A grandfather clock in the Oval Office struck 4am. The sound woke Jack from his troubled dreams and he lifted his head from the desk.
"Oh, Zero," he sighed wearily addressing his dog who was now floating above his elbow. "I so wanted everything to go well." His eyes drifted from the sleeping forms of Sally and Dr. Finkelstein to the boarded up window behind him and the dresser and chairs shoved hastily in front of the door. He found it strangely amusing that the only Americans interested in braving their apparently frightening "after party" were the many cameramen and reporters. In fact, so interested were they in Jack's ideas that they were ready to break the door down if not let in immediately. At first, he had been more than happy to explain himself to the public once again, but, in a moment of surprising lucidity, Dr. Finkelstein had advised against doing so and proceeded to clumsily lock and cover the door and window to prevent unwelcome guests.
With a grim recollection of the night's events, he drifted back into an uneasy sleep on the desk.
Boom! Boom! BOOM!
Jack sat up suddenly, startled by the explosions. Sally was up on her feet and had rushed to Jack's side. Dr. Finkelstein quickly joined them.
The door behind the stacked dresser and chairs shook and fell back into the hallway with a crash. Beams of light slipped between the chair legs.
"Clear this furniture!" a gruff voice ordered. "This is the Pentagon speaking!" shouted the voice through the chairs. "Come out with your hands up!"
"What should we do?" Sally asked.
"We'll just try to reason with them – explain why we've done all this," Jack suggested, pulling together a cheery smile. "Hello, Pentagon!" he shouted back in a friendly tone, "My name is Jack Skellington and I-"
"Shut up, Jack!" Dr. Finkelstein ordered. "Sally, get that metal floor lamp! We're busting through our own defenses!" he gestured at the boarded up windows. "We're getting out of here!"
With the snap of splitting wood and the tinkle of broken glass, their escape route stood before them. Sally grabbed a fancy gold cord that tied back the curtains and lassoed a large oak tree in the manicured front yard then tied the end in her hands to the heavy desk inside the office. Tearing three scarf-sized pieces of fabric from the curtains she handed one to Jack and one to Dr. Finkelstein. With hers, she climbed onto the window ledge, looped it over the cord, and slid speedily onto the yard, letting go just before she smashed into the tree.
"Hurry! We've got to make it back to the graveyard before they catch us!" Sally shouted up to them in an unusually long sentence.