Tagline: Are you dying to play?
Back tagline: The only way to win a game on Fear Street is to be the last one left alive…
Summary: Everyone in Shadyside knows that the wealthy and eccentric Fear family has a gruesome history. But Brendan Fear seems different. He’s outgoing, cute, and part of the popular crowd at school. And besides, Rachel Martin has a huge crush on him.
When Rachel is invited to Brendan’s exclusive all-night birthday party on secluded Fear Island, she says yes right away despite her best friend’s warning. Brendan may be a Fear, but what’s the worst that could happen at a birthday party?
When Rachel and the rest of the guests arrive at the island, the party games begin. But the games Brendan Fear planned aren’t games games that anyone would want to play. When a scavenger hunt turns up some horrifying surprises, Rachel has to fight to survive the deadliest game of all—the game of murder.
First impressions: Taking a brief break from the Seniors because August is my birthday month, so I like to recap a birthday or Leo-themed book to celebrate. [This recap was supposed to be ready to post by the end of August but I ran out of time and this book was soooooo damn long! So it’s a belated birthday post this year] Unfortunately it’s slim pickings, so this will have to do! And if you’re thinking that an all-night party on Fear Island sounds familiar, you’d be right! We celebrated Cindy’s birthday in a cabin there back in All-Night Party.
I’m very curious see how a 2010s Fear Street stacks up against its ’90s predecessors. I assume not very well, because the original series relied heavily on anonymous notes and phone calls and limited/no internet for its scares, and I can’t really see Stine’s usual tricks and tropes working effectively with modern technology. Hopefully his writing has evolved with the times and I’ll be pleasantly surprised, because I’d love to like this book, but I don’t have high hopes.
I quite like this cover; it’s got an old school vibe and feels very ominous even though it’s basically someone standing at the top of a staircase with balloons all over the stairs.
This plot sounds like it has all the makings of a slasher, so I’m hoping that we get a few murders. Let’s find out!
Recap
Roll call:
Rachel – Our heroine who’s got a crush on Brendan and is surprised to be invited to his party.
Brendan – The birthday boy.
Patti – Rachel’s childhood friend and Kerry’s girlfriend.
Kerry – Brendan’s jock friend who’s dating Patti.
Eric – The comic relief who’s painfully unfunny.
Amy – Rachel’s best friend who warns her about attending Brendan’s party.
Mac – Rachel’s boyfriend who she’s ghosted instead of breaking up with.
Geena, April, Delia, Kenny, Morgan, Spider – The rest of the party guests who aren’t important enough for individual listings on the roll call.
Part One
The book begins with 17-year-old senior Rachel Martin at her after-school waitressing job at Lefty’s, a popular hangout for Shadyside High students that’s close to the school. It’s also home of the $2 double cheeseburger! [Has Lefty’s replaced The Corner? That used to be the popular spot near school!] Rachel’s a high-strung girl who apparently looks like Reese Witherspoon, although when she’s feeling low ‘I think my face looks like an ax blade with eyes.’ [Hahahahahaha] It’s a busy night tonight because the other scheduled waitress, Ellen, called in sick, so Rachel’s all on her own waiting tables and doesn’t have time to go say hi to her best friend, Amy O’Brien, who’s just walked in. Brendan Fear walks in with three friends, and Rachel quickly heads over to give them menus. She’s a little excited because she’s had a crush on Brendan since the eighth grade; he’s pale and serious-looking, with a shy smile you don’t see often and soft, brown eyes. He’s the school brainiac and is super into videogames like World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto, and Rachel’s even heard that he programs his own video games and is working with some guys to develop an online gaming site! [The blurb said Brendan’s popular, but the book’s description doesn’t really match that. He sounds like a nerd, but I’m into it] With Brendan is the classic annoying joker stereotype, Eric Finn; giant-footed, lanky basketballer Kerry Reacher; and doll-like Patti Berger, the nicest girl on Earth. [Patti Berger? As in burger patty? Hahahahaha Stine, plz] Rachel grew up with Patti on account of their mums being best friends, and while they’re not in the same circles at school, they’re always happy to see each other when their families get together. Patti and Kerry are also apparently dating, although they claim to be just good friends. But they’re always holding hands and kissing, so Rachel’s sure the friends thing is some kind of joke.
Rachel scurries over to Brendan’s table and almost trips on Kerry’s giant sneaker, but heroic Brendan helps her regain her balance and makes sure she’s OK. Eric makes about 5079607096 annoying flirty jokes, and we learn that he and Rachel have been teasing each other like this since the first grade. He’s always flirted with her, but he does that with every girl, and no-one ever takes him seriously because he’s never serious. [Rachel has said that she’s not in the same crowd at school with these people but it definitely seems like they’re all friends to some extent, rather than acquaintances] Brendan studies Rachel as he makes conversation, asking if she works here after school every day, which she does, until 10pm. Then another customer taps her on the shoulder to ask the bill, [Wait your turn, bitch!] and Rachel heads off to deal with her, promising to come back for Brendan’s table’s order in a few minutes. As she writes the check for the interrupting customer, Rachel’s trembling with excitement over the way Brendan was gazing at her; was she imagining the meaningful looks? She glances back at his table and notices the foursome are talking intensely; even Eric has a serious expression. What could they be talking about?
Sometime later, Brendan and his friends get up to leave, smiling and nodding at Rachel as they head through the door. Eric kindly offers her a tip, but it’s not the financial kind — ‘”Look both ways before crossing the street.”‘ [Shut up, Eric] Brendan lingers back and pulls Rachel aside, making her loins burn as he continues to intensely stare at her.
Suddenly looking uncomfortable, Brendan asks again if she works here every night, and even though she’d said yes before, she changes her answer to ‘”Not always.”‘ It depends who else can work, and sometimes she’s here on Saturdays too. She’s trying to earn money to help her family, since things have been pretty tight lately. [I always feel bad when teens have to give their money to their parents to help out] Rachel immediately realises she’s given him too much information, but Brendan simply nods and asks her if she’s in his World Government class. She is, and Rachel says that she likes their teacher, Mrs. Rigby, who’s funny. Brendan agrees, commenting that some of the guys think she’s really hot, then gives Rachel his shy grin. He also invites Rachel to his 18th birthday party on Saturday, being held at his family’s huge summer house on Fear Island, in the middle of the lake. [I’ve always been curious to know exactly how big Fear Street, the Fear Street Woods, Fear Lake and Fear Island are. Especially Fear Island, because whenever we’re there it’s made out to be so isolated, and yet it’s got several cabins and now apparently a Fear mansion!] It’ll be an overnight thing, and they’re gonna party all night, with lots of games! There’ll be a boat to pick everyone up at the lake dock at the end of Fear Street at 2pm, and Rachel confirms she’ll be there, thanking him for the invite. Before he leaves, Brendan reaches out to wipe a drop of sweat off the tip of Rachel’s nose, and her jaw drops as she watches him leave the restaurant.
As Rachel heads back to the pickup counter to take the food back to the table, she’s intercepted by best friend Amy, who tells her not to go. Amy’s short and a little chubby, with coppery curls, green cat-like eyes and creamy skin. She’s always wearing red, her trademark colour, and always wears a bright red lipstick called Wildfire, which Amy’s mother says ‘makes her look like a slut.’ [Oop] Amy also can’t keep her opinions to herself; ‘She’s kind of judgmental. But she’s smart, and she’s usually right.’ [Like me! The judgmental and usually right part, at least] The girls have been BFFs since they both got lost in the woods on their sophomore year overnight. Anyway, Amy insists Rachel shouldn’t go to the overnight party, but Rachel tells her she needs to get back to work and they can talk later, so Amy goes back to her burger, waiting for Rachel’s shift to end.
After her shift, Rachel meets Amy outside and they begin the three-block walk to Rachel’s house. Rachel’s exhausted from the long day but excited that she made $100 in tops tonight. She plans to give it to her parents, and we learn a bit more about their struggles; Dad got laid off from his job as a director for a big investment company last year and it took him a long time to find another job. He’s now a shift manager at the Walmart in Waynesbridge. Her poor mum hasn’t been able to recover from a bad case of Lyme disease and has been at home for three months, still feeling weak and exhausted all the time. Rachel also has an older sister, Beth, who’s away at college. The sisters have always been close, and although Beth promised to Skype every night, Rachel hasn’t heard from her in weeks and is really missing her. [So text her? Call her?] Anyway, Rachel asks what Amy’s issue is with her going to Brendan’s party, which Rachel thinks will be awesome:
“Awesome?” She made a snorting sound. “Have you Googled the word geek? You can read about Brendan.”
