Tagline: Will anyone get out ALIVE?
Back tagline: Who will survive senior year?
Summary: It’s getting closer to graduation. And the kids at Shadyside High are terrified.
Who’s responsible for the senior curse? Is Count Clarkula really a vampire? Will anyone be alive to graduate?
Find out the answers to these questions and more in this action-packed conclusion to the most horrifying senior year in history!
First impressions: This blurb doesn’t really give us anything, so I don’t really know what to expect! Count Clarkula has barely even been mentioned since the earlier books so maybe he’ll be more prominent here. We also already know who’s responsible for the senior curse, it was Josie and that pesky Doom Spell!
On the cover we have a skull, maybe even the evil skelly that Josie unleashed with the Doom Spell! Inside we have a snapshot of the graduation ceremony, featuring Josie and Josh Maxwell, Will Reynolds and Trisha Conrad. Will they all make it out alive? This is a Super Chiller, so I hope not. Let’s find out!
Recap
We have our final yearbook with our most recent addition to the death tally, Gary Fresno:
The book begins with a prologue as Josie Maxwell has a horrible nightmare about shopping for a dress for her upcoming graduation party. Jennifer Fear is with her but suddenly disappears, and the dresses on the clothes rack in front of Josie turn into red graduation robes, all dripping with blood that pools on the floor. Then yellow, grinning skulls pop up from each robe, and Jennifer finally wakes up. She knew she’d been dreaming, but can’t help but think it was also a message that no-one will survive graduation, and it’s all her fault…
Part One
The main story begins after school as Josie Maxwell, Stacy Malcolm and serial pest Matty Winger are waiting in the yearbook office for the yearbooks to arrive. Josh comes by, wanting to know what time Josie will be home, and has no intention of waiting for the yearbooks with her because it’ll be too painful seeing all their dead friends’ pictures in there. Stacy and Josie agree, and Stacy is sad that Marla Newman, who worked so hard on the yearbook, will never get to see it. Josie gives her a comforting hug, and Matty tells Josie she can hug him too if she wants — ‘Josie stepped back. “Is that some kind of threat?”‘ [Hahahah get him] Josh heads off, and Matty continues to be annoying, munching on chalk. He does this all the time apparently, [???] so the girls don’t react other than to tell him he’s dumb and disturbed. Josie gets impatient waiting around, wondering where the yearbooks are — ‘It was nearly early three-thirty.’ [What the hell does that mean? Or is that a typo?] Again they discuss how sad it will be seeing all the dead students’ photos, but on the plus side, the special memorial section will look really nice!
The yearbooks arrive a few minutes later, and the trio take one each. Matty asks Josie to sign his with a flirty message, and Stacy sniffs the pages of hers, because she loves the smell of new books! Josie mentally prepares to check the memorial section first to get it over with, but when she flips to the pages, she screams in horror. All the beautiful photos of her dead friends have been replaced by hideous, ghoulish, decaying skulls: ‘Pock-marked skulls with rotting chinks of skin and sunken, staring…accusing eyes.’ [Spooky! Who did this? And how?]
Josie ends up running from the room in shock and bumps into Dana Palmer, who tells her she won’t be able to come to Josie and Josh’s graduation party, too said about the death of her twin, Deirdre. Dana’s mood has been all over the place since Deirdre’s death; one week she’s overly cheerful, acting like everything’s fine, and the next she’s all depressed. Deirdre was Josie’s closest friend, so she understands Dana’s pain, and the two girls share a hug despite never being close. Josie assures Dana that no-one else is really in the mood to party, but it’s the last chance for everyone to be together, so everyone should come. She waits for Dana to reply, but Dana just says goodbye and hurries off, leaving Josie to wonder if the party really is a bad idea.
Her mind drifts back to the first party of the summer last year, their first party as seniors, held at Trisha Conrad’s mansion. They’d all had such a great time until a bastard skelly in a red cloak rocked up and killed everyone, courtesy of a Doom Spell Josie had found. Josie had escaped the bloodbath and managed to find another spell to go back in time by an hour, which inexplicably prevented the same thing from happening, although it didn’t vanish for good. [I still don’t get how the skeleton didn’t reappear and kill everyone again. It wasn’t explained at all how going back in time stopped it, because she didn’t actually do anything to stop it??] How else could you explain all these deaths that have plagued the senior class, each one forcing Josie deeper into guilt? She’d prayed that the evil was gone for good, but could this yearbook mishap and her recent nightmare be a sign that the evil spirit is still near? Waiting for graduation day to kill them all? [I’m gonna be so mad if we don’t get multiple deaths in this book. Go out with a bang, Stine!]
Matty finds Josie in the hall and shows her another issue with the yearbooks — Clark Dickson’s photo is just a blank square! As the photographer, Matty went and checked the camera roll and negatives, but they were all blank. Is Count Clarkula really a vampire?!? [If he’s a real vampire and they’re going with the whole vampires don’t appear in photos angle, wouldn’t they have noticed in previous yearbooks that his photos weren’t appearing? Do the no reflection and being allergic to sunlight rules apply, too? When did he first come to the school? Wouldn’t they also have noticed that he’s seemed to look the same age for several years?] Josie is sure it’s just a printing error [Are the skulls a printing error too, Josie?] and they argue back and forth a bit, with Matty now certain there’s a vampire in their midst. [There was, Matty, back in The Thirst!] Josie can’t be bothered with the conversation and hurries home, where she tells Josh there was a printing error with the yearbooks, so they need to be sent back. She doesn’t want to get into the grisly details, though, and changes the subject to their party, wondering if they should cancel it. Josh refuses, insisting that everyone being upset is the reason they need the party — ”’We can’t just wallow in unhappiness. We can’t spend the rest of our lives thinking about what a tragic, horrible year we had. We can’t let it defeat us!”‘ [So motivational!]
