Butterfly Fetish

At least there was light, even if it was only the black light. She’d woken up tied to the center of the roulette wheel, still dizzy. Luminous orange and green swirled and dipped around her, drifting in and out of focus. She didn’t know where Oogie was, but as she looked around she saw a shape coming toward her. Too short and thin to be Oogie. Too red as it got closer, fluttering around the edges, like a moth with its wings half open… The venom must have screwed her up more than she thought…

She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping the hallucination would disappear. Instead, she felt something like a blanket settle over her and someone untying her wrists. Then she heard soft footsteps. Opening her eyes, the she noticed the long, red coat covering her first thing. Next, she saw a very familiar devil-boy standing by her feet. She jerked upright. “Lock?”

“Sh,” he hissed, looking up at her and quickly looking away.

Shock soon realized why and pulled the coat up to cover her chest. “What are you doing here?” She whispered.

“Less talking, more running.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled.

She didn’t budge, embarrassment making her angry. “How did you find me?”

“Barrel and I were… uh…”

“Barrel? Barrel’s here, too?”

“I left him up there, but-”

“Oh, no…” Shock groaned, burying her face in her hands. “This can’t be happening…”

“Kind of like a family reunion, ain’t it?” Oogie chuckled as he materialized out of the darkness, tossing his dice up and down in one hand.

“You stay away from her,” Lock warned, moving in between Shock and Oogie.

The Boogeyman didn’t look impressed. “What are you gonna do if I don’t?”

“Come closer and you’ll find out,” Lock shot back. Oogie still had a notable height advantage, but not nearly as severe as it used to be.

“Lock, please just get out of here,” Shock begged. She wasn’t looking forward to explaining this later, and she really didn’t want to explain it now.

“What? I’m trying to help-”

“I don’t need help,” Shock said. Covered in dark welts and cuts, however, she could see how he might be confused. The whole thing used to confuse her a little as well.

“We were only playing a game,” Oogie said. He looked far too amused with all of this. “Shock’s idea.”

“Game? What the hell kind of game involves her tied up na-” Lock stopped, realization lighting his eyes. “Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

“Lock…” Shock put a hand on his shoulder to turn him around. “I’ll… I’ll explain everything tomorrow, I promise.”

“Why not now?” Oogie said. “I can give you a few minutes. In fact,” he addressed this part to Lock, “why don’t you go get Barrel so she doesn’t have to explain twice?”

Shock glared at him, angry and frustrated. “Oogie…”

“You need to relax, babe. We’re all friends here, right?” He smiled at Lock. “Go on.”

“Oogie, please…”

The Boogeyman frowned. “Give us a minute,” he said to Lock. When the boy stood there defiantly, Oogie shoved past him and took Shock by the arm, leading her several feet away. Lock started to follow, but Shock put up a hand to stop him.

“Are you trying to humiliate me?” She demanded once they were out of earshot. “Him seeing me like this is bad enough. Why do you have to-”

“You said you didn’t trust Lock anymore, right?”

“I- I guess, I-”

“I don’t like having our play time interrupted anymore than you do, but we’ve got to take care of this before they go blabbin about it all over town. So put some clothes on or whatever it is you have to do, but quit bitchin.”

Arg, he had a point. A glance around Oogie showed that Lock was still watching them like a hawk. Hiding behind the sack of bugs, she unwrapped Lock’s trench coat and slipped into it. “You’re not going to hurt them, are you?”

“I’m gonna do whatever it takes to keep them quiet.”

Shock gave him an incredulous look. “They’ll keep quiet.”

His eyes narrowed and he loomed over her. “See that they do.”

Holding Oogie’s gaze, Shock hesitantly sidled around his hulking form and headed toward the ladder yelling, “Barrel? I know you can hear me! Get your butt down here!” Lock stared at her with one eye squinted, and the other eyebrow raised. She ignored him, waiting for Barrel to squeeze through the tunnel. After a bit, though, she said, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Is he manipulating you?” He kept his voice low because the ‘he’ in question still watched them from a distance.