“I think he’s… hot. Seriously.”
Amy blinked. “Hot? He’s totally weird. He spends all his time playing video games with that big goofball Eric Finn.”
I shook my head. “Amy, you just don’t get it. Like, hello—it’s the twenty-first century. Geeks rule.”
[See? This really doesn’t seem like Brendan’s popular, right? Or maybe Stine’s going against the teen high school clique stereotypes] Amy reveals the real reason she doesn’t want Rachel to go to the party is because Brendan’s a Fear. Amy’s a big believer in all the stories about the Fear family history and their evil powers, and while Rachel acknowledges that everyone in town has heard the rumours, it all happened a long time ago. Brendan’s dad, Oliver Fear, is an investment bank, not an evil sorcerer! He built a huge stone mansion with waterfalls and mansions all around, and people drive for miles to park in front of it and take photos. She thinks Amy’s going overboard with the Fear stuff, but Amy insists she has a very bad feeling about the party. Rachel dismisses her worries, so Amy changes the subject to Mac Garland, wanting to know if Rachel’s broken up with him yet. She hasn’t, but she’s given him hints, like changing her Facebook profile from ‘In a Relationship’ to ‘It’s Complicated’ and not answering his texts or calls. Amy insists she needs to end things with him properly, and Rachel admits that she tried, but Mac got really scary, pounding on the wall and cursing — ‘”I really thought he might hurt me.”‘ [Oh great, so the Shadyside teens are still as abusive as they used to be!]
She’d only started seeing Mac in the first place simply because he’d asked her, and Amy reckons she just enjoyed the idea of hanging with a bad boy. Amy doesn’t blame her, since Rachel dated Johnny Gruen before that, who was sooooooooooo boring. Rachel argues that just because he collects coins doesn’t make him boring, and Amy agrees; ‘”Talking about collecting coins makes him boring.”‘ Amy then asks if she’s really too afraid of Mac to break up with him, and Rachel admits she is, a little bit, because sometimes Mac loses it when he’s angry. Then Rachel suddenly grabs Amy and points into the darkness — ‘”My house. The front door. Amy, something’s very wrong. The front door—it’s wide open.”‘
Her dad is very particular about the door being locked at night so something’s definitely wrong, and fear doesn’t stop Rachel from racing into the house to investigate! Everything seems in order, but she wakes up her ice cream fanatic parents just in case. Dad explains he left the door unlocked in case she wanted to come in that way, even though he’s never done this before because she always comes through the back, and he finds no signs of an intruder as he roams the house. Amy suggests the wind blew it open before heading home, but Dad triple checks the latch on the door, which is fine. It’s a real mystery, but he’s not too concerned and goes back to bed. Rachel’s too tired to shower so plops into bed herself, but feels something furry down by her feet… and screams in horror when she discovers a dead, decaying rat.
She immediately assumes that ex-boyfriend Mac Garland is responsible, given his violent temper. He’d transferred to Shadyside High last year, and Rachel had heard he’d previously been suspended for fighting. But Rachel thought he was a good guy at heart, and had a tender side he didn’t let many people see. Yes, he may have been possessive even though they’d only been dating a few weeks, and yes, he resented the time she spent with Amy and her other friends, but Rachel thought that meant he cared about her! Amy had warned her about him from the start, and she was clearly right because now he’s done something totally psychotic as revenge for being dumped. [Well, you didn’t exactly dump him, you’ve just told everyone but him that you’re no longer a couple]
Alerted by her scream, Mum and Dad rush in and are confused by the dead rat, but Rachel doesn’t want to accuse Mac out loud because she can’t be bothered getting into it and prefers to deal with things on her own. [Me too!] Since no-one wants to think about the fact that someone entered the house and left the rat there, Mum suggests it came from Rachel’s closet, which is apparently a bit of a rat’s nest. Rachel thinks she’s joking, but Mum’s dead serious, pointing out the mountain of dirty clothes in there. Dad promises to call the exterminator tomorrow and heads off to get some gloves so he can dispose of the rat and they can change the sheets, while Rachel internally monologues as if she’s speaking directly to Mac:
Mac, you can frighten me. But you can’t ruin my life. I’m going to Brendan Fear’s birthday party. It’s going to be the greatest all-night party ever. Brendan invited me, and I’m going. You’re history, Mac. I’m just glad I found out what a psycho you are. Really. I’m glad.
[Go and actually say this to him, Rach, so he knows you’ve broken up with him!] It’s Friday night now, the next day, and Rachel arrives at the school gym for the final homecoming basketball game of her school career. She’s supposed to meet Amy here, but Amy had texted her earlier to say she’d be late, so Rachel finds a spot in the bleachers and waits for the game to start. Eric Finn plops down next to her and is his usual annoying, flirty self. He promises to let her hang with him at Brendan’s party if she begs, and Rachel asks what Brendan’s party’s are usually like. Eric tells her that Brendan’s unpredictable and always has surprises in store with his games. [I suddenly have a feeling this is going to be an April Fool’s Day sort of plot, but I hope I’m wrong! Love that movie though] Rachel also wants to know why Brendan invited her, and Eric tells her it’s because he likes her, but it quickly becomes clear he’s just joking around, and Rachel realises she won’t get a straight answer from Eric.
Amy calls to let Rachel know she’s been grounded, and since Rachel isn’t that interested in basketball anyway, she insists on coming over [Will Amy’s parents allow that?] and makes her way to the carpark. We learn that Amy’s parents are always on her case, but she never explains why; she just says her parents are stupid. Rachel knows they fight all the time, but it never seems to be about anything important. As Rachel’s nearing her car, she hears footsteps running up behind her and she’s grabbed from behind. The attacker spins her around and she comes face to face with Mac, who just wants to talk. Rachel had planned to to confront him at school earlier that day, but he didn’t turn up, and had ignored her calls and texts. Without releasing his grip, he insists they need to talk, and says he was out of his mind last night and spent the whole night in his car. He was up the whole time thinking about her, which is why he didn’t come to school today. Rachel finally tells him they’re over, especially after the dead rat, which Mac seems to have no idea about. Rachel accuses him of lying, though, because whenever he lies he gets round pink spots on his cheeks, and they’re definitely there right now.
Mac changes the subject to Brendan Fear and insists Rachel needs to stay away from him and not go to his party. Rachel, while staying cautious so as not to set his temper off, questions how he even knows about her invitation, or private conversations for that matter, and tells him to stop spying on her. He again tells her not to go because he’s ‘”heard thing I shouldn’t”‘, but of course he doesn’t elaborate because then how would we fill the next 220 pages? [Seriously, this is a long one. It’s physically bigger and the font seems to be bigger than the original series though, so maybe it’s not actually that much longer? Note from Future: It definitely felt longer while reading lol!] Rachel barely even questions what he’s heard and just tells him he’s out of control and needs help, then eventually shoves him away. As she climbs into her car, he shakes a fist at her and warns her to stay away from Fear Island and Brendan Fear for her own good, and she quickly speeds off.
We now learn that Rachel rarely has nightmares, and barely ever remembers her dreams because they’re usually so dull. A while ago though, she had her scariest dream ever — ‘Beth and I were shopping at a clothing store and I got lost and couldn’t find her.’ [Wow, so scary! Bet that one kept you up for weeks!] But tonight, the night before Brendan’s party, Rachel has a nightmare about walking through the woods and finding an injured bird. She picks it up to comfort it, but it turns into a rat and bites her arm before vanishing. Then she spots Brendan Fear standing nearby, and he laughs cruelly as his face morphs into a rat’s face, its fangs dripping with blood. Rachel runs away, but he gives chase, laughing the whole time. Eventually Rachel realises the trees are alive as they uproot them selves and close in on her. Brendan reaches her too, but his face is normal again as he pulls her close and whispers, ‘”Be afraid, Rachel.”‘ Rachel wakes up sweaty and shaking, and this overtakes the shopping disappearance as her most terrifying nightmare.
