Part Two

Jack Skellington: Through the chilling winds of the night did the Ghostbusters trek, their holiday spirit the only thing keeping them warm. However, in the case of one Kimberly Venkman, trying to stay warm was hardest thing possible when your heart is as cold as the air. But, upon their arrival to 155th street, things would soon warm up very quickly.

The Ecto-2K pulled up right in between a foggy graveyard and a mansion that had a Dutch Gothic Revival style to it. With no streetlights to illuminate the foreboding atmosphere, the red and blue lights from atop of Ecto-2K were all that kept everything partially lit. That wouldn't be a problem much longer, as two flashlights switched on from the hands of J.G. Stantz and Diana Zeddemore, as well as one additional hint of lighting from the screen of Sean Spengler's P.K.E. Meter.

While exiting the company vehicle, Meagan Tully looked past the pair of ornate gates at the mansion. "A haunted mansion?! Why does that sound so familiar to me?"

"Don't know and don't care." Kimberly Venkman hastily remarked. "Let's just get this over with and go back to our normal, boring lives."

Hearing her talk that way, J.G. and Sean both shook their heads in disgust. They could remember many Christmases since they attended college together when Kimberly was ecstatic about the holidays, regardless of whomever she spent it with. It wasn't until she met Jonathan Barrett once that all changed; of course, even while they've been separated from each other since the "Gozer Incident," she enjoyed Christmas all the same. The point being, in general – love could make a person act quite irrationally, even on a special time like Christmas.

After their "fearless leader" made her demand, she approached the gates and gripped the left side, giving it a slight shake. The gate then opened, allowing the four Senior Ghostbusters and one Junior Ghostbuster to walk right into the mansion's well-tended gardens and courtyards. As soon as they had reached the front door, Venkman gave a brief knock against the hollow structure. A minute had passed and there was no answer.

Another knock and Kimberly then shouted through the door, "Hey, c'mon! You called the Ghostbusters and here we are! So open…"

Without warning, the door suddenly opened on its own, letting out a slow, daunting creak as it had done so. The unusual occurrence was enough to alarm the visitors to pull out their neutrona wands while entering the house with extreme caution.

They came amongst a small foyer, lit only by a few lanterns. Seeing the lanterns, Spengler got a little confused. "Anyone who uses lanterns for a light source must lack electricity."

Kimberly glanced over at him, confusion spread across her face. "Yeah, so what?"

"So how was our caller able to contact us, without the proper electrical appliance to do so?" Spengler inquired.

"By a payphone? I don't know!" Venkman retorted.

Stantz was beginning to see the point in Spengler's indication. "Kim, there's not a payphone anywhere near this neighborhood. He would've had to walk twelve blocks to have called the firehouse."

"People do desperate stuff when they're being haunted, Jay." Kimberly boldly pointed out.

"I'd seriously doubt walking twelve blocks in an approaching snowstorm would be one of them, Venkman." Diana contradicted.

Refusing to bother with the assumptions of her colleagues, Venkman focused on the one person who seemed right in keeping her mouth shut. "Meagan, please tell me your head is still in the game."

"O-Of course, Doctor Venkman." Meagan answered, while slightly adjusting her glasses.

"Good girl," she said, before adding without a second thought, "You lead us into the next room then."

Meagan nodded in acknowledgment, but then did a double take, as soon as she realized what her boss just requested for her to do. Kimberly glared into her blue eyes, signifying how serious she was in her demand, and the Junior Ghostbuster carried out the order with false enthusiasm. She led the group into the dead center of an octagonal room filled with four portraits on every other wall – one was of a bearded man in the dress of minor nobility, another was of a demure young woman holding on a parasol, a third one of an old lady sitting, and the final one of a man with sideburns sitting as well.

"Nice room." Kimberly said as she noted the lack of doors in the room. "But, as far as I can tell, there's nothing and nobody here to help us." She then turned to Spengler and added, "Unless Sean's got something on the P.K.E."

The glare from the brightness of the P.K.E. screen flashed over Spengler's glasses while checking the information that he got from scanning every inch of the room. After a few seconds, he looked to Venkman and shook his head. "I've got nothing here, Kim."

She rolled her eyes in disgust and headed in the direction of the exit. "Let's get outta here. Man, do I hate these prank calls!" As she was making her complaint, she walked right into a section of the wall that she thought to have been the doorway leading out of the room. Bumping into it, she looked around the structure of the wall, perplexed and aggravated. "What the he…?! Where's the door?!"

