CA: So here it is, the remake of 'Sacrifices Must Be Made.' Mind you, it's REALLY different to the original story, COMPLETELY re-written and practically with a whole new OC. Oh, and the friendship with Jane and Jack might seem really quick, but childhood friendships really do happen that fast, kids are a whole lot less judgemental and are very quick to bond with the people they love. So don't flame me for that, because it's a true quality of kids that I admire and use in this story.

Oh, and if you don't like flashbacks then tough shit. This story is full of 'em.

Enjoy!

1. Revenge

'I go around a time or two just to waste my time with you,'- Dirty Little Secrets, All American Rejects

Halloween isn't meant to be like this. You're not meant to feel so angry at yourself, you're meant to be out having fun. Whether you're out trick-or-treating or just... Damn, you're just not allowed to be so hyped-up and stressful on any holiday, especially if you're such a fan of this one...

...like Jack was.

He opened up the tall closet that stretched from the floorboards and up the peeling brick wall, his hollow eyes searching for all sorts of dangerous gags and deadly toys. Tonight was going to be a night that he wasn't going to forget, for it was going to be the night where he officially got back at his 'best friend forever.' Lying little... But enough of that. Because if Jack O'Lantern was feeling depressed about anything, there was a guaranteed way to get a smile back on his face. And that was with a big and juicy prank on the ones who hurt him...

"Ah, the whoopee cushion..." he said with a smile, pulling it out from his closet of jokes. "Leave a few of these underneath her couch-pillows and she's going to be having more fun than she bargained for..." He threw it into the stained burlap sack of gags and pranks before turning back to the closet. Super-glue (for on her hairbrush), fireworks (for in Daddy's desk-drawers), and rubber-chickens (to stuff down at the bottom of her bed) were just some of the many objects he began to pull from the cupboard.

That little darling wasn't going to live in a home for much longer, she'd just be part of this sideshow-gallery of shame and utter humiliation that Jack would be the grand creator of. He smirked at the thought of her popularity skating down the toilet as she walked out of her T.P.'d house covered in honey and feathers. Then who'd want her?

She deserved everything that she got...

He continued to search through the cupboard, selecting the finest, most mortifying toys for him to place around her humble little house in her secure little suburb. What was going to be even better about this was the fact that Jane's protective parents would only have her to blame for the mess that he'd prepare for her. So when she got back home drunk from some neighbourhood Halloween party (that she'd have to more than likely sneak out for) with a hormonal boy attached to her neck, she'd spring the entire trap gloriously with no-one but herself for the blame...

Because by now, she'd probably forget about her old buddy Jack. She'd be too busy with her new, normal friends to remember the signature of her closest friend.

He looked at the sack beside him, rather hurt at how... deflated... it seemed... Those were his best and classic gags in there, and yet it seemed like nothing. He had to do something big, something to really let her know that she wasn't going to see his orange mug around Endsville ever again... and if she did, it wouldn't be in good circumstances. He looked from the burlap sack to the cupboard, and with a loud sigh of frustration he began to pull down everything he had. Every set of chattering jaws, every can of peanut-snakes, everything. It was written down before, but it's gonna be written again:

She deserved everything that she got.

He was no longer caring about where the gags landed; he just tossed them over his shoulder in a mad fury of flying toys. Just as long as he got everything out of the closet, he couldn't give a damn. There was a strange satisfaction of throwing these contraptions across the room, and with every fling over his shoulder Jack could find the laugh trapped in his throat escaping. Before he could realise what he was doing, he took hold of a whoopee-cushion and threw it across the room, laughing manically as just a bit more stress was unleashed.

He laughed and laughed, throwing more and more objects. Now it was just anything he got his hands on, not just his inventions. Old snow-globes, curl-toed-shoes, anything that was hidden at the back of his cupboard was cast across the room and bouncing off the walls. The rage built up inside flickered like the candle-light of his vision, subsiding temporarily as he reached back into the closet for another object. Anything would do. If it was solid, he'd throw it.

But his hand blindly found something hidden at the back of the shelves. It was something that he had forgotten, or at least tried to forget, but if he did then he'd lose the girl he once knew altogether. He turned around, recognising the thick black plastic of pretend frames, and stared at the empty panes where glass should have rested. That stupid rubber nose with the wart and moustache... it was what made them actually talk to each-other.

"Hmph..." exhaled Jack, trying to kid himself that it was just any-old toy. He leaned on the door-frame of the cupboard, tracing the curves of the fake nose with a ghost of a genuine smile. His lavender-clad-fingers poked at the air of where the glass was meant to go, trying to imagine her big brown eyes being poked behind them.

Damn those eyes.

