DISCLAIMER: These characters aren't mine in any way shape or form. The idea and Sarah Skellington are all that is mine. Besides that, Halloween town, Jack, Sally, Dr. Finklestein, Lock, Shock, and Barrel all belong to the genius that is Tim Burton and Henry Selick.

WARNING: This has many references to blood and many disgusting things to read (and write about). This chapter is why this fiction is rated R.

Chapter Four
Memories

The last thing Jack Skellington remembered was standing in a circle of trees, trapped behind a barrier. Then everything went black.

Mr. and Mrs. Jack and Sarah Skellington were the happiest couple they could be. He was an engineer, and her family owned a bakery just down the river. It was just the two of them at first, and they relished the early years of married life. Each morning Sarah would wake up to the sounds of Jack singing in the shower, and she would make both of them pumpkin pancakes for breakfast- his favorite. He went to work and she spent her time at her family's bakery with her father, until the work day ended and she could be with her husband again. It was a simple and happy life.

One day, they decided to have a child. This resulted in several heated and R rated moments around their home, as they jumped on each other any chance they could get. The first few weeks were blissful and passionate, and they were eager to wait and see if Sarah was pregnant. After the first month, they were optimistic and vowed that they would conceive the next month. After the second month, he smiled at her sadly as she sat frustrated on their bed after finding out again that her monthly cycle had started, with no fetus to fertilize.

"Next month," he said. She looked at him and matched his cheerless smile, knowing in her heart that something was definitely wrong.

The year continued in this way, with optimism at the beginning of each month and then crushing defeat at each month's end. After the first year of trying with no success, they decided to go to the town's local doctor.

Dr. Finkelstein was a small, bald man with small round glasses, with duck-like lips that protruded slightly from his mouth when he talked. He smiled sweetly at the couple while they described their conceiving troubles to him, and gave them reassuring words of encouragement. This helped very little, and Sarah Skellington began to cry.

"Isn't there… anything you can do for us?" she asked, between sobs. The doctor paused and sat, thinking for a while.

"In fact, there's an.. experimental treatment that a few desperate couples are trying—"

"We'll do it!" Sarah exclaimed. The doctor hesitated again.

"It's very experimental... they aren't so sure about the results.." the doctor looked both of them in the eye and cleared his throat. "I'm not sure I would advise…"

"Please, doctor," Jack's voice shook with excitement and something else, "Please. For my wife. You don't know what it's been like this past year. We'll try anything. Just.. give us a baby. A baby of our own. Please, that's all we ask of you. Please let us try the treatment."

The doctor looked at them for a long while and then smiled.

Jack and Sarah left the doctor's office later that afternoon, pills in hand, and fresh smiles on their faces.

The prescription called for taking the pills twice a day, with food. Side effects were quickly read over as a formality, and Sarah promptly started taking the pills that very same day. They kept to their old regimen: trying to conceive as much as they could, making Sarah lay down whenever she had free time, and relaxing. Jack sang to her before bedtime, and sang to her stomach as well- just in case.

The first month had passed, and now it was time to see if the treatment had worked. Days passed, and Sarah had not had her monthly cycle. They began to become optimistic. Two weeks passed, and still nothing. They took this as good news, and started to smile at each other more often, and Jack would sing loud, encouraging songs to her stomach whenever he could.

"Hallelujah, hallelujah!

Babyface, you've got the cutest little Babyface.

There is no other one could take your place, Babyface…"

After 3 months, Sarah's stomach began to protrude and they were ecstatic. A baby was on the way! Jack wished for a little girl that he could sing songs to, and Sarah couldn't care less about the gender- just that it was healthy and happy, and was born into a loving family. They hugged, they cheered, and they called Sarah's family and held a celebratory dinner all in honor of Dr. Finkelstein and his miracle pills.

At 4 months, Jack called Dr. Finkelstein and congratulated him on this fine research – the pills were working perfectly: Sarah was pregnant and they couldn't be happier! Dr. Finklestein was happy to hear the news, and shared a bit of news of his own: his own wife was pregnant as well!

"It's a fabulous time to be young and in love," Jack said.

"Indeed," the doctor would agree.

At 6 months, tragedy struck. Sarah woke one morning with terrible pains in her swollen belly, and blood on the bed sheet. Panicking, she roused Jack, and he quickly called the doctor that they had so recently celebrated with.