“What?” Indignant and defensive. “No.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“No!”

“Then what the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. After a bit he said, “Are we- are we on the same page here?”

Barrel joined them, looking nervous. “What’s going on? I thought-”

“Shock is boinking a bag of bugs,” Lock said.

“Huh?” Barrel cocked his head.

“Shut up.” Shock punched Lock hard in the shoulder, blushing furiously. “He might hear you.”

“So what? It’s true,” Lock hissed. “And it’s gross.”

“You’re being really immature about this.”

“I’m the one being immature? You’re chasing after some crazy teenage crush on the Boogeyman, and I’m the one being immature. Great.” Throwing his hands in the air, Lock turned his back to her and then crossed his arms. His tail hooked across the front of his legs.

She put a hand on her hip. “Way to prove me wrong.” When Lock didn’t answer, she rolled her eyes and turned to Barrel. “You want to help me out here?”

“Uh…” Clasping his hands behind him, Barrel kicked at the ground. “Well, it is sort of a… reckless thing to be doing-”

“Ha!” Lock crowed.

“But,” Barrel continued, “it’s also kinda her own business…”

The devil-boy shot Barrel a fiery look that faded into a neutral, if not faintly pouty, expression as his eyes returned to the ground. When he spoke, his voice stayed low, barely more than a whisper. “Fine, go ahead and screw around with the sadistic sleaze ball, I don’t care…”

The urge to punch him filled her again, but she resisted this time. “Since when did you hate him so much?” Shock demanded, keeping her voice low so Oogie wouldn’t hear.

“I don’t,” Lock protested.

“Then what are you freaking out about?”

The tip of his tail twitched side to side. “I’m not freaking out. I told you, I don’t care. Just drop it already.”

“I’m not going to ‘just drop it.’ It’s really important that you guys not tell anyone about this.”

“Well, duh, of course I’m not going to tell. Do you know how boring it’s gotten around here?”

She stared at Lock. Something definitely bothered him. The way his tail swished, he couldn’t hide it. “I swear if you tell anybody…”

“What do you want from me? I said I’m not gonna tell, and I won’t.”

Still puzzled, Shock decided there were bigger issues at hand than figuring out Lock’s problem. As long as he wouldn’t tell, did it matter? The half-witch looked expectantly up at Barrel.

“Do you have to ask? Any secret you want is safe with me,” he said. “But, I don’t understand. When, how, did you bring him back to life? We thought…” He trailed off, casting a downward glance at Lock.

“It started about six years ago. I mean, that’s when I sowed him together. He didn’t actually come back until last Christmas.”

“Six years? You lied to us for six years?” Lock asked.

“It’s not like you asked me.”

“I asked you that time you came back with the-” Lock paused. “He’s the one who bit you, isn’t he?” Before Shock could answer, he continued, “No, I don’t want to know what freaky things you guys have been up to. I just… six years?”

“Are you seriously that upset because I lied to you?” She pulled him closer and whispered, “Because I’m not the only one around here keeping secrets, and we both know it. So is there something you want to tell me, or are you going to quit this passive aggressive stuff and go home?”

“I’m not-” Lock brushed her hands away and straightened his shirt. “Forget it. Barrel and I have to go, anyway. We’ve got this thing to do…”

“Do we? I thought-”

Lock gave Barrel a pointed look. “Yes, we do.”

“Can Shock come with us?” Barrel looked down at her.

“Eh,” Shock blushed. “Lost a bet… gotta stay here until tomorrow evening…”

“Of course you did,” Lock mumbled, but Shock ignored him.

“Oh…” Barrel looked a mix of disappointed and concerned, but didn’t say anything.

“This isn’t over though,” Lock warned.

“I’m sure it’s not,” Shock answered calmly.

As she watched the boys make their way back up the ladder, she heard burlap rustle beside her and felt Oogie’s hand on her back.

“So there’s no problem?” He asked. Shock only shook her head. He smirked. “Good. Now where were we?”

