/crypt thing, then came out the other end into some other place. This place was different. It looked different…it smelled different…yet, it seemed familiar. Zero wound around the skeleton’s legs again. What happened to the smell of burning candles and fear and candy? The candy smell was still there, but this oddly familiar place didn’t have that distinctively sinister smell.

The ghost dog trailed behind the two as they walked, looking around and trying to crank out at least some tidbit of memories long ago, when he had been alive.

And then things got really strange. Suddenly, there was some kind of light shining on Zero, even though there wasn’t a streetlight above him, and he couldn’t move, and it was steadily getting blinding, and the skeleton and the boy didn’t seem to notice it or the fact that he had stopped following them, and then all he could see was white and there was a voice saying his name, only it wasn’t his name, but a name he might have been called long ago…

“Ah, good, you’ve finally come. I’m sorry we couldn’t pick you up sooner, but your death was…odd. No dog has ever been bitten by a werewolf before. You were immediately put out of our jurisdiction.”

For some reason, he was standing on clouds. And he was actually standing. With legs. And he had hair.

“Of course, having spent such a long time as a ghost, it would be hard to remember what your living form had looked like. Allow me to be the first angel to welcome you to…Heaven.”

The clouds were so fluffy, and Zero bounced on them experimentally with his new (well, old) legs. The angel dog continued her introduction. “Of course, all dogs, being naturally loyal, go to Heaven. There is no need for us to check your records. You can fly in Heaven. You can, but do not need to, eat in Heaven…”

The clouds were so thick, Zero couldn’t see through them to the ground. It was interesting, since it had been a cloudless night. And was all the light up here really coming from the sun? And what was that smell? “Heaven, in short, is paradise. We can initiate you immediately with your own halo and living space…”

Zero finally started paying attention to the angel dog, who was one of those perfectly groomed, long-haired dogs. A penetrating light shone from her halo, and she looked on him with kind eyes. “And then I can show you around the place. Now if you will please follow me…” The angel dog gestured towards the tall, intricately decorated, golden gates, which opened by itself smoothly. More light, if that was possible, shone from it and radiated a feeling of pleasant, carefree days…

Yet, he continued standing where he was. The angel floated towards the gates a little before landing and turning back. “Please follow me,” she repeated.

There was all this free space to run around in, and it seemed the clouds were pretty good for digging. This Heaven place made him feel so light…but then again, he had felt like that as a ghost. Looking around again, Zero could see that, yes, there was a limit to the clouds here. The endless fields, the place without an edge, were probably through those gates.

Zero smirked at the angel and said, “Screw you, bitch.” While she was still looking suitably surprised, he jumped off the edge of Heaven.

It was a terribly long fall. He could feel his outer layer being stripped away, like a hologram or something, as he became a ghost again. His legs swam in the air as they disappeared, trying to gain some unseen purchase. And finally, something canceled out and Zero was floating lazily again. Alright, now where was that walking heap of bones…

Well, he had to admit that the bitch was right. Dogs were just naturally loyal.

“Ah, there you are Zero!” Ah yes, and there was that all-too-familiar Halloween Town smell. “I was a little worried when you weren’t with us a while ago…now what were you doing out here?”

“It can talk too?” said the human boy rather apprehensively.

“No, of course not. Just a rhetorical question. Well, Zero, we’ll be living in a great place for a few weeks. It has cobwebs and the basement is dank. Sometimes it drizzles down there.”

“Hey, do you need to eat? Just wondering, ‘cause, I mean, I wouldn’t want you to die. Again. Or whatever it is you do.”

“Oh, I’m sure there will be plenty of spiders in that house.” Zero was quite amused to note that the boy paled very visibly then and excused himself as Jack led him back to the now-haunted house.

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The old Sinistham Manor was now well-known in the town, and for a few weeks, children trying to prove bravery or protect pride would go there. Billy enjoyed a little fame for being the only one who never ran out screaming (though he did scream a lot, he managed to suppress those flight urges long enough to at least have interesting conversations with Jack). One night, the skeleton asked him for some maps, and the next, he left, promising to visit someday. It seemed a shame for the manor to lose its popularity, and so Billy found himself going there every day to set up strings and traps, the kind of things that opened doors seemingly by themselves and swooped ‘ghosts’ down towards unsuspecting visitors. Of course, it could never replace Jack, but luckily it was good enough for the jittery visitors.

Jack travelled across the Americas, hiding in rotting houses and scaring anybody who came in. (Language was not all that important – ‘Boo’ is universal.) And of course, he always made it back to town in time for Halloween. This was partly thanks to Zero, who kept sniffing out secret passageways to random areas in Halloween Town. As the pair found more and more, Jack couldn’t help but wonder how nobody ever wandered in to town.

Every Halloween, he arrived at sunrise, greeted enthusiastically by the townspeople. When he had the time, he would meet with Sally and they would walk to the large, crooked tree. Conversations went on like this: “Hello, Oogie. I know you’re in there. Won’t you come out this year? No? Alright then. This time, I went to an island called Hawaii, or maybe it was part of Hawaii, and England. I think I’m quite well-known in both places now. There’re about four woods in England that nobody goes into, and an old, decrepit hut that the Hawaiians avoid. The weather was completely different in those places. Hawaii was warm and sunny and there were funny-looking trees there. England was rainy and there were nice, dark skies, but the trees also looked weird there. There aren’t a lot of twisted, dead trees, really, and the flowers are colorful.” And so on.

These one-sided conversations sometimes went on for hours, and though the tree never showed signs of life, Jack kept at it before leaving with Sally, who was more willing to participate in conversation. She would tell him what had been going on while he was away, and he would share worries that he wouldn’t be able to learn the whole routine by the time he was expected to perform. Of course, somehow, he managed.

It happened one night, while Jack was haunting an abandoned Shaolin temple in China. He realized that, after years and years of doing it continuously, scaring was boring. It was too easy now. He could tell by looking at a person when they entered whether it would take only a short pop out of the closet and a loud ‘Boo,’ or it would take small things to incite paranoia before the big finish. Sometimes, he found himself idly analyzing the other Halloween Town citizens. The Mayor, he knew, was the person who entered last, who twitched the flashlight everywhere. The werewolves were mostly the leaders who would force everybody else to stay and wave off warnings of ‘I think that’s a bad idea.’ The vampires were mostly the stoic types who never let anything startle them, and usually criticized the methods.

Scaring had become…a job.

…Well, it was a job he had to do. Until he convince Oogie that he could understand, that they could talk, until things could go back to normal…

There was a sound of a very timid Chinese kid wriggling through the temple doors.

Time to work.