Part Two
It’s Saturday now, and Rachel is dropped off at the dock by her father. It’s a grey day that looks like it’ll rain, but the weather won’t dampen her excitement! She’d changed outfits three times before leaving the house, settling on some really tight black jeans that cost her a week’s salary, her favourite shoes which aren’t described at all, and a camisole under a chic, short tangerine-coloured jacket. [I think I need to see this to decide if it looks good. It sounds very 2010s though] Rachel has never been to Fear Island before, even though it’s a short boat ride, but she knows what to expect because she’s heard people talk about it:
It’s an almost perfectly round island of thick woods, dirt roads, and little summer cabins along its shore. It stands in the middle of Fear Lake, too far out to be seen from the town side of the lake.
[This is pretty much exactly what I’ve always pictured, but based on other books set on the island it’s never actually seemed like this. It definitely doesn’t sound anything like how it’s described in The Overnight, but it makes sense that the island changed over time. Maybe the island has gotten more popular over the years and more people have properties there now!] Rachel boards the double-story catamaran with the assistance of the 20-something-year-old Randy, the boat’s super-cute and very tan pilot. The pair flirt briefly [Rachel seems very confident and sure of herself, which I feel like we don’t often get with our protagonists. Not to this extent, at least. I like it!] before Rachel takes a seat next to Patti Berger [That name fkn kills me hahaha] who’s wearing a short, grey skirt over black jeans, and beneath her open parka is a violet vest over a pale blue T-shirt. [This sounds hideous]
Rachel gazes around at the other guests, first noticing two glum-looking guys in jeans and brown leather jacket that she doesn’t recognise; they’re mumbling to each other, ignoring everyone else. Patti’s friend April Conklin [Any relation to Amanda Conklin?] is here too, a serious cellist whose short and thin with a beautiful smile. She’s super talented but very modest. Then there’s Delia Rodgers, a tough girl with five rings in each ear and two tattoos; she was suspended for a week last year after fighting with a girl from another school during a basketball game. Beautiful, tall and thin Geena Steves is next to her; her dad owns the Chevrolet dealership in Waynesville, [Waynesville? Not Waynesbridge?] and the aspiring actress often features in the commercials. Rachel and Geena were close as kids but drifted apart during middle school, although there’s no bad blood between them. Then there’s Robby Webb, a skinny African-American guy with a friendly smile who has nicknamed himself Spider. As in Spider Webb. [Robby, plz] He only transferred to Shadyside High last year and while he seems like a nice guy, no-one really knows him that well because he keeps to himself.
Rachel tells Patti she thought there’d be more people here, and Patti tells her it’s a small party; ‘”You never can predict Brendan. He’s so weird.”‘ Rachel asks if she really thinks he’s weird, and Patti confesses that she thinks he’s way smarter than most people, but his mind just shoots off in a million directions. Kerry hangs out with him more than Patti does, and he’s said Brendan is obsessed with all the games he plays, like he lived in a game world. [What’s wrong with games? Nothing wrong with having hobbies, Patti!] Patti also mentions not realising Brendan and Rachel are friends, and Rachel admits they’re not and she doesn’t know why she was invited. Patti suggests Brendan may have a thing for her, and then Eric Finn arrives, plopping himself down heavily beside Rachel. As usual, he annoyingly flirts with her, but he wishes Amy was here because Amy is totally hot! Then he jumps to his feet and shouts ‘”Does the orgy start on the boat, or do we have to keep our clothes on till we get to Brendan’s house?”‘ [I never thought I’d see the word ‘orgy’ in a Fear Street book!] which gets a few laughs. Last to arrive is Kerry, and now the boat is off to Fear Island!
The group reminisce about Brendan’s previous parties, including when his parents turned the backyard into an amusement park with a real roller coaster for his 10th birthday, and his beach party two years ago, where Eric remembers April had gone off with Danny Goldman, which makes her blush. April asks about Mac, because she just saw him and thought maybe he was supposed to come to the party with Rachel. Rachel explains she broke up with him and turns toward the shore, spotting Mac standing with one arm around a telephone pole at the road, watching the boat…
Soon, the catamaran is nearing Fear Island, and Rachel spots a few summer cottages boarded up form winter. As the boat rounds a bend, the Fear house comes into view, rising above the trees. Rather than a cottage, this is more like a castle, made of black stone with at least three storeys, tall, dark windows, a slanting red roof with several chimneys, and balconies jutting out towards the trees. [How many damn chimneys do you need?] Eric comes here a lot with Brendan, but he says it’s super boring because there’s no internet or signal for your phone. [That sounds nice, actually] The house itself is dark and depressing too; even when the sun’s out, no light seems to penetrate the windows.
Randy docks the boat and as he helps everyone off, he introduces them to Antonio and Miguel, dressed in black uniforms with nametags, who’ll be looking after them from here on out. Antonio’s a tall, lean young man with a stud in one nostril and black hair pulled into a ponytail, while Miguel is older, short and pudgy, an African-American with lots of white in his hair. The two men start leading the group up a dirt path towards the Fear castle. Rachel stops when she hears a scream, turning around just in time to see Randy fall, one foot caught in the tie rope as he stumbles off the dock, hitting his head on a log piling before dropping into the churning lake.
The group dashes back to the dock, Antonio and Miguel assuring everyone Randy will be OK. They order the teens to get back, and everyone waits for Randy to surface. Instead of Randy, though, a circle of bright red rises up from the dark water, spreading quickly — blood! Everyone starts shouting in terror, and Antonio orders Miguel to take everyone to the house while he starts stripping so he can jump into the lake. Rachel reluctantly follows the group, very nervous about the blood continuing to spread around the dock. [OK, this really makes me thing of April Fool’s Day. Brendan loves games, maybe he’s planning some kind of horror experience for the group that will seem real until right at the end? The only thing making me question my theory is Randy hitting his head, but that may have just been accidental and not part of the plan]
Rachel remembers Amy’s warning about coming to the party. Mac had warned her too, ‘but he was crazy and jealous and out of control’, so that doesn’t mean much to her. Rachel asks Miguel if Randy is OK, if Antonio pulled him out, [Which, like?? How the fuck would he know, you idiot] but the man just tells her it’s under control. Rachel decides to text Amy, but of course there’s no bars. A strange bird cry from overhead reminds her of the bird-rat in her nightmare, [Isn’t there no animals in the Fear Street Woods, though? Maybe Fear Island doesn’t count] so she forces herself to stop thinking about that by thinking about how cute Brendan is instead.
The group finally reaches the castle and are greeted at the door by another black-uniformed servant, Delores, who hands them all a sealed white envelope as they file into the front hall, instructing them ‘”Don’t open it until it’s time.”‘ Time for what, we don’t know. The group follows Delores upstairs where some of the bedrooms have been opened up so they can dump their coats and backpacks and freshen up if needed. Rachel heads into the first bedroom with Geena and April and catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her hair standing out in all directions in big clumps thanks to the wind on the lake. She’s unable to tame it with a hairbrush, so resorts to pulling into a ponytail before noticing April staring blankly at the floral wallpaper. April hesitantly reveals that when she got home from the basketball game, she found a dead squirrel in her bed, squished flat in the middle like it had been run over. Geena had discovered a flattened baby raccoon in her bed after the game as well. Rachel has a very, very, very dramatic reaction as she realises the dead animal in her own bed wasn’t a gift left from Mac; gripping her hairbrush tightly, she tells the girls ‘”Someone was trying to warn us. Someone wanted to scare us really bad.”‘
Before they can discuss any suspects, Delores collects all the guests and leads them downstairs to the ballroom, which has a high cathedral ceiling. The room is lit up with candles in sconces along the walls and in the two chandeliers hanging above them, and three walls hold floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, with a lit fireplace at the back wall. Brendan Fear is standing in the shadows by the long food table, watching everyone’s reactions. He welcomes them all in and assures them that the situation at the dock has been taken care of. The staff have already sent for another pilot for the boat, so no-one needs to stress about being stranded here. Randy’s a little shaken and concussed but is otherwise fine, and apparently only lost a little blood, which doesn’t really track with the amount of blood in the water. But Brendan doesn’t want anyone to worry about that, since they’re all here to party! He explains that this big house is super awesome and was built by his great-great-grandparents ‘”like a million years ago.”‘ [And yet it’s never been mentioned by anyone who’s visited the island before. Interesting…]
To my surprise, the party is stocked with plenty of beer, because Brendan’s 18 today, which is legal in this state — ‘”The rest of you are all eighteen, too—right?”‘ Everyone agrees, including the underaged ones, and Brendan continues on to say that he’s always been intrigued by the stories about his ancestors and wanted to party how they did back in the day, with lots of old-fashioned games. ‘”You mean like the original Grand Theft Auto?”‘ yells out one of the boys Rachel didn’t recognise while on the boat, and Brendan takes the opportunity to introduce him and the other guy as his cousins, Morgan and Kenny Fear — ‘”Morgan is the tall skinny one,”‘ Brendan said. “Kenny is the fat slob.”‘ The cousins then get into a bit of banter about how they don’t like each other, although it’s clear that they get along fine, before Eric interrupts:
“Is this Family Fight Night?” Eric chimed in. “Are we supposed to vote on the Biggest Loser?”