When Oogie pulled her into his arms, she shot a sideways glance at the ladder. Just it time to catch Lock’s eyes darting away. The Boogeyman followed Shock’s gaze. He frowned at Lock’s retreating form and pulled Shock deeper into the recesses of the lair, turning to block her with his body. His reaction puzzled her, but he didn’t offer an explanation, and she didn’t ask.

XXX

By the next morning, Oogie had managed to live up to his promise of running her ragged. She’d expected a barrage of different tortures one after the other—especially after the rack and the lashing—but he was good at zeroing in on the one or two methods that got to her quickly and kept her squirming for a number of hours, with little or no effort from him. Because he could torment her so much with such a small amount of effort, she ran out of energy long before him. She’d spent most of the night standing, bent over with her wrists cuffed together, pulled back over her head, and then attached to her neck with a couple inches of chain. A taunt piece of electrified wire run through the gap between her neck and her hands had ensured she would keep the position. Just about any movement resulted in a painful shock. Even after her arms, shoulders, legs, and back sang with cramps, he’d lavished an abuse on her sex that—though it had built to an orgasm at the time—left her sore to this very moment, and she still didn’t know when it would stop hurting. And to think when he’d come at her holding the femur, her biggest fear had been that he’d hit her with it.

Fortunately, as a speck of light brightened the entrance, he’d released her from the torture, turned off the lights, and told her not to bother him. She assumed he was sleeping, resting, some such thing, but he hadn’t specified. Unable to sleep her self, and realizing she probably should, Shock stretched out spread eagle, pulled Lock’s coat over her, and watched the spot in the inky pitch brighten. Half of her felt like she’d been absolutely insane to make the bet she’d made. That half was sure the black lights as much as the perfect darkness would drive her mad before noon, and extremely wary if not afraid of another round of ‘games.’ The other half ate up that fear and loved the chance to spend so much uninterrupted time in Oogie’s presence. Experiencing the innovative cruelty she’d always admired, whether he directed it at her or a more unwilling stranger.

As the day wore on, the lights woke her from a nap that wasn’t long enough. Too hungry and thirsty to give in to the exhaustion again, she went looking for him. She found him sitting in his corner, flipping through a large deck of cards and mumbling to himself. Hesitating, she decided to wait for him to acknowledge her. About halfway through, his hands slowed and then stopped. Scowling, he pushed the cards onto the floor and turned his attention to her.

“What?” He asked.

“I’m hungry,” she said, twiddling her hair.

Wordlessly, he reached into a cage of rats sitting beside him, picked one, and held it out to her.

“But it’s still alive…”

He pinned the rat where the cards had been earlier, picked up a rock the size of her fist, and then crushed the rat’s skull with a hard whack. “Better?”

“The… the fur and stuff…”

“Since when were you such a picky eater?”

“I’m not…” Man, he could be frustrating. “Cut me some slack. I don’t eat like you.”

“If you’d showed up in the last three days, I’d have more to offer, but you didn’t, so figure it out.”

He tossed the bloody corpse to her and she caught it. The raw meat and blood weren’t so much a problem as getting inside the skin and picking through the bones. “Well, where’s that thing you were cutting me with last night?”

“Where I left it.”

Sighing, Shock went to look for it herself. Sure enough, it wasn’t far from where she last saw him with it, but she didn’t like making the trip across the dark space alone. Once she returned to the light, she sat on the floor a few feet away from him and cut the corpse open. He’d recollected the cards and was in the process of shuffling them. As she picked through the guts for the tiny heart and liver, she realized why she usually rushed off in a hurry at the end of a game. Not because she was done, and not entirely out of fear. When they weren’t playing or arguing, she had no idea how to interact with him. “What are you doing?” She finally asked, not expecting an answer.

“Working on a counting strategy for shoe games.”

“Oh…” But she had no idea what he was talking about, and it must’ve come through in her voice.

“Black Jack with four or more decks.” He paused to spit out a rat skull, and then gave her a cynical look. “Your level of attention is touching, babe.”