She was so little when he first saw her, only up to his thigh at the most, and yet her eyes were so big even then. They were almost too big for her skull; she always looked like a brain-dead-bug when she talked to him. And when she first saw him, well that was just hilarious. She couldn't even tear away from him for one second, and he could swear that her eyes were gonna pop out of their sockets.

Of course, after a whole night of pranking (which mainly consisted of a cream-pie in every staring face) a guy can get desperate for a pit-stop. Jack could hardly ever go to a grocery store, and he could get pretty hungry at nights with an empty pantry (luckily, he could never die of starvation.) But his stomach ached in it's emptiness, crying out for attention and a decent meal. He hadn't eaten for the past two days, and with all these free entries into the homes of randoms it was hard not to resist going into any old house.

A single, lonely light flickered in the house of 13 Huntsman Lane where some pitiful soul was watching the TV specials of the holiday. He could see the flickering lights from the television screen illuminating the living room, revealing the silhouette of one lonely viewer. It was perfect. He only had to scare one person into hiding under their couch while he helped himself to their fridge.

Jack smiled, the heavy sack on his back not quite as weighed-down as it was earlier in the evening as he un-latched the front gate of white pickets and waltzed up the pathway to her doorstep. He rapped his knuckles on the door and waited for the unsuspecting parent within to open up and let him in.

There was a scuffle and a 'click' as the person inside turned off the TV and the house fell silent."Who's there?" called a small voice inside. It was female, he knew that much, and he guessed that it was just another lonely teenage girl digging into leftover rewards for the strangers that approached her door.

"Just a trick-or-treater," he replied. "Wanna let me in?" Lonely teenage girls were his specialty, they'd either let him in out of fear or out of hormonal urges (if he sweet-talked them enough, that is.)

"... Okay then." It was a reluctant response, but her attitude would soon change. The door clicked as the girl undid the lock, the chain from said lock banging on the door with a metallic 'clang', as she opened the door slightly, ducking her eyes around the corner to get a look at the stranger.

He was tall, very tall compared to her, with funny-looking clothes that looked like the pictures from her school's history books in her favourite shades of purple. He had this weird belt around his thin waist and a crooked hat that looked like it had been sat on by some distracted fat person. And he was wearing a really cool orange mask with light-bulbs stuck inside.

It was a really cool costume.

She poked her whole face around the door, looking up at the stranger with an amused smile. She was rather cute, with long brown hair that bobbed around her shoulders like springs and a soft face with dimpled cheeks. She was dressed in a weird, awkwardly-put outfit of a pink three-quarter-sleeve, overalls and matching sandals, wearing half of two different outfits for two different seasons. Her top-half was stuck in Winter while the other was born for Summer. She definitely wasn't a pimpled teen, she looked like she was seven. She was different, and he kinda liked that.

"What are you dressed as?" she asked curiously, her head tilting to the side like a confused puppy as she stared at his toothy smile.

"A donkey, now are you going to let me in?" asked Jack with a sly grin. The girl giggled nervously but shook her head, and his smile fell slightly. "Why not?"

"My mommy and daddy said that I shouldn't let strangers in the house," she said flatly, probably in the same tone that she had memorized the strict warning in. "And you're a really weird looking stranger."

It didn't stop Jack O'Lantern though, and he leaned his arm on the door-frame while smiling down at the little girl before him. She smiled back, doing the exact same as him in a mirror-image comically. He couldn't help but laugh, even if it was just a loud chuckle more than anything else. "My name's Jack O'Lantern... what's yours?"

She hesitated, trying to think back to all the strict warnings mommy and daddy had told her, but she answered anyway. "Jane."

"Now I know your name and you know mine, so now we're not strangers anymore, are we?" he said slyly. Before she could protest, he side-stepped the girl and walked into the house. He took a good look around the living-room, taking in the pastel carpets and striped wallpaper with a grimace, and dumped his sack of tricks on the lounge-suite. Jane watched it bounce on the pillows, still holding the front door open as if expecting Jack to go in a reverse, and looked over to the strange man and his curly purple shoes.

"What are you doing?" she asked quietly, closing the door and following him into her kitchen. He skid along the black-and-white tiles in an 80's sweep of movement before stopping directly in front of the large white refrigerator, spying a loaf of bread hiding on top.

"Got any peanut butter, Jane?" he asked, barely paying attention to her. She didn't answer, instead just sitting down at the kitchen bench and watching him search for himself, throwing the plastic-clad loaf on the bench in front of her. He took a glimpse at the cupboards above her sink and smiled, taking hold of the cupboard doors and pulling them open with a flourish. "Ah-ha! Here we are!"