"She's bleeding and has terrible pains- what do we do?" his voice was filled with terror. The doctor was silent on the other end of the telephone line. Sarah screamed in the distance. Jack took the receiver away from his ear and stared at it. He then pressed his mouth to the mouth piece and screamed,

"Finkelstein! Tell me what to do!"

Silence, except for Sarah's screams of pain in the distance.

"Finkelstein!" he choked, trying to hold back tears. He heard Dr. Finkelstein clear his throat on the other end of the line.

"Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done. She's having a miscarriage, I'm afraid- and that was clearly spelled out as one of the risks in the pills I prescribed to you. I told you it was a risky chance… but you were so eager…" his voice trailed up at the end of his sentence. He cleared his throat and started over.

"I'm.. so sorry for your loss," he began, but Jack inturrupted him.

"Our loss? Nothing has been lost yet, Doctor-" the last word he left dripping with sarcasm, "you're just going to sit there on the other side of this telephone line while you listen to my wife screaming on the other end and tell me that there's nothing to be done? What kind of a crack pot doctor are you?" Jack was heaving with the staggard breaths he was taking, and the conflicting urge to both slam down the phone as well as beg for help.

"Jack!" Sarah's scream was hard to miss, coming from the next room. Jack dropped the receiver and sprinted to where she was sitting on the bed, her hands between her legs. She was holding... something. His face turned white, and he fell backwards, slipping on the blood that was on the floor. His head hit the floor with a thud, and he thought no more.

The sound of sirens made him stir, and the first things he saw were flashing lights above him, and suddenly as if someone had flicked on a switch that controlled his hearing, he heard someone screaming orders near him. He was on the ground, laying in something sticky, but he couldn't recall how he had gotten there. He seemed to remember something about his wife and a phone call…

He looked around the bedroom. Paramedics were wheeling someone away on a stretcher, someone crying, and someone was attending to him. He tried to tell them that he was fine; he would just like to be helped up off the sticky floor.

The next thing he knew, he was sitting upright in a hospital bed with wires attached to him.

"You gave us quite a fright!" a voice said, near him. Jack turned his head and studied the man speaking to him- the duck-like lips, the smooth, bald head. Finkelstein.

Unknown rage swelled up within him, and he lunged for the man's throat, intending to damage something- anything- belonging to this man. His hands were held back by the wires that held them, and he struggled – however, this gesture was not missed by Finkelstein, who immediately took a step back. Jack couldn't explain his rage, and only knew that it was sitting up at the surface of his emotions, ready to strike.

"Jack- are you alright?" Dr. Finkelstein eyed him, ready to dodge another attack.

"Where's my wife?" Jack cut straight to the point. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew she was in trouble.

"Your wife.. your wife, she's in a room down the hall. I'm sorry, Jack- there was nothing we could do."

Jack's face turned into a color even more sickly than before. She couldn't be dead- could she?

"What?" The one word was all that Jack's frozen lips could manage.

"We couldn't save the baby, Jack. I'm sorry. We couldn't save your daughter."

The words hit Jack like falling stones. The baby. My daughter. It all came together- seeing his wife clutching the struggling infant between her legs, the blood all over the floor, his wife's screams… His eyes fell onto Dr. Finkelstein and the memory of their telephone conversation passed over Jack's mind. He chose his next words very carefully.

"You. Will. Pay." And those were the last words the living Jack Skellington ever said to him.

To an outsider, two weeks after the miscarriage, the Skellington's went on with their lives almost as if nothing had happened. They showed up for church, they went grocery shopping, they went out to eat. Sarah was looking a little more ragged than usual, but that was to be expected. Jack rarely sang anymore.

This went on for a couple of weeks. They had left the hospital with nothing, not even a certificate that the baby had even existed. They would have named her Olivia. Jack thought about building something in remembrance of her, but he never got around to it. Sarah stopped working at the bakery, and usually stayed home to read or catch up on her sleep while Jack was out working. When they were home, they didn't talk much- the weight of their shared emptiness was eating them from the inside out, and there wasn't much more room for useless words.

Jack came home one day and found Sarah in a drunken stupor. She was trying to find something to drown her emotions in, and a bottle of vodka just about did it. He held back her hair while she threw it up, gave her some water, and put her to bed. I have to do something. But what? He didn't trust any doctors to give her depression medication, but he couldn't just let her go on like this. They needed something good in their life. They needed to try and have another child.

After the first incident, Sarah promised she wouldn't drink again, but night after night, Jack came home to find her with an empty glass in her hand, stumbling over her words and leaning haphazardly against the dinner table for support. She was in no state to bear a child, much less try and go through the act of conceiving one. It was no use, Jack decided.

