Through The Hollow

Chapter 10

The ominous feeling enveloped the town on that frightful night. Ghouls and ghosts danced in the wind with the howl of the werewolf. Witches rode with the moon in the night and the trees swayed in the breeze that would sweep past your face and leave a shiver in your spine. The night was dark, cold, bloodcurdling, illusive, and, above all, Halloween night.

Jack looked around him. There were people all over trying to prepare for the night that would be that night. They were determined to make it a wondrous Halloween and they knew that they would.

He looked over to his little Dark Guardian friend, Yulee. She had on a short, black gown that only went to her hips with cobweb arm coverings and a pair of black pants underneath so that she was still able to run and do such as she loved to. Her feet remained bare, as they had each day that he had set eyes on her, and her hair was pulled back with a pure black headband. If she had tried she could have blended into the dark of the night itself. She had painted, on her face, a bat on her left cheek and her eyes were heavily covered in make-up. It, like everything else in her attire, was black as pitch. Her wings struck out from behind her and she had gently made it so that they looked a little bit less torn and see-through. Although she looked like a human child her wings were far too real and so she had to make them less so. Yulee smiled with her blackened lips and looked up to Jack. Earlier that day she had painted the picture of a specter close to his right eye socket. Jack had allowed her to do it for two reasons. The first was because it would help in his effort to make himself look more made up and fake like he should have in the human realm. The second was because he had found out, through his many talks with her, that Yulee loved to draw and paint as much as she could and she never stood up a change to cover something bare with something new and colorful. She had painted it a while ago and so the paint was now dry and it wouldn't come off. "Are you ready to go to the human realm, Jack?"

He nodded. "You are coming with me right?"

"We already went over this. I'll go in first and then you'll come in after me. Of course we're going together!"

"How are we to get there?"

"I can teleport in and out of the human realm as I please… I just choose not too. I love Halloween town much more than that ridiculous place they call a world. It makes me feel sick to my stomach!"

Jack laughed.

They each walked along the cobblestone pathways that wound through the town. Jack had been given enough free days in his line of occupation to learn most of the place by heart. There were still some sections that he was unfamiliar with, like the mansion, the crater, the tree house, which he had been told belonged to three children, and a few other places in the dark crevices of the town.

He had not been given the chance to meet the three children that had been said to live in the tree house. He had been told, however, that they were very young and that they had built the tree house all by themselves. Supposedly they had acquired help from someone that lived around Halloween town but no one knew where exactly. Jack had heard that he had been living in the crater for the longest time but Leon assured him that he had check it out and all he had found was an old, hollow tree. Jack felt content with the assuring of his friend and so paid little attention to thoughts about the three children.

Jack looked back to Yulee. She was stretching out her legs and looked to be preparing for quite the ordeal. "What are you doing?"

"Getting ready for the trip. I'm a little rusty when it comes to transporting from one realm to the next. It could be a little bit of a bumpy ride. You'd be smart to stretch out too. Don't want your bones to start cracking up on you. That'll be a little bad seeing as we can't go to a hospital in the human realm."

Jack nodded. "You have a point there." He stretched his arm across his chest and pulled it close to his body as Yulee lifted her left leg around her back and touched her neck. He was surprised at how flexible she was. Although she was active he found Yulee to be stiff.

Together they prepared for the night that was to come. Halloween was going to be a scream with them in the human realm.

---

The vampires began to pour out of the darker crevices of the town. The blank moon had now risen from behind the clouds and the pumpkin-faced sun had disappeared underneath the line of the horizon.

Jack looked around him. There were so many people preparing for Halloween. He had never really taken it as such a wonderful holiday. It just seemed like another day to him when he had still been alive.

When he thought about it he found that he was having a little bit of trouble remembering some of the memories from his life. Each time a new though crossed through his scull he found that another memory of his life would drift out to give it room. For example: he remembered when he was a young lad. He remembered meeting a new girl. She had had black hair and a brown face and she had had a very kind voice. Yet he could not remember what her face had looked like. Whenever he thought back to it he found that the girl had no face in his memories and it bothered him terribly. He was planning to question Yulee about it after Halloween. Originally he had wanted to ask her about it ON Halloween but he had seen how much she really enjoyed that particular day and he had decided not to ask her questions on a day that she liked. And so Jack waited.

