Chapter Thirteen:
Getting A Bit Uneasy
Violet's face cleared when she began to comprehend what Gregory had said and for a moment she looked completely lost.
"Wha..?" She said, staring at the picture bewilderedly.
"I need to ask you some questions about the people in this photograph." Gregory said, looking at her uncomfortably. She seemed to mentally shake herself out of her unexpected silence and took a closer look at the picture. She had seen it before…of course she had, just earlier that day in fact, when she had been going through old photographs in the tree house. When she saw it was the same photo her face hardened a little and she snatched it quickly out of Gregory's hand.
"Where did you get this?" She said harshly. Gregory looked startled for a moment before his face cleared.
"I got it yesterday at the Pumpkin House. I accidentally picked it up." Violet took her eyes off the photo and examined Gregory's face grudgingly.
"You liar. You didn't go into thePumpkin House."
"Yeah I did." He said, sounding a little defensive. Violet stared at him for a moment longer with something like disbelief written across her face.
"Uh huh, there's no way you and Justin set foot in that house!" There was a certain annoyance edging in her voice.
"Well…no, Justin didn't go inside. He stayed in the backyard…" Gregory's voice dropped sulkily. "And ran away when I got in trouble…but I did." Violets eyes were widening in a way that made Gregory feel very uncomfortable (And a bit like running.)
"You…you actually went inside?" Her voice sounded weak again.
"Yeah. I even got caught. You can ask the guy who lives there if you don't believe me." He realized he must of said something wrong because at that point Violet was looking at him with an expression of stupid silence. She didn't say anything for a long time. When she did her voice was filled with something that Gregory was not used to hearing and something that Violet was not used to displaying. This was mixed awe and admiration.
"Well that'd be pretty difficult considering you're the only person who's ever seen the guy." She shook her head and the unfamiliar look vanished. It was replaced by a weary sort of soberness and impatience. She was beginning to feel an unfortunate mix of weariness and bitter ache throughout her entire body. If she stood there much longer, she felt she might actually pass out. She handed the photo back to him.
"That's my dad, on the right. I have the same picture. The other two guys are Hector and Viktor Skellington. The picture was taken right after they rebuilt the school. That was nearly twenty years ago, I think. Six or Seven years before Hector went belly up, seven before I was born and about fifteen years before my dad died. Can I go now?" Gregory was watching her carefully. The whole time she spoke, she did it like she had every word memorized. She had looked at the photo the entire time. When she looked up and saw the expression on his face she glared at him.
"What?" She snapped at him. Gregory shook his head quickly.
"Nothing!" He said. "Just one other thing. Are there any other Skellingtons…I mean…I heard they all died. Is it possible that…one of them is still….living?" He struggled through the words uncomfortably.
"They all died." Violet said simply. Gregory's reaction was that of perplexity as he looked back down at the picture in his hand. She looked past Gregory's face and started walking in the direction she had been going again. She only got a few steps when something nagged at her from the back of her mind. As the thought arose she stopped and turned back to Gregory slowly.
"Why did you ask that?" Gregory blinked and turned towards her.
"It's just…the guy I met…who owns the house…looks SO much like these guys. I mean…he looks like he's related…so maybe…"
"How old was he?" She said, interrupting him.
"Well, he looked a lot older then he probably was. But…he could have been in his twenties…without the bags under his eyes and ill demeanor." Violet swallowed hard. She felt a chill run down her back. There was a haunted look in her eyes. Gregory began to feel a little spooked and almost wished that she would do something more expected, like punch him in the gut and tell him he was full of it or something. Instead she did what was almost the worst possible thing she could have (Although Gregory could have put himself in a couple of odder situations.) when she went entirely pale and fell to the ground like a brick. Gregory jumped, totally and completely shaken. He had never witnessed someone passing out before and it was a scary sight. The fact that he was alone was even worse.
After a moment of not knowing at all what to do Gregory approached her slowly and rolled her over on her back. He leaned over her and shook her a little by the shoulder.
"Violet?" Nothing happened. He slapped her lightly in the face. When she still wasn't waking up he took a more brutal stride and performed the remedy his grandfather used to execute on him when he was sleeping in too long or too deeply. He grabbed the edge of her ear in between his nails and pinched her hard. Violets eyes shot open and she let out a cry of pain and rage. She hit his hand away forcefully.
