Spirited Back to Halloween: Hirac's Return
Now wer're actually in the story, not just the set-up. I must warn you, I'm doing this on impulse, and I don't really have a plan on how the story's gonna progess, but some of my best works were written on the fly. Well, not really, but anyway!
Jack had called a town meeting after he made the entire town bounce (for lack of a better word). He was leaning heavily on his podium; his temples felt like he was being massaged with a power drill. The entire town was in a panic, each individual monster screaming about how the "Boom" had knocked over heirlooms, messed up their projects, made them loose their lunch (it had knocked open the werewolf's rabbit cage), among other things. He directed his gaze to the side of the stage; Sally was standing their, fidgeting the way a bored child would. She noticed he was looking at her and gave him a loving little wave, which he returned with a smile.
Finally, he pounded his knuckles against the podium, knocking everyone back into a resonable roar. Finally reaching the point where he could talk without straining his voice, he announced, "All right, now, I'm very sorry about... well, what happened-"
"What did happen!" The Mayor cried. "I mean, my card castles!"
"Mayor, please!" Jack rubbed his head again. "Now, because I don't know exactly what happened myself, I have no way to describe to you what happened, BUT precautions have been taken to make sure that it doesn't happen again."
And immediately the monsters were placated. As they chattered amongst themselves, Jack snickered into his palm, "Yeah, I put it back in the drawer. Ha ha ha." He cleared his throat. "Well, anyway, I am very, very sorry about any inconvience I may have caused anyo-"
"You made me loose my lunch!" cried Sadir the werewolf, making a devil and Louis the cyclops laugh.
Jack sighed and slammed his forehead into his head. Oh, they were idiots... but they were his idiots. "Yes, Sadir, I know."
"And my card castles!"
"Yes, Mayor, I know-"
The witches raised their hands. "And our favorite drinking glasses!"
"Yes, Poppy, yes, Sadie, I'm perfectly aware-"
Pop. Jack felt something drop into his pocket. He jumped, patting his left breast inconspicuously. There was something there that he, obviously, hadn't put there. As the townspeople chittered on, Jack opened his coat and dug into the pocket, pulling out-
He stuffed it back into his coat. "Holy- Sally!"
Jack slipped back into the side of the stage, pulling a curtain to make sure the townspeople couldn't see him. Taking Sally by the arm, her pulled her back with him behind a support pillar. "Ow! Jack!"
"Sally, look!"
Jack pulled the ring box out of his coat!
"Holy cow!" Sally put her hands over her mouth. "Jack, why did you bring it with you?"
"I didn't! It just- appeared out of nowhere!" Jack stuffed the ring box back into the indoor pocket of his coat. "It just dropped into my pocket!"
Sally winced in surprise and shock. "How could something you stuffed into the back of your cabinets drop into your pockets?"
"I don't know!" Jack rubbed his skull, digging his fingers into his bone. "I can't explain it!"
"Well, go put it back in the dresser!" Sally, in a fit of anger, pushed Jack's shoulders-
BOOM!
Another shock wave was sent through the two, less powerful than the first. A scream came from the citizens, and then silence as they proceeded to run out of town hall and panic in the streets. Jack stood extremely still and waited for the shock to pass, and then gripped Sally's shoulders tightly. "Are you all right?"
"That didn't hurt as much..."
Sally pulled open Jack's coat and yanked open a handful of whatever was in his pocket: the ring box (which she took), two snakes, a Christmas cookie, 5 Soules (pronounced souls, HalloweenTown money), a piece of cloth that he used for tears in his coat, a four-leaf clover, a Valentine he was making for Sally, about 3 yards worth of lint, a corner of a poster for the new Constantine movie, an Aquafina bottle cap, and a live toad, most of which fell onto the floor.
Sally stopped and looked at all of Jack's junk of the floor, the ring box still clutched in her hand. "Jack, you pack rat!"
"Well," Jack stalled, "You never know when you might need this stuff!"
Sally opened the ring box and examined the jelly ball; it no longer had that bursting look, but instead looked nicely balanced and was sitting quiet nicely in the box. "It changed... it doesn't look swollen anymore."
Jack thought for a second; he'd hit it twice, and it had shrunk; it might be related, but he didn't pay attention long enough to think about it. Sally had closed the box and stuffed it inside of her collar. "Jack, I'm going to find a thistle. I'm keeping the thing with me, we don't want it to happen again."
"Good idea." Jack softly patted Sally's head.
The feeling came back. That ominous feeling behind his breastbone that warned him of danger; it was pulling him outside. Without saying a word, he turned and ran out the front door.
&&&
Black shadows flew in an ever shifting circle over the HalloweenTown Square, huge wings pumping up and down in near perfect unison. Jack's coattails ruffled in the wind they created; the only sound, since all of HalloweenTown was now in hiding.
All except for ignorant Sally, who jumped to Jack's side and stared into the sky along with him. She was transfixed, hypnotized by the sight of flapping wings and glinting sunlight. "What are those?"
"Gargoyles." Jack shaded his eyes from the sun long enough for his eye sockets to adjust.
"They're beautiful," Sally remarked. Jack placed his fingertips on her shoulder.
"Sally, go inside."
The ragdoll twitched. She turned to Jack, who was still looking into the sky. "Why?"
"Just go inside."
Sally shivered, but had a feeling she couldn't resist any farther. Turning around, Sally snuck back into Town Hall, conviently leaving the door open by just a crack.
