Note: My stories can be hard to read sometimes due to a reader not being sure exactly who is talking. I write somewhere between a book and a play. A character's first line is preceded by their name in italics. If two people are speaking back and forth, their will be no italicized names but chances are comments will be alternating or you just simply look at what the person is saying to get who it is. One more thing, if three people are in a conversation, two of them might be talking back and forth like normal, and the third person will be brought back in by an italicized name.
The Nightmare Before Christmas 2
Narrator: "The story you are about to be told takes place, once again, in the Holiday Worlds of old. Each world working hard all year on one specific holiday, only two of which, know another's name. But maybe, just maybe, you already know that story. So let this new one begin."
Chapter 1: The Next Generation
8 years after the night when the sky was so dark and the moon shone so bright.
The cemetery was quiet as always, the old hill above the pumpkin patch standing dormant in the soft, quiet... Girl: "Give it back, Jake!" Boy: "Nah, nah! Come and get it!" Two children dashed past the headstones, up the hill. "Aw, come on! I'm gonna' tell dad!" "You will not!" "I will to!" The skeleton boy waved a black frisbee over the shorter, patch-work looking girl's head. The hill began to unroll behind him and he stepped backwards down it, a grin on his face. The girl suddenly tackled him and they rolled into the pumpkin patch. "Now give it...!" she started to say, then looked up, "Hey, Jake, look." "What?" he asked, getting up and rubbing his head. "It's Lock, Shock, and Barrel." Three figures were making their way across the field from and an old tree. "Awesome. Come on, Cindy," Jake said, running after the three siblings, his sister in tow. "Hey! Wait up!" Lock, Shock, and Barrel, now fourteen and fifteen, turned as the seven year olds raced towards them. Lock: "Aw, great. It's our little annoyances again." Barrel: "I dunno. They're alright," he said. Shock: "'Specialy since they love us so much," she laughed. Cindy: "Hi, guys," the girl said, her short brown hair bouncing as she stopped infront of them. Barrel: "Yo, my man," Barrel gave Jake a high five. Lock: "So what do you rugrats want?" he asked with a scowl, folding his arms to look important. Jake: "We just wanted to say hi. Where are you guys headin'?" "To town. We got some stuff to pick up." "Cool. Let us come with you!" "Nah, we..." Shock elbowed him, Shock: "Sure. You two can come. If you can keep up." Cindy: "We can!" Barrel: "Alright then." They all took off at a run towards Halloweentown.
The street where the crew of five stopped was dark and empty. A black cat jumped from a trash can, running past them. Jake: "Uh, where are we going?" Lock: "To visit a friend of ours." He led the way to a brown door, knocking three times. Shock: "He's a little eccentric." she said with a quiet laugh in Cindy's ear. Voice: "Ah, there you three are!" A voice called from inside. The door swung open, a hunched man in a brown cloak ushering them inside. "Oh, pardon me. You five." He fixed Jake and Cindy with an intrigued gaze through an eye glass. "I never expected to see these two in my neck of the woods. My... his two oldest children, really." He straightened up, well, as much as he could, and began moving around the room. It was filled with shelves of all sorts of strange things. Everything from Wormswart to ghost bones. "Now, let me see..." the children watched him fret about the shelves, billowing dust everywhere. "Ah! Here, here it is." He pulled a bag down from behind a jar of toad spleens. "Now," he turned to Lock, Shock, and Barrel with a serious tone, "you three sure you know what you're doing with this lot? This is tricky business." All Three: "Oh, we do!" "Alright," he said with a shrug, "not my business what happens anyway. Just as long as I get payed." Lock dropped a handful of money in the mans mangled hand and they all left as the cloaked man started laughing insanely. Jake: "So what's in the bag, Lock?" Jake asked, trying to peer over the older boy's shoulder. Lock shut it, narrowing his eyes at the two. Lock: "You two should go home now." Shock: "Yeah, it's getting late." Barrel: "Gonna' be dark soon." Jake: "Yeah, but we don't know how to..." Three: "See ya," they all ran down an ally and out of sight before Jake and Cindy could stop them. Cindy: "Great, Jake. We're late already," she said, looking at her watch, "and we don't know how to get home from here." Her brother looked up at the buildings, apparently thinking. "Well, we could just go back the way we came... and get back through the pumpkin patch." "That'll take way too long. There's gotta' be an easier way." She said, placing her hands at her sides and fixing him with a glare. Jake sighed, "Alright. Come on, we'll find our way back to town square."
An hour later. Still lost and walking in circles, the seven year old skeleton and rag doll weren't in high spirits. Cindy: "This is all your fault, Jake." Cindy said, wacking her brother in the back of his skull. Jake: "Mine?! You wanted to follow Lock, Shock, and Barrel just as much as I did!" He retorted, still walking forward. Cindy scowled, "If you hadn't stolen my frisbee, I wouldn't have chased you into the graveyard and we wouldn't have seen them anyway!" Jake turned and gave her a blank stare, then put one finger up to his mouth, "....Um..." he was trying to think of a counter. "Exactly," Cindy said, shoving Jake in the back of his blue shirt as he turned around. Jake stumbled, landing flat on his face in a puddle. "Hey!" he yelled, getting to his feet, "You jerk!" he pushed her back. "Look whose talking!" "Yeah! The smarter-" he stopped. They both turned, someone was coming towards them from an ally, but they couldn't see who. "Come 'mer," Cindy pulled him behind afew trash cans. "Why?" Jake questioned, "There ain't anybody in this town stupid enough to mess with us." "But mom says it's still really dangerous. Just stay here." From where they were they couldn't see who came out of the ally. The foot steps stopped just infront of where they were and they heard someone lean one hand on a trash can. Voice: "Alright. I know that bickering anywhere," the person said, tapping one finger on the can's lid. Jake: "DAD!" Both the kids jumped up from where them had been hiding and dashed over. "There you two are," said Jack Skellington, looking down at the two kids, "Your mom's been worried sick." Kids: "Sorry," they both said, looking down. "Just what are you two doing down here?" Cindy: "We were with Loc-" Jake put a hand over mouth and smiled up at Jack. Jake: "Heh, we were just walkin'." Jack: "Oh, really?" he sighed, "Come on. If I don't bring you home soon, you're mom will kill me... again."
Chapter 2: Eavesdropping and Questions
