Stone Cold Revenge, Hugs.And.Kisses [bill gates books recommendations TXT] 📗

Chapter 1 One Week

"It's time."

Finally, it had taken a long time to get this far. Soon, all this pain will finally pay off. She will be all that closer to her dream, revenge. Sweet, sweet revenge. To see the one who did this to her in more pain than she was in herself. They will all suffer. But first she had to undo all that had been done.

She approached the book lying on the table. It had been all too easy to acquire the book. Left behind for anyone to take after the worlds came together. They didn't even know it was gone, or the power it contained. The book was plain, old, and squareish, the only thing interesting thing about it was the title. Guide to Voodoo: the Magic of Mortals.

Opening the book she turned to the page she had seen so many times before. The potion was written on the pages. This hadn't been simple. It called for ingredients that hadn't been easy to find and took tons of doses. But tonight was the final night. Belinda got the vial down from the shelf and moved towards the only source of light in the dark room, the small and only window in the place. Moonlight floated down onto the vile, giving it an unnatural glow. This was it.

Belinda took a final glance at the disgusting goo in her had. Then uncorked it and downed it in a big gulp, shuddering. Nothing would ever get her used to that taste. When the last drop had been swallowed the spasms started happening. Her whole skin rippled, form her feet to her distorted face. Her throat contracted, lungs screamed for breath, eyes watered. One blood-curling scream was let loose before, mercifully, she collapsed to the floor in a heap.

The little shadow that had spoken before moved from his perch and slithered to the girl. It had worked. His partner might still look the same, but now she could unlock the rest of the book with what the potion had given her. Slithering toward the shelves, the shadow pushed down a blanket and a pillow. Making sure that the girl was as comfortable as she could be lying on a basement floor, he retuned to his perch. Oh to sleep again, to escape what he had become. That would be the first ting he'll do when he had a brand new body, just lie there and sleep. Well maybe the second thing, the first would be revenge. He looked again at the girl on the floor, revenge was all that mattered. It was what tied them together.

He stood completely still and concentrated hard, envisioning his target destination. Soon he found himself in the Land of the Dead. Oh, he hated this place. It was where he was the most vulnerable. The laboratory he was in was filled with shelves stacked with potions and books. A corpse in a lab coat was watching a boiling beaker sitting on a table intently, taking no notice of the little visitor moving toward him.

"Is it done yet?" the little shadow said impatiently.

"You've been asking that question every night for weeks," the scientist said, "And every time I say the same thing, no. It needs to be perfect."

"Aren't you even remotely close to finishing?"

The scientist removed the beaker he was staring at and put it in an old fashioned bug sprayer, "Hard to say. My first test subject died instantly, I was more successful with the second but it still wasn't what we where looking for. I think I know what went wrong. All I need is two more tests, with two more test subjects."

"My friend will be happy to hear that. Now get going! You're burning moonlight."

"Take it back!" Kevin shouted, tackling Lock to the ground.

"Never!" Lock said putting Kevin in a head lock.

Barrel looked on intently. Kevin and Lock wrestled back and forth for ten minutes before the elevator came up, Shock inside. It was early in the morning; Barrel was making chocolate pancakes for breakfast. They were in the living room just hanging around when Kevin and Lock started going at it again. Lock, Shock, and Kevin were competitive while Barrel preferred just to watch and keep score. So when Shock stepped out of the elevator she went for both of their necks and wrestled them both to the ground. By the way they were pinned to the ground under her; neither of them could get up.

"Say it," Shock demanded.

Kevin and Lock struggled for a bit longer before saying in unison, "Uncle."

Barrel made a buzzer noise and used the spatula as a microphone, "And that's it folks. It's 47 Shock to Lock and Kevin zero, zip, nada, zilch-"

"Shut up Barrel," Kevin and Lock said in unison as Shock got off them.

Barrel pulled down the chalkboard from the ceiling, another of Locks gadgets, and added a tally mark to Shock's section. Which was starting to get full. He went back to his pancakes and rang the bronze dinner bell he got for Christmas.

"Breakfast!" he shouted, mostly for the sheer joy of yelling 'breakfast'.