At school the next day, the horror continues when in the hall first thing in the morning, Trisha lets out shrill scream, and Josie looks over to see Count Clarkula standing behind her. Josie rushes over, and Clark and Trisha explain that she’d been arranging the trophies in the display case and cut her arm on some glass, not realising it was broken. The cut looks pretty deep and is bleeding like crazy, and Josie notices Clark looks unwell. He explains he can’t stand the sight of blood, leaving Josie gobsmacked. Count Clarkula, a possible vampire doesn’t like blood??!
Josie and Clark help Trisha to the Nurse’s office where Ms. Kramer assesses the cut. Clark heads off, telling Trisha he’ll see her later, which confuses Josie. Trisha had been seeing Gary Fresno all year and was totally distraught when he was killed recently, taking a whole week off school, [That can’t be right. At the end of Prom Date, graduation day is only a week away. This timeline doesn’t add up, Stine. Even if prom wasn’t last week, it’s still way too soon for Trisha to be dating someone else] so she can’t be seeing Clark! Ms. Kramer patches Trisha’s arm up and the girls head down the empty hall towards their physics class. On the way, Trisha bitterly mentions that she’s looking forward to never seeing this place again before she suddenly goes into a brief trance: ‘Another vision, Josie realized. That was Trisha’s power as a Fear descendant. She was having another psychic flash.’ [Oh yeah, I forgot that Jennifer told Josie that Trisha’s the real Fear in Spring Break! But Trisha doesn’t know Josie knows] Trisha revives and explains her horrible vision was of the auditorium all decked out for the graduation ceremony, except the auditorium was empty; there was only row after row of coffins, each one holding a corpse dressed in red graduation gowns and caps. Trisha is positive that whatever has doomed the senior glass is not going to let them graduate.
Part Two
After school, Clark heads to the mall to find some clothes for the party. Maybe he’ll surprise everyone and buy something colourful, since he’s always wearing black! He walks straight past Dalby’s Department Store, which is out of his budget, [Wait, Dalby’s is inside the mall? I always wondered where exactly it was. All the other books it’s mentioned in makes it seem like it’s the size of a mall itself and at its own location] and heads into Eddie’s, where he bumps into Matty. Matty nervously tells Clark the roll of negatives for his yearbook photo were all blank, and Clark knows exactly what he’s implying. He admits that he enjoys that everyone thinks he’s a vampire, because it gets people talking and makes him seem mysterious. He’s even going out with Trisha Conrad tomorrow night! [Whoa, so they are dating?] Clark wants to prove he’s not a vampire and insists on taking Matty back to his place right now.
Clark is amused by how tense and terrified Matty seems on the car ride back to Clark’s place. Clark’s house is empty, and as he leads Matty up to his room, he cracks several jokes about being a vampire, still enjoying teasing Matty. Once in the room, Matty grows even more nervous when Clark locks the door. He asks what Clark’s proof is, and Clark tells him that Trisha cut her arm on glass today at school, and the blood flowed, ”’All red and ripe and warm and delicious.”‘ [That sounds like real vampire talk, Clark!] He admits he wanted to grab her arm and drink all the fresh blood up, and Matty takes a step back, asking if he’s kidding. Clark moves closer and asks if he thinks he’s kidding. Matty calls his bluff, suspecting that Clark’s just trying to scare him so he can tell everyone at school how stupid he is, and apologises for thinking he’s a vampire. He’ll even tell everyone to stop calling him Count Clarkula!
Clark blocks Matty’s path to the door and confesses he actually is a vampire. [I really can’t tell if he’s joking or not… I remember all the way back in Episode 1, Debra Lake had been pale and tired all the time when she’d started dating him, and Josh had even noticed two red dots on her throat. Was Josh right back then, and Clark was feeding on Debra?!] He insists all the rumours about him are right, and normally he’d never tell anyone the truth, but seeing Trisha’s blood today has made him so thirsty. And then Matty came along at the mall, all filled with blood. He grabs Matty’s shoulders and tells him he’s going to cloud his mind:
“You’ll never remember this. You’ll never even remember that you were here.”
“No—!” Matty protested, unable to hide his terror. “No—please—!”
Clark ignored Matty’s pleas. “Then I’m going to satisfy my thirst,” he said softly. He licked his caked, dry lips. “I’m so thirsty. So thirsty…”
He held Matty firmly in place. The other boy struggled weakly. But Clark had the strength of two hundred years of immortality inside him.
