Full summary: Despite a clear warning from Jack, Lock, Shock, and Barrel have begun to act up again. After a simple scheme nearly results in disaster, Jack decides that enough is enough. Meanwhile, the Pumpkin King has to worry about his upcoming wedding and, of course, the plans for next Halloween.
Disclaimer: Plasma is red, corpuscles are blue, and if you recognize this poem twist, awesome for you! Seriously, though, I don't own Nightmare Before Christmas, and I don't have the money to even try. (I don't own Oogie's Revenge, either, in case you were wondering. I just like the Oogie propaganda posters.)
Chapter One: The Last Straw
Jack stared down at the trio in front of him, looking from one guilty face to the next. He could feel anger boiling up deep inside his bones. Part of him wanted to start screaming at them, but his reason reminded him that they were only children, and that he shouldn't get mad at them. He settled for somewhere in between. They had really taken it too far this time. The children stared back at him, looking almost ashamed of themselves.
"We're really sorry, Jack," Shock said, fiddling with the corner of her dress skirt, revealing a small section of the dark lace petticoat underneath.
"We didn't know she'd fall like that," Barrel added, averting his eyes to the ground. Lock nodded robotically, toying with the sharp tip of his devil's tail, rather than let it swish behind him. Judging by their current demeanor, they knew that they were in big trouble.
"What," The kids cringed at the king's sudden harsh tone, "possessed you to do such a thing?"
"We didn't mean to, Jack!" Lock said, speaking for the first time in several minutes.
"We really didn't!" Shock nodded quickly.
The group of four stood in the entrance room of Dr. Finkelstein's manor, next to the start of the spiraling ramp that resembled a section of a marble play-set. A faint whirring sound drifted down from upstairs, but nobody acknowledged it, though they all knew it was there. A few short hours ago, Jack had been looking forward to spending some quality time with his beloved rag doll. Instead, he waited in the entrance hall combined with a kitchen with Oogie Boogie's ex-henchmen, waiting for the doctor to finish his work and for Sally to wake up.
Not many things scared the Pumpkin King, but he had received the scare of a lifetime not too long ago...
Sally, newly the Pumpkin King's fiancée, had been searching through the Witches' Storehouse earlier that day. She had gone in to buy a reel of rayon fabric that she planned to sew into her wedding gown. Sally had always thought rayon was the comfiest fabric in the world, and uncomfortable or scratchy fabric agitated her stitches, so it was only logical that she should choose to wear it for her wedding day. The witches had informed her that they did not have it in the shop, but that she could pay for it and then get it from their storehouse. She had been completely unaware of the three little miscreants that had been tailing her from out-of-sight. They had only played a trick on her once, if they had done their counting right. They really only played practical jokes on those they viewed to be of pranking interest, and Sally had only entered that circle very recently. That day, however, they had double intentions.
"Okay, let's go over the plan once more," Lock had whispered to his friends as they crouched behind a large pile of crates that obscured them from view and muffled their voices, "Barrel, you should go over to Sally and distract her. Shock, you will nab the things we want while Sally's not looking. Barrel will lead Sally towards the stairs, and I'll come up from behind. Then we'll push her, close the door, and exit out the hole in the roof."
Shock had nodded, but Barrel looked uncertain.
"The roof? Will we even fit?"
"Yes," Shock hissed, "The hole's huge, Barrel, even you will fit through."
"Shut up," Barrel glared at her.
"Shhh!" The other two hissed. The three had waited until the rag doll, who was soon to be their queen, had turned away from them. Then, Barrel casually walked out into the open, directly towards her turned back. He wore no shoes, so his footsteps were softer than those of his cohorts.
"Hi, Sally," Barrel chirped in the most innocent voice he could muster. She looked down at him, surprised.
"Oh, hi, Barrel," Sally responded. They made casual conversation for a while, Barrel stepping closer every once in a while, in which she would step back. It wasn't that she was afraid of him, she just liked her space. Without even noticing, she stood a foot or two from the staircase that led back down.
