Disclaimer: I do not own The Nightmare Before Christmas
Oogie Boogie
Shock's POV
Barrel, Lock, and I scampered around town, taking in all of the joy the citizens were expressing as they made their preparations.
"This is so cool!" Barrel exclaimed as he jumped up and down, his lollipop clutched tightly in his little white hand.
"You're still not done with that thing?" I asked with my arms folded.
"Nope!" He replied shaking his head with a wide, proud grin. "You guys know me; I don't finish a treat for weeks!"
"And it's still as disgusting as the first time you told us." Lock grimaced as he rolled his eyes, earning a glare and a growl from our tubby friend.
Barrel stumbled into a large ghoul and fell back. After Lock and I helped him up, we raised our eyes to gasp.
"Oogie Boogie." The three of us whispered.
"Who dares run into me?" He growled as he turned around only to look down at us; we must have appeared as ants to him. "Ah, so it's you three again." He smirked before letting out a chuckle. "What brings you goons into town today?"
"We just wanted to look around." Barrel admitted nervously after he had put on his mask. "W-we're new here."
Lock and I slapped his arm with our masks and he put a hand on it as he looked at us harshly. "You idiot!" I hissed as quietly as I could. "We shouldn't be talking to this guy! Jack did not seem as though he wanted us around him!"
"But, did we ever take a moment to wonder why?" My devilish friend challenged behind his mask.
I looked at him for a bit. He was right . . . Jack never did tell us why he didn't like Oogie Boogie.
After another pause, I put my mask on and looked at the large beige sack. "Say, Jack doesn't seem to like you very much. Why is that?"
"Ouch." Lock commented, his smug grin was hidden, but his yellow eyes glinted with the sun peeping through the grey haze. "That was blunt."
Oogie glared down at me, the ends of his arms—I doubt I could call them hands—rested on his hips. "Well, well, well. Looks like the little missy has a bit of curiosity in her tiny ant-like body."
My face of disapproval was concealed by my mask, but I'm certain he was able to see my eyes narrow; my stomach churned uneasily when he narrowed his own eye sockets
"If you children really want to know, why don't you stop by my lovely little home?"
He began to chuckle again and I backed up so that I was standing in line with Barrel and Lock. Uncomfortable in our current situation, I clasped my hands in front of my chest.
"What should we do?" Lock asked on my left.
"Should we listen to him?" Barrel leaned forward to look at him.
"I don't think Jack would be very pleased."
"We certainly don't want to upset him when he took us in and fed us." Barrel pointed out.
While they talked across me, I looked down in thought and they finally looked at me. "Shock?" My slick back-haired friend asked.
I was quiet for a few moments until I raised my head. "Let's go."
"What?" Barrel's eyes widened. "Are you crazy? You'd all of a sudden go against Jack like this?"
I grabbed his ear and he winced as I pulled him closer. "I just want to know why Jack doesn't like this guy. That's all." I whispered.
"Hm. . ." He replied, clearing not a fan of my idea.
I released his ear and met Oogie's empty eye sockets. "All right Show us the way."
He snickered again. "Very well." His smile widened a little more. "My little cockroaches."
We followed behind him and, as we did, received countless looks from the ghouls around us. Now that I thought about it, I'm sure they still had questions regarding our past lives. Thanks to Oogie blabbing out our background, the three of us knew we wouldn't be safe from their curiosity for a quite bit.
"They're all looking at us." Barrel said as he held his treat close, as if someone was going to snatch it.
Who would want that gross, disgusting thing? My large nose wrinkled as I grimaced, then I remembered where I was. Never mind.
"Don't pay them any attention." I answered. "They still don't know exactly who we are."
"Well, I'm sure we'll change their minds about that soon enough." Lock added.
I looked at him. "What do you mean by that?"
He removed his mask and shrugged. "For better, or for worse. Know what I mean?" Sending me an oblique sharp-toothed grin, he put his mask back on while I stared at him. I didn't like the look on his face.