[OK, this whole scene was written so well that you really aren’t sure if Clark is being serious until that last line! Or maybe I’m just stupid. I just feel like someone would have noticed he doesn’t show up in images before, since that’s what’ were being given as proof he’s a vampire now. There was some evidence there, like in Let’s Party as I mentioned, but also in The Thirst, which didn’t seem to go anywhere because Jon and Anita were revealed to be the vampires. Did Clark know they were vampires too, and took advantage of it? It would have been fun to explore that!] Clark gazes deep into Matty’s eyes, sending him into a trance. Then ‘Clark’s tongue slid over his dry lips as his fangs slid down. He licked the curled yellow fangs as they slid down to his chin.’ Saliva pours from his mouth as he opens it wide and sinks his fangs into the plump flesh of the inside of Matty’s elbow. Grunting hungrily, Clark drinks and drinks until he’s interrupted by the phone ringing. He lets go of Matty, who slumps to the floor, still in a sleep-like trance, and answers the call. It’s Trisha, and Clark tells her he was just thinking about her…
Part Three
Over to Josie, who’s ending a phone call with Jennifer to continue studying for the calculus final; Dad said if she can keep up her good grades, she might be able to get her own car! Unfortunately, though, she’s paid a visit by our favourite giggling evil skelly in the red robe, who materialises in her room and coughs to get her attention. Skelly tells her he’s not finished, and Josie is sure this is all just a dream. Skelly tells her it’s not a dream, and he’ll show her, then fades away, leaving Josie to wonder what he meant. She doesn’t have to wait long; soon her head is itching like crazy because it’s covered in maggots! [Gross]
Josie washes her hair in the shower about seven times until all the maggots are gone, then hurries back to her room where she gets a phone call. It’s Phoebe Yamura, who’s just gotten home from the Cheerleader Awards ceremony at school and would like her help with some calculus questions. Josie’s too freaked out to be of any assistance and tells Phoebe she can’t right now and hangs up. Then Josie decides to go to Josh’s room and tells him about unleashing the evil spirit and how it killed everyone at Trisha’s party but she managed to reverse time and prevent it, etc. She’s sure he won’t believe her, but it feels good to tell someone. [Jennifer already knows, why don’t you ask her for help?] Josh tells her he believes her and promises that they’ll think of something, and then leaves. Josie, no longer feeling alone, is relieved, and wonders if maybe Trisha can use her Fear powers to help. She heads back to her room to brush her hair and check for maggots, then heads downstairs. She overhears voices in the den and stops to eavesdrop, and to her surprise Josh is telling Mrs. Maxwell that Josie really needs a doctor. He thinks all the deaths that have happened this year have messed up her head, and she’s talking about evil spirits and how it’s all her fault — ‘”She’s… she’s gone crazy!”‘ Josie accidentally steps into the doorway without noticing, alerting Josh and Mrs. Maxwell to her presence. Mrs. Maxwell tells her to come in so they can talk, but instead Josie flees the house and runs all the way to Jennifer’s place, where she orders her to get Trisha over here because they need her help.
Trisha arrives a short time later, very cheerful and bearing a container of homemade brownies she’d just whipped up with her mother. [Delicioso!] She thinks she knows why she’s been called over here, and admits to going out with Clark. Josie secretly thinks Trisha’s still wrecked from Gary’s death and just wants another guy to care about before school ends. [Agreed] Jennifer says that just because Trisha’s a Fear, it doesn’t mean she has to date a vampire, and Trisha gasps — has Jennifer being telling people her secret?!? Jennifer swears she’s only told Josie, which Trisha seems fine with because she starts defending Clark instead of yelling at Jennifer. He’s not a vampire and those rumours are stupid! Clark is interesting! ‘”Oh, Trisha, you have the worst taste in guys!”‘ blurts out Josie, and immediately regrets it because Trisha is clearly hurt by her words. Trisha argues that Josie never really knew Gary, and Josie apologises, and then Jennifer asks why Josie wanted to see them.
Josie tells them the whole story about the Doom Spell and the evil skelly, and wants them to help her find another spell in the Fear library to end things for good. The girls are flabbergasted and wonder why she didn’t say anything sooner, [Well, she did tell you over Spring Break, Jennifer, so I don’t know why you’re surprised] and Josie admits she was just hoping everything that’s happened this year was bad luck rather than a result of what she did. She begs them to believe her, but Trisha’s not sure if she does. [So everything else that’s happened in the last 11 books, including a prom date being conjured up by a wish and killing your boyfriend, is believable, but this is too much? Trisha, plz] Josie declares that she doesn’t care if they believe her, they have to help her anyway. Jennifer thinks they should just try get through graduation without any more trouble, but Josie screams ‘”It isn’t going to let us graduate!”‘ She decides to move forward without them and runs through the house to the Fear library, but cries out in horror when she finds it empty! Mrs. Fear comes in and explains she’d sold all the books because they upset Jennifer, and they’ll be turning the room into a home office. Defeated, Josie wonders if she just has to wait around to die.
The next afternoon, it’s time for the Senior Awards Assembly, and as they enter the auditorium, Jennifer asks Josie if she’s going to win an award. Josie’s distracted by Dana Palmer, who’s clinging onto Mickey Myers. Ever since her twin Deirdre died, Dana’s practically smothered Mickey, and Josie wonders if he’ll break up with her because he looks very uncomfortable right now. When Jennifer does get Josie’s attention, Josie tells her she’ll be clapping from the audience because she won’t be getting an award. Jennifer’s going to get MVP for basketball, which is nothing compared to Kenny Klein, who’ll be getting every award known to man. Josie spots Kenny’s parents seated in the auditorium and wonders if Josh had told their parents about the assembly, because she sure didn’t; Josh is winning some science award and an honourable mention for an essay he wrote about democracy.