Returning home from work one day, he walked in to find that Sarah wasn't home. He wondered where she had run off to, but in a few hours she returned, actually smiling. He stared at her as she walked in the doorway, beaming.

"You're not drunk again, are you?" he asked, skeptical. Sarah giggled.

"No, silly. I've just figured out that life is way too short to go around moping around like I was. Olivia would have been beautiful, but honey, I'm sure she's looking down at us right now shaking her pretty little head wondering what's gotten into us. She wants us to live our lives! Try for another child!" Her voice was high pitched and she was speaking extremely fast .

"But sweetheart-"

"But nothing! You know what I think we should do? We should move. We should get out of this house of bad memories and broken dreams. It's tainting our lives. We need a fresh start!"

Jack thought she sounded like one of those self-help tapes and started thinking she really might be drunk. Sarah started to walk around the living room, running her hands on everything she came into contact with, knocking over picture frames while she was doing so. She was mumbling something under her breath- Jack cautiously moved closer to her so he could hear.

"New start, new start…" she was muttering. Jack was alarmed. He had never heard her go on like this, and began to think something was really wrong.

"Sweetheart, what's gotten into you? Where were you this afternoon? Where did you go?" Jack looked at her sweetly and attempted to take her twitching hands into his. She yanked them away.

"Nothing, honey! Nothing, nothing. I was nowhere. Nowhere. So strange that nothingness and things that have to do with nothing start with that "n" noise…" she started to make nasal "ng" noises, clucking her tongue and holding it onto the roof of her mouth, sustaining the note. Jack was extremely worried now. He looked at her eyes – they looked crazed.

"Lie down, won't you honey? You seem a bit manic."

Her eyes flashed towards him as her hand, still clutching a picture frame, whipped out at him. The frame hit him square on the side of the head, the glass shattering near his eye. All he saw were shards of glass in his field of vision, a dull ache on the side of his face, and her frenzied, wide eyes, staring at him. Stunned, she turned on her heel and left the room, dropping the ruined frame as she went. Jack put his hand to the side of his face to feel the damage- a shard was sticking out of his cheek. He pulled it out gently with ease. He glanced down at the photo she had been clutching – a photo of the two of them, on their wedding day. He figured she needed some time to cool down, so instead of following her, he sat down on the couch for a long while, and thought.

After a few hours and hearing nothing from the bedroom into which Sarah had gone, Jack decided to check on her. He mentally prepared himself for her to hit him again, but he reminded himself that he wouldn't say anything as stupid as "You seem a bit manic". He knocked on their bedroom door. No answer. He knocked again, and softly called her name. No answer. He tried the doorknob – locked. He sighed. She really didn't want him in there.

"Sarah, I know you're angry with me, but I'd really love to talk about what happened today with you. Please open the door."

No answer.

"Please, Sarah- I love you, please don't make me beg."

No answer. He tried the doorknob once more, finding it to be no more unlocked than it was a minute ago. He decided to raise his voice.

"Sarah, if you don't open this door right now, I'm going to break it down myself."

No answer. He was starting to get worried.

"Sarah, open this door right now!"

"RIGHT. NOW."

He took a step back, braced himself, raised his leg and kicked, hard, with all the strength he could muster. The door swung open to reveal Sarah lying on the bed with her clothes on, white as a sheet.

He almost lost his balance again, remembering the scene not too long ago that took place on that very bed, but managed to take a few steps into the bedroom, taking in everything that he saw.

An empty vodka bottle was lying near her head, and three empty prescription medicine bottles were on the side table. Touching her hand, he noticed she was stiff as a board. She had been dead for a few hours, at least. He moved to the side of the bed- those prescription bottles weren't familiar to him at all. He picked one of them up, and what he saw made his head reel again.

PRESCRIBING DOCTOR: DR. Z. FINKELSTEIN

All emotions left him except one: Rage.

All thought left him except one: He would get his revenge, and soon.

The plan was made.

Jack had thought of nothing else since his wife's death – in fact, she was still lying right where he had left her- on the bed, with the empty bottles surrounding her.

He would avenge her death, and Olivia's death, if it was the last thing he did.

On a dark night, he left his house and walked in the direction of Dr. Finkelstein's. His wife was home, and was about 8 months pregnant by now. Perfect. The Doctor wouldn't get in for a few hours, as he was on the night shift at the hospital, but Jack would wait patiently until he arrived home. While he waited, he watched Mrs. Finkelstein.