The others glanced around as well, noticing in shock how there was not a single doorway leading out of the room. It was almost as if they were sealed in on purpose. And before any of them could wonder why, there came a high-pitched, maniacal laugh that echoed throughout the octagonal room.

"Welcome, foolish mort…er, I mean, kind guests…to my haunted mansion!"

The voice that accompanied the laughter seemed very recognizable to J.G.; it was the same voice as the person who called them to that very place. "Who are you? Why've you brought us here?"

"You shall soon find out, Dr. Stantz…for this very night…you will be haunted by three adaptations!"

"Three adaptations?" Diana repeated the confusing proclamation. "Of what?!"

As the echoing voice and the Ghostbusters were conversing, Meagan glanced at the portraits and noticed something remarkably strange about them and the walls they were hung upon – both were quietly stretching upwards, elongating the paintings on them to reveal more details of them. The bearded man in the dress of minor nobility was wearing red and white striped boxer shorts while standing on a keg of dynamite with a lit fuse. The demure young woman holding a parasol was calmly balancing on an unraveling tightrope above the hungry jaws of a waiting crocodile. The old lady was sitting atop a tall gravestone, which featured the bust of a man with an axe through his head. And the man with sideburns, who was also sitting, was doing so on a fat, mustached man who was sitting atop a lean, pale-looking gentleman who was chest-deep in quicksand.

"You've noticed my paintings, Miss Tully?"

Meagan jumped in surprise when she heard the voice address her, making her wonder how he knew she was even looking.

"Your cadaverous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding, almost as though you sense a disquieting metamorphosis. Is this haunted room actually stretching? Or is it your imagination, hmm…?"

As soon after the others noticed the stretching walls as well, Kimberly's aggravation increased, and she shouted to their hidden host, "Okay, enough of the games! We want out of here now!"

"Oh, my dear Dr. Venkman. Your heart is so, so cold this evening. But you will learn by the dawn of Christmas Day how important it is to be in the spirit of the holidays."

"The only thing I'm gonna learn is how hard I can kick your butt, as soon as I get my hands around your scrawny, little…"

KURCRACK!

The lights within the octagonal room went out, just as lightning and thunder filled the area. As flashes of light came over, Kimberly looked up and noticed a man hanging from a noose high above in the cupola. In all her years as a Ghostbuster, she had seen quite some frightening sights; but the sight of a man who recently committed suicide was beyond frightening to her. Taking a deep breath, she let out a long, high-pitched shriek.

It wasn't long before the lights within the room returned, and the tension rising over Kimberly Venkman's body began to cease somewhat. When she turned to where her colleagues stood, she was met with the horrifying revelation that they had all vanished without a trace. She was all alone in the "door-less" octagonal room, armed with nothing else than her Proton Pack.

At least, that was what she thought until she looked down and realized how she was no longer gripping onto her neutrona wand. She no longer felt the weight of the nuclear accelerator bearing down upon her back. All she had been left with was her uniform, sans the black gloves she wore to protect them from the heat of the neutrona wand and the chill of the wind outside.

She swallowed and began breathing very hard, with bullets of sweat starting to come down her forehead. Fear was soon mixed with panic as she realized there was nowhere for her to escape. But then she noticed a section of the wall sliding open mysteriously, letting in a blinding white light that was shining from the other side of it. Forced to shield her eyes from it, Kimberly glanced into the light to see where this doorway – different from the one she and her friends came through – led.

That was when she noticed a figure walking out from the white light and into the room. Once Kimberly's eyes adjusted to the light, she noticed that the figure was a rag doll-type of character with long red hair, big unusually-shaped eyes, a dress that was stitched together with multiple colored and designed fabrics, and a pair of black slippers. A smile was registered from her red lips, which seemed to extend through stitches lined across the opposite sides of her face. She was a messy and yet comforting sight to Kimberly; but that didn't stop her from questioning her presence.

"Who…Who are you?"

"Fear not, Kimberly Venkman. My name is Sally…but for the evening, I'm the Ghost of Christmas Past."

Venkman glanced at the living rag doll with a strange look. "You have got to be kidding me…"

Jack Skellington: Kimberly Venkman will soon discover that Sally is far from kidding – as her journey to rediscovering her Christmas spirit is in full swing at this very moment. And what of the others, you ask? Keep focused on our story, and you will find out!