Jennifer heads up on stage with the other winners while Josie finds a seat in the third row. She notices Clark and Matty sitting together, talking quietly, and wonders when they became friends. Matty’s looking pretty pale these days, and has a bandage on his arm for some reason. Mickey takes a seat near Josie while Dana heads to the stage, and they joke about being losers for not winning any awards. Mrs. Leonard, the vice principal, starts the assembly, announcing how proud everyone is of the winners and how it’s nice to have something to celebrate after a difficult year. She then realises that there’s a winner missing, Phoebe Yamura, and assumes she must be absent today. She then asks everyone to rise so they can lower the flag, and everyone stands as ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ plays through the speakers. The big US flag begins to lower from the ceiling, unfolding as it does so, and a cry escapes Josie’s lips as she notices a body unrolling with the flag. The auditorium quickly fills with screams as Phoebe Yamura’s body, hanging by her feet, swings from side to side in front of the flag. [Nooooo, not my Phoebe! She was so sweet and deserved to survive the year! Who killed her? Why? How? This is what we want to read about, Stine!]
Part Four
We jump forward to just after Phoebe’s evening funeral as Josh, Mickey and Matty exit the funeral home and decide to go for a drive, not really wanting to do much of anything. Josh ends up driving to the Fear Street Woods, and as they get out of the car to walk down to the lake, the boys ask Matty what happened to his arm, which is still bandaged. Matty think he he cut it somehow, but he honestly doesn’t remember. After a few minutes at the lake, the boys decide to head home, since it’ll be raining soon, and on the way back through the woods, Mickey catches a small black bat. He jokes that it’s Clark and suggests they let it loose in Clark’s house, which Matty is super keen for. Josh, who at first tells Mickey to let the bat go, ultimately agrees because ‘maybe doing something dumb like letting a bat loose in someone’s house would help lift him from his unhappy thoughts.’ [Ah yes, nothing like releasing a wild animal in someone’s house to lift the spirits!]
So off they go to Clark’s house, and they find that no-one is home. [Does anyone else even live here besides Clark? How old is he in vampire years?] This is perfect, according to Mickey, because now they can sneak in and lock the bat in Clark’s room for him to find! They enter through the same window they used over the summer when they were searching for proof that Clark is a vampire, and head up to Clark’s room. As they shut the window, Clark appears in the doorway, and Mickey laughs that they brought him a gift. Matty jokes that it’s Clark’s cousin, and to their surprise he doesn’t really react to the bat. Instead, he thanks them as he plucks it from Mickey’s hands and raises the bat close to his face before sinking his teeth into the poor animal’s belly.
As expected, the boys are like “WTF?!?!” but Clark tells them not to be upset because he’s clouding their minds right now, and they won’t remember any of this in a few minutes. Josh feels trapped in Clark’s powerful gaze, and then the next thing he knows he feels groggy, as if he just woke up, and shakes his head to force himself awake. Mickey asks where the bat is, and Matty doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Clark explains it flew out the window, which is now open, although Josh is sure it was just closed. Clark’s face is also glistening wetly, as if he’d just washed his face. Clark thanks them for the present but tells them to make sure the window is closed next time.
Matty asks Clark if he was out with Trisha tonight, and he says he was supposed to be, but she wasn’t feeling up to it after Phoebe’s death. This is the first Josh and Mickey are hearing of Clark and Trisha dating, and they don’t bother to hide their shock. Josh and Mickey say they need to go and move for the door, but Clark asks Matty to stay behind to help him with something, promising to drop him home after. Matty agrees and says bye to Josh and Mickey, who exchange puzzled glances — ‘Why does Clark need Matty? Matty is useless!’ [Amen!] They rush downstairs and just as they’re exiting the front door they hear a sharp cry of pain from upstairs and wonder if it was Matty.
Part Five
[Oh, they’re not gonna go check if everything’s OK? Wow] Over to Josie, who’s struggling to get to sleep. When she finally does, she has a nightmare about Phoebe Yamura and Deirdre Palmer’s spirits begging her for help. She wakes up to her mother shaking her shoulders, explaining she was yelling in her sleep. Mrs. Maxwell insists she see Dr. Gollub, a grief counsellor, to help her through everything that’s happened this year. Josie protests, knowing a grief counsellor won’t be able to help her situation, but reluctantly agrees to see her just once.
After school the next day, Josie drags Josh to the mall to get food for their party, now only a few days away. Josh immediately hurries off, claiming he saw a girl he used to know, and then Jennifer comes running up to Josie, asking if she’s heard about Trisha – she died!!! Except Josie must have selective hearing, because Jennifer actually said that Trisha dyed her hair. It’s bright red now! [This might be the worst cliffhanger chapter ending of any Fear street book ever]
Meanwhile, Josh runs after the girl he knew and calls out her name, Rosanna. Her and her friend turn around, and Rosanna is happy to see Josh. They went to summer camp together for three years, but haven’t seen each other since they were freshman. Rosanna, who lives in Waynesbridge, introduces him to her friend, Katrina, who’s super pretty. Rosanna then checks the time and hurries off, explaining she’s late to meet her boyfriend, but tells Josh to call her sometime. Josh and Katrina briefly chat, and he decides to ask her out for Saturday night. She agrees, but immediately changes her mind when he mentions that he’s a Shadyside High student – ‘”That’s the cursed school.”‘ Yes, it seems other schools in the area know all about the bad year the Shadyside Seniors are having, and although Josh insists there’s no curse and it was all just accidents, she’s no longer interested and apologises before walking away.
Josh is heading to Pete’s Pizza to find Josie and tell her all about what just happened when he spots Debra Lake. Surprised, he calls out her name, and she turns to face him, reaching out her hands. Josh stumbles towards her as she asks for help, and he grabs her shoulders, still unable to believe she’s here. To his surprise, Debra screams at him to let go, and her features change; her green eyes turn brown, her blonde hair turns dark, because it’s not Debra at all, but a complete stranger, who’s now screaming for help, terrified.