Soon, we had made it out of town and onto a hill. Oogie stopped at its peak and we followed his lead. "Home sweet home!" He cried as he outstretched his arms. His booming voice echoed across the vacant horizon of hills and patches of dead trees.
After looking at him, the three of us gazed down to see a crooked, old tree emerging from a ditch filled with fog. On the branches, were rickety, little buildings. We looked to our left to see the spiral hill that stood among the graveyard.
Our attention returned to Oogie, who folded his arms and looked down at us with a raised eyebrow. "Are you kids ready?"
"Ready as we'll ever be." Barrel said with uncertainty.
"Ahaha! Then, let's go!"
Lock, Barrel, and I followed him as he sloppy sauntered down the hill and over to the edge of the pit. While he began his descend on a fat tree branch, with lumps that served as stairs, we looked down; Lock stood on my right and Barrel on my left. The ground crumbled a little under our green-haired friend's feet and he began waving his arms to regain his balance, before I steadied him.
He looked at me, then lowered his eyes to the fog below. "Sure is a long way down."
"You got that right." I replied.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Lock asked, removing his mask as his tail wagged. "Come on!" After giving a wave of his arm, we followed his lead down the tree Oogie had used.
"I don't know if I like this very much!" I grunted as I hopped from lump to lump, trying my best to keep my balance.
"Aw, you're just saying that 'cause you're scared." Lock answered from a short distance away from me. "You always were the scaredy-cat out of the three of us back on the mainland."
"The mainland?" Barrel asked once he had landed on the next perch, but I bumped into him.
"Hey, don't just stop in the middle!" I snapped as I sat on my butt, my mask lying beside me.
"Well, watch where you're going!" He retorted.
I launched myself at him and knocked his mask off. He kicked his short legs in an attempt to fight back, but I was bigger than him.
"Hey, knock it off!" Lock ordered, clearly irritated, and he smacked us with his mask. "Have you forgotten why we're here?" He turned back to Barrel. "Anyway, I'm gonna refer up there"—he pointed to the grey, dismal sky—"to the mainland. Feels kind of weird calling it the 'world of the living'."
I nodded. "Yeah, I agree with you on that."
"Uh oh, y-you guys?"
We turned our heads at Barrel's sudden tone. He was staring over the edge of the tree we were on, when we followed his gaze, we saw nothing but fog.
"I got this feeling that he's gonna be mad at us."
Now that he brought it up, we had been staying in one place for quite a while, and were already way far behind when we first began our descent. "You're right." I said. "Let's go." I lead them down this time.
When, we finally made it to the end of the tree, we looked around to see that the pit was still ongoing. "Jeez." Barrel commented behind his mask as he knelt on the rough surface. "Just how deep is this thing?"
"Oh, you haven't even reached the half-way point."
The three of us looked up to see Oogie staring at us, with his arms folded, from behind a circular window carved into the thick, black tree that stuck up from the ditch. Suddenly, he lashed his arms forwarded and we screamed as a pair of skeleton arms emerged from behind him, grabbed us, and hauled us forward into darkness.
After a short while, a light turned on overhead, illuminating our situation: the three of us were without masks and were tied together by a rope that hung from a hook suspended from far above. We started squirming to free our arms, but stopped when Oogie began laughing and emerged from the shadows in front of us.
"What is the meaning of this, Oogie?" I demanded.
"Yeah!" Barrel chimed in, swinging us slightly as he kicked his stubby legs. "Why're we all tied up?"
"Can't go thinking you won't tell Jack all I'm telling you, now can I?"
"What's the big deal about that?" Lock insisted. "If it's the reason why he hates you, then obviously he knows!"
"Save your breath." I sighed. "There's no point in arguing with a useless. Old. Empty. Sack!" I tilted my head back and forth while I grinned and leaned forward with each insult. Feeling satisfied and thinking he would let us go, I just stared him down. Wow, could I have been more wrong?