The night was just like any other night and so he took it as such. But no one else did. They rushed around trying to get everything ready. Jack thought that everything looked ready already. The entire town was one bug place for scary things to happen. He didn't know why they bothered so much anyhow. No human was going to come into Halloween town right? Why not just get yourself ready to go to the human realm and be done with it? He shook it from his mind taking the thought as being nothing important. They people of Halloween town should have known what they were doing. He had only been there for a year and he still didn't know all of what they did for the holiday seeing as it was his very first time being there for it.

There was a tugging on the back of his tuxedo.

Jack turned around and looked down to see Yulee's smiling face. She had, in her hands, a package wrapped in black paper with thin white stripes all along it that matched Jack's suit. She smiled and held it out to him. "It is your death day after all."

Jack looked at the present in her hands. "Yulee… I can't accept this from you. I didn't get you anything when it was your death day…"

"I didn't tell you that it was my dead day."

"But I still didn't."

"You didn't know until Leon found out a month later."

"But…"

"Accept it."

"But…"

"I don't like getting presents anyway."

"But…"

"I said take it." Yulee's right eye twitched slightly.

"I said that I can't…"

"Accept it before I tear your scull from your bony body and hurl it into a netherworld from which it will never come back? I suggest you do."

"…"

"Just take the damn present."

Jack sighed and plucked the present from her grasp. "You do realize that I will be forced to get you something for you next death day right?"

"You do realize that I'm going to rip each rib you have out and then throw it into a gutter in the human realm if you do."

He smiled slightly and looked at the black bow. He let his bony fingers hover for a moment. Then he gripped the black and white wrapping and tore it off. The box underneath it was made of metal. It had bolts all the way down each side as well as six holes. Jack peered inside one of the holes and saw nothing but black. He looked down at Yulee who just starred back at him with her insanely expressionless face. He pulled the latch on the side of the box until it was facing the dark sky and then lifted the lid.

Jack was knocked backwards with a jet of white that leapt at him from out of nowhere. He fell onto the ground and was shrouded with something bright that shone so much that he wasn't able to see anymore. He could hear Yulee laughing her head off. The light moved away and the first thing that he looked at was the dark guardian. She had risen into the air and her left hand was holding her head with laugher. The other hand was tucked tightly around her waist as she tried to control herself. Jack frowned. "It wasn't that funny…"

"Wasn't that funny?" She burst into another fit of laugher. "Someone who works with ghosts is afraid of one that so tiny? It's hilarious!"

"Ghost?" Jack looked to his side. There was a wavering white silhouette that floated about a foot above the ground. It had a long face with a bright red nose that shone. That explained why Jack had been bathed in the light so much that he could not see. The ghost barked at him a few times and he noted that it was a dog. When it floated up on top of him he saw the tag that was around his neck. It read a name that was all too familiar. One that he had not forgotten. "Zero!"

Yulee stopped in her laughing fit. "Eh?"

"This is Zero. I had him when I was alive… I think…" Jack stood up and looked down at the yipping dog. He examined it a little bit closer. It was too hard to tell if it was his dog or not. He sure acted like Zero but there were most likely many dogs that acted in the same fashion and had the same name. He rubbed his scull in thought. A thought struck him. If it was his lost dog then it would obey him when he asked it to do something. "Zero, sit."

The dog obeyed.

"Ok… Zero, beg."

The dog obeyed.

"… Zero, roll over."

The dog obeyed.

"Zero… lay down."

The dog obeyed.

Jack scratched his head once more. That had narrowed it down enough so that he knew the dog was as friendly as his had been. But that didn't mean that it was his dog just yet. He was still determined to know.

Yulee fluttered back to the ground and looked up at him. "What are you doing?"

He didn't answer her. He pointed to himself as he looked down at the dog and said: "Jack." Zero leapt up and made him topple over once more. It began to lick his face so that his whole scull was bathed in dog slobber.

Yulee frowned. She let her wings beat fast and then carry her up to his face once he stood up again. Yulee took a seat on one of Jack's shoulders and let her right arm rest on top of his scull. He looked up at her with a raised socket. She sighed and poked inside of his head with her finger. "Jack, Jack, Jack… Have you learned nothing from Leon's teachings?" Yulee took her finger out and stood up on his shoulder. She leaned down so far that her chin was parallel to her knees and peered into his sockets, her hair falling over her head. "Why don't you just see what he looked like when he was alive?"