It’s the next day now and Josie’s arriving at Dr. Ellen Gollub’s office. There’s no-one at the reception desk but she hears a woman talking in the back room, so she takes a seat and waits. She still doesn’t want to be here, but it makes her feel better that Josh believes her now; he’d run up to her at the mall, breathless and frightened, insisting he’d seen Debra. Soon, Dr. Gollub calls her in, and Josie tells her she feels responsible for her friends’ deaths and starts explaining everything from the very beginning. As she talks, the room blurs into soft focus, as if a thick fog has rolled into the room. At the end of the story, Dr. Gollub rushes to the door and locks it before hurrying over to Josie:
Josie blinked hard, struggling to focus her eyes.
When the fog finally lifted and she could see clearly again, she froze in horror.
Dr. Gollub’s red lips pulled back into a snarl. The lips pulled back, and the mouth gaped wider…wider…
Josie saw grinning teeth. Then the bone of the jaw. The skin on the woman’s face slid back, as if someone was pulling it off the skull.
“Noooooo!” A low moan escaped Josie’s throat.
Dr. Gollub tugged her face off with both hands, revealing a cracked yellow skull. Her eyeballs popped wetly from their sockets and bounced onto the carpeted office floor.
The skin flaked and peel off her arms, her hands, revealing gray bones that clacked and clicked as the hands reached out for Josie.
Josie’s mouth dropped open in horror as the twin snakes slid out form the skull’s empty eye sockets.
Josie leaps from the chair, diving for the door, but the snakes stretch longer and longer out of the eye sockets, wrapping around her body and pulling her back until she’s face to face with the skull, which rasps, ‘”Come inside!”‘ As it blasts her with it’s hot, sour breath, Josie notices the worms crawling around its mouth and can hear insects buzzing deep from within. She tries to break free but it’s no use, and the skelly opens it’s jaws wide and deposits her inside. She begins to slide headfirst, plunging into darkness, and soon she’s just an object falling down, down… Mournful howls and moans of pain rise up around her as she passes grinning skulls, still descending. Down, past monstrous faces, howling in horror. All around her is evil. And then there’s nothing but blackness, heavy and silent, and Josie realises she’s dead. [I didn’t do it justice, but it’s very well-written!]
Part Six
Josie blinks and finds herself on the floor of the doctor’s office. A young, redhead woman appears and demands to know how she got in here, and Josie explains Dr. Gollub called her in. Well, that’s impossible, because she called in sick today, and a message was left for all the clients. Josie confirms her name and says she didn’t get the message, then flees the building back to the car. As she grabs the door handle, she finds that it’s burning hot, but she can’t pull her hand away, as if it’s glued there. As she squirms and struggles to free herself, she notices the bastard skelly in its red robe in the front seat, watching her. She begs it to let her go, but the skelly seems to laugh at her, and then the car explodes.
Josie’s thrown backwards across the parking lot and stares in horror at her mother’s car, up in flames with a laughing skeleton inside. She buries herself in her hands and doesn’t look up until the roar of the fire stops. To her surprise, the car’s perfectly fine, with no skeleton inside. [The way the skelly makes its victims hallucinate is reminding me of the demon from ‘Smile‘!] Josie cautiously approaches the car and gives the handle a cautious touch, relieved to find that it’s not hot. She peers into the car, and her eyes stop at the object resting on the driver’s seat — a maroon graduation cap.
It’s presumably the next night now, and it’s time for graduation rehearsal! Everyone’s in the auditorium in their gowns and caps, waiting to start. Among the crowd is Matty, sitting by himself, which strikes Josie as odd; why isn’t he being his usual, annoying self? Trisha and Clark are sitting a few rows behind, and Josie still isn’t sure whether to believe they’re dating. Mickey Myers is over by the stage, tickling some girl Josie doesn’t know named Zella, [It’s a bit late to be naming new characters, Stine!] and she hopes Dana doesn’t spot them!
Mr. Montgomery, the senior adviser, appears on stage and commands the attention of the rowdy seniors, insisting the sooner they start the sooner they’ll finish. As he’s explaining how the rehearsal will go, ‘Pomp and Circumstance’, the song played at graduations, starts blaring loudly from the speakers. Mr. Montgomery screams at whoever turned it on to turn it off because they’re not ready for it yet, but the music continues, making several students cover their ears. Suddenly, the auditorium doors fly open, and several maroon-gowned figures file in one by one, walking in time with the music, their caps tilted over their heads. As they move closer down the aisle, their caps tilt back, and shrieks and screams rise up over the sound of the music as their ghoulish, rotting faces are revealed:
All down the row, skeletal faces stared straight ahead as the gowned figures marched. Chunks of skin had rotted away, revealing gray bone underneath. Eyes had sunken deep into the sockets. Green and blue mold sprouted from nose and ears.
The sour stench of death floated over the auditorium.
Josie pressed her hands to her cheeks and screamed again.
“They’re dead!” she heard Trisha shriek. “Oh, no! Oh, no! They’re all dead!”
“They’re back!” someone else cried.