Jack stepped back as the black spots moved downwards, the many many monsters landing on various points of his town. Several gargoyles with clawed feet and ram's horns landed on the fountain; hooved gargoyles with long, gorilla arms landed on the stone ground with a hollow, rocky CLANK. Tiny creatures that vaguely resembled Bartholemew the bat boy perched themselves on the tips of fences on the fingers of their wings. They poured onto the ground like rain, the stonework rattling in a resounding symphony of hooves and claws. But the little monsters stayed a distance away from Jack, forming a nice little perimeter away from his bony body. It was two larger gargoyles that landed in front of him.
A thin little ragamuffin of a gargoyle, homely even by their standards, the female was just a little shorter than Sally. She had a flat chest like a man, but wide hips about the length of a microwave. Her emaciated frame could let a person count every little rib in her skeleton, which was 27 due to an accident a long time ago. She had no arms, but long wings identical to a bat's in every way, shape, and form which took place of her arms. Her tiny feet looked far to small to support her weight, but they did, standing on her toes like a cat. A thin, sparse covering of blonde hair was just starting to grow back onto her scalp (although why the hair was missing in the first place was a mystery), although her eyebrows were just little ridges on her face. Very exaggerated cheekbones accentuated her sunken white eyes and a tiny, slim mouth. She stuck out of the black, stone surroundings; her skin was the dark brown of a healthy oak tree.
The male, however, was the boulder gray. He stood two heads above Jack, with vacant black eyes like an animal and huge wings growing out of his back. He curled his thick tail around his double-jointed, rhino-hooved legs, and threw back his head, showing off his small, yet sharp looking horns. Two dog-like ears stuck out of his scalp just above his horns. A deer-esque head with a stunted, simple muzzle sat on a short, thick neck, which was a little off-kilter with his emmense chest. HHe clenched the fists of his beefy arms and relaxed them again, his "skin" crying like scraping stones.
Jack nodded politely, his face blank. "Pyramus."
The larger gargoyle returned the nod. "I was summoned by a small child to an emergency. My children and I are awaiting your orders."
Jack's eyebrow kicked up on his previously stoic face. "Small child?"
Pyramus the gargoyle snapped his fingers, and one of the clawed gargoyles hopped off of the fountain and crawled towards Jack, holding something in his wings. The Pumpkin King's eyebrow just kept getting higher and higher until the tiny-goyle (a nasty little thing with bugging eyes and a cleft lip) dropped an unconscious Barrel at Jack's feet.
At with that, Jack fell apart. He fell to his knees and scooped the boy into his arms, patting his face and pleading the tiny one to wake up. Pyramus touched Jack's shoulder with asausage-like fingerand pushed the skeleton back onto his feet, looking vacantly into Jack's eyes. "He's fine."
Jack was about to speak, but a thought went through his head. His face flashed with shock, then slowly squeezed into itself in disbelief. "Waaaait aaa minute. Where's the other two?"
"There were no other two." Pyramus kept on in a monotone, his posture slightly bent towards his right side. "He did mention something called a lock and shock."
Jack didn't know what to say. He looked at the sleeping Barrel again, his eye twitching. No Lock, no Shock... and the boom. The Pumpkin King ran his hand over his skull, balancing Barrel delicately on his arm.
Pyramus clicked the tips of his wings together. He was getting impatient, and an impatient gargoyle was something that Jack has never experienced and, yet, had the feeling he didn't want to. He turned back to Pyramus, pointing at the gargoyle's face with his first and middle finger together. "Alright, look, there have been a few strange events happening around town."
Finally. Pyramus's tiny mouth began to form itself into a smile; he wanted his orders. "What kind of strange events?"
"I don't know," Jack admitted, breaking eye contact and checking for the jelly ball in his pocket again. It wasn't there, so he continued."But I want you and your... children-" (Jack struggled with the word.) "-to keep a close eye on the town and tell me what you find, if anything. You stay out of the way of the townspeople; we're only three months away from Halloween, and we're already at least two days behind."
Pyramus sighed happily and bowed with exaggerated motions of his wings, the other gargoyles following suit. He stood up straight and, taking the first two "fingers" of his wing, tapped Barrel on the forehead, immediately waking him up. He smiled with a tiny, yet toothy grin. "We are glad to be back in the service of the Skellington family." His smile faded slowly, his ears pointing towards Town Hall. "Your woman is listening from the door."
Jack jerked around; Sally quickly slammed the door on her hand, screamed "OW!", and slammed the door again.
Pyramus could only chuckle as Jack growled in fury and Barrel's eyes spun from the dizziness. He turned to the earthen, female-goyle. "Thisby, let's go."
After mouthing a few orders in whatever language the gargoyles spoke, the flock jumped into the sky, their silouettes disappearing into the moon.
Barrel snapped back into consciuosness. "It ate them!"
DONE! Kinda choppy right now, hopefully I'll get some story going. Notes, notes, notes...
The leader gargoyles are named Pyramus and Thisby, after the tragic couple that Romeo and Juliet are based on.
I put the Soules (alhough I'm pretty sure that I'm not spelling them right) from the Nightmare Before Christmas game that's not coming out until OCTOBER! DANG IT! OCTOBER! I mean, it fits, but's it's FLIPPIN' OCTOBER! Man! ... October!
If you're having trouble picture Pyramus and Thisby, Thisby's got a picture on my homepage on my profile. If the link doesn't work, I'm CharonTheSabercat on Fanart Central, and the picture is "Spooky Things". You'll see Thisby on the right. You'll know what I'm talking about once you see the picture.
Just as a note, I'm watching "Top 100 Scariest Movie Moments" on tv, and people are talking about "oh, this movie scared me", and they're quoting stuff like "Jaws" and "The Exorcist", and I'm thinking "I got this scared when I first watched 'Nightmare Before Christmas'!" I'm serious! Course, I was relatively young, so when the Boogie Man was torturing Santa Claus, I was outta that theatre, man.
Done!
