/Author's note: Welcome back at"dire consequences" and thanks for your patience and thanks for the review, Star's Snowflake, means pretty much to me hands out virtual cookie. What? Want one too? Review! x) "The nightmare before christmas" does still not belong to me. The other character's do though. 11 days to Halloween, I can't wait! On with the story.

Jack did quite well so far. He sneaked through the streets, making sure to stay out of the light and to avoid crowded places. The last thing turned out to be a pretty hard task, for everyone who was at the market place before was now roaming through the whole town, wether to get to their homes as fast as possible or to help the police catch that "furious ghoul" before it would catch them. Jack had to keep himself from smacking his forehead several times when he happened to hear what those mortals were thinking about him.

"Did you see it's eyes? They were..just not there!"

"You are one to talk, it had red lights in it's sockets, for sure, those were devilish stares I tell you!"

"And huge it was, as huge as a street lantern!"

"And it's army of ghosts – scaary, I say…"

"Oh c'mon, didn't you see how they fled from the cops? Totally harmless."

"Are you sure it wasn't just a mean trick from the youth of the town…?"

"It came to take Christmas and now it wants Halloween? Seems like it hates holidays…"

"But what about the other holidays we had this year? Take…easter, for example…"

"Skeleton? I think it looked more like Godzilla…!"

'Godzilla? Well, who might that be…' Jack wondered about the last comment he caught, but he had to focus on more important things, like the question, just how he would be able to come out of all this.

After a long, but unfruitful period of pondering he decided to shove this problem to the farthest spot in his skull and focused on staying in hiding. He soon found a most suitable camouflage for himself as he borrowed the old clothing from a scarecrow and a jack-o'-lantern from a front garden in the suburbs.

"Forgive me, Sally, but I have to hide my good looks for a little while," he muttered to himself while he threw away the candle of the lantern and shoved the pumpkin over his skull.

Now that he looked like every other dressed up mortal in this town he was able to move more freely. He decided to give his new costume a shot and walked right into a group of dressed up mortals. No screamings this time, no recognition – to them he was nothing more than one of their own in a funny scare-crow-costume. Jack grinned brightly under his mask about his newest success. Now he was able to head back home without anyone following him. He took off to the grave-yard immediately and even a skip could be seen in his step, his dear friend Zero following him in the shadows.

While Jack had just begun his way home Halloween Town had already welcomed the rest of it's citizens who returned from a chaotic night. Those who stayed with Sally now left the witches' house to join their fellows, since their king seemed to be out of trouble. Sally wouldn't move though. Not until she would see Jack leave the mortal's world. She rubbed her hands together nervously as she watched her beloved skeleton through the waterscape that gave her insight to the actions in the other world.

"Only a few blocks further to the grave-yard and then I can head to our grave-yard to welcome him," the rag-doll said in order to calm herself down.

Outside the Halloween-Towners gathered in the Town Hall to discuss what went wrong this evening and to wait for the return of the Pumpkin King.

"Will Jack be alright?" asked one of the Vampire brothers.

"We just saw him at the witches' place, he's on his way home.", Dr. Finkelstein assured. The Town Hall let out a heavy sigh of relief.

"Yes, this is our Jack!" cheered the Mayor, before his head spinned around to reveal his worried face once more. "I'd normally hold a speech now about how scary and terrifying this halloween had been…"

"Well, it was terrifying! In a bad way."

"The mortals scared the crap out of me…"

"Next year will be better."

"When we start planning now it should get more terrifying than every Halloween we had before!" the Mayor's head spinned back to his cheerful face while the Town Hall was filled with joyful shouts again.

Sally gave out an irritated look to the Town Hall as she passed by.

'They're going back to normal a little too fast for my taste' she thought while she hurried down the streets out of Halloween Town.

As Sally had just witnessed, Jack had entered the grave-yard and finally left the mortal's world. He now sat at the graveyard of Halloween Town, rested his head against the Mausoleum through which he returned seconds ago and heaved a heavy sigh.

"We made it, Zero," he patted his ghostly dog's head who gave out an agreeing bark. "This could've ended much worse."

"Jack?" the called skeleton looked up to find Sally at the other end of the grave-yard, searching for him. He smiled and jumped back to his feet.

"Jack, are you here? Say something!"

"Sally!" Jack exclaimed happily as he hurried to his beloved rag-doll, embracing her tightly.

"It's so good to see you, my dear, my love, my little Sally!"

"You'll crush me if you go on like that!"

"Oh, I'm sorry."

Sally chuckled as they let go of each other. "You know, I'm not sure what my boyfriend would say to this…"

"Excuse me?"

"Well…me alone with a handsome scare-crow?"

"Huh?...Oh! How could I forget?!" Jack quickly took off the pumpkin he was still wearing and revealed a sheepish grin. Hand in hand they made their way back into town, a happy Zero flying around them and barking joyfully.