“Card counting…”

“So you were paying attention.” His eyes wandered to the remains of the rat in her hands. Skin, bones, and the organs she didn’t like. “You done with that?”

Getting the message, she stood up and brought the scraps to him. Instead of taking them from her, he gave her a sly look and opened his mouth a little. Shock bit her lip nervously, but reached forward to feed the rest of the rat to him. If she could hand feed a snake, she could- Speaking of snakes, a yellow and black blur darted out of his mouth, grabbed the bloody remains, and disappeared back inside. She jumped. “Sheesh, don’t do that,” she mumbled, pulling her hand away to wipe the rodent’s blood on her hip. His eyes followed her fingers and lingered on the red streak across her bare skin, but he didn’t make a move. She blushed and crossed her hands in front of herself. “Anyway, I thought you liked dice.”

He gestured around his personal casino. “Does it look I limit myself?” Breaking the large deck into three smaller ones, he went back to shuffling. “Black Jack is a strategy game. Can’t really lose if you know what you’re doing, and that gets boring. Luck and random chance are much more interesting. Harder to cheat luck, but more fun when you can get away with it.”

“I thought you said card counting wasn’t cheating.”

“It’s not. It’s a skill you can learn. The house just gets pissed when they don’t have the edge, so they try to take it away. Sit with me, I’ll show you.”

She wondered if he would have made the same offer if she hadn’t been naked. “I’m thirsty…”

He frowned, but gestured in another general direction. “Walk that way, you’ll find it. But come right back.”

Lazy… After finding the small pool—it was slippery around the high water mark, he should have warned her—and drinking a few handfuls that tasted metallic, she made her way back to him. They only talked about cards for a few minutes before he was on her again, but it turned out be one of her favorite encounters yet. To hell with facing Lock and Barrel—when Oogie released her from her sentence that night, she felt only happiness.

XXX

Shock looked forward to getting some proper sleep in her own bed, and decided to return Lock’s coat in the morning. Just as she’d crawled between her sheets, her door opened. She glared at the large silhouette in the hall. “Can’t knock?”

“Lock wanted me to come get you,” Barrel said.

“Doesn’t mean you couldn’t knock.” She yawned. “I’ve had a long day. Tell him to wait until morning.”

“He says he has to talk to you now because it’ll be easier to return the journal before Jack comes back.”

“What journal?” Shock sounded bored.

“He wouldn’t tell me… but he said it was really interesting…”

“I’m sure.” Unconvinced.

“It might be about you-know-who,” Barrel said in a singsong voice. When she sat up, he laughed. “Knew that would get your attention.” He turned to leave.

With an exasperated sigh, Shock swung her legs over the side of the bed. Pulling a purple robe on over her white, cotton nightgown, she followed. In Lock’s room, she found the boy in question sitting up in bed with an old leather journal open across his knees. “I’m here. What’s this about?”

“Remember the other month when we were talking about spirits in Halloween Town?”

“Sure.”

“What you said about possessing a bunch of things at the same time got me curious, so I went snooping around Jack’s library while he was out on business. I found this,” he held up the journal, “hidden in the crack between the ceiling and the top of the shelf.”

He paused for dramatic effect, but Shock wouldn’t take the bait. Barrel did, though.

“What is it?”

“It’s some old king’s journal. I don’t know exactly how old it is, because it uses that stupid, archaic calendar method, but it’s at least before Jack’s time. Anyway, listen to this.” Lock cleared this throat, “‘Four days before Halloween: Three children went to play hide-and-seek in the graveyard, but only two returned, crying that Lola disappeared. I helped her parents organize a small search party. I hope she’s okay.’” Lock skipped a couple pages and then continued.