“You win!” Kerry said, slapping Eric on the shoulder.
Lots of laughter rang off the high walls.
[Hahahaha that was a good one, Kerry! Eric is so fkn annoying] Anyway, there’s plenty of times for games, but first Brendan suggests they ‘”chow down and get TRASHED.”‘ Everyone heads over to the food table that’s been set up with a feast that could feed hundreds. There’s only 11 partiers, including Brendan, and Rachel wonders if his family lives like this all the time. There’s a bar next to it, and a black-uniformed bartender hands out glasses of soda and beer to the teens. [Are they the only options? Where’s the vodka?!] Brendan and Rachel have a boring conversation over their beers, and Rachel can’t help but notice the line of foam on Brendan’s upper lip after he takes a sip of his beer; ‘I had this crazy urge to lick it off.’ [Keep it in your panties, Rachel]
Brendan confesses how much he wanted her to come and hopes she has a good time, but his voice trails off when he adds, ‘”Maybe later, you and I…”‘ Instead of asking what he wants to do later, Rachel simply says the party is awesome, and he teasingly asks if she’s scared to be here. She says of course not, and he leans in close and tells her he’s got some things planned. He stays like that for a moment, and Rachel thinks he wants to kiss her, so she starts to lean in. But then cousin Kenny comes up and bumps him from behind, and Brendan turns around to talk to him instead.
Rachel heads to the bathroom, having been given directions by one of the waiters. As she crosses the ballroom to the exit, her fanny flutters as she notices Brendan watching her from the middle of a circle of girls. Heading down the hall, Rachel hears what sounds like Randy’s voice calling for help and sounding super scared. As she moves towards his voice, Antonio and another burly servant step in front of her. She tells them what she heard, but they claim to not have heard anything and promise to look into it before sending her on her way.
After Rachel returns to the ballroom, Brendan cuts the music and gathers everyone around to announce the first game — a scavenger hunt! In teams of two, the teens will spend the next two hours exploring the giant castle and its 40668695560 rooms to find some things that his ancestors had collected over the years. Adding to the spooky atmosphere is the fact that the place is haunted, but not everyone believes Brendan’s story about the time his dad brought a girl to the castle as a teenager and they saw a woman wearing an old-fashioned dress in the attic, glowing in a silvery light. Brendan insists his dad was telling the truth, since Oliver Fear is a very serious man that never cracks jokes or makes up stories.
Brendan then instructs everyone to take out the envelopes they were given at the door, which is the list of things to find; a bird skeleton, a jar of silver bullets, a mummy’s finger, a black flower, a stuffed rabbit, a live tarantula, [Live? That can’t have been collected by the ancestors] raven feathers, and a silver urn filled with ashes. Brendan explains that some of the generators aren’t on, so a lot of the rooms and halls are dark, but that’ll just make it more fun! At the bottom of everyone’s list is the name of their partner, and Rachel almost creams her jeans when she discovers she’ll be partnered with Brendan. Eric thinks that’s unfair since Brendan knows where everything is, but Brendan assures everyone he’s as clueless as they are since the staff hid everything before everyone arrived.
April wants to know if dead squirrels are on the list, [Did you see it on the list, April?], which confuses Brendan, so she explains about the one she found in her bed and questions if it was part of his game. Geena mentions the dead raccoon she’d received, and Patti reveals she’d found on in her bed too! April asks if everyone here got a dead animal in their bed, and we learn that Eric, Spider and Kerry didn’t receive one, while Delia, Kenny and Morgan don’t say anything. Brendan insists he doesn’t know anything about the dead animals and wonders if someone was trying to ruin his party, wanting him to be blamed. Then his eyes go wide and he’s like ‘”It can’t be,”‘ before he tells them the tale of his Great-Aunt Victoria. She was a weird woman who’d inherited the house a long time ago and didn’t like other people, choosing to live here alone for many years. The only thing Victoria enjoyed in life was taxidermy, and she spent all her time stuffing animals. When other family members would come stay for a visit, they’d find dead animals under the sheets of their bed; ‘”It was crazy Victoria’s way of telling them they weren’t welcome.”‘
Eric and some of the others aren’t buying it, sure that Brendan put the roadkill in their beds so they’d be in a scared mood at his scary party, but Brendan insists he’d never do anything like that. Besides, how and when could he have done it, when he was at the Tigers’ game, which Kerry confirms. [OK, but no-one has specified here that they found the roadkill last night, so it’s kind of suss that he’s giving this alibi. Not that anyone’s picking up on it, lol. It’s also weird that Rachel doesn’t mention she got her roadkill a few days before everyone else] Brendan suggests that maybe someone else was trying to stop them from coming to Fear Island, then insists on finishing the story about Victoria Fear. [Because he wants her fresh in their minds when her spirit appears later as part of his game?] He continues on to reveal that one summer in the 1920s, a distant relative named Dennis Fear came to visit Victoria. No-one answered the door, and when he entered anyway he found room after room filled with stuffed, real animals:
“He searched the house for Victoria. And in a bedroom upstairs he found her. She was standing in front of a fireplace, eyes glowing. He called to her, but she didn’t move. Dennis walked over to her and discovered the most horrifying thing he’d ever see in his lifetime.
“Victoria had been stuffed. The job was perfect. She looked totally lifelike. Dennis couldn’t believe it. His eyes moved from her face down. And then he saw the long needle in her hand. And started to scream—because he realized that Victoria Fear had stuffed HERSELF.”‘
[That’s pretty creepy] The teams all head off on the scavenger hunt now, and Brendan decides to investigate the third floor first because it hasn’t been used in years, so there’ll be lots of places to hide things. Instead of using the stairs, though, Brendan leads Rachelto the back of the house where the elevator is, because of course he has an elevator. On the way, Rachel mentions hearing Randy calling for help earlier and being blocked by the two servants in the hall, but Brendan dismisses her concerns and assures her Randy’s fine. In the elevator, Rachel asks why he invited her to the party, and he simply tells her ‘”I saw you hanging with Amy a lot”‘, which doesn’t explain anything because he knows Amy even less than he knows Rachel. Before Rachel can seek more clarification, the elevator jolts to a stop, the lights going out. To her surprise, Brendan kisses her in the darkness before booting the elevator back up; he just wanted to kiss her, and I guess it just wasn’t an option to do it in a moving elevator with the light on. Rachel’s as excited as you’d imagine, and soon they’re on the third floor. The lights don’t work, and there’s a strange flapping sound from down the dark hall, which Rachel assumes is curtains moving in the wind, but I don’t know why she assumes there’s windows open if no-one’s ever up here. [I’m thinking bats!]
The pair enter an unfurnished bedroom that has stacks of cartons against one wall. Brendan finds an ostrich egg, but it’s not on the list, so he sets it down and instructs Rachel to check the closet, then meet him in the next room. The closet’s empty, so Rachel steps out into the hall, calling for Brendan, who doesn’t answer. She peeks into a few nearby rooms, but there’s no sign of him; [Is he trying to scare her? Is this weekend all about scaring specifically her for some reason?] all she can hear is the flapping sound, and now a shrill squeal. Squinting into the dark hallway, she sees tiny red eyes watching her and realises she’s stumbled upon a nest of bats. And here they come swooping towards her!