Yes, to everyone’s horror, the latecomers are the corpses of the deceased seniors. As they march on, Josie recognises the rotting faces of Debra Lake, Danielle Cortez, Marla Newman, Ty Sullivan, Deirdre Palmer, Gary Fresno, and Phoebe Yamura. [What about Jade Feldman? Greta Bradley? Justin Thompson? Are they not there?] She throws up from the stench and the sight of her deceased friends as they file past — ‘The dead seniors… marching down the auditorium aisle, all back for graduation.’ [Love it! This is also a great scene]
The living seniors stampede out of the auditorium doors, and Josie glances back in time to see Marla’s corpse on stage, approaching the microphone, possibly to give the speech she would have given if she were alive to be valedictorian. Outside, Josie finds Trisha as the other students flee in their cars, and begs for help. Unsure what to do, Josie suggests they check out the old, burnt out Fear mansion. She’s desperate for some kind of clue and hopes they’ll be find something there, since the mansion has seen so much evil. [So… we’re all just leaving a bunch of zombies in the auditorium? Anyone gonna contact authorities or something?]
A short time later, the girls arrive at the Fear mansion, a flashlight from Trisha’s trunk in hand. As they approach the building, Trisha gets one of her trademark visions and in her trance, repeats ‘”The door!”‘ several times. Then her voice changes to a man’s, which pleads ‘”Help me out of here.”‘ When she comes to, she explains to Josie that she saw a wooden door with a crack running down the centre of it. She didn’t open it so doesn’t know what was on the other side, and Josie mentions the man’s voice that came out of Trisha’s mouth. Trisha had heard the voice too, and they wonder if the man was on the other side of the door. [Could it be another evil spirit tricking them into being released? The book’s almost over though, so surely not. Maybe it’s a helpful spirit! Or maybe it’s the evil skelly toying with them!] They decide to search for the door Trisha saw and Trisha, who has a very strong feeling about the whereabouts of the door, leads the way around the outside of the house. They come to a stop in front of a heavy wooden door at the back of the mansion, hidden in the shadows, and sure enough, there’s a deep crack down the middle of it.
The girls open the door and with a big whoosh, they’re sucked inside a dark room, the door slamming shut behind them. It’s filled with faceless ghouls and skeletons, all moaning, just like when Josie was swallowed by the evil skelly in the doctor’s office. Then a young man appears in the darkness, asking for help; it’s the same voice Josie heard coming out of Trisha’s mouth minutes earlier when she was having a vision! He knows Trisha’s name and reveals he’s her great-grandfather, Henry Conrad, and needs their help escaping this place, because the Fears are coming after him and won’t let him rest. He doesn’t know what this place is, but he knows it’s a place of evil. He can lead them to the exit, but he can’t leave unless they take him out with them. [So he’s trapped? If the Fears were after him, wouldn’t they have got him by now?] The girls are unsure whether he can be trusted, [Same] and they request his help defeating an evil spirit if they agree to help him. Henry agrees, and they follow him through the darkness. On the way, a huge, jelly-like creature approaches and spreads itself around Josie, suffocating her with it’s gelatinous body as it fills her mouth and nose. Just as she’s about to die, Henry pulls the creature off her, squeezing until it explodes into millions of rubbery droplets.
The trio presses forward, eventually arriving at the wooden door with the crack in it again. They twist the knob, and with another loud whoosh, all three of them are pushed outside. [Why couldn’t he do that himself? Why aren’t they asking why he couldn’t do that himself? I don’t trust him, I don’t think it’s the real Henry Conrad. Did he even die young?] Henry takes off running so they yell out, reminding him he’d promised to help them. He turns back and explains they’ll just need to say ‘”I summon thee”‘ three times when they’re ready for assistance, and then he disappears around the corner of the house. [Where is he even going? He’s so suss]
Part Seven
Either later that evening or the next night, we jump to Clark, who’s arriving at Trisha’s house for a date. He’s sooooooooooooo thirsty, and knows he’d made a mistake with Matty; he’d only planned to take a few pints of blood, but ended up nearly draining him dry. Hopefully no-one’s noticed how pale and lethargic he is, and if they have, hopefully they won’t be able to trace it back to Clark. [If Josh and Mickey had a brain they’d be able to] But Clark couldn’t help himself, he’s just so damn thirsty! He even ripped the neighbour’s dog’s throat out last night, then threw it in the bush and fled when the porch lights came on.
Anyway, Trisha leads him inside, and she seems a bit off; she doesn’t feel like doing anything, and says something weird happened on Fear Street. He asks what she’s talking about, but she just says she can’t stop thinking about what happened at graduation rehearsal. [Oh yeah, what happened to all the dead seniors? Are they still in the auditorium? Were authorities of any kind called? Why hasn’t this been explained, Stine?!] Clark, who can’t bite her neck here because he can hear other people home, suggests they go on a long drive to take their minds off things, but Trisha isn’t feeling it. She eventually agrees to see a movie, though, and Clark barely remembers watching it because he’s too caught up in his thirst and stares at Trisha’s throat the whole time.
Afterwards, Clark suggests going to the river to feast talk, but Trisha’s hungry, so they go to Alma’s Coffee Shop [Last seen on the blog in The Dare] for a bite to eat. Then he finally gets his way and drives them to the river. He’s desperate for some blood, and when she rests her head on his shoulder as he slides his arm around her, he stares at her pulsing throat. Unable to hold it in anymore, he lowers his face to her neck, his sharp fangs sliding out, [Is he not gonna put her in a trance first like he did everyone else?] but suddenly a blinding light is flashing in his face from outside the car. He jerks up, his fangs sliding back up into his mouth, and Trisha pulls away. Turning to the light, he sees a police officer peering in through the window. The officer insists they move along because it’s not safe with all the strangeness that’s been going on lately, so Clark drives away. He suggests they go up to River Ridge, knowing it would be crowded but certain he can find a secluded spot, but it’s late now and Trisha just wants to go home.