Oogie started laughing hysterically, before slamming his arm down on something. We were abruptly dropped and the room around us lit up with gambling machines and other objects you would find in a casino. Then, just as suddenly as we were dropped, we came to a jolting halt a mere couple of feet above a strange type of torture device in the center of some orange fluid.
Hearts racing and throbbing, eyes wide as anything, we looked up at Oogie who wobbled over to us. "Just in case this doesn't drive home the message, I don't kid around. And, then there's another thing." His eyes narrowed. "You wouldn't want to know what makes me, me, my cockroaches."
"Hey, what gives?" Lock snarls. "You did it before, since when did we become your 'cockroaches'?"
"When you agreed in taking my offer." He grinned widely.
"Lock, sh! Shut up!" I hissed and my friend growled at the ghoul before us. "Look," I said to him, "could you just tell us why Jack doesn't like you, so we can get out of here and leave you on your merry way?"
"Well, since you asked so nicely." Oogie chuckled with his arms folded as he paced in front of us briefly. "I'll tell you."
Lock, Barrel, and I, still tied up as we were, waited, watched, and listened silently.
"'Twas a long time ago, longer now than it seems, in a place that perhaps you've seen in your dreams. For the story that you are about to be told, took place in the Holiday Worlds of old. There was a skeleton, and a sack. While other ghouls ventured out, one monster stayed back. He was the King of Halloween, while the other worked long nights making all sorts of children scream.
"This creature lurked under beds worldwide, but the King forced him to come back to hide. You see, the King was disappointed in how much better the other was. However, that was simply only because the other creature was better, even without the use of claws. The King had gotten jealous. The King had gotten mad. And when the King told the other to stay, the creature had gotten sad.
"He truly loved doing what he was gifted to do. To creep up on children in the night and yell 'boo'!" Oogie got in our faces and made us jump.
"That's all the creature wanted to do," his saddened eye sockets narrowed with rage, "but, the Halloween King took the privilege from him, too. He had told the creature 'no one is allowed to surpass me!' And he sentenced him to stay, locked up here in this tree. But a mere order, such as this, couldn't keep the creature in. He gambled with critters and other ghouls, and they lost with a spin.
"You see, the creature bet them 'if you lose, you stay here. You stay here and help me make the Skeleton King fear.' The ghouls then started constructing the right time to strike. And finally, it came on this one Halloween night! The citizens were gathering in the center of town, and their celebratory cheers turned into frowns.
"For the ground wildly shook, and the Pumpkin King turned around to look! At the creature oh, so proud as he came up from the ground! 'Hey!' He shouted. 'Long time no see!' The Halloween King grew mad within the count of three. 'Oogie!' He said. 'Come over here now, so I can get some sense into your head!' 'But, no!' Cried the creature, 'You've had your last laugh!' And he swung at the stick man, wanting to use him for a staff.
"And so, here's our story, coming close to an end. It's hard to believe the two ghouls were once friends. But, it all changed thanks to that Skeleton Man. Because of him, alone the one creature stands. Oh ho," Oogie mocked sadly as he hugged himself, "the ghouls don't comfort him. They only follow the orders they were once given. But, the Boogie Man is of his word and won't tell them to do otherwise. The ghouls will always follow him and his word like flies. And, thus, ends our tale of this sorrowful sack. Who just awaits the day when everything will be back."
Barrel, Lock, and I stared at him for a while in silence. Oogie Boogie slouched sadly, and I could almost feel . . . sorry for him.
"You mean," I said, "the reason Jack doesn't like you is because you did a better job at scaring people than him?"
He nodded, his stitched lip quivering.
"Well, that's stupid!" I snarled. "Sounds something that Barrel, Lock, and I would fight about!"
"Hey!" They chorused.
"Oh, shut up you know it's true!"
Oogie sniffled and wiped his face, where his nose would be, with his arm. "You mean, you're on my side? You see why Jack doesn't like me?"
