A/N: So, I wrote this when The Conjuring was brand new in theaters. A couple of critics said that it was the scariest movie that they'd ever seen. One even went so far as to say that it was the scariest movie ever made. I like scary movies, but not demonic ones. And, since I didn't want to be sleeping with the lights on for the next seven years, I didn't see it… Jack and Sally did. This was too much fun to write.
Oh yeah, forgot to put this in my other story, but I don't own any of these wonderful characters(tragic as that may be). I also don't own any part of The Conjuring. No money is being made from this production(if you can call it that). My only payment is knowing that this fanfiction made somebody smile. On that INCREDIBLY corny note, on with the show! (P.S. If you are confused by the title, it's a combination of 'Conjuring' and 'Regret'. Yes, it's stinky. I couldn't come up with anything better to convey the spirit of the story. Sorry!) Thanks so much to GodlyJewel for the oh-so-kind review of my first post and for the favorite. Thanks to PoisonBlackRose for the favoriting! I hope you guys like this too!
The Conjuregret
A JackxSally 3
A warm, oily wave of butter smell swept out from the doorway. Sally smiled and curtseyed, then slid into a narrow aisle. Jack Skellington followed close behind, toting two red-and-white half-liter cups and a bucket that only partially contained a teetering mountain of popcorn furred with butter and salt. The close, candlelit room was packed. Hardly a patchy seat was free. A werewolf and the vampire coven took up most of the front rows. The Cyclops took up all the back rows. Lock, Shock, and Barrel slouched in the middle, kicking the seats ahead of them and periodically flinging gummy bears into the werewolf's fur. Every so often, the hapless were would whip around with a snarl, giving the trio their cue to duck below eye level and smother sugar-induced cackles. It looked to Jack and Sally that those within firing range were in for a long evening….Lock, Shock, and Barrel had a five pound bag of candy. Even taking into account their rather incredible rate of gobbling, Jack felt pretty sure that the troublesome three would have enough ammo to last the duration of two hours.
Sally wondered how the three had gotten in…The Conjuring had been rated a well-earned R, and not one of them was old enough to go online without a parent's permission, let alone attend the opening night of a hot horror movie. Perhaps they'd maced the doorman like they had at Scary Movie XVIII. The gentle ragdoll wanted to go over and say something to them. Two things stopped her: a reluctance to pick junk food out of her hair for the rest of the night, and the ushers snuffing out the first few candles. Jack and Sally joined in as a collective cheer rose lustily from the adrenaline-pumped, popcorn-bloated crowd.
Jack found an empty seat on either side of a man with an axe planted in his head. The Pumpkin King bent down, got the man's attention, and gestured to his girlfriend. "Excuse me. Do you mind-?" "Sure, Jack." The axe guy scooted over, and Halloween Town's it couple sat down together. Sally snuggled down under Jack's arm as smoke from the last few candles drifted through the air along with the buzz of the audience's dialogue. A macabre animated short was shown in lieu of previews. Jack chuckled through the whole thing, and Sally smiled. Then the screen lit up with an ornately bordered message: AND NOW FOR OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION
The audience engaged in another eardrum-rending cheer. As denizens of Halloween Town, there was nothing they liked better than a good scare. The opening credits rolled. Jack and Sally held hands while Jack collected gummy bears from victimized seatmates and made a snack of them. ****
[Approximately one hour later] Jack gnawed vigorously on his left fingerbones. His right hand clasped Sally's wrist so tightly that he was making the stuffing in her arm bulge. Sally's unattached hands quivered over her eyes. Shock and Barrel had climbed into her lap at some point. Lock was pressed to the floor as if hoping to meld with it and find safety there. With every jump scare, the redheaded ragdoll coiled a bit deeper into her seat, her two seatmates squeezed her even tighter(she was already seeing orange and black spots), and Lock shuffled a little further between Jack's feet. By the end credits, none of the five had any feeling whatsoever in their arms and extremities. ****
Jack Skellington, the master of fright, was so scared that he couldn't MOVE. The candy corn-scented, starless night loomed beyond the theater's bright lights. Jack and Sally lingered until even Jack noticed how many strange looks they were getting. Normally, Jack loved the dark. He sang his best songs at night. There was no better time to scare the pants off someone. Or get ambushed by a demon. The Pumpkin King saw how tense his date was and made a feeble attempt at a grin.
