Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening to ye! Here is chappie 2 (the first part is a Prolouge) of this wonderful story whose title I forget. But I'm posting, so deal!
Hope you enjoy.
I entered HalloweenTown, looked around, and rubbed my eyes. It looked like some drawing my sister sent me a week ago. But it was pointy and dark and thin, and somehow didn't seem real. Like a dream. Or a Nightmare. But no matter.
I began to walk aimlessly, peering into shops, trying not to shriek, looking for some way to gain currency. Everyone seemed to be on an eternal tab, as far as I saw, but maybe they paid each other in spider webs or screams or starlight or some other ethereal thing. They certainly seemed like they could.
As I reached a store marked, "Evens and Starts," the door opened and smacked me in the nose, sending me downwards into a pile of refuse. For the second time that day, I looked up from a blurry ground straight into the pumpkin sun.
"Oh dear! I'm so sorry, did I hurt you?" A small face on a thin neck peered down at me, and the brightest and longest red hair fell down into my face, stinging my eyes.
"It's okay…" Her image finally registered. Six feet tall, rag doll, red hair. "Sally Finkelstein."
"Yes?" She looked confused, but helped me up. I wiped my bum before replying to her.
"Jack is looking for you. Did I get it all off?" I turned to let her make sure my bum was clean. She wiped off a newspaper ad off of my tailbone.
"Oh. Thank you for telling me. If you see him, tell him I'll be at home. I was shopping for supplies." She lifted a black paper bag full of frogs and fish eyes.
"Will do." I turned to leave, then tripped on a poster for a carnival from eight years ago. And planted my face straight onto the pavement. The clown face from the poster grinned at me, and I screamed. Hands grabbed my waist and pulled me out of the poster, and I nearly shrieked again when I realized it was Sally.
"Thanks," I said, smiling embarrassedly. Sally just smiled blithely and turned to go, when her eyes widened and she looked worried.
"SALLY!"
"Yes?" I replied, turning to where the voice had come from. Santa-ImeanJack- was running up the street, smiling (hard not to do when you're a skeleton), his arms open wide.
I realize that I should have felt a little more disappointed when I remembered the other Sally, but it really didn't hurt much. Just a little, the small amount when you find out someone wasn't looking earnestly for you. Jack ran past me and hugged Sally, lifting her up and spinning her around. It didn't seem like a stick figure could lift her, but he did.
I looked both ways, and then snuck off to somewhere where I wasn't a third wheel for people I barely knew. Unless you counted seeing Jack when I was five, but I didn't really know him.
About halfway down the block, I heard my name called. But, knowing the other Sally was nearer to Jack, I ignored it.
"Sally! Thank you for helping me!" A pause. "Sally? What's wrong?" I turned. Jack was looking at me.
"Oh. Sorry. Thought you were talking to your Sally. You're welcome. But I really didn't do that much." I waited for any reason that I shouldn't run away and find refuge. Sadly, Jack continued to talk.
"Would you like to have dinner with us? We have entirely too much space in the dining room for the two of us, and Sally is an excellent cook." I would normally refused an offer from people I'd never met, but Jack just looked so earnest, I couldn't turn him down. It was like telling a small child that they couldn't have candy.
Jack's house was a tall tower that shouldn't have been possible. Physics was out there crying over the violation that was his tower. It was huge inside, and the dining room was positively beautiful. Below the inches of dust and cobwebs, of course. Like the entire house. Regardless. Beautiful.
"So, Sally, how did you come to HalloweenTown?" Sally smiled with her inch wide mouth. I still was getting over the people here.
"Well, I fell through a crypt door, then entered HalloweenTown, ran away, and passed out under that creepy hill." I smiled inwardly at Sally's look of surprise. It's not nice, but I suppose the entire town took joy at discomfort, so I figured it wasn't impolite.
"And how did you meet Jack? And what do you say about this sauce? I'm not sure there's enough eyejuice, but it's a matter of taste."
