If You Don't Know Fear,
Then You Don't Know Jack
Jack walked back to main square like a brain-dead zombie (nobody used that analogy in Halloween Town. Many found it offensive). The whole time he was still hypnotized by the Sally's kiss of love. Once Jack and Sally would depart, it usually took twenty minutes for the butterflies in his stomach to go away. The mayor run up behind Jack and slapped him hard on the back. This instantly broke him of his love trance.
"Jack, we have everything prepared!" reported the mayor's jolly voice.
Jack looked down to the mayor. He was only 1/3 Jack's height and more than five times Jack's width, "Everything prepared for what?" asked Jack.
"The Halloween finale, of course! We agreed to do a rehearsal today. Don't you remember?"
"Yes, but I thought that was scheduled for tomorrow," Jack tapped on the mayor's planner tucked away under the Mayor's arm, "Check your planner."
With a jolly, yet unsure face, the mayor opened his pocket planner of events. He flipped through to the current date. His eyes scanned the page, then his jolly face turned to an expression of worried paranoia. His face literally turned. He flipped the page in his planner to the next day.
"Aaaaaaaaa!" the mayor made a gasping noise and his eyeballs popped out of his head.
"So, when's rehearsal?" Jack teased with a raised brow bone and a big smirk.
"It…it could possibly be tomorrow."
"Alright, lets make a deal," Jack picked the mayor's eyeballs up from the ground and started to juggle them, "We'll do rehearsal today 'as planned' and you'll let me wear these until we're ready," Jack held the eyeballs out towards the mayor.
"Hmmm…okay."
The mayor's face spun back to its jolly expression. He skipped away to organize the other monsters while crashing into every other object he came across. Jack shoved the eyeballs into his eye sockets. He loved it when the mayor let him wear his eyes, especially because he got to watch him "bounce" around town.
Sydney was hidden from view pressed against the graveyard gate. She had supported her weight on the gate as she limped to this very spot. Her Hispanic, yet fair skinned hand brushed back the dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair from her face as she flopped to the ground. She was panting hard from her narrow escape. The pain in her leg was torturing her, but strangely it itched. Sydney dusted the dirt from her black jeans and black tank top. Her clothes and accessories were the "stupid punk style" as her foster parents would call them. They were given to her from the foster parents she'd just abandoned, which never gave her anything out of love. Everything her foster parents ever gave her were bribes to keep her from squealing her life to the orphanage. Long story short, they were bad people. They only took care of her so the orphanage would pay them money. The advantage to that was that she could do whatever she wanted, as long as she was quite.
"I'm probably better off here than with the Cartmens," she muttered to herself. The Cartmens were her foster parents. Well, the ones she was with last anyways. She hated them with every ounce of emotion she had left.
"Hey, where am I? Is that…" Sydney listened closely, "…music?" She also overheard loud singing and a lot of movement, "Are those voices human?" She looked around for a way to spy on the event without being seen. She didn't want to attract any attention from these beings, but her curiosity was screaming to know what the big event was. A warped, neglected, black tree from inside the graveyard caught Sydney's eye.
I can watch the whole event from up there, she thought.
Sydney checked to see if the cost was clear.
Not a soul in sight. Perfect!
She put her weight on the fence again and began limping toward the tree. It wasn't too far off.
She came to the huge, hinged, gate door that led into the graveyard. Beside the door was a 10ft wall blocking all the commotion.
Sweet, Sydney thought. Once I get in the tree, the wall will block me from view. I feel just like Agent Sydney Brostow!
Sydney was so excited; she ditched the fence and began hopping toward the gated door. Neither her, nor the musical band of monsters playing on her side of the wall noticed each other as Sydney went by. She threw herself against the gated door, expecting her weight to swing it open with her clinging to it. It wouldn't budge. Aggravated, Sydney began shaking the gate. Her annoyed groans and loud clanking interrupted the blues players. They stopped to glare at her. Sydney soon realized the silence. She slowly turned to face the angry eyes.
"Go through the bars, flesh face!" snapped one of the musicians.
"Sorry," Sydney whispered. She was afraid to anger creature with an attitude like that in this place.
"Here," She threw all her money into the tip hat, $2.
"Thanks kid," The blues players flashed her a reassuring smile, then continued their playing. Sydney took in the music for a moment. The melody of the beautiful sorrow made her nerves calm down a bit. She smiled back.