She was an average woman- average beauty, average size. He couldn't understand how she would marry a man who looked like Finkelstein, bald and short, but he figured it had something to do with the money. She probably didn't love him at all – Jack was probably going to be doing her a favor.

He glanced at the supplies in his hands. Everything would be right in the world again very, very soon. He was merely doing the world a favor…

Not too long afterward, a car pulled up in the driveway near Jack's hiding place. Finkelstein had returned home. He got out of the car and shuffled towards his front door. Jack put down his supplies and stood up, walking over towards the front lawn to make it seem like he had just walked over to the house. Finkelstein saw him coming – just like Jack wanted him to. He hesitated, probably ruminating over the last words that Jack said to him. Jack smiled as he approached, and saw Finkelstein's face falter. He had him right in his grasp.

"Doctor. I'm afraid I owe you an apology," Jack began, holding out his palms, asking for forgiveness. Dr. Finkelstein's eyes flicked down to Jack's hands, seeing them empty. He seemed to relax a bit.

"Whatever for, my boy?" Jack smiled.

"For how I've acted the last few months. After Olivia died-" (the doctor nodded his head and muttered, "Yes, tragic, tragic…") "I felt like I couldn't go on. I moped around for months. I thought there was nobody to turn to. I even threatened you…" Jack phrased it to seem like it had been a ridiculous notion to even think about. Finkelstein's mouth was twitching into a smile. Jack continued.

"And now that my precious Sarah has succumbed to the pressure, I realized that I can't go back down the same road as she did. And I was wondering if you could help me."

Dr. Finkelstein studied him for a moment, and said,

"Of course, my boy. Anything for you. On the house. What do you need?"

Jack almost jumped for joy. Things were going perfectly.

"I need something to help me forget about my troubles and move on with my life. I've found a house in the neighboring town, and plan to move there within a week's time. I need a new start. But, I can't get a new start without being about to completely forget what's happened to me in the past few months. Can you help me?" Jack looked at him eagerly, with a hint of sadness to seal the deal.

"Why, I have just the thing! The only condition is, you simply mustn't take it with alcohol. It could very likely kill you. The chemicals in my forgetful pill simply don't mix with alcohol. In fact, I gave some of these to your Sarah just the other day- simply a pity that she… well, that she…"

"Killed herself," Jack finished for him, "Yes. I know. One of the things I'd like to forget…Tell me, how do these pills work?"

"Well, you take one pill in the morning with food, and you forget something every day. You actually get rather giddy by the end of the prescription because you will have forgotten about every bad thing that's ever happened to you in your life. It's quite the miracle pill!"

Jack's mind flashed back to Sarah's last day, her unexplained giddiness and her manic behavior.

"Any other side effects?" He asked, his heart leaping in his chest. He could feel himself starting to work out what had really happened with his Sarah.

"Oh, a few, as with any medication – nausea, dizziness, giddiness, forgetfulness – but none too dramatic. You also shouldn't take it with alcohol, as this amplifies those symptoms. You're lucky, I only have one more stack of these in my home – for some reason I've misplaced a handful of them – but if you wait right out here I can grab these for you in a jiffy. Anything for an... old friend." Finkelstein said, peering up at him with a small smile.

Jack's head was reeling. It wasn't Finkelstein's fault- it was Sarah who had taken the pills from Finkelstein's house, and overdosed on them. But Finkelstein shouldn't be making these crackpot pills in the first place! Jack glanced down at the man, and smiled. Finkelstein took this as a sign of agreement, turned, and went inside his house, leaving Jack standing alone.

Jack wrestled with his conscience.

Finkelstein should pay for what he did to my family. If it wasn't for him, we would have a healthy baby girl, and my wife would be alive.

Unless, another voice said, you wouldn't have been able to have a child at all without Finkelstein's help.

Yes, Jack thought, but at least I would still have my wife and we would be happy together.

Didn't seem so happy around the last few weeks.

That's because we had just lost a child! We would have been fine had it not been for that. We would have adopted, for God's sake.

Jack waited to hear the opposing side's argument, but it never came. In this, he was justified for what he was about to do. Finkelstein had just gone into the house, and therefore the plan was in motion.

Jack waited for Finkelstein to come out of his house, with his new forgetful medication. Everything was ready. All that Jack had to do now was wait.

Finkelstein's shadow loomed out from behind his front door. Jack stood very straight. Finkelstein opened the door and stepped outside.