Clark grudgingly drives back to Trisha’s mansion and as he parks the car, he’s feeling so dry that he can’t help but make a grab for Trisha! But she’s already out of the car by then, so he exits the car after her. She apologises for wanting to go home, but she’s feeling too scared with everything that’s happened lately. He’s about to reply when something brushes his leg. Jumping back, he notices a black kitten at his feet. ‘”Minnie—what are you doing out so early?”‘ says Trisha, explaining it’s their new kitten, and they don’t usually put her outside until they close up for the night. [Wait, what? You force a kitten to be outside on its own every night? Is that a common thing in America? It seems so weird. if I had a kitten It’d be with me all the time, especially at night! But then here in Australia, most local councils require pet cats to have curfews or be inside 24/7 to protect the wildlife] Clark picks the kitten up and strokes her fur, commenting how cute she is. He’s still petting her when Trisha says goodnight and heads inside, [Uh oh] sealing poor Minnie’s fate. With the coast now clear, Clark lifts the kitten to his face and sinks his fangs into it’s warm belly. Minnie cries out and struggles to escape, but Clark holds on: ‘He buried his face in the kitten’s belly and drank… drank thirstily… noisily… drank it dry… warm blood splashing over is chin, his cheeks. He drank…finally drank.’ [And that’s why cats should be inside pets! Poor Minnie. Stine, why are we killing animals and not seniors?!?!?!]
It’s the day of Josie and Josh’s graduation party now, and they’re finishing setting everything up before the guests arrive. Josh is being a downer, convinced no-one will be in a party mood, but Josie tells him she thinks the troubles are over because her and Trisha did a thing, but she doesn’t want to explain what they did right now! The front doorbell rings and Trisha bursts in, followed by Matty. Trisha’s been trying to call Josie all day, but the phone is off the hook or something. She and Matty have alarming news — Clark Dickson is a real vampire! He tried to bite her neck last night and she even saw his fangs; luckily a policeman showed up just in time. Then this morning she found her poor kitten Minnie dead on the front lawn, two puncture holes in her stomach. [Wait, so she knew he was a vampire and left her poor kitten in his hands? What did she think would happen? That poor kitten] Matty backs Trisha up, revealing that Clark has been drinking his blood; Clark had also been clouding his mind, but it didn’t fully work, and Matty remembers what Clark did to him. [How exactly did Trisha and Matty connect after both figuring out Clark’s a vampire? It’s not like they’re exactly friends? Weird]
Trisha [Who I just remembered died dyed her hair red, which hasn’t been acknowledged since Jennifer ran up to Josie at the mall as if it was super important. See how stupid it was as a cliffhanger to end a chapter on? Could you not think of anything relevant to the story, Stine?] reckons that Clark may be to blame for all the horrors of senior year instead of Josie and the evil spirit she thinks she brought into the world, [I wouldn’t go that far] and insists they have to kill the vampire. Matty wants revenge for what Clark’s done to him and insists on killing Clark himself, instructing Trisha to call Clark over to Josie’s before the party starts. He disappears outside and returns a short time later with a slender wooden post from the fence at the side of the house. He disappears down into the basement to Mr. Maxwell’s workshop to file it down while Trisha calls Clark.
A short time later, Josie answers the door to an eager looking Clark. Josie tells him Trisha’s in the den, and Clark hurries inside and disappears through the den door. Seconds later, a scream of shock and pain escapes the room. Josh and Trisha emerge from their hiding spots as they, along with Josie, wonder if it was Clark or Matty that screamed. A few moments pass before Matty exits the den and explains that Clark crumbled to ashes once he plunged the stake into his chest, and then the dust just disappeared. [Something doesn’t feel right here. Could Clark have turned Matty into a vampire previously, and they’d planned to fake Clark’s death or something?]
It’s party time now, and just as Josh had anticipated, no-one’s really in the mood. Jennifer tells Josie there’s not much to celebrate, but maybe if they all survive graduation tomorrow they’ll be in better spirits. Josie assures her they’ll survive and explains that her and Trisha did something at the Fear mansion. She tells Jennifer to stay after the party, promising she and Trisha will tell her all about it. The front door suddenly bursts open, sending several blasts of cold, loud wind into the room. Josie moves towards the door, but stops in her tracks when she spots our favourite red-cloaked skeleton standing there. He raises his arms up, declaring in a raspy voice that Josie called him forth — ‘”You performed the Doom Spell to bring me here. Now I have come to finish my job.”‘
As everyone panics, Josie watches as they all begin to fade behind a thick screen of grey smoke billowing up from the floor. Then, projected onto the smoke as if it’s a movie screen, the evil skelly gives Josie a preview of what’s going to happen to her friends. She stares in horror as he rips off Jennifer’s arms and strangles her with them. Then Stacy’s head is twisted until her neck cracks, Josh’s insides are pulled out through his mouth, Mickey’s head is crushed, and Trisha gets her eyes plucked out. The projection fades from the smoke, and Josie realises she needs to act now before it’s too late. She tells the spirit she’s got a surprise for him, another spirit from the grave that will help destroy him, and begins to scream the words ‘”I summon thee!”‘ Before she can finish, though, the twin snakes stretch from the skeleton’s eyes and plunge into her open mouth.
