Author's Note: It's great to hear so much feedback. Now, I know some have been waiting for this next chapter for a while, so I've decided to be nice and hyper update. First off, I have to give thanks to Tim Burton, Danny Elfman, Henry Selick, Disney and Touchstone Pictures, and Capcom for their parts in The Nightmare Before Christmas and its upcoming game sequel. Without them, none of this story would have been written. And they are the real people behind the movie we love and obsess over at times. Now, it's Henry's turn to talk. (Re-edit Comment: I loved writing for the Terrible Trio in these chapters. Kids make great characters, so mean and innocent at the same time.)

Let me start by saying that Louis, Shirley, and Barry meant well. They just had a mischief streak that went wild. Who could blame them? They were three rambunctious children in a stuffy orphanage, someone had to have a little fun. I must sound like a father trying to explain his horribly behaved children. I guess I am, in a way. I just want to believe there is some good in them, there has to be.

— Henry Cadaver

October 29th, 1956

The sun rose on Saint Jerome's Home for Boys and Girls as one little auburn-haired boy, no older than eight, stretched and rubbed his eyes when the light hit his face. He suddenly sat right up and turned to the calendar on his night stand. He crossed out the Monday, October 29th with a pencil before jumping out of bed and taking in the light. One day closer to Halloween! He couldn't wait. He just had to tell his friend, even if he was the type to sleep in.

"Barry," the boy said, shaking a figured covered from head to toe in blankets on a bed next to his. "Hey, Barry."

"What?" Barry groaned from underneath the covers.

"It's the 29th. Another day before Halloween."

"I can count, Louis. I'm not that stupid."

"Yeah you are."

"Nuh-uh," said Barry, uncovering his face to reveal ruffled blonde hair and squinting eyes. "What time is it?"

"Who cares? Let's go wake Shirley up."

"The Sisters won't like that."

"The heck with the Sisters!" Louis exclaimed before quieting himself. "Shirley said she knows where they're hiding all the Halloween candy."

"Really?" Barry asked, finally sitting up in his bed.

"Yeah. Come on. We can sneak in and out of the Girls' Room and find it."

"Ok," Barry said as he got up and quietly followed Louis out of the Boys' Room.

The halls of the orphanage were very still and quiet, almost scary. Saint Jerome's used to be a convent before it was an orphanage, and the older kids used to say the ghosts of dead Sisters roamed the halls and took bad children who wandered out of their rooms to the bad place down below. Not that Louis or Barry believed in that mumbo jumbo. They were on business. Still, the slightest noise sometimes sent Barry right to Louis' right arm.

"What was that?" Barry asked when he heard a creak.

"Probably just your imagination," Louis said as a shadow began to loom over him. "Uh-oh."

"Aren't we the early birds?" asked a matronly female voice, which belonged to a heavyset nun who towered over the pair and looked down on them in a mix of caring and strictness.

"Good Morning, Sister Abigail," Louis and Barry said, bowing their heads.

"Looking for her?" Sister Abigail asked as he moved over to the side, revealing a black-haired girl with a sour look on her face.

"Hey, Shirley," Louis said.

"You got caught too?" Barry asked.

"She most certainly did. I don't know what I am going to do with you three," Sister Abigail sighed. "Well, since you're up so early, you can do some chores. Start with scrubbing the kitchen floor. Buckets and sponges are in the closet next to the pantry."

The nun led them down to the kitchen and made sure they took sponges and filled the buckets with water and soap. She left when she saw them begin scrubbing. They continued doing so for about two minutes after she left. After that, they left the sponges and buckets on the floor and resumed their first mission.

"Those Sisters can come out of nowhere," Shirley complained. "It really bugs me."

"What about the candy?" Barry asked. "Don't you know where it is?"

"Yeah, but it's a secret."

"Come on! We're friends, you can tell us." Louis said.

"You know the closet in Sister Abigail's room? I was dusting around in there and opened the door. I saw a whole lot of candy in there."

"Oh man, Sister Abigail's room?" Barry asked. "I'd rather pick it out of the toilet."

"Me too." Louis said, shuddering.

"If we all sneak in there on Halloween morning, we can have it all to ourselves," Shirley said.

"How are we gonna do that?" Barry asked.

"We've gotta play the biggest prank we possibly can." Shirley said with a proud look in her face.

"Like what?" Louis asked.

"Maybe let in a whole bunch of rats or bugs. Everyone would go nuts over that, too nuts to notice the candy's missing." Barry said

"Ew, if that's it then you guys can take care of it," Shirley said.

"Nope. We're in this together," Louis said. "How about hiding all of the Sisters' habits?"

"I don't think they ever take them off," Shirley said.

"Yeah. That's kinda scary," Barry added.

"Well, how about-" Louis started before the trio heard footsteps coming their way.

They immediately began scrubbing the floor again. Sister Abigail saw that they looked busy, but not exactly scrubbing the floor. She stayed with them until it was spotless from that point on. By the time they were finished, the three had to change into their regular, donated clothes and sit down to breakfast with the older and younger kids. When that was done, it was time for math and reading, which none of the three particularly excelled at. They basically stuck through it until free time, where they plopped down in front of the television.

"Anything good on?" Shirley asked.

"Static, static, and static," Louis asked as he kept turning the knob.

"This bites," Barry said.

"Sure does," Louis replied before hearing voices from Sister Abigail's office. "She's sure talking someone's ear off.