I nodded. "And it is the dumbest reason I've ever heard! It's immature and childish!" I looked down and narrowed my eyes. "I can't believe we thought so highly of the King of Halloween, when he isn't even able to appreciate one of his citizen's big achievements." I growled under my breath.
Oogie had his arms folded. "The reason he said he didn't want me near you guys was because he feared you'd discover the truth and leave him after he welcomed you in the graveyard."
"You know about that?" Barrel asked and Oogie laughed.
"I have eyes all over this town!" He looked at us with a serious expression, once he had calmed down. "Well, I may as well tell you what's inside of me, now that I've revealed this much to you!" The tip of his head split and a spider crawled out while bug eyes began to glow purple in his eye sockets. The three of us flinched. "You see, my little cockroaches," a yellow-and black-stripped snake came out his mouth and poked my nose making a shiver run up my spine, "I'm entirely made out of bugs and critters."
We stared at him in surprise and he pulled back to laugh again. Well, that explains why he's call Oogie Boogie. . .
"So," he eyed me once we could no longer see his insides, "who did you say was a useless, old, empty sack?"
I bowed my head and Lock looked at me, as if telling me he wanted to pat my back in support. But, alas, our current predicament prevented him from such an action.
"So, how 'bout you let us go, now?" Barrel said, a hint of confidence in his tone.
"Ah, but how do I know you won't go running back to Jack and tell him you were just talking to me willingly? For all I know, you could add your own mischievous, little twist to my story."
"Trust us," Barrel said—my head was bowed again and my hat's rim hid my face, "when Shock is frustrated, she'll rarely speak for quite a while. Ow!" He cried when I kicked his shin.
"Well, my dear?" Oogie said as he got close to my face. I looked up and the spider came out the top of his head again, "Whataya say?"
I stared at him for a few moment, before answering, "Yeah. We'll behave." Behind my back, I crossed my fingers. I had to tell Jack that the way he acted towards Oogie was stupid and not right for a king. Lock and Barrel noticed my movement and gasped, but I held my gaze on Oogie.
"Excellent!"
And just like that, we were off the hook. Literally. The rope around us was ripped off and we braced ourselves to fall into the strange orange fluid, only to be met with hard ground. The sack man pulled a switch, making the hook turn so we would not fall into that strange liquid.
"I've held up my end of the bargain, and you've held up yours. You're free to go."
"Wait!" Barrel teetered up to him. "What happens when the bugs inside of you die?"
"I try to find more. Bugs are a great source of protein! But, in my state," he rubbed his belly, "it's pretty hard to hunt."
Barrel looked away and I watched him carefully. I knew that look. What was he thinking . . .?
"What if we got bugs for you?"
My jaw and Lock's dropped.
"What?" Oogie said with suspicion and he leaned forward with his hands on his hips. "And exactly why would you do that for me?"
"Well, because you were kind enough to tell us why Jack doesn't like you." He put his arms behind his back and began tracing circles on the ground with his flat, white foot. "He wouldn't tell us, even if we asked. . . I've got a feeling he wouldn't. Besides, we could keep you company, so you aren't just stuck with these ghouls!"
No one said anything for a few moments after that. Never did I ever expect Barrel to come up with an offer such as that. It was completely beside him! But, with the new upside down world we live in now, I guess things have to change. I looked down, rethinking my former motive if I should talk to Jack about this, or not. Shaking my head, I lifted my eyes. No. That is something I, for sure, needed closure on.
I was brought back to reality when Oogie smiled and stretched out his arm. "You've got yourselves a deal."
"What, you're not gonna gamble with us?" Lock smirked, his tail wagging a little bit.
"Ha! I know for sure I'd win to a bunch of kids. It wouldn't be fair."
"Well, it's comforting to know you think so little of us." He answered with a mischievous grin as he approached Barrel's side. "Gives us the goal to surprise you one of these days."
This just left me to walk up to my friends. They were set to make the agreement. Was I?
Cliffhanger! Haven't had one of these in my writings for a while! See you guys next time!