I tried not to retch the pasta out. "Well, he was Sa- He was there, looking for you, when I woke up." I smiled pleasantly, remembering that smiling suppressed the gag reflex. I had seen the bread skitter across the plate.
Jack looked up from his pasta. "Where are you staying?"
I stopped like a deer in headlights. "Uhmmmm… Under the geological abomination, I suppose. It was so nice as to wake me up…"
"We can't have that. Take the third floor. It's spacious, mostly clean, and far away enough from us that you don't feel like you're crashing with us." Again, Jack smiled that irresistible smile. It split his face in two. It wasn't irresistible like Johnny Depp, but like the look of a small child or your best friend.
"Are you sure? You've already done so much for me," I said, smiling and shaking my head.
"You're new, Sally," other Sally said, "it's the least we could do." She looked up from the glass of wine she was swirling distractedly, and looked over at her boyfriend for a moment, whose attention was focused on me.
'Ooh. Awkward,' I thought and stared back down at my pasta. It moved. I smiled, suppressing nature's little way of saying, "Ew, don't put that in your mouth!"
"Thank you both so much. Is there a bed there? Or should I just pile up some linens in a corner and shiver myself to sleep?" I still smiled, to tell them I was joking, and to keep from vomiting. I took a sip of wine, hoping that the odd aroma wasn't nightshade.
Sally and Jack just sat there, looking at each other. "Do we…have a second bed?" Sally rose her eyebrows at her boyfriend worriedly.
"I'm sure it's somewhere… Under the pile of books in the library?"
I nearly jumped across the table and hugged him. A room devoted to books in a private home. Joy!
"No, that's that painting that Lock, Shock, and Barrel gave you."
"Not that pile of books in the library, the other pile of books in the library."
"Isn't that Zero's hidey-hole?"
"What about the one across from the one on my desk?"
"I thought that was the old MassChrist Tree."
"Christmas, dear, Christmas. It may have been years ago, but you should remember. I meant the one next to that pile."
I was ready to cry at all of the piles of books there were.
"There may be a bed under those. It makes sense. Either a bed or random spears pointing up."
"True. It'll take a few days to put the books away, so she'll have to curl up on linens. We have a few curtains that are mostly clean…"
"Joy. But it's the best offer so far. How much do you want for rent?"
Sally stopped and counted on her fingers. "I think our expenses are covered by the fear you'll produce in the Mayor." She gave a little laugh. "If you insist, then you can help us this Halloween and credit some of the screams to us."
I blinked, then realized that must be some sort of sordid currency. "Okay. Well. Then." A long awkward silence ensued.
I ate the pasta, which was surprisingly good, and wondered at the fact that I officially had a place to stay and all I had to do was creep people out.
That was it! And you should like it, because it's four pages worth of blood, sweat, and tears! (ew) And if you don't like my oxford commas, then deal! (I keep getting burned by my grammar-Natzi friends because of my comma before 'and' in a list. And I'm fed up with it.)
So that my new readers know, this is Kali Donovan. My partner in crime is Semine Midnight. We churn out this swill, as well as other stories. So here be PLUGS! (run in shock and fear, children, for there be PLUGS in these waters!)
Semine Midnight: She does pretty stuff. She has her own account. Just search for her. She's got a lot of Artemis Fowl stuff.
Our other stuff: We do two types of things right now: Contest stuff and Collaberations. This was a contest peice. We write swill with each other in them, and then give a pizza to the person with the most reviews. So yes, the second Sally in this peice is the personification of Semine. She has been consulted for some banter. Collaberations are rarer and funnier, with entirely too many drugs involved (all legal, kiddies. like oxygen and ice cubes.)
Moi: I do stuff like this in the Titan verse. Deal. It hasn't been updated in FOREVARRRRRR! Deal. But it's okay, considering when I wrote some of it (like, two years ago. Woooooooooo).
And that's all for tonight, dearies. Review and praise the high lord of Netflix!