"Let's check it out," Shirley said. "It's not like there's anything better to do."

The boys followed Shirley to the closed door. They all managed to find space to put their ears and remained as quiet as they possibly could to hears what was going on. Apparently, Sister Abigail was talking to Evelyn. She was a girl from Boston training to be a Sister one day. Sister Abigail seemed to have found something unspiritual in Evelyn's room, and she wasn't happy about that.

"Evelyn, please explain why you have photographs of Elvis Presley inside your Bible," Sister Abigail said in a tone trying to contain her patience.

"I'm sorry, Sister. He is just ever so dreamy," Evelyn's voice said.

"Evelyn, you are twenty years old and obviously lacking in the discipline it takes to join the Sisterhood. Perhaps this was a mistake for you."

"No, Sister Abigail. I never so much as looked at a man before he came along."

"Be that as it may, you are still young. You have time to settle down with a good man and have children."

"But I don't want to settle down, and it's looked down upon for women to live alone if they are not Sisters."

"Your heart is in the right place, Evelyn, but I'm not so sure you can handle the discipline," Sister Abigail said before her phone rang, "Hello?" the nun asked.

"Aw man, just as that goody goody was getting chewed out," Barry said with a 'shhh' from Shirley and Louis, "Sorry."

"Yes, Mr. Carmichael. That is good news. Very good news. I'll have them ready by the weekend," Sister Abigail finished as she hung up the phone. "Evelyn, the adoptions have been finalized."

"Really? Whose adoptions?" Evelyn asked.

"Why, Louis, Shirley, and Barry's," Sister Abigail said, causing the three on the other side of the door to gasp. "Mr. Carmichael found three good homes for them. I didn't think they had a chance in the world, much less Massachusetts, but they did."

"Are they all going to the same home?" Evelyn asked.

"Well, no. Mr. Carmichael said they would be scattered over the Northeast. Well, better to separate them while they're young and able to make new friends quickly. I can't believe all of them got adopted, the whole lock, shock, and barrel."

"Sister Abigail? I believe the term is lock, stock, and barrel. Not shock."

"Oh. Well, of course. What was I thinking?"

That was enough of the conversation for the three children. They walked over to the front of the television set and plopped onto the floor once more. They were going to be separated by the weekend? Never to see each other again? This couldn't, no, this wouldn't happen! The Halloween candy was no longer the main mission of Louis, Shirley, and Barry anymore. It was sticking together.

"You guys bug me, but I'd get bored if you were gone," Shirley said to Louis and Barry.

"Same here," Barry said.

"Me too," Louis added. "Guys, let's run away."

"For real this time?" Barry asked.

"Yeah. We'll leave on Halloween," Louis replied.

"Sure that's a good idea, Louis?" Shirley asked.

"Yep. Up until then, let's put a tack on every chair Sister Abigail sits on, interrupt her in lessons, and make her life a living hell," Louis said, darkly.

"Wow, he's really serious this time, Barry said to Shirley, who only nodded in response.

Louis was going to say something else, had the television not shown something besides static. It looked to be one of those children's shows that were educational, only weirder. The star of this show was a man who appeared to be dead, some of his skin was missing on parts of his body and everything. The scenery around him was that of a graveyard, with a weird, spiral hill and a pumpkin patch in the background. That wasn't the scariest part though. It was what he said that really terrified Louis, Shirley, and Barry.

"Hello, children. I'm King Henry Cadaver. You don't know me yet, but you will. I've been looking all over the place just for you three. Yes, Louis, Shirley, Barry, I'm talking to you," he said, looking straight at the three through the television set.

"Change the channel, Barry," Louis said as he began to shiver.

"I'm not doing it," Barry said. "Go on, Shirley."

"Nuh-uh!" Shirley exclaimed.

"I'm on every channel, kids. I'm just letting you know that I'll be coming back for you very soon. I'm going to take you home. You'll love it. There'll be candy and fun every day of the year."

"What's the catch?" Louis asked the corpse on the television.

"What catch?" asked Evelyn as she walked out of the office. "Is something wrong, you three?"

Louis, Shirley, and Barry looked back to the television to see that there was only static. The corpse man, that Henry guy, was gone. That settled it. If they didn't run away, the friends would wither be separated into different homes or snatched by that dead man on tv. There was no point in telling Evelyn the truth, she'd never believe them anyway. The three just turned off the televison set and walked out of the room into the hallway to talk quietly.

"Was that a ghost?" Barry asked Louis and Shirley.

"I don't know, but I didn't like it," Shirley said.

"Me either," Louis said.

"We definitely have to get out of here," Shirley said to Louis.

"Yeah. We'll sneak off when the Sisters take us trick-or-treating," Louis said.

"Good idea," Barry agreed, nodding. "No one's ever gonna tear us apart."

"Got that right," Louis said. "Come on, let's put that tack on Sister Abigail's chair."

The trio agreed to that idea heartily as they walked to their collective classroom. As the day went on, the corpse man became a memory, but a scary one nonetheless. He was another reason that had to ditch Saint Jerome's and nothing more. They wouldn't let anything or anyone separate them for as long as they lived, dead guys included.

Present

Alright, I did give the kids quite a scare, but they handled it pretty well. They really do have something good in them, In spite of their arguing, Louis, Shirley, and Barry are loyal to one another. It is a loyalty that was strong in their lives and even stronger after their deaths.

— Henry Cadaver