Nightmare after mad mother part 9

Jack stomped past corpses and people reaching for him, only to stomp in the skull of a suffering man. He sneered at the corpse and turned on his heels, continuing to his house.

how could Oogie possibly think he still loved mother? The woman used him as a accomplice, threatened to kill his father if he didn't do what she wanted, then murdered his father anyway, and killed him, painfully and horribly. His mother had been a bitch, and he hated her.

FLASHBACK

A thirteen-year-old Pumpkin King stood at the door of a manor all too familiar to him. The Drevis Manor in northern Germany. He was born here, he grew up here, and when he was eleven years old, he died here.

inhaling deeply, Jack lifted a fist and pounded four times on the door. Slowly the door creaked open, revealing a woman he recognized all too well.

"Aden..." Mother whispered, looking up at him with wide, intimidated eyes. She was thinner than he remembered her (then again, she didn't have Mario cooking for her anymore), her lab coat hanging on her gaunt frame like a cape. Her brown hair, once neatly collected in a bun, was now ratty, scraggly, greasy, and hung in her face. Her glasses hung askew, revealing only one eye. She looked truly pitiful.

But Jack had no pity in his heart for this woman. "I am not Aden Drevis anymore, Alfreda," he informed her coldly. "That child is dead. It's Jack now. Jack Skellington."

"Jack is a nasty, common name." She informed him in a weak, shaky voice. She even SOUNDED broken. "It's a name that doesn't please your mother."

"You're not my mother, and I'm not trying to please you anymore." His tone was callous and firm. "I came to talk, and to punish you."

Alfreda he let out a piercing laugh. "Isn't that cute? My little doll is going to punish me?"

"yes, he is," Jack replied, gaining confidence with every moment of this broken woman's presence, "I'm going to punish you for me, for dad, for Mario, for everyone you've trapped and killed here."

"Is that any way to talk to your mother?"

"Alfreda, did you not hear me the first time? You. Are not. My mother. My mother wouldn't commit the horrors you have. You tore your family apart, sin by sin, limb from limb. You don't deserve this body," he planted a hard kick in the centre of her chest "you don't deserve this mansion," he stomped a hole in the floor as she struggled to get up, gasping and coughing "you don't even deserve to have your intelligence." A swift punch on the forehead, knocking her over again. "You're a monster, Alfreda." He practically spat the word as if it tasted bad. "A monster, and a murderer, and those two hits were just the start of what I'm going to do."

"Oh, is th-that s-s-so?" She was trying desperately to sound sure of herself, but the shakiness of her voice was becoming a stutter. "And just w-wh-what are you going to d-do? I've got m-my mutants. Th-they'd d-d-die for me. A-an-and I k-killed you once, I'll d-d-d-do it ag-aga-again..."

As she spoke, the said hybrids lumbered in. Combinations of everything from shark-and-flamingo to koala-and-hippo lumbered in. These things were enough to even give Jack nightmares. Her once flawlessly grafted creations had started sprouting extra appendages. The greyhound-kangaroo was hunched over due to excessive spinal growth. A rhino covered in colourful feathers had two horns, six legs and three noses.

"your monsters don't frighten me," he pointed at one and it dropped dead (it was probably grateful) "and you can bite me." He summoned the offending mini chainsaw through the hole in the floor and parted the sea of abominations. "Perhaps you haven't noticed, so I think I'll make this perfectly clear; I do not forgive you."

"D-d-don't you l-l-listen to your f-f-f-father either? Yuh-yuh-you pr-promised to love m-me no matter wh-what."

"Oh, you want to bring Moniko into this? Fine. He has admitted he was wrong. He told me it was awful to tell a child that it was ok for his mother to kill people, then teach him to help because he loved her."

Alfreda swallowed hard and crawled backwards away from him. "What are you going to do to me?" She wailed.

"Hit you where you live." He motioned for the monsters to head back to Halloween town, which they did. As soon as they were gone, he marched upstairs past Alfreda. She scampered behind him as he marched to the room on the far side of the mansion. As soon as they reached a ornately carved door, Jack threw it open and saw a tiny doll in a plush, ornate throne. Little Aden Drevis.

"No," breathed Alfreda. "Please. Do what you want to me, just... Please... Don't hurt my baby boy..."

"I don't have to," he told her without looking at her. "You did it for me." And he marched toward the throne, scooped the well-dressed child up in his skeleton arms, and marched away.

Alfreda had collapsed to the floor, but when Jack passed her in the doorway, she let out an unearthly shriek and grabbed onto his coattails. "No!!!" She wailed. "No, please, don't take my boy!!!"

"get off of me, Alfreda." He dragged her for a few feet (he thought in the back of his mind about how easily she was pulled along) and the coattail she clutched ripped off. This was when Jack reached the stairs. The mad woman clutched at the coattail with insane strength, weeping, crying and screaming at the top of the stairs, reaching a clawed hand for both versions of her son. Whether this hand meant "don't go," "take me with you," or "give me back my doll," Jack didn't know. All he knew was that the dignified, strong, almost emotionless mother he once knew had been reduced to a dirty, starving, raving madwoman on the floor, screaming for her dead and undead son to return to her and love her.

when Jack reached the door, he didn't look back. And he listened to the screams all the way back to town.

/END OF FLASHBACK/

Jack looked back at Oogie and frowned. "We're almost there." He informed him. "And sorry about lunging at you earlier."

"nah, it's ok, I shouldn't've asked."

"you still love her?"

"..."

"nevermind, we should go."

he turned on his heels, but Oogie said something that took him by surprise;

"no."

"no what?"

"no, I don't love her. I hate her as much as you do. She murdered countless, made empty promises, and had no compassion for anything. She killed her entire family. And do you want to know the worst part?" Jack was silent, but nodded. "I let her. I could have stopped it, but I chose not to. Why? Because I lusted for her. And because she pulled me off the streets to make a doll, but changed her mind. I took this to mean love, but it didn't. And... Well, no. No, I don't."

Jack didn't reply for a moment. Then, "ok. Thank you. Let's just go, ok?"

"yeah... Yeah, sure."

And the two man rushed toward the home of the pumpkin king's castle.