Jane must have been just a little bit scared, even if she didn't show it. Here was an utter stranger helping himself to her pantry with creepy eyes the lit up her otherwise dark kitchen. But it was Halloween, and all kinds of trick-or-treaters usually came to her door. But none of them had ever come inside before... was that allowed on Halloween? And what was in that sack of his?

She watched him spread thick amounts of golden-brown paste, little crunches of white nut dotting the slice like snow-flakes, as he slapped a twin piece of bread on top and wolfed it down, the ache in his stomach soon to be satisfied. The delicious, salty taste of peanut butter stuck behind his teeth, a taste that wouldn't be rid for a long, long time. He smacked his lips together before whistling a tune as he scraped the sides of the jar with one hand and grabbed at another slice of bread from the packet. It's only when you have food in your mouth that you realise how hungry you actually are, isn't it?

Jack looked up from his repetitious sandwich-making, expecting to see those staring brown eyes again, but was only met with an empty chair. He leaned over the counter, looking down to see if she was hiding anywhere below but only seeing the white tiles. The sneaky thing had run off... and he prayed that she hadn't run to a phone.

Sighing, he stuffed down the final slice of peanut-butter and brushed off the crumbs on his gloves. It was better that he left anyway; he had some good tricks up his sleeve for the next few houses and didn't want to run out of time. Jack strolled out of the kitchen, ducking his head out of the doorway and looking over to the lounge-room to see...

... Jane playing with his toys.

She had her arm plunged inside the burlap, a few loose gags lying around her knees, as she searched for another surprise. Smiling, she grabbed onto a hidden object and pulled it out of the chaos to reveal a pair of thick-framed glasses with a fake nose. She laughed, but tried to suppress it, and put the glasses over her own eyes. Wiggling her nose, the plastic accessory twitched with her, much to her delight when she caught her darkened reflection in the TV screen.

... She was some cute kid.

"Hey there, Mister," said Jack. She jumped at once, turning around and glancing from the sack to its owner nervously. "Seen a little girl around here? She's about ye-high-" he pointed to his waist "- with long brown hair... I think her name is June?"

"It's Jane," she said automatically. She gasped, covering her mouth with her hands as she gave away her identity. "Oh toaster..." she muttered, but she was still giggling behind her palms.

Jack gave a shout of mock gasp, walking over to her as he pulled out his lucky red feather from his hat. "There you are! You should know better than to hide from me, you know." Before Jane could move, she was killing herself with giggles as Jack cleverly traced her jaw-line and behind her ears with the soft red feather. She laughed, trying to dodge him but with no success.

"S-Stop it! HahaHAHA!" she giggled, barely able to speak. In many circumstances and in the eyes of anyone with sense, this would be beyond wrong. But through the eyes of this child and the prince of pranks and clowns it was mere fun, nothing more than a time of laughter. It tickled behind her ear as she rolled onto her side, her glasses beginning to fall off from her face and giving her lopsided nose.

Jack laughed with her, watching as she rolled around and kicked, before finally putting the bright red feather back in his hat. Jane soon came to a stop, her shoulders shaking and her eyes bright and shiny with tears. "Well, kid, thanks for the sandwich and everything but I gotta run..." he started, pinning it back and standing up. She merely stared at him, the smile on her face fading as he plucked the glasses from her face and walked over to his sack of gags. He put the glasses away and slung the bag over his shoulder, proceeding to hit the road but... someone was tugging at his pants.

He didn't turn around to look down at her, but his body just couldn't move away from her. Jack merely sighed, trapped in the awkward situation and unable to get out of it. Why was this girl on her own anyway? Her parents couldn't even be bothered with a babysitter or what? "... Where are your folks, kid?"

She kept her tiny fingers clutching onto him. "They're out seeing a head doctor. Daddy says Mom's parannoying, but Mom says Daddy's a cheating bad-word...What do they mean, anyway?"

Jack shrugged, suddenly moving his leg so that she let go of him at last. "I dunno..." he lied. He headed towards the door, having to put some weight into the wood of the door as he twisted the knob and opened the door. The breath of Halloween night welcomed him onto the street like the life of the yellow moon above, the warmth of the Autumn breeze a comfort on his orange skull.

"Jack?

He turned around and looked down, meeting Jane's eyes. They were still shiny and as big as they could possibly get, but now there wasn't much in the way of joy inside them. She knew that she was trapped in that house on her own, he could see it in her stare. "Come back, promise?"

...

And he kept his word.

He never should have gone through the front door. But he didn't know then what he knew now. He didn't know that the innocent young girl who begged for him to stay, who held onto him like he was the only thing left in the world, would turn into a heartless shard of ice that turned the once proud prankster into one of his own jokes.

He still took the glasses with him, though.

CA: PLEASE REVIEW!