Rachel drops to the ground and covers her head as the bats fly over her. Then she climbs to her feet and runs down the hall, calling for Brendan, who of course doesn’t answer. At the end of the hall, Rachel’s disappointed to find no stairs leading down, which means she’ll have to go back past the bats to the elevator. Moving slowly and quietly, she reaches the elevator. She presses the button, but the doors don’t open, and it doesn’t sound like the elevator’s coming from another floor. Is it turned off? The bats start up their fluttering and shrill cries again, so she scampers back to the other end of the hall, eventually noticing dim light spilling into the hall from an open doorway. She enters the room, and in the grey light discovers a boy’s body hanging by his neck from a rope attached to a ceiling rafter — Brendan! Beneath him is a sheet of paper with a note; ‘ANYONE FOR A GAME OF HANGMAN?’
It turns out the hanging corpse is actually a mannequin that looks like Brendan, even wearing his clothes, and Brendan suddenly appears, having heard Rachel’s scream. [But you didn’t hear her calling out your name 606097 times? Suss] He seems very unnerved by the mannequin and thinks it’s a threat, so Rachel suggests calling the police. Brendan reminds her their phones don’t work here and the landlines are shut off for the winter, [What? Is that a thing?] and he refuses to let this ruin the party anyway! They consider that maybe it’s just a bad joke but before they can work out who could be responsible, [I reckon Brendan did it himself and then went and hid until Rachel found it] they’re interrupted by several horrified screams.
Rachel and Brendan race down the hall, rounding a corner to eventually come across a group huddled in a doorway, staring into the pale light. Rachel and Brendan push past them into the room and find Patti Berger on the floor, bent in half, eyes closed, her limbs twisted like a ragdoll. A note nearby reads ‘Twister, Anyone?’ [Hahahahaha] Brendan checks for a pulse but is unable to find one, and mouth-to-mouth doesn’t work either, but the poor girl is dead. [Or pretending to be dead, because a murder mystery is the actual game! And the guests are filled in as they’re “murdered”! Like April Fool’s Day!]
Part Three
Kerry bursts into the room and sweeps the corpse up, in denial that she’s deceased, but Brendan insists they need to leave Patti how they found her for when the police come. [Why is no-one questioning whoever Patti’s scavenger partner was?] Rachel leads Kerry back to the ballroom, and on the way he tells her there’s a curse on the whole Fear family, and on this house too. He reminds her of the story of how the Fears had a hunting party here about 100 years ago, but it wasn’t animals being hunted, it was the servants, whose bodies were buried in the woods. Brendan and the others return to the ballroom soon after, and everyone’s upset that there’s a killer in the house and they have no way to contact the police. Brendan tells them about the note he and Rachel had found with the hanging dummy, which just scares everyone even more. Eric suggests they all hop on the boat, but Brendan reminds them that Randy’s out of commission still, and even though a servant has already been sent back to the mainland to find their other boat pilot, they could still be stranded for hours. [I’d still be getting Randy to get on the boat, especially if this is a life or death situation??? Brendan is still super suss, this has to all be an elaborate prank/game. Where even are all the servants?] Spider suggests they figure out how to pilot the boat themselves, but then the lights go out and the room is plunged into terrifying darkness.
Brendan calms everyone down by explaining a generator is probably down, which happens all the time. He leads them all out of the ballroom and down the hall to a cabinet where there should be enough flashlights for everyone, but the cabinet is empty! Delia suggests they head outside where they’ll be able to see, since the sun is still up, but Kenny and Spider think that maybe it’s a trap and that’s exactly what the killer wants. The lights unexpectedly come on again, and Morgan wonders if it really was just a generator failure, but Brendan’s sure there’s a killer toying with them, because why else would the cabinet be empty? Brendan suddenly remembers there’s a security room, and the security cameras at the front and back were turned on this morning before everyone arrived; maybe the cameras will show the group what’s going on here! [Where are all the servants? They’re actual adults who might be able to pilot a boat, why haven’t they tried to track them down? Why has no-one remembered them?]
In the security room, Brendan rewinds the tapes and two men wearing all black, including ski masks, are seen approach the back door, holding hunting rifles. They use the butt of a rifle to smash the door’s window to unlock it, and Rachel actually screams at this because she’s fkn dramatic. Everyone’s even more terrified now and they agree to take their chances with the boat, [Maybe the men did something to the servants, but that doesn’t explain why no-one seems to have remembered there’s a group of adults somewhere in the house?!?!] with Brendan conveniently remembering now that there’s a radio on the boat they can use to call for help. [Very suss, Brendan] The group sneak their way out of the house and down to the dock, only to discover that the catamaran has just left with all the servants on board, [So who’s piloting it? Lol] and they seemingly don’t hear the kids screaming at them to come back.
Geena demands to know why the servants all left, but Brendan claims not to know and he doesn’t understand anything that’s happening. He can’t even work out how the intruders got here in the first place, since there doesn’t seem to be any other boats. [All the summer cottages had their own docks, so the intruders’ boat could be at one of those, assuming they didn’t sneak to the island on the catamaran or something] Eric suggests someone could swim to the mainland, but Brendan rejects this because it would take an hour, [I’m assuming that’s a long time, even for a trained swimmer? I’ve got no idea] maybe even two with the water kicking up the way it is, and it’ll be freezing cold anyway. The group hears a crash coming from the direction of the house and wonder what it was, then decide to head back to the house when it starts raining heavily.
Back in the ballroom, Kenny and Morgan work on rebuilding the fire for some warmth while Brendan disappears to the kitchen to make everyone some hot chocolate. [You think there’s two murderers afoot and you’re going to the kitchen alone????? Suss…] Eric pisses everyone off when he starts banging on about ghosts and how maybe they’re all cursed now just like the Fear family, even accusing Kenny and Morgan of knowing something they’re not telling the rest of them. We then get a little argument that I think really highlights how annoyingly unfunny and pathetic Eric is:
“Why don’t you go swim the lake and get help?” Spider suggested.
“Why don’t you make me?” Eric shot back.
“Stop being a total baby,” Geena said. “We have to be serious.”
“Your face is serious.” Eric said.
I knew what Eric was doing. It was his only way of dealing with tension. Make jokes. Try to be funny.
“Eric, sure hope you’re not the next victim,” Spider said. “We’d miss you. Seriously.”
[Hahahaha get him, Spider. I don’t think Eric has ever been funny in his life, Rachel, don’t defend him. I want him to die next!] Rachel’s shocked by how nasty Spider’s being and soon he and Eric are playing fisticuffs. Kenny breaks it up right before Brendan returns with hot chocolate and a bunch of sweaters for everyone. As Rachel settles down with her steaming cup, she realises someone’s missing — Kerry! He was definitely with them at the dock, but no-one can recall seeing him as they made their way back to the house. Brendan’s sure he wouldn’t have stayed out in the rain, so the group sticks together to investigate inside the house, hoping he’d somehow gotten lost on the way back to the ballroom. [Nobody seems worried that there’s two gunmen supposedly roaming around the house lol]
Starting with the first floor, they head to the back of the house and come to the back door. Brendan thinks there’s no point checking out there because it’s a construction zone, with a shed and boat hangar being built, but Rachel insists they check everywhere. The rain has stopped but the heavy clouds linger, and through the eerie grey light Rachel sees that the ground is covered with long concrete slabs, stacked in neat rows 6-8 feet high. One pile seems to have fallen, and Rachel suspects that was the crash they’d heard earlier. As her eyes move down to the bottom of the pile, she spots a pair of legs poking out from the fallen slabs. It’s Kerry, his torso crushed by the slab, his head and neck visible on the other side. Brendan reads the sheet of paper left on top of the slab out loud: ‘”I Never Was Good At Jenga.”‘ [This can’t have been the crash they heard while at the dock, though. Kerry was definitely at the dock with them. He wasn’t mentioned after they were all screaming and yelling after the boat, but he would have had no reason to sneak off to the back of the house and somehow get crushed. And someone definitely would have seen him because it’s not like it’s a huge group? These dead bodies are probably all dummies]
Everyone’s even more traumatised now and when Rachel asks if Brendan’s OK, she’s surprised when he wraps her in a hug instead of replying. It’s over quickly and turns away, as if embarrassed, before moving over to Eric. There’s a discussion about what to do next, with people suggesting checking to see if there’s any other visitors to the island, or if there’s some kind of boat or canoe anywhere. Brendan is full of excuses as he dismisses everyone’s ideas, though; there’s only 8 houses on the island and a few fishing cottages, so he knows for a fact no-one else is here, and no-one leaves their boats or canoes out in the winter, and they’d need tools to break into a garage or shed. To me, it really doesn’t seem like Brendan is in a hurry to get off this island, [Literally any of those options are worth a shot if there’s even a small chance it would save them… Brendan’s being dismissive because it’s all a big murder mystery party game!] and Kenny thinks the same thing.