"Oh, yeah!" He smiled at her. "I forgot I could do that."

The dark guardian rolled her eyes and fluttered back off of Jack's shoulder. She stayed in the air as the skeleton had the ghost dog come up to an eye level with him. He glared into the empty, eye sockets of the ghost and stared for a few seconds before a picture came up. The dog he saw was very small with black fur and a nose so familiar in his head that he could have touched it. Jack smiled and patted the dog's head. "It's is you, Zero."

Yulee rolled her eyes.

"People!" They turned to see the mayor in his car. The megaphone was blasting the instructions for Halloween. "Please, get ready. Monsters going to the human realms please prepare to leave within the next twenty minutes. You time is now up for getting ready."

"Come on."

Yulee had Jack follow her through the throng that now rushed over the town square. Leon stood on a podium in the centre of it all. He looked out to everyone with a black chest plate on. His bandana was gone and his bandages looked more rotted and torn than ever before. It looked like he had just been in a huge fight with someone but everyone was aware that he had taken extra time in his mansion to prepare his bandages so that they looked the part. Leon closed his visible eye with joy and opened his arms wide to the town civilians. "Welcome my subjects of Halloween town!" The crowd cheered. "It is, once again, that special time of year where we are allowed to moved into the human realm and have the time of our lives. Feel free to get some nachos while you're there." The crowd cheered again. "As you can plainly see, over the past year I have had a tremendous change in terms of personality and attitude towards everyone. I would like to take this time to recognize the monsters responsible for that. Thank you to Jack Skellington and Yulee the dark guardian!" Two spotlights, from where they were coming from could not be seen, shone down on Jack and Yulee. The dark guardian had flown into the air so that she was able to see well in the crowd seeing as she was so short. The light shone onto Jack and he covered his eye sockets with his left arm. Yulee was not so fortunate. The light shone into her eyes and she lost her balance in the air. The girl's wings buckled, much like a human's legs would on a trampoline, and she fell out of the air, landing with a resounding thud on the hard cobblestones underneath her. Leon flinched back at the sound. "Oh… Uh… Sorry Yulee…"

"Leon! I'm going to wish that you were never mummified!" Yulee's voice erupted out from the crowd. She lifted back into the air in plain site of everyone and glared at the mummy standing on the podium. "I'm going to rip that eye out of your head and chew on it! Then I'm going to take each bandage and I'm going to… whoa!"

Jack lurched Yulee down and out of site. He covered her mouth and laughed a little bit. "Yulee… She's such a kidder…"

Leon rubbed the back of his head as everyone in the crowd turned back towards him with raised eyebrows. He smiled from underneath his bandages and then turned back to the matter of Halloween. "Anyways. This is a tradition that we have passed down since Halloween town's first days and we keep it as such… uh…" He looked around at all of the eager faces in the crowd. "Uh… Do any of you really want to hear this?"

Everyone in the crowd shook their heads simultaneously.

"Ok… blah, blah, blah… yadda, yadda, yadda… Let our night of fright begin!"

The crowd cheered.

Yulee was set on the ground by the skeleton. Jack held her shoulders and looked her up and down. He frowned at her and then narrowed his sockets. "Are you ok? You're not going to beat on Leon?"

"Yes, yes. Now let me go please."

Jack hesitated and then released her shoulders. "All right Yulee. I suggest that…"

"Leon! You're mine!" Yulee ran forth through the crowd that had not yet left for a night of scaring, biting and blood draining. She leapt onto a werewolf's head and then bounded off towards the stage.

"Leon, look out!"

---

Jack held Yulee by her shoulders again. He looked at her face. Her face paints had been peeled off from the fight and she had a large purple bruise on her right eye. Her shirt was torn a little and she had added yet another tear to the collection that she had started on her wings. She frowned at him and then peeped over his shoulder to look at Leon. He was leaning against a wall his hand was over his eye so he couldn't see anything. His chest plate was cracked and gave off residual bursts of magical energy from Yulee's attack. The mummy had ended up worse than she had. The bandages over his left arm had been torn off completely and the blackening skin that lay underneath it was visible. She smiled at her work.

"Now Yulee. Are you completely done?"

"I think I got my point across…"

Leon stood up and called over to her. "And what was that?"

"You don't know? I guess I'm not done."

