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A couple of minutes in silence and the two were standing in front of the
pipes Shock was trying to take apart. There Jack spotted his sledgehammer.
"Well, that solves that mystery."
"I'm
not done with it, you know," Shock stated smartly. Jack was taken aback.
"And why do you need it in the first place?"
Shock picked it up and pounded against the pipes.
"Because I need to get rid of the pipes."
"Uh...huh. And you
need to do this... because....?"
Shock sighed. "Jack, I have to tell you something."
Jack gave Shock his undivided
attention as she continued to pound away at the plumbing leading down to Oogie Boogie's lair.
"I'm listening."
"There's
somebody down there."
"What?" Jack could have sworn he heard wrong. She didn't say that. "What do you mean?"
Shock
put the sledgehammer down and looked him straight in the eye.
"There is somebody living down there. Every once and
a while, I hear someone talking to themself saying something about 'Jacky-wacky' and then there's this... high-pitched evil
laughter. Creepy, high-pitched evil laughter," she said.
Jack slowly walked over to the edge of the ground and peered
down. Indeed, movement could be heard coming from the casino lair. He had no clue how to deal with that.
"I guess this
means we have a new nightmare maker."
Shock looked at Jack. "But, then why are we getting nightmares? Doesn't whoever
is down there know that the citizens of Halloween Town are supposed to be immune from them? I mean, WE are what the humans
have nightmares about."
"Most of the time," Jack mused. "The humans have nightmares about other things, too. Strange
nightmares, like something big and purple trying to kill them by hugging them... It's difficult to explain. But, how long
have you known about our newest citizen?"
Jack turned to Shock, and she stared at him.
"I think a couple of
months ago. When I started leaving. I didn't want to handle the nightmares, or Lock and Barrel's reactions to them."
"That
would explain why she was so scared at the mention of their names," Jack said to himself. Shock gave him a strange look, but
just shrugged it off. "Why didn't you tell me about whoever is down there when you found out about them?"
"Because
I thought I was going crazy," she answered. "I mean, I come back from the Forest of Holidays all scrathed up and beaten, don't
remember why (and I still don't), and then just pick up from where I left off."
"But then why get rid of the pipes?"
"I
have to get rid of them. They can't stay here."
Jack was still confused. "But why does it bother you so much?"
"Because
it's the reason all of this is happening."
"How?"
Shock was beginning to get annoyed with all of Jack's questions.
And her tone didn't do anything to hide that fact. "BECAUSE, I decided one day that I was going to take a walk. As I went
on my walk, minding my own business, all hell decided it was going to break loose. Next thing I know, I'm a foot away from
where I last was, and the pipes were rattling like someone was climbing down them."
****************************************************************************
Lock was pacing back and forth, thinking about Shock's reaction to him
and Barrel. None of it made any sense to him. Unless it was her nightmares. But where were they coming from? It couldn't be
the candy, because he and Barrel ate a million times more, literately, than she did. So, that couldn't be it. And speaking
of candy...
Barrel was rolling on the floor complaining about his stomach.
"I told you not to eat the brown
thing. Now look at you," said Lock. Barrel paused his moaning to glare manacingly at Lock and give him the finger, then resumed
his behavior.
"You're boring me," Lock said, getting up. "If you need me, too bad." Lock went down the elevator gate
when he started listening to Jack and Shock's conversation.
"Well, I don't know what to tell you, Shock," Jack's voice
carried to Lock's ears. "But I can tell you this: I will come by tomorrow and I will personally see to it that whoever is
living down there has to learn that frightening the citizens of Halloween is not the right way to use those powers."
Lock
made his way out of the cage and towards the two talking creatures.
"And where are you going now?" Shock asked.
"Back
to work," replied Jack. "The mayor is probably having a hard time dealing with everything just because I'm NOT there. You
know how he is. Plus, I've been so preoccupied with all of this for the past couple of days that I haven't really been putting
forth my best work. Lock," he addressed the devil child, "I don't know how much of our conversation, but it would make things
a little bit better knowing you were looking out for her," resting a bony hand on Shock's shoulder, "and making sure she doesn't
do anything too drastic."
Jack then took his hand off of Shock and headed towards Town Hall.
"So," Lock said,
"what are you going to do now?"
Shock retrieved the sledgehammer from it's place next to the damaged pipes and continued
her tirade against the inanimate object.
"I'm going to get rid of this stupid thing, and then I'm going down there
to see who the hell has the nerve to try and scare me. And then I'm going to do some scaring of my own." ****************************************************************************
Dispite the long interuption, Jack resumed working and got twice as much
work done than what he was normally used to. This seemed to please the mayor a great deal, as he couldn't get any work done
at all because he was too upset that Jack left in the middle of the beginning of the day to have a chat with one of Oogie
Boogie's former cohorts.
On his way home, Jack ran into Sally who was just finishing something with the Creature From
Underneath the Stairs. The couple decided to take a detour from their usual route home, and ended up at the Spiral Hill. Jack
sat down, wrapping his long arms around Sally, who sat in front of him.
Sally began telling him all of the progress
she made with the citizens. She then went into how she voluntarily, of her own free will, went to see Dr. Finklestein, which
surprised Jack emensely. What surprised him more, and put a smile on his face, was the fact that Sally kept mentioning how
nice he was to her. When she had told him of her day, she leaned her back agaisnt his ribs, and he began to recount all that
Shock had told him.
"And you think that this guy is the one who has been giving you your nightmares?" Sally asked.
Jack
sighed. "He has to be. If he is a he... Whomever it is that is living in the lair is the one who is supposed to be in charge
of the distribution of nightmares. That is how it has always been. But the nightmares are meant for the living. Even
Oogie, who had it in for me since day one, respected that. I don't know to deal with this. It has never happened before."
Sally
smiled at this. If there was one thing that being with Jack has taught her, it was that he had a penchant for always handling
things that were foreign to him. She voiced her opinion to him and he laughed. He loved the fact that Sally had a never-ending
supply of confidence in him.
The two silently made their way back home, running into a few of the midnight denizens.
After a short chat with the Corpse family and the vampires, they reached the place they called home. They walked upstairs
and made their way to bed. After a couple of hours of sleep, Jack jumped up and awoke with a start. Not from the nightmares,
but from something he remembered Shock saying.
"I hear someone
saying something about 'Jacky-wacky' and then there's this creepy, high-pitched evil laughter."
"Oh my god, he's
BACK!"
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