"Well- that was something, wasn't it?" She put on a brave face for him. "It was…intense." "Intense. Yes." They most likely would have been paralyzed until morning had the bushes nearby not rustled… THREE TIMES. The yarn on Sally's neck stood straight up. Jack's knees wobbled. Both vividly remembered that the demon attacked after announcing its presence thrice. Both felt giddy with terror. Neither wanted to scare the other. Jack clasped Sally's hand and spoke in double time. "Well- it's getting late." Sally's words came out in a squeaky rush. "It is- the doctor will be waiting." Jack broke into a sprint. "I'll walk you home." Sally had to gallop to keep up with his mile-long strides. 'That would be great."
They tore down the block and cut through the graveyard. Jack weaved serpentine-style between the tombstones while Sally casually crossed herself and Jack several dozen times. The two took the steps up to the Finklesteins' laboratory four at a time. Sally lost a foot but didn't dare to retrieve it. Jack crossed himself, Sally, and the air around them in a ten-foot radius while Sally made a frenzied attack on the front door with her key. The second the lock's tumblers clunked, the clever experiment snatched Jack's arm and dove facefirst onto the hallway carpet. Jack burst in after her and kicked the door shut on his other leg.
With much yelling and exclamations, Sally and the Pumpkin King freed the leg and slammed the door. Sally leaned with every ounce of her strength against the door while Jack fastened every single bolt and jammed every chair in the living room under the doorknob. Panting, he slid down next to Sally. "I'm going to see if the doctor has any holy water." Sally braced the chairs with an end table. "I think he has some seltzer water." "That'll do, if we spray it hard enough." Jack helped her up and set off for the kitchen. While he retrieved the bottle of seltzer water, Sally lit every candle and lamp on the first floor. Igor stirred in his kennel but didn't wake as the two barricaded all the first floor windows. Sally led Jack into a closet and nailed the door shut.
"There!" she sighed, several shades too breezily, "Nice and snug!" Jack bit his bony lip and rubbed his skull, his way of blushing. Sally tipped her head. "What's wrong, Jack?" The skeleton king crossed his stick legs. "I really have to go to the bathroom." Sally's eyes widened. "Oh, no. Whatever you do, don't think about it." Jack shuffled his feet; he would have broken into a little dance had there been room. "I'll try." There was a minute or two of silence. Then Jack gulped. "You have to go too, don't you?" Sally bit her lip. "Of course I do." They'd both had enough Croaka Cola at the theater to drown small house pets. "We're going to have to make a run for it," Jack whispered, hating to say it. "Unless," he added, turning to Sally hopefully, "There's a bathroom on this floor?" Sally grimaced. "It's Doctor Finklestein's." Jack shuddered like an autumn leaf. "Forget I mentioned it.."
He pried the nails out of the door frame while Sally collected the nails in her tiny palm and held the seltzer bottle at the ready. They took hands. Jack turned the knob and strained his ear cavities. "Now!" he hoarsely yelped. They burst out of the closet and stampeded up the winding ramp. When Sally caught her ankle stub on a step and stumbled, Jack scooped her up into his arms and raced on. "Hang a right!" Sally told him, clinging to his shirt and arm. Jack skidded into the bathroom and dropped his girlfriend off. "Ladies first," he gasped, even as he hopped from foot to foot as if the floor had turned to molten lava. The gentle redhead protested. "Just hurry," Jack insisted. Seeing there was no way she was going to win this one, Sally ducked inside and left him alone. In. The. Dark. It was the longest, tensest minute and a half of Jack's afterlife.
Sally dashed out, her hands still soapy. "Your turn!" Her boyfriend didn't need to be told twice. He dashed in without even bothering to shut the door. Sally shut it after him and quaked on the other side of the wood until he raced out again. The heartbreat that Jack came out, she led the scrabble to her room. The two leaned against the bedroom door and clung to each other, quaking at the steady banging on the front door. "Sally, if we don't get through tonight, I just want you to know that I love you." "I love you too, Jack. So much!" The pounding moved around to the side door. Both were far too petrified to count the number of blows. Sally buried her face and hands in Jack's shoulder, and Jack hugged her close for what would likely be the last time. Then the Pumpkin King straightened up as an idea came to him.