"Yulee." The dark guardian looked into Jack's cold lifeless eyes. She sighed and gave in. Jack's smile returned and he set her down. Much to his enjoyment she stayed where he had put her. Jack leaned down and placed his hands on his hips. "Are you going to leave any time soon? In case you've forgotten, you are the only way that I can get to the human realm."

Yulee frowned and then took in a gulp of air. The familiar black cloud that Jack had seen her practise with appeared close to him. He turned towards it and then gripped the girl's hand as he stepped through. She came in after him and then let her breath out.

Where they were looked nothing like the human realm that he had been to. The whole of it was a swirling mass of purple and deep blue. There was no horizon line. There was no sky and there was no ground. Jack couldn't even tell if he was standing up or hanging upside down. It was an endless void of confusion to him. He couldn't even see in front of him anymore. When he lifted his hands to his face he found that he did not see them. Either he no longer had hands or he was no longer able to see, as should be for a skeleton. Jack began to panic. He tried to move his body but found, to his utter dismay, that he no longer had one. He was but a floating mind in a void of nothing.

And he was scared.

He tried to call out but with no body he had no mouth for which to call. He couldn't move. All he could do was float helplessly in a see of mystery. What he once knew became foreign and unknown. Soon he would die. He was sure of it.

"There you are."

There was a tugging behind him.

His body came back into view.

Jack looked at his hands.

He was pulled out and away from the void. He smiled with joy.

Yulee pulled her hand out of the black hole that she had torn into the world. Her friend was brought out with her. He was drenched in a thick, gooey, black substance that clouded his form. Jack looked at himself and tried to get it off. He yelled out in surprise. "Ugh! What is this? Get it off of me!" He hurriedly wiped at the substance but it stuck to him as though it was his very skin. "What is this stuff? It's like it's a part of me."

"That's because it is." Yulee held her breath and then touched one of the masses of black. The rest of them disappeared into one of her portals and her slender fingers lifted the one she had touched up. She held the blob in her hand for a moment and then looked at Jack as he rose to his feet. "This, she said indicating to the mass, "is what I like to call a portaling. It's a creature of pure dark matter created from the hatred in people's hearts. That hatred is concentrated in the portal realm that we just came through and can be a part of anything that moves. For you, seeing as you have no flesh, it became your new layer of skin. You weren't in their long enough to get a full coat though."

The blob twitched.

"Gah! It moved!"

Yulee turned to it and eyed it with interest. "So it did. All right." She tucked it away in her pants pocket. "I'm keeping this one then."

Jack grimaced and then looked around him. He was in the middle of a street, not too busy with trick or treating children. There were the occasional ones about but he didn't see all too many. The houses were all differing in colours and height. One house, on his left side, was two stories tall and was white with a green roof and two sets of doors with a large tree right in front. The one to his right was only one story tall, it was not as long and it was made of bricks with a black-grey roof. There was one, small tree out from and only on door. Each was decorated with varying Halloween decorations.

He smiled in wonder at the new world that he had yet to see. So far, it was amazing.

Yulee pulled her hand out of her pocket and placed her hands behind her head. She began to walk, jutting her legs out in front of her so high that they could have hurt a man. When she noticed that Jack wasn't following her she turned and raised a brow at him. "Are you coming?"

"Yeah."

She smiled. "Glad I taught you well."

Jack nodded and followed the dark guardian through the streets to the destination of scaring.

---

Brooke: He's in the human world! Whoo!

Jack: We have a few more reviews to thank. First of all we have Sugary Snicket.

Brooke: I am glad that you thought that my idea was interesting so thank you for that. Also, what happened to Billy will come into the story in a few chapters after Jack meets Sally. As for why Billy bit Jack, what do normal zombies do? They bite people because they want to eat flesh. And, to all people worrying about it, no, nothing bad is going to happen to Jack. He's dead so nothing bad can actually happen if he has no skin to be infected by the zombie virus.

Zim: Next we have a review from Riariti no Iru-jon.

Brooke: Glad you are such a big fan of Jack. I'm a big fan myself. But if you met me in real like you'd never know. Lol. Anyways, I'm also glad that you like Yulee. I have to admit though; I sort of stole her personality from my friends. I merged together Ahva, Amy. Brooke M. (yes, there are two of us. I'm Brooke S.), Justine and Becky and Yulee was the result. Still glad that you like her though. Whoo! Go you!

Batty: Canada Dry and Cola for everybody that has sent reviews! Whoo!