"You are going to be sorry you did that Lock-" She stopped abruptly when she saw him. For a moment she looked very disoriented. It seemed to pass over her after a moment.
"What happened?" She said quickly when she was in her right frame of mind again.
"You fainted." Gregory said. Violet put her finger to her ear and held it there for a moment. When she pulled it away he saw that it was bleeding. She glared at him.
"Gee…thanks." She said sarcastically. Gregory stood up and took a step back, just in case.
"Hey…it worked." Violet sighed heavily and stood. She wobbled for a moment then seemed to maintain some kind of balance. Gregory was staring at her worriedly. He wasn't sure what to do if it happened again and was really hoping it wouldn't. She looked at him and was filled with irrational anger. It wasn't because of the fact that he had drawn blood, or that he had kept her there, or even because he had seen her first beaten badly and then pass out. She was suddenly very angry at him because he was watching her with a certain amount of concern. The two expressions Violet hated the most on people were pity and concern. Gregory must have sensed her anger because he backed off, which was just as well for him. If he hadn't, she might have tried to beat him up even in her current condition.
She didn't say anything. Instead, she just started walking again in the direction towards Justin's house. Gregory's quiet voice followed her.
"Isn't your house in the other direction?" He asked. He was aware that he was really pushing his luck now. Especially with the way things had been going, Gregory was really beginning to think he couldn't afford such a luxury.
Violet sighed heavily.
"Yeah. I'm going to Justin's to get my stuff. Do yourself a favor an blow off before I decided to book you in mentally for the beating of your life." Gregory looked down at the papers he had in his hand. He winced as he stopped Violet again.
"Well…I'm going in that direction anyway. I can get your stuff and…you know…give it to you later." Violet stopped and looked at him with a certain amount of darkness brooding in her eyes.
"You are really asking for it." When Gregory didn't seem to be backing off Violets gaze became weary. She WAS tired and she really didn't think it was a good idea to go to Justin's anyway, what with those two monsters roaming around. The fact that she had just passed out, and was still feeling a little shaky just added to that uneasiness. She shook her head in a defeated manner.
"Fine, but if you forget any of it, or do anything to it, I'll make you wish you'd never moved to this town." She turned away from the direction she was heading in and began to walk towards her house. As she passed him Gregory caught the last low words she was saying as she did.
"All of this kindness makes me want to puke." She didn't say anything else to him. Gregory sighed, relieved, when he realized that he wasn't going to get mutilated by her. He walked slowly towards Justin's house, for the moment, neither him or Violet thought about the Pumpkin House or the Skellingtons.
In his dream, he was shivering. He was shivering because it was raining and his father had just past away. It was a chill, which went far beneath the skin and bone, down to the very fiber of his being…the very elements of his soul. He felt it through his heart, where it stuck like a dagger. He couldn't breath. His hands were cold and sweaty. His eyes burned from tears that would not come. His head pounded so painfully that he could not see or think straight. Then he felt a warm wet sensation on his face. It moved to his eye.
Jack woke up and came face to face with his dog, Zero, who had been licking him in his sleep. When reality washed back in, all of the pain was swept away. He was grateful for that. He sat up and smiled at the small dog who had wondered onto the couch where he had fallen asleep. His glance happened to fall to the grandfather clock. It was a remarkable thing, it even showed the date. Jack sighed.
"Time to pack up, eh boy? We can't be here when Halloween rolls around." He stood up and patted Zero on the head. His eyes fell to the corner of the room, where they landed on a small red box full of a number of rather mischievous looking tools. It had been left there the day that boy had broken into his house. Jack frowned. He had told the boy he could come back if he wanted, but he hadn't seen him that day. Jack shrugged. He'd be there for a whole other day. If the boy didn't show up then to retrieve it, he'd just leave the box out on the front step or something.
He stood up and crossed the room to the window. By then, the moon was out, high in the sky, and the sun was starting to inch towards the horizon. His eyes scoped the street. On the left, the old rickety house of Brutus Stiltz stood lonely. It was the only one which still looked livable on that road. The others were growing old and desolate. They held the same air of all old abandoned houses. Brutus' was beginning to look that way too. After all, when one was the only person who lived in a house all year around and they were surrounded by old decaying houses, their own abode began to resemble that of the ones around them. It was just one of those things one could not help.
