Disclaimer: I do not own the Nightmare Before Christmas, Tim Burton does. I don't own any characters either. Though I do own the plot of this particular story.

Warning: This is my first fanfiction, so please be nice about it. Feel free to R&R this story after you read it.

Chapter 1 : This is Halloween

Eight Years before the Movie

Halloweentown was buzzing around busily, especially in the town square, with each monstor, ghoul, or corpse doing their share of work. Halloween was a week away and everyone in the square were hanging decorations, practicing scaring people, or preparing for the Halloween feast taken place after the ceremony. The jack-o-lanterns had been carved a week earlier and were all set up around town, all one hundred a fifty of them, along with the twenty severed heads. Each jack-o-lantern had a different expression, but each induced fear, delight, or a sense of awe as they lit up. These decorations were brilliant to look at.

All the citizens of Halloweentown were excited and thrilled about their upcoming holiday, save three people.The mayor of Halloweentown was one of them. As the elected official it was his job to take each Halloween decoration accounted for and to make the plans especially frightful, horrible, and not mention scary. It was also his job to supervise people and hand out jobs to everyone, but some people got more than others and were wiped out. All this stress was keeping the mayor's head from turning. Instead of being the jolly, happy mayor most people knew, he went around town with a ghostly white face with a look of panic plastered on. There were so many things left undone for All Hollows Eve, the potions still needed to be brewed, but the witches that normally brewed were busy with the feast for Halloween. This meant that only he himself could do it, or Dr. Finklestein, Halloweentown's best and only mad scientist.

Mayor quickly scurried up to Dr. Finklestein's mansion, "Oh great... another Halloween could be cancelled because of this." he murmured, "And I'd be out of a job."

The second citizen of Halloweentown that was not excited was Dr. Finklestein himself, he had been busy preparing several difficult tasks that the mayor had just handed off to him. He had been in the middle of creating a companion for himself, but he was now stalled and would be for quite some time. His first task was to create holographic ghosts and ghouls, since all the ghost residents of Halloweentown had passed on.

All ghosts did this, they would stay for several years or more before they went on to the great beyond or were reincarnated. Monsters, werewolves, witches, and other Halloween creatures did not do this since they were all born here or banished here. Ghosts are different. They were born as humans or animals in the mortal world and when they died, their ghost came to Halloweentown. This year, however, most of them had left and not even a handful of ghosts were present.

Luckily for Dr. F, he had already completed this task. Unfortunately, he still had two more to go. One was the exploding brains that would be set off during the celebration and the other were walking limbs that had no body or head or anything like that.

While working on the brains, Dr. Finklestein heard his doorbell. He groaned angrily and wheeled himself away from his work. Because the doctor was old and decrepit, he was confined to a wheelchair and it took him longer than the average person to reach the door. The doorbell rang again.

"I'm coming!" he shouted, throwing the door open and revealing a desperate looking mayor.

Everytime the mayor came to Finklestein's, it was either to give him more work or to see if anything was done. The doctor prayed that it was only a check-up.

"Yes mayor?" he croaked, letting the disgruntled man in. "There must be a good reason why you're here disturbing my work, right?"

The mayor's eyes darted around the room, "Well... uhh... yes... yes there is. I'm sorry to bother you Dr. Finklestein, but-but... I need you to make the special holiday brew and-"

"That's the witches' job, not mine!" The doctor snapped, "I'm sorry mayor, but I'm too tied up right now to do such a thing. I still have to finish those brains and then work on the limbs. It's a complecated thing mayor. Why not ask someone else?"

The mayor was now frantic, "Because! You and the witches' are the only ones capable of concocting such a thing! Please doctor! Please!"

The doctor shook his head, "Once again, I'm sorry mayor. Why not ask that Skellington boy who lives up in the old castle?"

"Skellington? He hasn't come out in years! What makes you think he can do it?!" mayor exclaimed, surprised and shocked at Finklestein's answer.

"What makes you think he can't?" Finklestein asked, wheeling back into his lab, "Besides mayor, he's one scary guy. Maybe he could help you out with Halloween preparations."

With that, Finklestein shut the door and left the mayor to ponder if he should go up to the old castle and see if Skellington was still up there. 'I might as well...' he thought, turning around and scurrying off to the old, tall castle.

A pair of empty eye sockets gazed down at the residents of Halloweentown running around in preparation, they all looked like little dots from the tower where a figure stood. This figure was tall, taller than the average human or creature. Why, the figure had such long legs... he could bend them with ease and leap up quite high. Not only was he insanely tall, he was also the skinniest thing you would ever dare to see. This was because the figure was a skeleton, but not any skeleton... Jack Skellington, the only skeleton in Halloweentown and the scariest creature out of the lot. Although no one in town knew this.