Brendan insists they all need to sitck together, since Patti and Kerry were murdered when they went off on their own, but that doesn’t stop our idiot heroine from heading back inside for a drink of water by herself. [Like, are you genuinely stupid, Rachel? Do you want to be killed?] She’s just so panicked by all the stress and tension and her throat is soooOo0O00O0o parched! [OK? So ask someone, or the whole group, to come with you?] Instead of going to the kitchen, where there’s sure to be a water tap, she makes her way towards the ballroom, but freezes when she notices some light escaping from a room up ahead. The door is almost closed, and she senses that someone’s inside. She pushes the door open a bit more to what appears to be some kind of library or study. [What the fuck is wrong with this girl? She’s so scared and panicked about the danger they’re all in but is actively putting herself at the most risk of being next to die? Obviously she won’t, but she doesn’t know that!]
The idiot ends up slipping and pushing the door all the way open, stumbing further into the room. There’s a woman behind a long table, standing in a grey mist as if the room is filled with fog. The woman doesn’t seem to notice the clumsy ox barge into the room, too busy working on something, her head down. Her skin and clothes are completely grey, and Rachel notices dead animal parts scattered all over the table. Unable to stop herself, she moves toward the woman [?????] as the fog seems to lift, and Rachel notices what the woman is working on:
One side of her blouse was raised. And I could see a long, narrow opening in her skin under her ribs. She had a black needline in her hand—and she was stitching the opening in in her body, sewing the skin together.
Victoria Fear?
The ghost of Victoria Fear?
I didn’t want to believe it. But there she was. I was watching her sew herself together.
[Seeing Victoria’s “ghost” hours after learning of the story is a bit too coincidental for me, and continues to point towards a setup. I know I sound like a broken record but it’s just so obvious none of this is real lol] Terrified, Rachel flees the room and finds her way to the back door again, where the others are just coming into the house. She tells them about the ghost but no-one believes her, so Brendan leads them back to the library where everyone is shocked… to find no ghost there! [Ghosts do tend to appear and disappear at will, so I don’t know why they’re all surprised] Rachel knows they all think she’s crazy, so she does exactly what a sane person would do in this situtation; shouts ‘”I’m not crazy!” and flees the room, runs down the hall, turns a corner and continues down another long hall. [I wish she’d die so this book can end] She ignores Brendan’s shouts to come back and doesn’t stop running until she spots someone run across the hall ahead of her. And she recognises this person’s dark-blonde hair and giraffe-like gait — Mac Garland! She tries to follow him, calling his name, but there’s no answer and no sign of him. As she stops to catch her breath and get her bearings, she hears rapid footsteps from behind her and turns around to see a man in a black mask running towards her, hands outstretched!
Except it’s not a masked man at all, but Brendan, his face covered by the dark shadows of the hallway. He gently scolds her for running off and reminds her it’s safer to stay with the group, and she admits she’s frightened and throws her arms around him. He returns the hugs and they kiss before he finally pulls back and tells her, ‘”You’ll be safe, Rachel. You’ll be safe from them.”‘ She asks how he knows, but instead of answering he kisses her again, and she melts into his lips. [He knows how to avoid a question!] But then they break apart when they hear screams of horror echoing down the hall, and Rachel dreads being confronted with another murder.
Rachel and Brendan trace the screams to a den near the front of the house, where the other teens are gathered around a ladder: ‘Eric Finn was draped upside down over the ladder. His head was bright purple, down near the floor. His arms drooped limply at his sides. His shoes were jammed between the two top rungs.’ [He’s upside down, but his arms are at his sides? Wouldn’t they be drooping above his head, since he’s upside down?] This time, the note reads, ‘Chutes and Ladders Isn’t Always a Baby Game.’ [In Australia, we call it Snakes and Ladders. I just looked up why here, and there’s a lot more history to the game than I would haver thought!] Rachel thinks he may still be alive when she sees his fingers twitch, [See? It’s all an elaborate game, and Eric is ruining it like he ruins everything] so Brendan grabs his hand, but reports that Eric is ice cold, which he notes is strange since Eric can’t have been dead that long. Rachel is devastated by Eric’s death, [Why? He was so annoying] and once again just absolutely has to get away, [JUST STICK WITH THE FUCKING GROUP RACHEL, FOR GOD’S SAKE] so slowly backs out into the hall, where she’s grabbed from behind. Strong hands pull her deeper into the hall as a hand clamps over her mouth, silencing her screams. As she attempts to squirm out of the attacker’s grasp, she realises she’s the next victim. [I sure hope so!]
Rachel manages to break free and spins around to confront… Mac Garland! She’s not too surprised considering she thought she glimpsed him earlier, and he tells her he’ll explain later, but they need to hurry and get out of here. Rachel demands to know what he’s talking about, but instead of saving time and explaining everything, he wastes time by telling her there’s no time to explain now, they just need to leave; he’s got a canoe and he can get her out of here. Rachel refuses and Mac ends up fleeing down the hall after something over her shoulder frightens him off. When Rachel turns around, there’s nothing there, so she makes her way back to the den where Brendan and the others are. Eric’s body is now on the couch, and Brendan leads everyone to a new room down the hall, which has a blue curtain stretched along the back wall. As everyone takes a seat, Brendan moves to the curtain, explaining that this is the theatre room, where the kids in his family used to put on plays for their older relatives and have talent shows — ‘”A lot of good times in this room. But… I guess I could say this is the final curtain.”’ [Brendan, shut the fuck up and get your game over with so I can read something else]
Brendan pulls a rope and the curtains part in the middle, slowly sliding open to reveal the corpses of Eric, Kerry and Patti piled on top of each other, terrifying the guests. Rachel wonders who could have gathered the bodies like this, [The real question is how did Eric get here when we just saw him in the den as the group was leaving? Is there a secret passage or something?] and to everyone’s horror, the pile of bodies starts to move! Because they’re all alive! It was all part of Brendan’s new party game called Total Panic!
Brendan had planned everything and with the help of Eric and Kerry, he’d even planted the dead animals in the guests’ beds to scare them before the party. Randy’s accident, the lights going off, the missing flashlights, the masked men breaking in and the servants leaving were all part of the plan. Everyone’s angry at being used like this, and Rachel realises this is what Brendan and his friends must have been planning that night at Lefty’s. Was Brendan just pretending to like her as a game, too? Brendan calls in Randy, as well as his cousin Karen Fear, who’d been acting as Victoria’s ghost; Brendan explains that everyone was supposed to see her, but Rachel had into the room alone prematurely. Rachel isn’t very happy with Brendan, but before she can scold him, two men wearing all black, including ski masks, and khaki hunting jackets stroll in with hunting rifles and announce that the party’s over. [Are these the guys from the video? The ones who were in on it? Is this still a prank?]
One of the men is tall with bright blue eyes, so Rachel assigns him the nickname Blue Eyes, while the other is short and pudgy, [Could the short one be Miguel? I don’t know who the tall one could be. It’s not Antonio, because he had dark eyes] and Rachel doesn’t give him a nickname yet. Brendan approaches them, explaining the game’s over, but it quickly becomes clear these aren’t the actors he hired when Blue Eyes slams the butt of the rifle into Brendan’s stomach, making him double over and vomit. Then he viciously backhands Karen and asks if anyone else thinks this is a game. Blue Eyes tells Brendan they want him but will deal with the guests first, and Rachel has a feeling she’s seen him before, but can’t quite place it. [It’s not Mac, is it?] The pudgy one orders everyone excent Brendan into the hall, and Eric complains that Brendan said the game would end when everyone was revealed to be alive. Blue Eyes points his rifle at Eric and asks, ‘”You still think this is a game, Fat Boy?”‘ [Hahahahahahaha poor Eric] The pudgy one assures them they’ll all be fine if they keep their mouths shut and don’t try to escape.