“‘Two days after Halloween: The werewolf that disappeared during the celebration hasn’t returned. His friends approached me with their concerns, but I tried to placate them: sometimes those who visit the human world take extended vacations. Granted, it’s odd behavior for a werewolf, but an adult werewolf is more than capable of handling himself. The general spirit of concern in the town remains focused on Lola. We still haven’t found a single clue as to her whereabouts. Her friends swear they never went near the Hill, but I’m sending a search party to the edge of the Hinterlands as soon as it’s light.’” Here, Lock stopped and flipped a few more pages.

Shock looked at Barrel. “I thought you said this might have something to do with Oogie.”

“Hang on, I’m getting to it,” Lock said. “Anyway, he talks a lot about general town business, with little blurbs like that sprinkled in here and there. Over the next thirty days, though, more citizens disappear and those kinds of entries get more prominent. Until… uh…” He ran a finger down the page and read.

“‘Fifty-two days after Halloween: What am I to do? Fifteen in total. Gone. Into thin air. Last night it pulled a mummy right out of her very own bed. It. I must assume someone or something is doing this, and it’s getting bolder. The vampires refuse to leave their homes, especially at night. They swear they’ve seen the shadows moving. Shadows always move around here, but they say it’s not the same, that it’s something darker moving in the shadows. My people are panicking, now, clamoring at me to do something, but I’m out of my element. My only hint based on the pattern of disappearances is that it must originate from the Hinterlands. What being from the Hinterlands would bring such dark times to our peaceful town? They’ve never bothered us before, nor us them. I must do something.’”

Goosebumps prickled across Shock’s skin at the mention of shadows. “What did he do?”

“Some of the pages are damaged, but from what I can tell, he gathered some witches together, waited for the darkness to show up, and chased it back into the Hinterlands. It disappeared into the ground under a huge tree, so the witches put a spell on the tree to keep it sealed there. Never seems to explain what it was, but doesn’t trapped under a big tree in the Hinterlands sound familiar?”

“But he’s a bunch of bugs,” Barrel said. “Even if he used to be some kind of shadow ghost that possessed a bunch of bugs, when and why did he do it?”

They both looked at Shock. She blinked. “I don’t know, he never talks to me about anything.”

“You met him first,” Barrel pointed out.

“Yeah, but… I didn’t actually see him until you guys showed up to help build that elevator, and by then he was already a swarm of bugs…” She shook her head. “Why does that matter, anyway? Aren’t you overlooking the bigger picture?”

“That we could let him out? I thought about that…” Lock said, picking at his pajama pants.

Her eyes brightened. “And?”

“Well…” Lock’s eyes darted between her and Barrel. “Even if we could figure out what they did and find out how to reverse it… I mean, none of us can really do magic. Definitely not at that level.”

“Then why did you bother to call me in here?”

Lock frowned at her. “Excuse me for sharing something I thought you might find interesting.”

Shock sighed and put her hands to her temples. “Listen, this really is fascinating, I’ll grant you that, but I’m tired, and I have more aches than I knew I had parts to ache, so tell me… Why couldn’t you have paraphrased this in the morning?”

“Because Lock has a flair for the dramatic,” Barrel answered.

“I’ll give you a flair for the dramatic.” Lock threw his pillow at the other boy.

Barrel caught it. “See? Plus he was wooorried about you.”

“Aw. Big bad Lock was worried about little old me?” She pinched the devil-boy’s cheeks. “That’s so cute.”

“Eh,” Lock groused and batted her hands away. “Knock it off. Tubby just likes to exaggerate.”

The half-witch snorted, smiling a little. “All right, guys, I really gotta go sleep, but I don’t have to go to see Oogie until after dinner, so-”

“Why do you have to go at all?” Lock asked.

Shock shot him annoyed look, and then tried a different tactic. “Because he can do things with that tongue that would make a whore blush.”

The devil-boy wrinkled his nose. “If I wasn’t about to dream for several hours, I would call your bluff on pursuing that subject.”

“Heh, right. Night, dorks.” It was said with affection.

She returned to her room, but hesitated before turning out the light on her nightstand.

A/N: That’s the end of part 2. Considering it’s the last couple weeks of Spring semester, I’m going to be very, very busy, but part 3 is in the works.