The poor lonely skeleton had retreated to his castle somewhat around three years ago, after being shunned by all. He had been given a task, a task to think of the scariest thing possible and make it occur for Halloween. Every creature was jealous of Jack and longed for that task, it was most honorable. Except that... Jack didn't want the task. He never said it aloud though, for if he did he would be banished from Halloweentown for not appreciating the frightening holiday. Jack Skellington had thought for months, finally coming up with a box that had a ghost pop out. He had found it quite amusing, but the other residents had not. They had laughed and mocked him,finally getting him to reveal his true feelings about Halloween. This caused the citizens to completely ignore Jack,causing poor Jack to isolate himself from the rest of Halloweentown, simply watching them from his tower. He practiced scaring, soon he had managed to make the spiders that crawled in his room to die of fright.

"What's so intresting about Halloween anyway?" the skeleton questioned, "Scaring people? Ghouls? Goblins? Or just plain old fear itself? Hmm... I suppose I'll never know."

He almost expected a response, but only silence greeted him. He sighed, hanging his head as he began to pace the room. Thoughts raced through his skull, he was thinking about joining them this year. Giving them a real scare no one would forget.

"That's it! I'll sneak down there on Halloween and when they least expect it... BOO! Haha, I'll scare them right out of their pants!"

With his long legs, Jack leapt from the ground the chair and the chair to the mantel. Seeing the mirror across from him he gave off a freakish grin and chuckled evilly. Suddenly a shrill scream caused him to fall over in surprise.

"What was that?" he wondered, knowing that he had heard that scream before.

It took him some time before he remembered that was the noise his doorbell made when someone rang it. 'But who would be ringing my doorbell? No one has in three years...' Regaining his composure, Jack quickly straightened his jacket and tie and proceeded to the front door.

"Hello?" he asked, as he opened the door.

"Ah! Why hello... uhh... Jack! How good to see you again." It was the mayor, a bit chubbier than he remembered... but it was the mayor all the same. He was wearing a grinning face and probably wanted something. "How have you been Jack?" he asked.

Jack was startled at this gesture of friendliness, "Well... good... I guess... as good as I can get for not leaving for three years."

"Well, there's that," the mayor chuckled, "But Jack, I was wondering if you would like to join our Halloween celebration this year? It would be horrible if you came!"

The skeleton was about to scowl when he remembered that they said horrible instead of great or fun or jolly, "I don't really know... it's been a long-"

In mid-sentence, Jack was soon interupted by a deep call from Jack's gate, "Mayor?! Mayor?!"

"Up here!" the mayor hollered back in reply.

Thundering up the stairs came a rather large sack, a potatoe sack to be more specific. It was a faded greenish-brown and walked all on it's own. It had holes for eyes and a large hole for the mouth and the tip top of his head was pointed and flopped over. The memory was a bit fuzzy, but Jack would never forget this creature of Halloween.

"Well, well, well..." the sack thunderered, getting a closer look at Jack, "What have we here? Jack Skellington... long time no see. Finally decided to join the dead, now didn't you?"

Jack remained impassive, "Hello to you too, Oogie."

"That's Mr. Oogie Boogie Man to you, Bone Man." he grinned evilly, placing his hands on his hips and turned to look at the mayor, "Mayor, I was just about to give a proposition. We all understand how hard it is for one creature to plan Halloween, so I came up with an idea."

Jack became intrested in this, though his face didn't show it. The mayor grinned wider, also intrested in what Oogie Boogie had to say.

Mayor jumped up, "Let's hear it then!"

Oogie glared at Jack, "I think this should be discussed with residents of Halloweentown only. Meaning Bone Man must retreat into his little bat cave."

"Just because I don't come out often doesn't mean I'm not a citizen of this town." the skeleton declared, "Now go on Oogie, tell the mayor your brilliant idea."

Oogie Boogie grumbled something under his breath and then proceeded, "So, mayor, I decided that there should be a chairman of Halloween. One who can assist you with all the plans and such."

The Mayor was simply giddy at this, "Of course! We would have much better Halloweens! Now.. who could be the chairman?"

"May I suggest..." the potatoe sack cleared his throat, "...that the scariest, most horrifying creature land the posistion? Such as myself, Mr. Mayor?"

Jack stepped up, "Or possibly, there could be a vote?"

"A vote? Wonderful Jack! This idea is getting better and better! Alright so Oogie Boogie is one candidate and..." the mayor stalled trying to think of someone as scary as Oogie Boogie. Then the mayor looked up at Jack and smiled, "Ah, and Jack Skellington. Thank you for volunteering!"

"WHAT?!" Oogie was enraged, "He hasn't even been around the past few years! And he didn't volunteer!"

Mayor shook his head, "Now now, everyone deserves a chance now don't they? Now I'm thinking that whichever one of you makes a scarier entrance, gets the posistion!"

Oogie Boogie didn't reply, instead he stormed back down the stairs to Jack's gate and slammed it shut. The mayor shrugged and bid farewell to Jack as he scurried after Oogie to deliver a town meeting. Jack Skellington simply stood there, a mischieveous grin plastered on his face as he thought of how he should scare the folks and gain a posistion that would make him appreciated.

I know it was a little long, but the rest of the chapters wil be shorter! Well, a little shorter. I just wanted to give you an idea of how the citizens react to Jack and how his curiosity of Halloween may have effected his curiosty for Christmas later on. Well, R&R please.