Shock, seeing an opportunity, seized it. She dashed from behind crate to behind crate. She wasn't stupid enough to come into plain sight. With each crate, she quickly read the label. Finally, she found the crate she was looking for, and frowned at the crate that was covering it. She looked towards Lock, the only member of the trio who hadn't moved, and was thankful to see that he was watching her. She jabbed a finger at the crate and mouthed something to him. He nodded to show that he understood, and crept out of his hiding spot. He stayed in the shadows to hide his red attire. Shock put her hands on the crate and started to push the heavy wood off. She had a feeling that it wouldn't fall quietly, so she hoped Lock would work quickly. Using all of her strength, she used her entire body force to push the box, inch by inch. The crate suddenly crashed to the ground, the glass inside shattering. The weight of the crate shook the entire room as shards of broken glass flew in every direction.
Sally's head had spun around towards the source of the crash, but she never saw what had happened. Two pairs of hands roughly shoved her, and she fell back quickly. She crashed into a marble gargoyle at the foot of the stairs, and the world went black.
While Shock eagerly snatched a small blade sharpener, some pranking items, and some jewelry and ribbons for herself (although she rarely to never wore either, she couldn't help but be greedy), Lock and Barrel stared in utmost horror at the scene before them. Shock stuffed the items into her burlap drawstring bag, before noticing that her friends seemed frozen. Scowling, she stormed over to them, opening her mouth to scold them. She fell silent, however, when she realized what they were looking at.
Some skin had been torn on the rag doll's head, and an odd, clear fluid was leaking out of her nose and ears. They had no idea what that was, but it didn't look good. They looked at one another nervously, barely noticing the shouts of alarm from the witches next door, trying to decide whether to flee or stay to see if their future queen was all right. In their many years of reeking relatively harmless havoc, they had never seen this before. Next thing they knew, they had been met with the angry stare of the Pumpkin King. They gulped, staring into his empty eye sockets.
Now, they stood in silence in Doctor Finkelstein's laboratory. Shock swung her bag back and forth, the tiny jewels and metal clanking together softly. Sally's tote bag lay forgotten at her feet, as she had been ordered to bring Sally's possessions to the lab. Lock sat on the side of the stove that wasn't occupied by the large pot, continuing to twist his tail between his fingers nervously. Tiny scratches covered his palms from playing with the sharp point, but it was clear that he didn't care. Barrel sat against the railing on the ramp, staring at the ceiling. The young ghoul muttered incoherently to himself, gently banging the back of his head against the rail. Jack kept looking at each of them. He was angry, but if he had a heart, it would be slamming against his ribcage. His precious rag doll was unconscious upstairs, being operated on. Her creator feared that her brain had been damaged in the fall, and that scared him.
A steady drip, drip echoed through the room, but nobody bothered to find out where it came from. Nobody cared.
After several agonizingly long hours, the whirring upstairs stopped, and Jack looked up as the mad scientist rolled down the ramp towards them. Barrel scrambled out of the way, scurrying over to his friends, who looked down guiltily. They had never caused serious injury before. Jack stood up straight, watching the doctor, ignoring the children in the room.
"She'll recover," Dr. Finkelstein informed him, "She's still unconscious, but she'll recover. It's a miracle that she wasn't severely hurt. If she had been human, she would have probably been killed." At those words, Boogie's Boys cringed simultaneously. Everybody knew that they were bad kids, but they'd never mean to kill anybody.
"Can I see her?" Jack asked, then glanced at the trio, "Er... can we see her?" The bogeyman's ex-henchmen looked at him in disbelief, but made no complaint. They felt as if their voices had been taken right out of their throats.
"There's no point," The doctor muttered, but led them up the ramp, regardless. The trio reluctantly followed after some silent persuasion. Shock left Sally's bag in the entrance hall, but took hers with to insure that nobody looked inside.
Lock, Shock, and Barrel didn't entirely understand why Jack "invited" them along. Did he want to make them feel bad? Maybe, but when they asked, he said nothing. They studied his skull, but his features gave away no trace of his thoughts. This frustrated them, and they continued to pester him all the way up to Sally's old room, where she was currently unconscious in.
"Why do we have to come with?"
"We already said we're sorry!"
"Can't we just go home?"
