The Other Nightmare

AN: In the spirit of October...here it is. Another chapter. Now, reward me. I like chocolate.

Also, my neighbouring Americans, please don't take Mr. Fourth-of-July's weird personality as a bombardment against your country or anything. Despite looking like an American flag, he also embodies Canada Day. Any celebration involving country's birthdays and fireworks. I'll give Thanksgiving and Independence Day leaders names...soon...when I figure them out.

Chapter Four: Asylum

"Who's going to follow him?"

"N-N-Not me, I'm t-too busy trying p-pass this bill to reduce the number of requisitions for n-non-exploding bi-weekly bi-laws!"

"Are you joking? I wouldn't be caught dead going near that ugly orange door."

The holiday leaders were all busy bickering amongst themselves about the sudden appearance of their holiday denizens and the abrupt disappearance of Jack Skellington, so much that Mr. Claus' head was giving him a terrible ache. Not that grumbling about his fellow leaders would do any good, but it would certainly serve them right.

"Nicholas, surely you have a suggestion as to what to do now? You are the eldest holiday leader, after all. Surely you must have heard of something like this happening before?" Ms. Valentine's voice cut through the immediate clamor and she appeared behind the old saint's shoulder with an arched brow.

Mr. Claus balled one of his hands into a first and turned to face her, nose burning red with frustration. "Ms. Valentine, you are well aware that the eldest holiday is not me, but the very same one that got us into this mess in the first place! Personally, I would rather depend on him in these dark and mysterious times than stand around arguing like a gaggle of lunatics!"

He hadn't realized just how loudly he'd raised his voice until a hush fell over all of the gathered heads. Eyes that varied from green, to violet to aquamarine turned on him at once in shock and expectation. Mr. Claus heaved a sigh. "As you all know, each one of our holidays is in dire need of rescuing. Now, I know you all have your reservations against Halloween and the rumors about it being a cursed and terrible place to be; however, despite Jack's..." He cleared his throat. "...strange manners this past Christmas, I am not convinced there is anything malicious about his actions or the citizens of Halloween Town. Doesn't anyone here realize what would happen on Earth if Halloween were simply to disappear into thin air?"

The following silence was enough to convince them all that Mr. Claus was right. If any of the holiday worlds were destroyed, people would forget about them. The seasons' celebrations would become unbalanced. And worst all, no one knew what would happen if that ever came to pass. That was what made the idea so frightening.

"I'm in agreement with St. Nicholas," came a hearty voice from the midst of some bizarrely overgrown turkeys and men in fur hats. The Thanksgiving holiday leader shouldered his musket and looked on with a squared jaw. "Where would we all be if we turned our backs on each other in the hour of our greatest need? We need to cooperate in order to ensure the safety of our future!"

"How very Thanksgiving of you to say," Ms. Valentine commented with an unimpressed drawl. She crossed her narrow arms and sighed. "Well, you are right about one thing. We all need a place to stay, and it seems there is only one room available in the hotel of holidays. I will go there personally and determine if this 'Halloween Town' is suitable for my beloved cupids to rest their adorable little wings."

"We'll both go and speak to Jack, wherever he is," Santa Claus corrected her. "The rest of you should stay here, where it's safe. We'll return with the Pumpkin King if that world is even remotely hospitable.'

-

Jack opened his eyes to his kingdom the moment he felt the portal drop him on the ground. Half-expecting to find an unimaginable forest of massive pumpkins and out-of-control phantoms, he was even more surprised to see that the circle of holiday trees were untouched. So was the rest of the dead woods.

"How peculiar," he said wistfully as he lanced to his feet. Then his eye sockets caught a glimpse of something—or somethings—both familiar and alarming descending upon him from the canopy above. Dozens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny yellow lights drifted down around his head and before his skull. "Oh, my. Where did all of these come from?"

As if to answer him, he heard barking in the near distance. "Zero!" he called in delight, a moment before the elated canine ghost charged down the path toward him. Zero circled him a few times, yipping happily. "Good boy, Zero. You certainly are a sight for worried eyes."

"Jack? Oh, Jack, you're back!"

