Summary: Jack always looked for something new, but now his son is looking to the old ways. The dark past of Halloween is about to be resurrected by a young man where it will threaten not only Jack's Holiday, but all the others as well.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the original movie, I do own anything not, including the plot
It's been many a year since that Halloween night
When Christmas was visited by the sultan of fright.
Now the holidays know where each lies and why.
They recognize both joy and screams in the night.
The balance is kept by a council each fall
When the holidays gather one and all.
This truce keeps all the holidays safe
But this year one boy will tip the scales of fate.
This is Halloween
Chapter 1: Generational Gaps
"Come on Lu, time for bed." Stitched arms prodded the boy or young man rather, in the direction of his bedroom. Dark eyes, so much like his fathers, regarded her for a moment then smiled.
Sally knew her son was too old for such reminders, but she was glad he humored her that much at least. At 17 years old he was looking more and more like his father when Jack had been in his prime. The old skeleton was still as lively as ever, but she could tell that sometimes his bones jostled a little too hard or his ribs stuck when he wanted to play fetch with zero.
Of course, Lu had a bit of her in him as well. He had his father's face, but definitely her taste in clothes. He looked a bit like a scarecrow now she came to think of it.
"Mommy, mommy," a small hand tugged at her arm, snapping Sally out of her musings. If Edgar Allan Poe had decided to design a Raggedy Ann doll, something like her sweet little Molly would have been the product. The child was barely four, but very bright for her age. Sally loved the way her daughter's hair always seemed to drape down in a spider web pattern and the way her stitches sparkled when she was happy.
"Yes, darling, what is it?" Sally asked, scooping the tot into her long arms.
"Daddy home yet?"
"He's meeting with the mayor," Sally answered with a quick glanced at the tall pendulum clock. "He'll be home to tuck you in soon."
Molly nodded and wriggled out of her mother's arms, scampering down the hall. Sally smiled and began collecting her daughter's playthings. An old jack-in-the-box that screamed when you opened it… Seven bits of a spider puzzle stuck in the xylophone… an old book.
Sally paused for a moment and set the puzzle pieces aside to look the book over. One glance told her it wasn't her daughter's book. As bright as she was, molly wasn't reading words quite that long yet. She thought it might be Jack's book. He was the sort to leave things here and there when he was trying to figure something out, but she was sure the book hadn't been there when Jack had left the house after lunch.
It must've been Lu's. She flipped through it curiously. A few rhymes caught her eyes and stirred up old memories. She smiled. It was an old Halloween Town book, almost like a scrapbook of one of the mayors old and tired Halloween plans. She hadn't seen these since before Lu was born. Jack had shaken things up in the old routine immediately following The Christmas Incident.
Lu must've been curious about the Halloweens that had come before his time. Well, maybe that would make him grateful for the Halloween they had now. Sometimes Lu didn't seem as enthusiastic as the rest of them. Oh he liked Halloween fine. He always celebrated and performed with the best of them. He just saw things differently than his father sometimes.
"Dad, the kids are going to jump and then laugh," he'd said last year with the invention of springing pumpkins. "It's not that scary."
"Not everything has to make a child hide under the covers," Jack had grinned. "Sometimes you just want to give them a fun scare."
Halloween was always a fun holiday. It was for the children after all.
Sally smiled and put the book away on a shelf. Just as she finished tidying the room, she heard the door open and a deep "I'm home," echo around the house.
Sally gave Jack a peck on the cheek. "Molly's waiting for you," she told him. Jack nodded and stalked off down the hall towards his daughter's room. There was a shriek then a fit of laughter.
Sally chuckled and plopped down with a needle to undo the damage the day had done, tightening a thread here or there.
Jack joined her shortly with a gallon of sour milk, one of his favorite snacks lately. He propped his long legs up and stretched.
"Meeting went well, Jack?" Sally asked absentmindedly.
"Wonderful," Jack grinned. "We're starting a whole new line of candy that will wriggle in your mouth like a live rat. The Mayor was pushing for a few more trapdoors down by the lake and I had to explain, three times mind you, that trapdoors can't be done in water." Jack shook his head with a roll of his eyes. The Mayor certainly kept things interesting.
They exchanged a few more notes about the day, Sally happening to mention the book she'd found lying about. Jack frowned slightly. "I don't understand. We're moving forward. I mean, when I was his age, all I dreamed about was having something new. Lu keeps looking to the past…"
"Sally, I don't want Lu digging in any of the old books anymore," he said firmly. "You were made later so you wouldn't remember, but there was a time when Halloween Town…" he paused. "Let's just say Oogie Boogie wasn't alone in his ways. He survived the years by being one of the tame nasties that stalked the night."
Sally knew what he meant. She'd had a lot of time to herself when she was locked up in her creator's home for poisoning the Doctor or such things. She'd taken much of the time to read and some of the Old Halloween traditions were not things she wanted her son to take an interest in.
"I'll talk to him about it tomorrow," Sally promised.
Upstairs, Lu sat at his rickety desk and tapped a quill against his lips. Sometimes he ran across things that hinted to references of things even older, but in all his studies he ran across a disturbing pattern.
He could find no records of Halloween past a certain date. It wasn't that long ago. Not considering Halloween had been around for centuries. Yet nothing was recorded about those first Halloweens.
Something had to be written. Once in a while he would fine a footnote that cited a document older than the ones he'd looked at. So he knew it was there. He wasn't going to ask his parents. Dad didn't want to hear about anything that was later than the year before and Mom was always on Dad's side.
He'd asked the mayor, but that had been one of the most useless conversations Lu had ever gone through. Between the Mayor's already frayed mind and the fact that he'd managed to get his head stuck sideways so that both sides not only talked at the same time but tried to use the same brain…. He was only Mayor because that's what he was made to be.
Lu snapped the quill down and pushed his notes under the bed. His personal monster-under-the-bed had been on sick leave ever since Lu had accidentally pushed some of his dad's experiments under the bed. The thing had burped green bubbles for a week and then disappeared.
Lu's eyes slowly slid shut… He'd find out what the Town was hiding. Even if he didn't share his father's passions, he had definitely inherited his ingenuity and stubbornness.
Jack would have been proud.