The gaps in the bars were plenty large enough to for her slim body to pass through. Once inside the graveyard, Sydney stepped with caution. It was too dark to rely entirely on vision. She also got the eerie feeling that someone, or something, was following her. Sydney finally reached the tree. The celebration music was at its loudest here. She began feeling around the tree bark for nukes to climb. The tree was covered with them. By swing her weight up the tree trunk, the climbing had begun. Getting to the top was fairly easy, despite the throbbing pain in her leg, but it was worth it. Her view of the main square had proved that, with the exception of a few branches in her way. The festive acts of the creatures were right in front of her. Their frightfully enchanting singing and special effects filled the black sky. The creatures looked twisted, yet charming. Their world looked dark, yet friendly. And the whole experience frightened Sydney, yet she was excited.
With glittering eyes, Sydney grinned and whispered, "I've finally found my place. I'm home."
She watched every aspect of movement, not daring to blink. She even began rocking her head to the rhythm of the song and humming along.
"In this town, don't we love it now? Everyone's waiting for the next surprise!"
A dead guy with an axe in his head came into the main square. He was pulling a scarecrow on a wooden horse.
"Skeleton Jack might catch you in the back, and scream like a banshee. Make you jump out of your skin! This is Halloween, everyone scream! Won't ya please make way for a very special guy?"
The scarecrow snatched a burning torch from a nearby monster. He put the fire in his mouth and his straw body went ablaze.
"Whoa!" Sydney breathed.
The scarecrow looked like an intricate, dancing toothpick on fire.
"Our man Jack is king of the pumpkin patch. Everyone hail to the Pumpkin King now! This is Halloween, this is Halloween.-"
The scarecrow leapt off the horse, and did three summer salts in the air.
"Halloween! Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!"
He dived into the blue pool of the fountain. A zombie kid with his eyes sewn shut, and a mummy kid leaned over the fountain and sang:
"In this town we call home, everyone hail to the pumpkin song."
Suddenly, everyone in the plaza joined in a chorus of singing "Lah-lahs" for several beats. They were chanting and swaying as a stick-like creature emerged from the fountain. He rose slowly, steadily. Thick drops of the blue liquid streamed down from his body. The stick creature began to bask in the cheers of the other monsters. He seemed to really enjoy the attention.
The monsters had finished singing their final notes and were praising each other on a job well done.
"Oh," Sydney groaned. She was bobbing her head around the branches for a good view.
If only I could see his face, she thought. Damn thing's too skinny. He blends in with the branches!
Low, hungry growling broke Sydney's concentration. She looked down below.
"Shizsit!" She yelped. This was her own private curse word she would say at the orphanage to avoid trouble.
A small pack of decaying wolves had gathered and was lingering at the tree's bottom. Hunger reflected in their red eyes. Drool sparkled on their fangs. They knew Sydney had to come down at some point. They could smell the blood from her wound. Nervously, she rooted herself more securely into her spot. If she fell down there, it would be game over man.
More chanting a rose from the main square, "Jack! Jack! Jack! Jack!"
Sydney's attention turned from the wolves back towards the plaza, "Hmmm…Jack must be that skeleton…thing…that set himself on fire," Sydney guessed, "One things for sure, they're not celebrating his intelligence," She began bobbing her head around the branches again, "I still can't see his face!" Then she froze. Sydney had found the perfect view.
The monsters were still cheering Jack's name, but ceased when Jack put his hands up, a motion for silence. He slowly turned to face Sydney's direction. She finally saw the face that had been such a mystery to her. His twisted smile and evil eyes had flash backs punching Sydney's brain. She put a hand over her chest and started to seriously hyperventilate.
Jack stood tall atop the water fountain. His act was showy, and he seemed satisfied with everyone's reaction. He raised himself higher than the fountain to give a blood curdling laugh, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaa!" Then he spoke in a low, evil voice, "Foolish mortals beware! For I am Jack, THE PUMPKIN KING! Prepare for an early grave."
The crowd of monsters went up in an explosion of laughter and chanting Jack's name. It was pure madness.
Sydney's body swayed uneasy in her tree spot. She was feeling faint. She didn't know if the cause was of her nightmare flash backs, the flash back of her traumatizing Christmas, Jack's threat to humans, the poison that was shot up in her leg, or all of the above.
However, the last thing that Sydney could remember before passing out was her thought uttered into a whisper, "Repressed memories are a bitch."
Her muscles finally giving out caused her hands to slip from the branches. Sydney fell unconscious from the tree. She fell from the tree…into the pack of wolves.