His excitement over seeing his faithful companion quadrupled suddenly, when Sally's head, shoulders, then entire body appeared from behind a tree where she had been hiding. His beloved ran towards him and he wrapped his arms around her comfortingly when she crashed into him. "Jack, so many strange things are happening in town, and I feared something awful had happened to you when the Mayor told me you hadn't returned," she said quickly, as though he might vanish into a puff of smoke any instant. "You have to help them, Jack. There's too many pumpkins, and the ghosts who aren't friendly are all over the place. There's something very, very wrong with the vampire brothers, too. I was so sure I had everything under control, but there's just too much."

Letting her finish her frightened report on the state of Halloween Town, Jack simply stood there and held her as he listened. He had not been expecting anything unusual concerning the vampires, but then, how could anyone predict what would happen when there was no logical explanation for everything else? "Sally," he said, pulling back slightly. "I'm just glad that you're okay, and that there's still time to fix things in town. I don't want you to worry any more; I'm here and I'll set everything right."

She sighed and put her head on his bony shoulder. "I knew you'd say that. That's why I love you, Jack." When he saw her face next, it was still stitched with worry. "I almost forgot. What about Christmas Town? Is everything under control there?"

"I'm afraid not. I just came from the meeting of holiday leaders, and it seems all of the holiday worlds are a mess. I was going to invite them all to stay here in Halloween World until we figured out a solution, but I would have to consult the Mayor first on such a big decision."

"Don't be silly, Jack," she told him, smiling. "He is just an elected official; you're the Pumpkin King."

They shared a knowing chuckle, though not so much at the Mayor's expense as a tender moment of reflection on what made them love their town so much. It also reminded Jack about the hundreds of holiday denizens stranded in the meeting world where he had left them.

"Zero, I want you to look after Sally while I go back to the meeting explain the situation," he told his most loyal companion. The ghost barked happily to be appointed such an important task. Then the skeleton realized that Sally was blinking in wonder at something behind his back, and he turned around to see just what it was.

Ms. Valentine looked thoroughly displeased with her surroundings as she stepped gingerly through the shapeless hole in one of the trees. Santa Claus was already standing in the clearing, likely because he was too polite to interrupt their reunion. In contrast to Nicholas' patience, however, the Valentine's Day leader turned her nose up at the skeleton and the rag doll. Surprisingly, the contemptuous look in large, reproachful eyes dimmed quite a bit looking over them.

"Well, well, now I understand why you were in such a hurry, Mr. Skeleton," she said slowly. "Oh, so sorry to intrude, by the way. I'm sure you don't mind; the rules about tresspassing on other leader's holiday worlds doesn't seem to suit you, after all."

"Ms. Valentine," Mr. Claus said with an edge of warning before returning his attention to Jack and Sally. "I'm sorry, Jack. With no way of knowing how soon Halloween will be cut off from the meeting world, I'm afraid I have to make this short and to the point. Would you consider providing asylum to the citizens of St. Patrick's, Valentine's Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, and Christmas Town?"

Jack blinked at him in surprise. "Asylum? Why, Mr. Claws—"

"No need to explain, Jack," Santa Claus interrupted, though he sounded a little dour. "I understand that we're asking a lot of you, especially considering the circumstances surrounding your return to the meeting. If you truly wish, I would willingly give up anything from my world in compensation for the trouble."

"Compensation!" exclaimed the skeleton, clearly affronted, while Sally smiled meekly behind him at his reaction. Jack's voice darkened a little more with the serious effect of his words. "Mr. Claws, there is absolutely nothing I want from you or the committee, and I'd thank you to remember how sorry I am for every intruding on your holiday. What kind of Pumpkin King would I be if I turned down those in need of refuge?"

Ms. Valentine folded her arms. "The kind that gives children nightmares."

Deciding it was best to not fan the flames of discontent between himself and the elegantly dressed holiday leader, Jack kept his mouth firmly closed. This was no time to discuss the differences between holidays, but to take action against the threat that endangered them all. "Mr. Claws, Ms. Valentine, if you would like to accompany back to—"

"Terrible! It's just wholesomely, unquestionably, audaciously terrible!" That was Luckwittle's voice coming from inside the meeting world's tree. Suddenly, the entire forest as alive with the sounds of creatures from a myriad of holidays as the tree itself seemed to shake and bulge with a hundred bodies both big and small. Before anyone could say anything at all, the Easter Bunny, a gaggle of rabbits, some turkeys, a few oddly dressed men with beards, half a dozen flying infants, and even more bizarre creatures came pouring out of the portal and into the world of Halloween.