As they move down her throat, Josie gags and vomits, forcing them back out of her mouth. She quickly chants the summoning words three times, and a deafening roar shakes the house. Henry Conrad strolls into the room and advances towards the skeleton, who backs into a bookshelf. When Henry gets just inches away, he [Un]surprisingly turns his back on the skelly, his skin melting off until he’s a skeleton as well. Trisha and Josie realise with horror they’ve been hoodwinked, and the two skeletons merge into one until only one skeleton remains. The evil spirit confirms they’re one and the same, gloating that Josie’s only strengthened him now — ‘”You have doubled my power. And now it is time—now you will all die!”‘
Josie slides back against the wall next to Josh, accepting that she’s failed and they’re all going to die. The evil spirit heads for Jennifer first, and as he reaches for her throat, the den door bursts open and…………. Clark emerges! The skelly turns his attention to Clark, who floats off the floor, his fangs sliding out. Clark rises up above the evil spirit, and Matty backs away from both of them, bumping into Josie. Josie points out that Matty lied to them, and he admits he couldn’t kill Clark ‘”Because… Clark made me a vampire, too!”‘
Matty lowers his fangs and floats off the floor too, joining Clark above the spirit. Clark declares that the ancient evil of the immortal vampire is older and more powerful that the evil spirit, and then they attack. Clark rips the snakes from the skelly’s eyes while Matty tears the skull off it’s body and throws it out the open door. Then the boys crush the rest of the skeleton until it’s nothing but yellow bone dust. The dust swirls around in another blast of cold wind and floats over to Kenny, who’s knocked down by the weight of the powder. [I bet he’s being possessed] Josie watches as the powder rises up one again, then falls to the ground like a yellow snowfall. Josie steps forward to thank Clark and Matty, who abruptly turn into bats, chitter loudly and fly out the door. The remaining seniors celebrate that the evil is gone and they’ll all graduate, but Josie can’t help but wonder if the horrors of Senior year really are over now.
It’s graduation time now, and although Josie keeps looking back towards the doors during the ceremony, wondering if the dead seniors, or an evil skeleton, or some vampires will burst in to ruin things, it all goes smoothly. Kenny’s valedictorian speech brings everyone to tears as he honours the fallen seniors, and then it’s back to thunderous applause as everyone’s called up on stage one by one to receive their diplomas.
Afterwards, Josie heads backstage to drop off her cap and gown, but she’s intercepted by Kenny, who wants to show her something. He pulls her to the side curtain, away from the other seniors, and the book ends as he begins to change before her eyes: [Knew it!]
The top of his head split open with a loud craaaack. His graduation cap dropped to the floor.
The two sides of his face fell away, like a rubber mask split in two.
Two long, slender snaked arched up over the collar of his gown.
The snakes wound themselves around Kenny’s exposed skull.
The skull snapped its jaws once, twice. Kenny’s eyeballs rolled out and bounced onto the floor. Thud, thud.
Josie raised her hands to her cheeks and screamed.
“Kenny isn’t here anymore!” The skeletal figure bellowed at her in an ugly, inhuman rasp.
He lowered his face to hers. Closer… so close she could smell his putrid breath.
“Kenny had to say good-bye yesterday, too! But he loaned me this splendid new body yesterday. It’s time for me to finish my work. Happy Graduation, Josie!”
[Lame. I’m not a fan of this ending. This is how you want to end a 12-book story arc, Stine? Booooooo]
Final thoughts
I was hoping we’d finish the Seniors series with a bang, but this was a great big mess. It feels like Stine didn’t really have an end plan in mind while writing the whole series so when it came time to finish it all off, he just grabbed the is-Clark-a-vampire? and evil spirit plot points from the first book and wrote the book around that, with a large amount of filler to pad it out. That stupid chapter ending about Trisha’s hair was pointless, as was pretty much that whole mall scene with Josh seeing his old camp friend and then thinking he saw Debra. Yes, that’s what made him realise Josie was right, but there’s 340609069298458965 better ways he could have come to that realisation. The dead seniors marching into the auditorium, although a great scene, also seemed pointless because it went absolutely nowhere and we never found out what happened to them afterwards. Considering the whole senior class and a teacher witnessed it, you’d expect it to be a bigger plot point. That scene also led to the stupid adventure at the Fear mansion with Henry Conrad, which was 1000000% filler, along with when he was summoned at the end. Why the hell was this a Super Chiller when Stine couldn’t think of a big enough story to justify it?
It was a wasted opportunity not to kill off more seniors in the final book. I’ve complained about the lack of deaths in pretty much every recap, but I always hoped Stine was waiting until the conclusion to kill a bunch of seniors. Unfortunately for me, wishes don’t come true and the only one killed was Phoebe, the nicest character in the series. And to add insult to injury, she didn’t even get a damn death scene! Why did she die? How did she die? Why would Stine give us all this filler but absolutely no death scene? It doesn’t make sense!
The final showdown at the end also seemed quite rushed, if you can even call it a showdown. I’m sure we were all expecting a big battle, but instead we got whatever the hell this was. Underwhelming and kind of ironic too, since the day was saved by Matty and Clark, the butts of everyone’s jokes throughout the whole series. Who would have thought they’d become the saviours of the seniors? Kind of wish they were pettier and just left without fighting the spirit. Not that it even god rid of the bastard skelly, anyway.
On the plus side, there were some really good scenes in here, like Clark’s original vampire reveal to Matty, and the dead seniors arriving at the auditorium, but unfortunately nothing could have saved this one. Honestly, what was the point of the whole 12-book series if this is how it ends?! It just seems so lazy, especially since the original Fear Street run ended with this book (From what I can tell, the next Fear Streets published were Fear Streets Nights trilogy in 2005). Why not finish strong? I feel like my time has been wasted.
As a grand finale, this sucked, so 19 girls knowingly leaving their new kitten with a vampire out of 58!