Since there was really no need to do this because as soon as he rang the bell Kevin and Lock raced to the table. Barking came from upstairs. Shock pulled a rope hanging by the wall that opened a ceiling door. A small ramp unfolded and Klondike came down. Lock made the ramps for him when they got him. Klondike waited by the table too. Klondike had changed with his stay in Halloween Town. His coat was darker, his teeth looked a bit sharper and his eyes turned a strange emerald green. Chocolate pancakes were served all around except for Klondike. Being a dog made him highly allergic to chocolate. So he had chopped meat from last night and dog kibble. Everyone devoured their breakfasts except for Shock, who just poked at it a bit then excused herself from the table.

"Not hungry again?" Barrel asked.

"Yeah," Shock sighed as she got in the elevator again.

Lock, Barrel and Kevin looked at each other. She'd been like that for the past few days. It didn't take a genius to know that something was on her mind. She'd leave the house before sunset and come home from somewhere early in the morning and wouldn't tell them where she went. They had asked around town and they didn't see her in the morning. That left very few places she could go. Shock went down into the basement. At least that's what Kevin and Barrel thought, but Lock knew she was in the tower.

After breakfast was over, Shock's pancakes had been fought over and eventually eaten by Barrel, Lock headed down to the basement. He passed the potions and caldrons and went to the back wall. He pushed a stone directly above him; this rang a little bell at the top of the tower. The wall in front of him opened up, Shock allowed him to come up. Lock climbed the stairs to find Shock looking out the window towards Halloween Town. She looked so sad, the last time she looked like that was when they were walking into the hinterlands years ago. Multiple paintings and drawings littered the room, at a glance he could tell that they were all about the trio when they were little.

"Shock," Lock started, "I know something's on your mind. But I don't know what. Will you tell me?"

Shock was quiet for a few moments, "I guess I have to eventually. *sigh* I've been noticing things lately Lock. I looked out this window a week ago and noticed there was something missing."

"What was it?" Lock said, sitting down next to her.

"Kids," Shock said, "There aren't enough kids in Halloween Town. I checked around asked some people. Turns out the last time this happened, the three of us died. Lock, Halloween is in five days. In five days, kids are going to die."

Chapter 2 It's Just a Dream

The sun on his face woke Lock up. He opened his eyes see huge trees around him. Where was he? He was definitely in the forest, but all the trees looked different, like they were dead. Looking around he saw the shapes of two other kids on the ground not far from him. They were getting up too. One of had a witch mask, the other had a skeleton mask. He found his own devil mask on the ground next to him. The witch was the first to speak up,

"Where am I?" She noticed the others, "Do you guys know where we are?"

"No," he said, he turned to the skeleton, "Hey, do you know where we are?"

The skeleton kid shook his head and groaned, "What day is it?"

"It's *gasp*" the witch said, "Oh no! It's the day after Halloween. I missed it!" The witch started crying. The other two felt bad for her and asked her what's wrong. "My mom grounded me and I didn't get to go trick-or-treating!"

"Its o.k." he said, "It looks like I lost all of my candy."

"I've got a lollipop," The skeleton kid said, holding up a black and orange lollipop, "But I already licked it. Sorry."

The witch still sobbed quietly. Still trying to cheer her up he said, "What's your name?"

"Samantha Shelton," she answered quietly.

"I'm Laurence, Laurence Simon. But you can call me Lock," Lock said, "I don't like my real name."

"Me either," Samantha said, Lock was happy to see she stopped crying, "I like the name Shock." Shock turned to the skeleton kid, "What's your name?"

The skeleton kid opened his mouth to say something but stopped, "I…I don't know."

"You don't know your own name?" Shock said surprised.

"I… I can't remember it," The skeleton said, almost to himself, "I can't remember anything. Who am I? How did I get here?"

"Right," Lock said, "I don't know how I got here either."

"Me either," Shock said again, "I remember going to bed last night. Is this a dream?"

"We can't share the same dream can we?" Lock said, "I remember going out, to get more candy. It got late, I started to go home. Some older kid stopped me, he was a mad scientist or something, and he dared me to go into the woods for five minutes. If I did it I got his candy, if I couldn't do it I was a scardy cat. He kept making fun of me until I said yes. I sat alone in the woods; I wasn't scared at all