Jack ignored each question thrown at him. He paused at the door of her room, barely hearing the obnoxious complaints thrown at him. He slowly opened the heavy metal door and crept inside. The trio stopped questioning him, which he was grateful for, as he went over to the iron bed. Hair that resembled a red sea obscured most from view, as Sally had her back to the door. Her eyes were closed peacefully, and a new stitch was noticeable on her head. He ran a skeletal hand over her cheek. She didn't know he had done it, but he did anyway. It was then that he realized that he forgot to ask the doctor something, but when he turned, only the terrible three stood in the doorway.
"Lock, Shock, Barrel, please come here," Jack ordered. The ex-Boogie's Boys didn't dare disagree, and came over to his side quickly. When they were in serious trouble, they had found it better to just obey him, and then disobey him later, if they so wished. The tall Pumpkin King knelt down to their height, and lowered his voice, "Do you remember what I said two months ago? About you three acting up again?"
Their frowns deepened.
"You will not be allowed to go into the human realm on Halloween until you can convince me that you can behave yourselves," Jack told them calmly.
"But, Jack-" They whined.
"No buts," He said.
"But we didn't mean to, Jack! It was an accident!" Shock pleaded, clasping her gloved hands together.
"Yeah! Besides, she's fine," Lock interjected.
"It doesn't matter. If she had been human, she would've died," Jack told them, "you need to learn to control yourselves. I'm not asking you to magically reform, just please, calm down a bit."
They opened their mouths to protest, but he shooed them off. They left the Doctor's manor without another word, avoiding eye contact.
"This is stupid," Lock growled through his sharp teeth as the cage rose up into the tree house. He had his arms crossed childishly, and his tail lashed about, knocking into the ankles of his cohorts. Shock didn't seem to notice, but Barrel yelped, rubbing the bruise that had budded on his skin.
"We can't trick-or-treat this year!" Barrel whined.
"'Took you long enough to figure that out," Shock said, her arms crossed over her chest. The cage gave a jolt as it came to a stop, and the trio stepped out, not even bothering to close the cage door behind them.
"This is stupid, though!" Lock repeated, barely caring if the others were listening, "It's not like we meant to do it! He knows that! But nooooo!"
"It was your idea to push her," Barrel pointed out, but Lock didn't notice. The devil was too busy grumbling to himself.
"Oh, stop your whining," Shock said, sitting down on the part of the hybrid couch that actually had a proper armrest. She flicked a beetle off of the upholstered arm. "It's not like it'll help us."
Lock nearly slipped on a loose marble that looked eerily like an eye of a cat before he marched over to her. "Do you want to stay here while everybody else goes into the human world on Halloween Town? Because Barrel and me don't! Right, Barrel?" The youngest nodded in response.
"I don't want to stay here either, smart one, but when does Jack ever change his mind?" The witch sneered darkly. Lock grumbled an incoherent response and walked over to the soda machine, pouring himself a cup and rather violently shoved the straw in. He flopped down on the floor beside their painted tic-tac-toe game on the wall. Shock tugged Barrel's trident out of the wall and used it to impale the small bag of candy sitting some while away from her. She grabbed a caramel apple from the stash and tossed the bag on the floor along with the trident, which clanged noisily to the ground. "Honestly, you're acting like a three-year-old."
Barrel picked up a large, brightly colored toffee that had rolled out of the bag, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth. He attempted to join in the conversation, but the toffee had stuck his teeth together. Normally, the trio would start laughing when that happened because it made you talk funny and incoherently. So, when Lock and Shock's mouths didn't even twitch, it was clear that the ex-henchmen of Oogie Boogie took playing devious stratagems on the humans on Halloween very seriously. Not to mention, their greatest reward: the candy. But there was no fun if they had to stay home, no pranks on the mortals, and no candy. The worst part of it? No candy. Their stash was running low, and they didn't know what they would do if they couldn't refill it that Halloween. The very thought was alien to them.
Shock bit into the caramel-coated apple in her hand. She chewed slowly, looking at the two boys that she lived with in apparent concentration, as if trying to read their thoughts.
"What are we going to do?" Barrel asked quietly, but loud enough for his cohorts to clearly hear him. Lock shrugged, and Shock mumbled something that was unintelligible, but it was probably along the lines of...
"Who knows?"
A/N: You asked for it, and you got it: the sequel to Forever By My Doll's Side! I already have some ideas for chapter two, so expect it to be up quickly.
~Inferno Shock