And the second chapter… I hope you all liked the first one, just so you all know, of a rough chapter count, I would say this fic will have 10 chapters, but that's a rough guess, there may be more, or even less.

Disclaimer: I don't own…it –struggles to say words- it … belongs to…Daniel Handler…

Chapter 2

Olaf stood there, a bit confused, but satisfied. He had stolen some dead person's pitchfork, now if only he could find somebody else he could sell it to…He could make a living off of it, how fun.

He started walking up the nauseating spiraling pathways. He had slight motion sickness, which he found very embarrassing, His other colleagues would sometimes laugh when he had to stop the black car and run to a ditch on the side of the road. That was one reason why he didn't like them anymore. No tears were falling if they had died too.

Where was he supposed to go? One thing for sure was that he defiantly wasn't going to be lugging around those damned bags or wagons.

He wondered if he should try talking to somebody, a DIFFERENT person. He wanted a word with the "boss' around here.

A ghostly man was passing Olaf, pulling a wagon. Olaf tripped the man, making him fall to the ground with a thud. He raided the wagon, looking for anything juicy, all that was in it where burlap sacks of ashes.

"So, is there-" he kicked the man, "A reason why you're carrying around these ashes?" said Olaf

The man, to Olafs surprise, looked up. His eyes were pure black, and creepy, even to Olaf, who was the kind that would kill anybody in the wink of an eye.

After staring at the man for a second, he continued.

"Where's the head honcho in this dump, and you better talk, I have a pitchfork you know." He said holding it up, attempting to be threatening.

The man stared at him for what seemed like minutes, before he slowly brought his hand up and pointed straight north. Olafs eyes followed his hand and he strained to see what he was pointing at. Up, far up, almost naked to the human eye, was a dark, dark red platform. Where the spirals ended, the platform began. He couldn't see what was on it, but he guessed it was some important person. Well that important person was going to get a little talking to.

Olaf, without helping the man back up, started running around the paths, pushing all the stunned weird people out of the way, determined to get to the top before anyone could stop and question him. He was quite sure nobody would, he realized that it wasn't just a few, it was everyone that had dark circles and zombified looks on their faces.

About an hour later, he was still working his way up. He had stopped running long ago, the fact that he had long legs did help, but he was so slim that his bones gave up on him quickly. So now he was stuck walking, fairly tired, a bit motion sick, but nothing too serious.

He looked ahead and saw a pile of broken wooden boards. He guessed that at one time, this had been a wagon or at least an attempt at one. He considered sitting down and resting, but he was getting closer now. The fastest way out of there was his first choice, and the fastest way was talking to, yelling, perhaps killing, the person in charge.

"Ha…"thought Olaf. " Killing… Happy thoughts …"

He started walking a bit faster, a bit cheerier at the thought of someone dying, when someone crashed into him, head-on.

The count fell to the ground, not in pain, a bit of a sore arse. Whoever had just ran into him had hell to pay. He sat up, rolling off the other person's leg.

The man who had run into him groaned, sitting up. Olaf immediately placed the pitchfork right above the mans heart.

"What the fu-"

"Any sudden moves and I drop this right on your - wait, did you just talk?"

The man stared at Olaf wildly.

"Uh, yeah, nice pitchfork by the way."

Olaf being cautious only withdrew the pitchfork from his chest a little bit. "Thanks, now why the hell did you just ram into me like that?"

The man looked around to make sure nobody was near by before he replied.

"Some creeps are trying to capture me, they chased me all the way from that

balcony up there, I think I lost them though. But anyway, why are YOU here?"

Olaf now took the pitchfork away, holding it at his side. "I fell off a cliff and died, but now I'm trying to murder the guy that owns this place, and sell this pitchfork."

The man tutted. "What a way to go…I got the death penalty, attempted murder of the president." He sighed. "By the way, you can't sell stuff down here, theres no currency…and I'm sure that mad red guy on that platform wouldn't allow it. But I got a U.S. dollar still in my pocket, I still had it when I got killed, why they didn't take it, I have no clue. It's all I have and I have a feeling I'll need to defend myself soon."

Olaf took a minute to consider it, then agreed and they exchanged, just as yelling voices were heard. They both turned to look behind them, where two pale men were running towards them.

"Oh shit" said the man. "Gotta run, see ya."

Olaf moved aside as the two ghostly people ran by him, speeding after the one man. Olaf didn't really care if that guy was going to get killed, he had his money, and that was all that mattered.

Obviously he had been up to the platform already. He had said something about a red man. A red man…the kind with the triangle tail and pointy ears.

Olaf shrugged. A bit stereotypical, but hey, the legends had to come from somewhere.

He again started walking up, it'd only take him a bit longer before he'd reach the balcony and meet this "little red man."

UT$#()(&$#!$$&()+-------

-wheezes- Arg, I have a HORRIBLE cough… -coughs- And I had to take this funny (AND REALLY NASTY) tasting cough syrup…Ew.

I hope you like this chapter, now take some time and tell me what you think about it, and what YOU think will happen next. I may use some of your ideas… -evil grin- will your permission…of course…hehe –shifty eyed-

Yours until woodpeckers peck my eyes out,

.:The OddBird:.