"Here you are…" he said, holding out the small orange prescription bottle. Jack took it with one hand, holding the other behind his back. "Has your name and everything. Now, if you have any questions…"

But Dr. Finkelstein couldn't finish what he was going to say. Holding the prescription in his left hand, Jack swung his right hand forward towards the doctor's left leg, wielding a hatchet. The axe struck the side of the doctor's leg, and he fell, howling. Jack wasted no time- pocketing the prescription, he retrieved the axe as he barreled over the crippled doctor and ran through his front door.

The screams led him to her. Mrs. Finkelstein, awakened by the noise on the front porch, was rushing down the hallway to tend to her husband, who she had just witnessed being attacked by a tall, thin man with an axe. Jack found her first. She turned, terrified, to run the opposite direction, but felt the axe strike her in the back, and she fell onto her pregnant belly, paralyzed with fear and pain. She felt herself being dragged the opposite direction, towards the front door where her husband lay in a pool of blood.

The screams were sure to wake the neighbors, but Jack didn't care. He wanted them to see. He didn't care if he died attempting to do what needed to be done.

He dragged Mrs. Finkelstein over her husband and onto the front lawn. He called down to the doctor, still writing in pain from the blow to his leg-

"How does it feel now, doctor? To witness your wife going through unbearable-" he struck her in the leg – "pain-" he struck her again- "and you be completely-" he struck her a third time- "and utterly-" the fatal blow came down, along with the doctor's howling screams- "HELPLESS?"

Mrs. Finkelstein lay motionless at Jack's feet, her blood pooling around him. There was no hope for her. Jack could hear the doctor's desolate moans coming from the front porch, but his job wasn't yet over. He left her laying there, her lifeless eyes staring out into the distance towards her husband.

He walked over to the side of the house where he had kept his axe, and picked up the gas container in his left hand, keeping the now bloody axe in his right. He walked over to where the doctor lay, on the front porch, bleeding and moaning in agony. His left leg looked like it wouldn't be used again for a very long time. Jack decided that it should be even, and delivered another blow to the doctor's right leg. The doctor screamed, but kept his eyes on Jack, filled now with a terrible rage.

"Your- wife-" Dr. Finkelstein said, in puffs of breath as he tried to keep the pain at bay- "your- wife… she was… an idiot. She… came to me… looking… for an escape…and she… found it… didn't… she?"

Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was the doctor confessing to malpractice?

"You-" Jack began, but he didn't have to finish.

"Me. Your life was doomed the day you tried to conceive a child with help from me."

"But why?"

"You had… the perfect life… and the… perfect marriage! You didn't… need… a child! I needed… a child! I gave the… pills to my wife…, and I… gave your wife… pills for schizo…phrenia."

Jack was furious. So the Doctor had decieved them, just as Jack had secretly suspected. The doctor smiled, and began to … laugh?

Filled with blind rage, Jack immediately doused the gas container completely over the laughing maniac of a doctor who was bleeding profusely from both legs, and lit a match. He laughter ceased, but the smile was etched onto his face as he burned.

As the sirens started to wail, Jack took out the bottle of pills he had put in his pocket, hesitated slightly, thought, What do I have to lose? and took the whole bottle. He then doused the other gas containers all over the Doctor's house and watched it burn to the ground. Finally, justice had been served.

One week later, after the trials, Jack was twice found guilty of murder and arson, and sentenced to death by electric chair. Having no other alternative, he accepted his fate and hoped that he would soon see his late wife and child. By this point, he had almost forgotten the horrific things that he had done and was approaching a sense of euphoria…

As he moved toward the white light, all he could see were pumpkins…

Jack found himself standing in the clearing of trees, dumbfounded. What had just happened? Had he gone back in time? Who was that? He had the same name and was the same height, but he was a regular man- and who was Sarah? He had never seen her before in his life. His life…

Jack realized something instantly. He had just witnessed his life before Halloween Town. He had just witnessed how he – and Dr. Finkelstein – had died.

Author's Note: Hey guys, sorry for the 5 and a half year delay! I got stuck (as usual) and even though I had all the notes in front of me, I just couldn't get the story off its feet. So I kind of skipped ahead and told Jack's back story.. maybe this will be me inspired to write the rest of it. My life is kind of crazy – the last time I wrote this story I was in high school, and now I've graduated from college! And I'm about to move to France for a year, so we'll see if it takes me a long time to update. Sorry for the grammar and maybe sloppy writing- I was checking my old e-mail account and saw that I still get reviews – even 5 years later – so I just started writing today and this is what I came up with. Hope you guys like it!