Now That's Scary

Chapter 5: Little Nippers

Disclaimer: How many ways can a writer say that she does not own The Nightmare Before Christmas? This is one of them.

This chapter is about Jack dealing with his fans…and other humans.

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After enjoying a hearty breakfast of tap water and a two-ounce bag of Hershey's Kisses, Jack Skellington was ready to take a stroll through Halloween Town. However, today's stroll would not be like other strolls. Jack told this to his dog, Zero, when the two of them were in the tower room of the castle.

"Instead of wearing my usual pinstripe suit, I think I'll arbitrarily decide to wear purple-striped tights and a matching purple shirt that an elf might wear."

"(WHY?)" Zero barked.

"Because no one would expect me to wear it, and I don't want to have to deal with them again," Jack said with a shudder.

"(Oh…them.)"

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So, Jack set out in his purple Amazon-elf getup, complete with a yellow pointy hat that completely threw off the appearance of the suit. He walked all the way to the bottom step of the outside staircase before being confronted by a human girl. She had styled her clothes and blonde hair to look like those of Sora's from Kingdom Hearts. Behind this girl were three other humans, two of whom had reached approximately the same age (fourteen years old) and height. One was a girl who had painted her face white, with red streaks across it. Her wardrobe was entirely black—black shirt, black nylon pants, black leather shoes, black hair, black fingernails, and black eyes (they were naturally green, but the girl was wearing contact lenses.) The skin of this girl, however, was almost as white as her face paint.

Next to the Gothic-looking girl was another of her gender, and her wardrobe was white in every place where the other's was black, except for this one's brown hair, and the eyes. They were blue, and her skin was mocha-colored.

Standing a respectable distance from the three girls was a boy. He was a few years younger than his female companions, and had not tried to dress bizarrely at all. His burnt-orange hair and green eyes went nicely with his emerald-colored pants and ruby-red shirt. Instead of gawking at Jack, the boy focused his eyes on parts of the castle, as well as the gate and some other surroundings. The boy seemed to be there for no reason, since he didn't talk to anyone. Perhaps he was not even part of the group.

"Hi!" the girl in the Sora costume said to Jack. "I'm Carrie, and I remember you! You're in one of my video games, only your clothes were way different."

Jack knew that it was hopeless to try to run. "Am I one of those—what do you call it—Pokemon trainers?"

"Don't be silly—although there is a Pokemon called Claydol. The game you're in is called Kingdom Hearts."

The girl in black gave a minor bow, then began speaking rapidly. "I've seen your movie twelve times, I have several articles of clothing with your image on them—including socks, I named my pets after Nightmare Before Christmas characters, I almost sued the Disney Store in my local mall for not carrying any Nightmare merchandise except for some drinking mugs, I've been to Hot Topic so many times that I get a twenty-percent discount just for showing up, I actually play with my Dr. Finklestein action figure, I convinced my school chorus director to let me and my classmates do some songs from the movie, I had to get a new stereo because I listened to the movie soundtrack so many times that my old stereo malfunctioned, I somehow reserved advance tickets to The Corpse Bride, I carved my jack-o'-lantern last year to look like you, and I painted a spider on a Christmas ornament once." Momentarily, the girl in black gasped for breath.

"By the way, my nut-brained parents named me Heather," she groaned. "I hate my name."

"I know just what you mean," replied Jack. "You sure don't look like a Heather. That's a name for preps. Aren't they the most annoying things in existence? They should have their souls eaten by polka-dotted, four-horned monsters who jump out of little kids' closets. Your name ought to be something like 'Electra.'" Wow! I can speak Gothic! Jack thought.

"Cool!" exclaimed the girl in white. "I totally agree."

"Me too," said the Goth formerly known as Heather. "Can you get some of those monsters to attack this really annoying girl I know? Her name's Lindsey, and she lives--"

"That's enough," Carrie anxiously said.

"I'm Timantha," the girl in white said. "I've seen your movie eleven times. I didn't almost sue the Disney Store, but I did buy one of the mugs. I'm gonna try to reserve the inevitable DVD of The Corpse Bride. I was allowed to name my lab rat after a Nightmare character. And…uh…could I have your autograph, Jack?"

"Why not?" Jack responded. He reached into his left pocket, pulled out a notepad and a pen, and wrote King Jack Skellington on a piece of paper. He ripped the piece out of the notepad, then gave the piece to Timantha.

"Jack Skellington's fingers were on that piece of paper!" shrieked Electra. She pounced upon Timantha, and the two of them got into a surprisingly rough fight. Carrie didn't want to be left out of all the fun, so she, too, entered the scrimmage. Meanwhile, the human boy continued to stare at inanimate objects.