At the same time, but a completely different place, a fist was clenched onto a desk in slight fury.

"Just how hard can it be to find a monster?! It doesn't look that normal at all!" snapped the owner of the fist.

"Well, sir, it's Halloween. There are a lot of monsters out there this night."

The owner of the fist gave out an annoyed growl, now rubbing his fist to lower the pain he caused by himself.

"When will the company arrive?" he asked.

"They should arrive in the next 10 to 15 minutes, Mayor."

"Alright, thanks officer." The Mayor said with a tired look on his face and ordered the officer to get lost.

It was his second period as Mayor now and he had thought that Christmas Incident was the last supernatural problem he had to deal with. How wrong he was! As if the upcoming election wasn't enough trouble for him. His opponent was Radley Harris, a tall and handsome politician with his everlasting confident smirk. Radley Harris truly disgusted him.

The Mayor was quite the opposite of Radley Harris. With his 65 inches he was pretty small and due to many failed diets he was quite corpulent, too. But while Radley Harris had this official and stern look in his grey eyes the Mayor was more like the friendly guy next door with a warm smile and big, honest brown eyes. And he was very proud of this image.

'I am much better than this Radley Harris. They'll vote for the nice guy, not this cocky old man! I am Mayor Arthur Tom and I will stay Mayor Arthur Tom!' Mayor Tom exclaimed in his mind, not realizing, that he even stood up with this thought and clenched his fist onto the table yet again.

"Ouch." He whispered and sat down again, glad he was alone in his room.

He leaned back into his chair and rubbed his forehead with grief. 'What a night', he said to himself while loosening his red tie a bit more. He could lie in his bed now, cuddled into his warm blanket and having sweet dreams. On the other side this was his chance to get the attention of the citizens once more, so they would vote for him a second time at the next election. A determined look appeared on his face as he whipped some loosen grey hairstrands out of his face. This Radley Harris was a strong opponent, but if he caught this demon, he would definitely win. Yes, he would catch that demon and it would be a great show.

The demon could care less at the moment; he just arrived at the Town Hall with Sally and was almost ran over by his own Mayor who hugged the skeleton's legs because of a lack of height.

"Welcome home, Jack!" he exclaimed happily while Jack clinged on Sally to not loose his balance. He then was drowned by his concerned comrades in cheers and hugs, so that Sally finally had to give in and everyone fell to the floor. The Pumpkin King managed to crawl out of the mob and rescued Sally out of it as well. They looked down at the huddle when the head of the Mayor shot out of it, looking around hectically.

"Jack?"

"Right here, Mayor."

"Right where? Oh! Hi Jack!"

Jack and Sally looked at each other with stunned faces, then back to the huddle and finally cracked up by the ridiculous sight.

Still chuckling, Jack went up to the podium while the Halloween-Towners got up and back to their seats again, now waiting for one of the infamous speeches of their king. Jack looked down at his citizens and cleared his throat a few times to get rid of the chuckles.

"Ahem, sorry, everyone, I….couldn't help it." He said with a tired smile on his face, wiping away the tears from laughing. "Well, what a night!" Jack watched his comrades nod and murmur in agreement and continued.

"I'm glad to see you all in good health! I apologize for this mess – "

"No need to apologize, Jack!" the Wolfman assured.

"Why, thank you. Even if this night ended up in a disaster, I must say that I'm proud of every single one here in this room. You all made a brilliant job and stayed calm when chaos broke into the whole event. And Wolfman, I know you don't want to hear it, but I'm sorry that I've been rude to you at the roof."

"You're right, I don't want to hear it." The Wolfman agreed with a grin.

"All that is left to say now is thank you all! And I'm sure we will do much better next year on…..Halloween…" Jack grew quiet when a thought stroke his skull. The citizens didn't notice it though, they were already hailing to their king, breaking out in wild applause as the Pumpkin King drew back from the podest and behind the curtains.

Jack's hands rose up to his skull in realization. They would remember this day. They would remember him and they would be prepared. Prepared to really hunt him down, the demon, the Christmas- and now Halloween-destroying monster. Returning to the mortal's world next year would be dangerous, too dangerous. What should he do now? Cancel Halloween? He'd destroy the entire town if he did this. And he'd destroy himself. His hands lowered again and formed into fists as he finally came to a conclusion.

"Jack? What's wrong?" Sally's worried voice appeared as she stepped close to him.

"Sally," Jack looked up, a stern look on his face. "I have to go back."

/What?! Return to that mess? What's Jack up to? Will Mayor Tom get his great show in the end? Be patient, the next chapter will follow soon.

And I feel the urge to apologize for that godzilla-pun, I couldn't help it. Same goes with Mayor Tom. Both don't belong to me though. The unexpected person didn't fit into this chapter very well, so I left him out. He'll have his entrance soon. Bye, and don't forget to review, I'm a little unsure about this chapter ;D