The gunmen herd everyone down the hall and lock them in the basement, excluding Rachel who they force back into the other room with Brendan. [Who stupidly didn’t try to run or hide while he wasn’t being guarded… But then I guess maybe the gunmen would have started killing people, maybe. But still, I would have hidden until they threatened to off the others] Brendan asks what they want, and Blue Eyes can’t believe ‘”Mr. Big Shot Rick Man Fear”‘ hasn’t figured it out yet; this is a kidnapping!
Part Four
Blue Eyes explains that they just want Oliver Fear’s kid, so it’s too bad that Rachel got involved. [What? You’re the one involving her. She tried to go to the basement with the others] Brendan again demands to know what this is all about, and to the annoyance of who Rachel is now referring to as Chubby Guy, Blue Eyes is happy to explain. It turns out Blue Eyes had been fired by Oliver Fear for ‘accounting irregularities’, which makes it seem like he’d been stealing, but Blue Eyes insists he’d just made a few mistakes. It was no reason to ruin his life, and without warning he slams the rifle butt into Brendan’s midsection again, and Brendan thinks he’s broken some ribs. The gunmen don’t care and continue on to explain they’ll be keeping everyone here until Oliver Fear forks over $1 million. It seems like the men have already told Brendan’s dad the teens are being held hostage, although they refuse to confirm it. [This seems like a really dumb plan… How are the gunmen planning to monitor anyone else coming to the island? If Oliver knows Brendan’s been kidnapped, couldn’t the police just swarm in easily without being detected?]
As Rachel and Brendan are being tied to chairs, somebody comes bursting into the room — Mac! Rachel shouts at him to get away and go get help, but Mac ignores her and tells the gunmen they need to give it up because this is crazy. [Oh, so he was in on the plan originally? Also, what happened to the actors originally posing as gunmen? Did they leave with the servants?] The gunmen tell him to go away, but Mac refuses to leave until they drop the whole thing, and eventually lunges for Blue Eyes’ gun. They struggle over the weapon until, unsurprisingly, it goes off, and Mac collapses to the floor, unmoving, which makes Blue Eyes drops the rifle.
While the gunmen huddle over Mac’s body and whisper to themselves, Brendan and Rachel, who weren’t successfully restrained due to the interruption, take the opportunity to flee, with Rachel scooping up the rifle on the way. They run down the hall before Rachel suggests they hide inside rather than run into the woods where the men will surely find them. Brendan agrees, and then instead of taking the stairs, where they can most likely hide the sound of their footsteps, the two idiots take the loud elevator up to the third floor. [Like, really?] As it starts to ascend, they hear a man’s cry from down the hall and Rachel wonders if they were spotted. On the third floor, Brendan suggests they hide in the room they found earlier with all the boxes, but Rachel wants to watch the elevator first to determine if they were spotted. They listen tensely as the elevator makes its way back down to the ground floor, and then begins to climb again. [Seriously, why the fuck would they take the elevator in the first place? Even if they weren’t spotted, the gunmen would have heard it!!!! If I was in Rachel’s or Brendan’s shoes, which I wouldn’t be because I’m not a fkn idiot, I’d take the stairs back down to the first floor and hide down there. Or I’d wait until the elevator door opens up here and shoot the rifle at them in self defence]
Rachel and Brendan end up climbing out a window and down tree to escape into the woods. It’s dark now, and Brendan wants to go to the dock, hoping that the gunmen left the boat they must have arrived on there. As they tramp through the woods, they hear the gunmen’s voices and quickly start running. Because she’s determined to be the stupidest protagonist we’ve ever had on this blog, Rachel ends up stopping to catch her breath without notifying Brendan, who’s in front of her. And then she’s surprised when she can’t find him, and calls out for him several times, even though this could alert the gunmen to her location. [I need this book over with, it’s taking so fkn long and I’m sick of this bitch]
She continues on through the woods but doesn’t make it very far before she hears voices followed by a gunshot. Knowing the gunmen are nearby, she stays silent, and soon hears footsteps to her left. Then she hears Blue Eyes’ voice; ‘”We got the boy,” he said. “Now let’s get the girl.”‘ Now that the kidnapping plot seems to be out the window, Rachel’s even more terrified, sure she’ll also be killed. [I should be so lucky] She waits for the gunmen to pass before taking off in the opposite direction, eventually falling into a pit of human bones. [Was Kerry’s story about the Fear ancestors hunting down and burying their servants all those years ago? Or was this pit part of Brendan’s game and was supposed to be discovered earlier?] They seem real, because the pit stinks and the bones are covered in mud and insects, and Rachel manages to pile the bones together to climb out of the top of the pit. She finally finds her way to the dock, expecting to find Mac’s canoe, or the gunmen’s boat, but unfortunately the water is empty.
Then there’s footsteps approaching fast, but instead of feeling back into the woods in another direction, she decides her best chance of survival is to go into the freezing cold water, which definitely slows her down, to hide behind one of the log pilings that holds up the dock. [I’ve said it 40560679067 times at this point, but she really is fucking stupid. Not only does entering the water create noise from the splashing, but it’d be a lot harder to avoid a bullet since she can’t move as fast. Plus they could easily come in after her and drown her instead?] As she wonders if she’s been spotted, she hears someone call her name and pokes her head out from behind the pilings. [SHE KNOWS THE GUNMEN KNOW HER NAME WHAT IS SHE DOING!?!?] Luckily for her, it’s Mac, who faked being shot so she and Brendan could make a run for it; [Or make it seem like he’s not part of the kidnapping plan…] the bullet didn’t come anywhere close to hitting him. Pulling the idiot from the water, he explains that when the men followed Rachel and Brendan, he took off as well.
He insist they have to hurry to his canoe, which he’d hidden away from the dock. Rachel follows him, but starts to question his sense of direction when it becomes clear they’re heading back into the woods. He insists the canoe is just around the next bend, but the only thing around the next bend is a clearing, where the two gunmen stand with Brendan, waiting for Rachel and Mac because this is a trap!
Rachel demands to know why Mac’s betrayed her, and he apologises, but he couldn’t go against his father. Yep, Blue Eyes is Mac’s dad, Dwight Garland, who now pulls off his ski mask. He’d never been a friendly man, but now Rachel can see another level of anger in his face. She also realises that this is why Mac didn’t want her coming to the island. Mac insists he really had tried to stop his father when he made a grab for the gun, but once he’d realised Rachel had recognised his father, [She didn’t, but it probably would have come to her eventually] his loyalties had to shift.
The pudgy gunman points out that they’ll need to kill Rachel and Brendan now that they know who Dwight is, but Dwight hasn’t decided what they’ll do yet. Mac is against killing them because Dwight isn’t a murderer, but Dwight yells at him for getting involved in the first place when he was told to stay away from the island. Brendan offers to forget this ever happened and to get the money for him if they let them go, but nobody’s buying that. Dwight tells Mac to get in his canoe and go home, not wanting him here if something bad happens, but before he can leave, Rachel angrily shoves him, sending him stumbling back into his father and Chubby Guy. She screams at Brendan to run before fleeing into the woods herself, but when she turns around she realises Brendan hasn’t follows her. Dwight has, though, so she runs further away and hides behind a tree. He continues searching, trying to lure her out with promises that he won’t hurt her, and considering how dumb she is I’m very surprised Rachel doesn’t fall for it. When he eventually stalks away from her hiding spot, she makes her way to the nearby shoreline and is relieved to see Mac’s canoe perched on the shore. She’s a few feet away from it when Dwight orders her to stop, and she turns to find him, rifle raised. She calls his bluff [The intelligence didn’t last long] and continues for the canoe, and the gun goes off twice before Rachel collapses to the ground.
Unluckily for me, she’s just being a dramatic idiot and he’d only shot holes in the canoe so it wouldn’t be able to float. He then forces her back up to the house, but on the way she gets brave and catches him by surprise when she makes a grab for his rifle, successfully snatching it from him. Now the tables have turned, she tells him not to move, bluffing that she knows how to use the gun. He’s not buying it and moves towards her, so she fires the gun:
The gun exploded against me, a powerful jolt that made me stagger back. Garland made a rough choking noise and reached for his throat. Bright blood spurted over his hand.
I fired again and watched a dark stain spread quickly over the chest of his shirt.
