Harry John Reeves was a good boy. He was friendly, polite, kind, and clever. He got good grades in school. He always meant well.
Which made it all the more sad when he died.
His mother was driving him back from baseball practice when a drunk driver slammed into their car. Mrs. Reeves broke two ribs but was otherwise okay. Harry's neck snapped. He died instantly. He was eight at the time.
At his funeral, the minister talked about how little Harry would "live forever in our hearts."
Which was partly true. Of course, it can't be called living when you're dead, per se. Harry wasn't quite dead, but he wasn't exactly alive. But Harry would be in the hearts of people around the world, though the thought of him wouldn't fill people's hearts with sadness at his death. It would fill their hearts with fear.
When most people die, their spirits simply fly apart. They can't hold them together.
But Harry had always been strong-minded. He was able to keep himself mostly in one piece. His spirit felt a strong pull towards one specific place, and he was pulled that way so fast, if he were living he would have certainly gotten whiplash.
When Harry landed in a pumpkin patch, he was a skeleton. And he had no recollection of who he was.
"What's my name?" he said out loud. "Something with an H? Harvey? Harold? Henry? No. Maybe not H. Well, then, J, maybe? Jerry, Joe, Jimmy, Jack?" He paused. "Jack… yes. That's it." He looked down at himself and laughed.
"Well, that's funny. I'm a skullington." He stopped. "No, that's not the word. Skellington, that's it. I'm Jack the Skellington. And I'm in a pumpkin patch. How strange."
But these feelings, derived from his human life, left him quickly, so that all he was left with was the name he had come up with for himself in the pumpkin patch. Jack Skellington.
And in the pumpkin patch he stayed, for many years.