Carver ended up having to sleep in her own room at the lab that night, otherwise the Finkelsteins had an increased chance of noticing the pattern of constant sleepovers. That would, of course, increase the odds of them noticing how much time had passed [i]and[/i] the likelihood they'd draw the conclusion that the four were up to something. Not that Carver was particularly worried about that; she'd already accepted that she was going to receive the punishment of the century for this, she just wanted to enjoy the confusion for as long as possible. A few hours after the Doctor's snores began echoing through the lab, the pumpkin creature suddenly shot out of bed and ran -- as quietly as possible -- toward the phone. 

"GUUUYS," she whispered desperately as soon as the connection was made, not giving them a chance to even answer the phone properly. "I KNOW HOW TO MAKE IT BETTER!" They spent the next few minutes discussing one last use of the broom before the town woke up. She cackled under her breath as she hung up and snuck back into bed. This was gonna be [i]awesome[/i]!

---

Around noon the next day, Carmilla rolled out of her coffin early. She had a lot of primping to do for her date in the evening, and wanted as much time a possible to make sure she got everything just right. She glided toward her human calendar with a yawn. She had learned a long time ago that it was hard to schedule things around days-til-Halloween when the person she was scheduling with didn't have a countdown clock like the one in the town square. She stifled another yawn as she uncapped a pen. She needed to cross off three days, as she hadn't been in the mood to deal with it after the Halloween fiasco.

The vampiress blinked as she saw that October was less than half crossed out on her calendar. Surely she hadn't forgotten to mark on it for [i]that[/i] long?


Meanwhile, Jack was pacing across the work room in his home. He'd been interviewing the citizens the day before, trying to understand how everyone had somehow not noticed Halloween coming and going. The Mayor in particular had been rather strange; every time he had tried to describe exactly how he had been spending the time, his head spun around out of control in a panic. It was as if he was trying to pull up memories that simply weren't there.  And now that Jack's attention had been drawn to it, [i]he[/i] couldn't remember what he had been doing the day before Halloween, either. Or the day before that... 

"I just don't understand it," he finally said out loud. "The Mayor and I can't remember what we were doing before this happened, and the other citizens seem to be filling in the blanks with assumptions based on their normal habits." He spun on his heel and paced back in the other direction. "It's possible that we [i]didn't[/i] miss the holiday, that we've just forgotten how it went... But what could possibly cause [i]everyone[/i] in Halloween Town to forget such a thing? What could possibly affect the entire town like this?"

Zero had hunkered down in his bed for most of the morning, unsure of how to make Jack feel better, but had eventually moved to Sally's lap as she worked on her sewing machine. She ran a hand along his body as if she were petting him. A thought came to mind. "What if something happened to the fountain?" she asked. "It connects to the sewers that run under the entire town, and it's right at the center of town, too."

Jack stopped. "You think it could be something in the water?"

"well... Or the air," she said with a tilt of her head. "Sometimes we put fog juice in the fountain for ambiance on Halloween, and there was that time I put too much in to-- Umm, well.."

"To sabotage my attempt at taking over Christmas," he finished for her, his eye socket twinkling. "A valiant attempt at curbing my foolishness after I had refused to see reason." The he got serious again and tapped his chin. "So you think something might have tainted with the decorative fog? That certainly is plausible... Hmmm..."

Jack decided to pay a visit to the Finkelsteins, to see if they had an ideas. Sally had to go shopping anyway, so they linked arms and headed into town together, Zero happily floating about their feet.