He groaned and slumped to his knees. Blood gushed like a fountain from his neck and chest. His body twitched crazily, and then he went still. He toppled onto his back and lay in a puddle of dark blood. His blue eyes stared glassily up at the brightening sky. He didn’t move.
“Yes!” I pumped my fist in the air. “Yes! One down and one to go. Now I’ll kill his buddy. Why not? No one will blame me.”
[Just hurry up, Rachel, I’m over this book] Except that was just in her imagination, [FOR FUCK’S SAKE, STINE]and she never grabbed the gun and shot him because instead of ending this already-way-too-long book, Stine’s decided to punish us all by drawing it out with as much filler as possible. [Seriously, did he have a page quota to fill or something, since teen books tend to be longer now than they were back in the ’80s and ’90s? Or did he inexplicably love this story so much he didn’t want to stop writing it?] Dwight, who’s been muttering and cursing crazily to himself for a while, starts rambling on about how Mac messed up the whole plan and should never have been here, and had told Dwight that Rachel had recognised him through the ski mask. Rachel blurts out that Mac had warned her not to come to the island last week, but didn’t say why. This angers Dwight even more, and he tells her to shut up because now he has to think and figure this all out. So Rachel walks on in silence while the deranged man continues to mutter to himself.
Soon, Rachel’s tied to a chair in the ballroom next to Brendan. Mac’s nearby, his eyes down, while Chubby guy and Dwight try to agree on what to do. Since the whole plan’s gone wrong and Dwight’s been recognised, Chubby Guy wants to either cut their losses and abandon the whole plot, or kill Rachel and Brendan. Brendan once again insists they won’t tell anyone, and his father will pay the money and help them get away, but again he isn’t believed. Chubby Guy insists on killing Brendan, who’s very confrontational and actually insults the man because he knows they need him alive in order to get a payout. [Not really, Oliver Fear just needs to think he’s alive] Chubby guy prepares to slit his throat with a switchblade from his pocket, but is stopped by Dwight, who accidentally reveals that Chubby Guy’s name is Sal. Since his cover’s also been blown now, Sal rips his mask off, revealing red curly hair and a crooked beak of a nose. Dwight insists they need Brendan alive, so Sal points out that they don’t need Rachel, and quickly presses the knife to her throat while Dwight protests. Sal ignores him and swings the blade down…
..to cut off Rachel’s ponytail. [I am losing my mind I just want this book OVER WITH] Sal is fed up with Dwight and wants to take control of the whole situation, and soon the two men are wrestling for Dwight’s rifle while Mac screams at them to stop and Rachel and Brendan watch helplessly. Then, suddenly two young cops burst into the room and order them to to drop the weapon. Sal and Dwight do as they’re told while Mac unties Brendan and Rachel, who explain the men were kidnapping them. Brendan instructs the cops to take Mac, Dwight and Sal to the police station in their boat and alert Oliver Fear to send a boat to rescue everyone else, and the cops lead the trio away after handcuffing the two men.
Brendan then reveals that they weren’t real cops; they were hired actors for the Total Panic game who were supposed to arrive a lot earlier to arrest everyone for the “murders”, but must have been delayed by the storm. Luckily they were smart enough to continue the ruse after realising everyone really was in danger. As Rachel and Brendan head to the basement to free the others, he mentions the major problem he has now — ‘”What am I going to do for my birthday next year?”‘ [Don’t know, don’t care, Brendan]
It’s a week later now, and Rachel’s on shift at Lefty’s. She’s spent the past week pretending everything is back to normal, but that hasn’t stopped the vivid nightmares about being chased by a killer, or jumping at every shadow. She and Brendan had spent hours at the police station explaining everything that happened, and Dwight and Sal were charged with kidnapping and assault, while Mac’s fate is still TBA; he’s being charged as an accessory to his father’s crime, but it hasn’t been decided if he’ll face juvenile or adult court.
Amy stops by the restaurant and we learn she’s been really great since the party; she’d been so understanding when Rachel told her about it and never once said “I told you so.” The restaurant is quiet, so Rachel stops her work to talk to her, and Amy reveals the charges against Mac have been dropped! The police have decided he wasn’t an accessory to the crimes after all, since he’d been trying to stop his father. [OK, but what about when he handled Rachel over to Dwight?? Lol] Rachel seems happy for Dwight, but doesn’t know what to say when Amy explains he won’t be coming back to school because he and his mother are moving away.
Amy then asks about things with Brendan, and Rachel informs her they’ve gotten close thanks to their shared trauma. He’s super sorry about the party game, but Rachel’s learned from Eric that he’s working on a scary new game for his next party! [I don’t think your friends are gonna fall for the same sort of thing twice, Brendan] Amy soon leaves, and then Rachel’s sister Beth walks in! Rachel would think about Beth pretty often throughout the book, but I didn’t bother to mention it because it didn’t seem like it’d get a payoff and I assumed it was just more filler. [It kind of is, since the book is still being dragged out for no reason lol] Beth explains that their mother had called to tell her everything, so she’d come down to see Rachel even though Mum said she didn’t need to. Beth apologises for not keeping in touch, but freshman year at college is a lot more hectic than she thought it would be. She’s only here for the weekend, but promises they’ll spend it exactly the same way they used to, trying on things they won’t buy at the mall and having a movie night.
Rachel has so much fun that weekend with Beth that she doesn’t get a chance to unpack her bag until after she goes back to college. [What? You’d been home a week before Beth even got here, so that’s not an excuse] That’s when she discovers her tangerine jacket is missing! She realises she must have left it on Fear Island, and since it was a treasured gift from her aunt, she really wants it back. [It took you two weeks to notice it was missing, babe, you can’t have treasured it that much] She phones Brendan, who confirms no-one had mentioned finding it, so they arrange to visit the island the following Saturday afternoon. While Brendan checks something in the garage, Rachel explores the ballroom and the upstairs bedroom where she’d left her bag initially, but doesn’t have any luck. Stepping out into the hall, she hears a sound and calls out to see if it’s Brendan. There’s no answer, and she notices some light slanting out from a bedroom doorway further down the hall, and hears more noises. Unsurprisingly, she investigates further, and finds a long table at the far end of the bedroom covered with animal parts. There’s a woman standing behind the table, her back to Rachel, so she can only see her long, scraggly white hair flowing down Rachel’s tangerine jacket that she’s wearing. Rachel calls out to the woman, who very slowly turns around, revealing a grinning skull instead of a face. The ghoul picks up a small knife and plunges it into the belly of a fat squirrel.
Rachel screams, which brings Brendan upstairs. She spins around as he bursts through the doorway, but of course when she turns back to point out the ghost, it’s not there. No dead animals, either, but the tangerine jacket is balled up on one corner of the table. Rachel stammers that the house really is haunted, and the book FINALLY ends as Brendan laughs, ‘”You don’t believe those crazy stories—do you?”‘
Final thoughts
Thank fucking god that is over. I really wanted to love this because I’ve always wanted to be in a horror movie situation, but unfortunately it went straight downhill as soon as the murder mystery’s big twist was revealed. I think the book would have been a lot more enjoyable if the whole third act and Mac, Beth and the gunmen were removed entirely. Ending when Patti, Eric and Kerry were revealed to be alive would have been a much better choice. For one thing, it would have been 90 pages shorter, which was desperately needed because so much of the story felt like filler anyway, and the whole thing just felt really drawn out. Ending it there would also have made it feel more akin to the original series, where the twist is revealed right at the end, and we get one or two chapters wrapping the story up. Short and sweet! Rachel wouldn’t have become as unbearable as a protagonist, either, which probably isn’t saying much because I was getting fed up with her already while the murders were happening.
If Stine absolutely had to make this book so long, a better idea would have been to have the guests actually getting killed after the big reveal. Some actual deaths would have made up for the predictability and satisfied my bloodlust for sure.
It was also really weird how no-one thought about getting the servants, the only adults on the island, for help. And none of them seemed at all worried about roaming through the house while two gunmen were on the loose. Like?? People wouldn’t act this way in this situation.
I think Party Games had a lot of potential at the start, and I wanted to like it, but it was just such a slog to get through because Rachel was an idiot and it was way too long. I only looked forward to picking it up so I could get it over with and go back to the Fear Street Seniors as soon as possible!
There’s really not much else I can say about this one, so 21 dumb decisions made by our protagonist out of 257!