This was all the chance Jack needed to forget about his stroll and sprint back into his castle.

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A day had passed since the three girls had brawled with each other in front of Jack's castle, and they had left. The silent boy, however, remained in his place. Jack tried not to notice this while he ate his breakfast of cold, stale, crumbling pumpkin muffins and warm Diet Coke.

Suddenly, a knock came at the door. Jack got up and answered it, since he was actually relieved to have an excuse to get up from the table.

The person at the door was, of course, the Mayor. He currently wore his dismay-conveying face, partly because he was upset over always getting the lamest roles possible in fan fiction, and partly for another reason.

"You've got to help us, Jack! There's another human in Halloween Town!"

"Do you mean the eerie boy standing by the gate? Don't worry about him."

"No, not the eerie boy. It's some girl who doesn't look like one of us, but claims to be enjoying herself here. And as far as I know, she wasn't one of the authors you invited to the meeting before."

Jack became alarmed. "Well, then! That is a disaster! I haven't any idea what to do."

"Can't you just scare her away?"

"No, sadly. If she likes it here, she's not going to be afraid of me."

"Come on, Jack. Surely there's something you can do. You're the scariest person around. You've said it yourself."

Presently, the Mayor cast a backward glance and saw that the human girl was walking toward the castle gates. She looked about fifteen years old and wore a deep green dress, the skirt portion of which was bright red. Her yellow hair presented a fairly pleasant image when matched with her blue eyes, and purple buttons were vertically aligned on the front of the dress.

"She's coming!" the Mayor gasped. "You can scare her. I know you can."

"No, I can't. If she didn't try to leave when she came to this place, then I have no reason to think I'll make her leave."

"That's just it. You need to think. Think about how angry you were when you first found out about what those writers were doing."

Jack thought for a moment. "I was very angry," he said.

"Yes, you were. Specifically, how angry were you when certain people insisted on writing with such shoddy punctuation, spelling, and capitalization?"

"I was furious."

"That's right. What about when the writers--"

"Don't mention it. I know what you're gonna say. Anyway, I was full of wrath."

"I thought so. Remember the time when that centipede stole your golden compass from you?"

Jack's expression became one of stark raving madness. He leaped over the Mayor, landed in front of the human girl, and spewed out a blazing torrent of fire and smoke. He didn't hit the girl, of course, since he was aiming at the sky.

The girl squealed and backed away by six steps. However, this wasn't enough for Jack. He pulled a hollowed-out turnip from what seemed like thin air, somehow scooped the fire into it, and put it on over his head. The turnip also had a face carved into it, so when Jack put the turnip on, it looked like the inside of Jack's skull was on fire.

This, too, startled the girl. She squeaked and climbed down a few more steps.

Jack put the turnip back into his pocket, where it (the turnip) vanished. Not satisfied with his job so far, he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a knife. Although it wasn't very big, it was no standard kitchen knife. This was a shiny dagger, gleaming like a wolf's fang, and spotless because it had never been used.

He raised the knife in the air, then plunged it into his skull. No blood or brain matter gushed from the newly formed wound, and all that could be seen of the dagger was its coal-black hilt. This would have been frightening enough by itself, but Jack had another idea. He extended his tongue longer than was known to be humanly possible, stuck it into his eye socket, and curled his tongue around the blade of the knife. He used his tongue to tug on the blade, then the hilt suddenly vanished. A few seconds passed, after which Jack's tongue reappeared stuck out from the mouth. It was still curled around the blade, but the blade was now stained with blood.

That was all the girl needed to see before she opened her mouth in an unintentionally bloodcurdling scream. Startled by the sound of her own screaming, she shrieked even more horribly, running as fast as her legs could carry her, and heading for the hills.

Jack cocked his head back and engaged in a trademark cackle.

"I've still got it!" he declared.

The Mayor's face changed to the one of happiness.

"I helped get rid of a potential threat to the town…just like a mayor is supposed to do," he remarked.

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Did anyone like that? I had fun writing it, since I had been planning to have Jack stick his tongue up his eye socket for quite a while.

Also, can anyone guess why I chose the names for the three girls at the beginning of the chapter? C'mon…just for fun.

I may use the eerie boy in another story or chapter. Maybe.

Lastly, who understood the part about the centipede and the compass? There must be someone who does.

NEXT TIME: Oogie Boogie returns! But how did he do it? That's what he'd like to know. Plus, some more stuff happens with Boogie's Boys. It'll be a Boogietastic chapter!