Jack sighed.
"Well…I guess I've had my break. I should get back to work so I have something to show when I go back to LA tomorrow." He patted Zero on the head and headed up the stairs to sit at his desk and attempt to work on a design he had been at since he had came and made his monthly visit to the town.
Jack suffered a terrible case of insomnia. This last month had been one of his worst. His best being that he got in at least six hours of sleep in every night of the week, his worst meant that he had gotten no more then six hours of sleep in for the whole week. Once he even went two weeks without sleeping hardly at all. That period had been awful. He had become very sick and had almost died.But that hadn't happened again since his father had perished.
Jack figured he was finally getting over the bad spell though. He always napped when he was getting over a particularly bad case of insomnia. Sometimes he thought that the only time he would ever sleep easy was when he was finally dead.
He got back to work on his design, but only managed a few sketchy ideas before he dozed off again. He wasn't awake when the lights in the house flickered on and off and never noticed that a few things were missing when he woke up.
Jack wasn't the only one in town with a sleeping problem. As he got older and older, Jeff King was finding himself sleeping less and less. He knew his wife and son noticed it too, but he could care less what either of them said or noticed. They all hated him. Everyone hated him. He didn't care.
Sitting in his study with a book on his desk and a mass of files stacked up beside him, Jeff was busy with what appeared to be work. What he really was doing was drawing odd pictures on the sides of his paper and thinking about various troubling things. There seemed to be so many those days.
Halloween was the most obvious. It was coming up again. Jeff always felt uneasy around Halloween, although he could not explain why. It was just a holiday, but the people in Kingston, they treated it like so much more. Their celebration felt almost ritualistic to Jeff, like they were trying to bring Hector right out of his grave. It sounded silly, yes, but compared to the rest of the things that slept in the depths of this town and in Jeff's own mind, perhaps not too silly.
Another thing was the new family which had moved in. this was another thing that Jeff could not rationalize. From the moment they had set foot in town Jeff had been wary of them. It was the first time someone new moved into town. Jeff didn't like it. By all rights it should have relieved him. There were finally people in Kingston who knew less about the town then himself. Instead, it worried him.
The boy especially worried him. After talking with Justin again, earlier that day, he had found out that his own son had not set foot in Pumpkin House, but Gregory had. Jeff didn't like that. From now on, he would have to watch Gregory, maybe observe him more closely. Perhaps he could invite the Garret's over for dinner one time that week or something and talk to theboy in private. He wasn't sure if she knew what Gregory had been up to or not, but he would make sure that he was aware of who was in charge.
Then, there were what Jeff referred to as the misfits of town. Edward and Violet Wayward and the nutty Brutus Stiltz. They weren't usually a problem because the whole town was either angry or uneasy about them, but they were the only people who were really hanging on to the spirit of their old town these days.
Jeff sighed. Perhaps it was time to consider doing something about them. He didn't think it would be difficult. If they seemed to pose a real threat, Jeff thought he could have them removed easily. After all, if either of the Wayward kids stepped over the line again he could easily see to it that they be shipped off to any behavioral school or perhaps even any jail in the country, certainly, their mother would not object. As for Brutus Stiltz, the man wasn't old and he was certainly not senile, but maybe he was just nutty enough to be put in a kind of mental ward slash retirement home prematurely, if Jeff suggested it.
Jeff smiled. He was suddenly feeling much better then he had all week.
To Skeleton The Wanderer: Haha! The greatest victory of my life! I had no spelling errors in my last post. (Or at least, none that you could find.) Wow…that must have been luck or something…cause that never happens.
To everyone: Ooh, I'm getting close. Not very close, but close none the less. I think I may go onto one of my other stories for a bit now, but with the way this is going and progressing I will definitely be updating on it again soon as well. But I have a feeling I should be getting back on The Law of Your Anarchic Demise again first. I've updated Pumpkin Town and Special Keys For Special Doors twice since I last updated on that one. (Maybe more.) Thank you for reading my story and thank you for your reviews!
