Yaaaaaaaaaay, finally got a chapter of this up =D I can't think of much to say here, so enjoy.

Chapter 10: A Hunt Through Halloween Town

Now that they had a suspect...suspects, the duo started their search. But not before answering a few questions of the confused and curious crowd that had formed outside Jack's house.

"Did you find Jack?" The tall witch asked.

"Where is he? Is he hiding?" The Clown asked almost immediately after.

"Halloween is less than a year away!" The mayor cried, "This is not a good time for Jack to be running off on us!" That sparked more questions, all the voices rising to be heard over their fellow ghouls.

"Everyone shut up fer a few seconds." Kaity barked crossly, scanning over the crowd until they quieted. "Now, we don't know where 'e is...but we do have a couple suspects."

"But we've already looked around town, so he can't be here." Charmy said; "So he has to be in an area around Halloween Town people live." Then he quickly added, "If there are any."

Both detectives paused for a moment. Quiet, urgent whispers swept over the crowd until finally Corpse kid stepped forward tentatively; "Um...I do know one place...But it's where Boogie's boys live."

"Where's it at?" Charmy asked, sharing a quick glance with his partner.

"I'll show you..."

The crowd parted as the detectives left Jack's house and followed their informer.

OoOoO

Several hills and dips later led the young detectives and their guide to an old tree adorned with a large cage, as though it were made for an over-grown bird, which was chained to something in a rickety looking tree house that sat in the limbs of the tree. The pale child pointed a chubby finger up at the shack. "That's where they live...I've seen them go up sometimes." He suddenly looked around, as if frightened by something, "I also hear Oogie Boogie lives below it...in some underground place." He jumped at the flutter of crow's wings nearby. "I-I don't wanna hang around here anymore...I'll see you back in town." Hopefully.

The last word wasn't spoken, but all three minors were thinking it; Corpse Kid knew what Oogie could do and has seen in the past, but Charmy and Kaity could only go on what they had heard and whatever instinct told them.

"Ready?" Charmy asked, eyeing the cage in front of them warily.

The chameleon girl shrugged, "As I'll ever be." Both detectives strode forward cautiously, standing at the foot of the broken bridge that served as a dock for the cage. "Well, we goin' or what?" Kaity asked after a moment of tense silence. Without another word, the two ducked into the cage and began their ascent into the tree house of Boogie's boys.

OoOoO

Jack, having finally forced his way out of the knotted bag, looked around him and recognized it immediately; He was behind bars this time, but the room hadn't changed. At the center of the room was a familiar cage, shaped as a tall cylinder with a circle on top, making it seem like a human body, one door leading into an area that seemed to be teeming with magma and other treacherous traps, and seven cells, including his own. The cells were decorated with ad ugly and menacing interpretation or each holiday; Independence Day, Saint Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Halloween.

As Jack examined his surroundings, he noted that almost every cell had a prisoner; in Independence's cell sat a tall old man with white hair and a suit and top hat colored mostly with red, white and blue. Saint Patrick's Day was still empty; but Jack had heard that leprechauns were hard to catch, so this made sense. The Valentine's Day cell held a fat baby wrapped in a dipper; he was crying about something, Jack guessed it had something to do with the pink heart-shaped arrows and red bow that hung out of the child's reach. Thanksgiving had a strange-looking bird inside; it was brown and had a red gobbler hanging down as well as tail feathers colored in dull shades of red, yellow, and orange. Its head snapped from one direction to the other; either the bird was dumb of it hadn't yet realized there was no way out. A familiar pink rabbit was contained inside the Easter cage; it still wore the large blue bow on its neck, and a small basket of eggs was hanging outside its cage. The skeleton man was pleased to see that his old friend Sandy hadn't been captured yet, but that left him as the prisoner of the Halloween cell.

Jack sighed and tossed the black bag aside idly, drawing up his knees and resting his head in his bony hands. "What am I going to do?" he asked himself, "The others don't realize I'm right below them...and as long as I'm trapped here, I can do nothing to save Halloween Town and the other holidays from whatever Oogie is scheming." The skeleton sighted again and slid his hands over his eye sockets, he let his fingers scrape across his skull as he brought them closer to his palm; almost a fist but not quite. "You've got to think of something, Jack..."

Next chapter is just a song chapter =w= You can skip it if you want...by the way, I'll be gone a few days, so if I do get the chapter done, it'll be a couple days until it gets posted...sorry...