"Oh, I'm so happy! I can't wait to see Jack's new ideas tomorrow! But it's such a long time from now. And we only have 300 day left till next Halloween!" the Mayor bellowed out to himself. Not long before he spotted the Boogie Boys running around looking in awkward places. He made a whimper, and kept walking to his destination at an even faster rate.
"This is stupid!" the short, pudgy, skeleton trick-or-treater, Barrel, yelled out to his cohorts.
"Yer stupid!" Lock said, still wearing his devil-themed costume.
"Shutup!" Little miss witch, Shock, shouted as she dug her hands into the trash bin.
"I'm not finding any here, and I still have only 5 in this dumb 'ol can." Barrel said standing frustrated in the bushes.
"You are just not looking hard enough!" Lock said, "SEE! I found another one!"
Shock looked over, and whacked Lock with her metal pail. "That's not it! That's an old rotting toe! What we need is bugs, remember!" she said growling at the two of them.
"How do you really know Oogie Boogie will come back if we gather enough bugs?" Barrel asked.
"Well, he turned into bugs after Jack beat him! If we put back all the bugs together, than its only fair that he comes back if we do this!" Shock reminded.
"And maybe we'll get a reward for this too!" Lock added.
"YEAH!!" they all cheered.
---
Back in the Boogie Boy's Playhouse, there was activity brewing there too. Tables were being overturned, and chairs were being tossed. A dark figure scanned thru the tower, and picked up small critters from here and there.
"This better work. I feel stupid doing this." a young manly voice said from the shadows.
All you heard for his response was chirping and squeaking from a relatively small volume.
"Yeah, I hear you. But I better get what you promised me."
The little bug crawled up onto the table and walked in front of the half-boarded up window. Its shadow was cast onto the wall, and the appearance of the evil Oogie Boogie rose up and grinned an unsettling smile.
---
The adventuresome, stitched up doll, Sally, was sitting in the top tower of Jack's house and sewing what seemed to be a crochet of a spider-web shaped dream catcher.
"Oh, Jack will love this!" she said to herself.
A towering figure stood over her, and leaned over her shoulder. "Will love what?"
Sally let out a surprised gasp, and looked up at Jack's comforting, yet childishly curious, face. "Oh Jack, you always scare me like that!"
"Why thank you! You really do know how to flatter me, Sally." he said with a smile.
Sally smiled too, and looked away shyly.
"Oh! I was going to show you this!" She raised her knitting up to his glance, and spoke thru the holes. "I decided to try and make that dream catcher thing."
"Ah yes, the dream catcher! What a great job! I love it already! The mayor will really turn his head ten times 'round once he sees this!" Jack danced around happily with the dream catcher in his hand.
"I hope it works..." Sally said, unsure her praise was truly earned.
"You worry too much! I'm sure with this, I'll be catch the good dreams and make some frightening nightmares!" Jack reassured.
"Thanks Jack." Sally smiled softly.
"I know this Halloween will be better than ever! We are on schedule with everything, and we have enough ideas to stuff all the pumpkins in the pumpkin patch with." His arms were outreached to the skies with excitement, but he came to stop all of a sudden.
"Oh, that's right. Dr. Finklestein said he had a new invention to show me. A Soul Robber he called it. Ha! The things that genius comes up with! I'll be back in a scream, alright?"
Sally nodded her head and took the dream catcher back. "Jack..." she said to herself with heartfelt affection.