"Make room! Make room for the others!" cried the Thanksgiving leader as he popped his broad, stout shoulders through the hole in the trunk. He backed up a few steps, waving at the incoming denizens and bumped into Ms. Valentine. "Oh, terribly sorry about that, ma'am. Don't push and shove now; I'm sure there's plenty of room for everyone!"

Amidst the chaos, Luckwittle came bouncing over to Mr. Claus and delivered a bubbling report that Jack had a hard time following. He could guess, however—the Halloween door in the meeting world was probably fading, and the refugees probably had no choice but to escape. Sally put a hand on his arm, her wide eyes searching his for some sort of reaction, and she relaxed when the unspoken reassurance passed between them. Jack had trouble remembering that Sally was still relatively new to the Halloween world, let alone the other, even more bewildering holidays.

Some time passed while the various members of the committee organized their individual town's citizens into a less noisy, more controlled gathering. When it seemed the tree to the adjoining world would double over and collapse, the arrivals finally stopped. And, as if struggling to stay alive, the tree gave a last, shuddering groan and sagged backwards. The hole and the door both dispersed into a puff of wispy smoke.

"I guess that's it," Jack said to Sally, dropping his arms a little unhappily. It wasn't that he didn't want the other holiday members here, but he still had no idea how his own town would react to this disaster. "There's no going back, not until we solve this mystery."

"I'll help you, Jack," she said, which lifted his spirits. Almost anything she told him lifted his spirits these days; if only he had known her better last year, before the Christmas fiasco.

The Pumpkin King looked over the heads of the dozens and dozens of men, women and critters and prepared for a very profound, unintentional fright. He took a deep breath, habitually, and raised his voice over the clamor.

"Everyone, I need your attention, please!"

Like a bat's wings cutting through the silence of a cold night, his words put an end to the chaos in an instant. Unfortunately, he did his job only too well when he never wanted to—a moment later, some poor woman dressed in pink and red screamed before fainting away into the arms of a grizzled pioneer. Everyone else seemed to take it in stride. "Thank you," said Jack. "Now, I understand that the recent turn of events has been very confusing, for all of us. I would just like you all to know that you are most welcome in Halloween Town, and you have my most sincere promise that no scaring, pranks or tricks will be played on you or your children during your visit."

There were a few light murmurs in the tightly packed crowd, not nearly as much as he had hoped for. Ms. Valentine appeared at his side all of a sudden, gripping in her hand what appeared to be some strange kind of Halloween mask, only it was covered in red sparkles and dotted with precious gemstones.

"What the skeleton is trying to say," she said smoothly, putting the mask over her eyes almost coyly. "Is that in light of our situation, we should make the best of what we have. Hopefully, this entire stunt will blow over in a few days, and we can all go back home. Where we belong."

That got a stir of agreement out of the denizens of the holidays. Despite his usual nature, Jack cast a dark glance at Ms. Valentine, now sure that her snide, unspoken resentment of Halloween—of him—was not merely his imagination.

Ms. Valentine lowered her mask just enough to hide her mouth, though the scowl played around her eyes. "This is politics, Mr. Skeleton," she said. "I have no intention of letting you take advantage of them with your mind games and charming antics. This...act of kindness won't help you, so let's leave it at that, shall we?"

The Valentine's Day leader slunk off to join the moving crowd as they marched deeper into the belly of the forest, leaving Jack to stare after her in puzzlement. Where had he gone wrong? He was so certain until now that he had been treated unfairly by the other holiday leaders, but it definitely made no sense whatsoever, the kind of distrust he was being shown. Surely his mix-up last year couldn't have done all this?

Nonsense. He'd merely made a foolish mistake; these people were afraid of him, and of the Halloween world. And not just afraid, but terrified. This went far beyond the spirit of Hallow's Eve, further beyond his demeanor as the Pumpkin King. The explanation as to why he was no longer invited to the committee of holiday leaders.

What, precisely, had he done to deserve this kind of exile?

TBC