"Let's shove your bed up against the door- that might buy us some time." Sally produced a wrench from one of her stripey socks. "Okay!" The bed legs were rusty and pretty well attached to the floor. By the time they'd gotten three legs loose, the doorknob creaked. Jack tried to scream, but it came out soundless. "Don't worry," Sally gasped, "I locked it!" They kept frantically rattling the last leg. The lock tumblers clicked. Two eyes and two sockets popped wide open.
"It can get in!" Sally squeaked. Jack snatched up the heaviest object that he could find and narrowed his eyes as he hefted it over his skull. "Ready with that water… " Shaking, Sally leveled the bottle nozzle at the door. "Aim…." Her trembling finger tightened on the button. The door squealed open. Sally screamed and let loose a bubbly torrent. Jack bellowed as he smashed the sewing maching down on Doctor Finklestein's steel-domed skull. ****
The elderly doctor's reaction to his reception lasted long after Jewel had patted him dry and Jack had packed his brain in ice. It endured through dozens of attempts at sincerest apologies. It only intensified when Sally finally had half of a second to explain about The Conjuring. After an exceptionally long-winded exploration of all the reasons that moving pictures(and scary ones especially) were trash and that they were half-wits, Sally and the Pumpkin King escaped upstairs. "He might have TOLD us that he and Jewel were the ones knocking," Jack mumbled. "Really- there's only so much you can hear through a sealed closet." Sally grumbled.
They hugged each other goodnight. "Next time, let's see something animated," Jack suggested. "Sounds good to me." Sally agreed. WHACK! A heavy blow made the window rattle. Sally screamed only a little louder than Jack. Their embrace became an anaconda grip. The Pumpkin King went for the seltzer bottle while his girlfriend grabbed up what was left of the sewing machine. He leveled the nozzle at the dark, bulgey shadow looming just outside the window frame and narrowed his sockets.
To his surprise, the shadow fell apart and tumbled into the room. Sally had just lifted the sewing machine over her head when she suddenly froze. "Wait, Jack!" Jack's fleshless finger reluctantly paused in mid-press. Then he sighed. His fingerbone slid off the button, and his hand went to his hipbone. Lock, Shock, and Barrel lay moaning on the floor. Sally set the sewing machine down and folded her stitchy arms. Jack loomed over the trio. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.
With some pinching and wriggling, the three managed to disentangle and sit up. "Don't clobber us, Jack!" Lock protested. "We don't feel good." Shock groaned. Barrel hugged himself. "My stomach hurts!" "I wonder why." The skeleton king snorted, eyeing their bulging tummies. "Don't patronize us." Grumbled Shock. Jack leveled his eyeless stare directly at her small face. "WHAT was that?" "Uheeeuhhr- my stomach!" she moaned. "Mine's worse! Mine's worse!" Barrel wailed. Lock rolled up in a ball. "Urgh- no, mine is!" Sally knelt down beside them. "Stay here and I'll get you some medicine." "That's all we want." Shock groaned. "We tried to catch you at the theater." Barrel moaned. Lock glared. "But then you took off like you were on fire for some stupid reason." Jack blushed. Sally hobbled downstairs for some Tums more quickly than the situation required. ****
Sally woke up just after three AM to go to the bathroom again. She got up and nearly tore her newly-reattached foot off on a devil horn. After just barely choking down a terrified blast of decibels, the she saw that the horn was plastic. Lock was curled up just inches from her bed. He was piled on top of Shock, who had her head pillowed on Barrel's stomach. The gentle ragdoll's heart melted a little in spite of herself. The troublesome three had said goodnight and had gone back out the window a few minutes before Jack's departure, but she hadn't checked to make sure they'd gone. She draped a blanket over the three, feeling better knowing that they weren't as desensitized as they boasted to be. They patchy redhead tiptoed past them and nearly tripped over Jack and Zero. 3