Tagline: First their parents disappeared. Then the real terror began…
Back tagline: “Please help…Our parents are missing!”
Summary: What would you do if your parents didn’t come home, didn’t call, left no note? At first, Mark and Cara Burroughs aren’t terribly alarmed. Their parents have stayed out late before. But then other things start to go wrong. Mark’s girlfriend Gena breaks up with him and suddenly disappears. The police don’t seem at all interested in finding Mark and Cara’s parents. And their mysterious cousin who boards with them seems to be spying on their every move!
When murder strikes, Mark and Cara learn their terror is only beginning. Someone wants them to disappear too! But why? The answer lies deep in the Fear Street Woods. But will they live long enough to find it?
First impressions: The cover is super lacking in excitement compared to the back of the book. And the fact that the back of the book mentions that Mark and Cara weren’t “terribly alarmed” when their parents didn’t come home…as if that’s normal? But I mean, their parents do seem pretty cool. And the fact that apparently they pull adult all-nighters on the regular makes me a little jealous that I’m in my thirties and can’t stay awake past 10pm. Anywho, I was definitely intrigued by the back of this book and it ended up going nowhere in the direction I anticipated [Jack: Cara’s pose kills me hahaha].
Recap
The story begins with the parents already missing. Mark and Cara are having a party [There’s always a party] and apparently this isn’t the first time the parents haven’t come home [Are the parents just out having adult sleepovers with friends? The kids definitely describe their parents as cool, so that’s a possibility].
Characters in attendance at said party:
Lisa and Cory – First seen in The New Girl! Still dating. Cory is still obnoxious, imo.
Mark and Cara – Duh, it’s their house. Mark and Cara are brother and sister and somewhat new to Shadyside. Mark is charismatic and athletic, he’s an archer. He lets off steam by shooting arrows, apparently.
Gena – Mark’s girlfriend. Mark’s parents don’t like her and tell Mark to be careful. But he’s obsessed and says Gena is H-O-T.
David and Shannon – Other recurring Fear Street characters who are in attendance of this party but never make another real appearance in the book.
Not at the party:
Mark and Cara’s parents – Missing, obvi. They work on computers and move the kids a lot for their job.
Captain Farraday – A cop who dresses bad.
Roger – Mark and Cara’s Distant cousin who is just plain odd.
Marcus – CEO of the company the parents are contractors for.
Gena’s dad – …Gena’s dad.
*Back to the party*
Mark and Gena are making out on the beanbag chair. Cory had fake vomit to prank Cara. Just typical party stuff, apparently? The kids are a little suspicious of their parents not being home yet with no call, and soon a guy named Captain Farraday stops by and asks for the parents, explaining he’s investigating a burglary in the neighborhood. Cara notices that he isn’t wearing a uniform but instead, wrinkled Chino pants [What cop walks around in wrinkly pants?] and then he just leaves in an ‘unmarked police car.’ [SUSS!]
The kids hear noises upstairs, but realise it’s just Roger. “We forgot Roger was here,” they say [Odd?]. He’s a distant cousin who lives with them while attending college, and they think he’s weird [I kind of do, too]. Then Mark and Cars try to call their parents but the phone line is dead [Creep factor right off the bat]. They go to the parents room to look for clues as to why they aren’t home, and Mark flips because he looks over and sees two tennis shoes under the curtain [Seriously, what is happening? *face palm*].
So it switches to Cara’s view now [Side note: Mark and Cara switch POV throughout the book and every chapter ends with a cliffhanger (Not that that is shocking because it’s a Fear Street book, but still…)] and we find out that the feet are Roger’s. Apparently, Roger went up to investigate their parents’ absence, but claims he heard something outside and went to look. He didn’t hear them come in because ‘”I…uh…guess those curtains are heavy. They keep out the sound.”‘ [Jack: Good save] He’s also holding a small black box he says is his Walkman, but Cara notices he has no headphones. After he leaves, Mark and Cara find a white ivory monkey head with rhinestones for eyes [Perhaps there is something more menacing they could have found rather than an ivory monkey head? But I’m down for the voodoo island vibes either way. Real ‘Scooby Doo’ vibes, like that movie they made that had Sugar Ray in it] [Jack: Great movie!], but they brush it off and just go to bed.
Mark can’t sleep that night, and notices someone running across the yard through the window – it’s Roger, who hops into a don’t-take-candy-from-this-van type of van that Mark had noticed parked there three hours earlier. Mark also notices that the ivory monkey head has somehow made it’s way into his room, and is now sitting on his bedside table… The next morning Mark and Cara search Roger’s room for clues. They both think he’s a little odd and something’s gotta be up with him, and are surprised that his room is so bare and bland, considering he’s a college student:
“We’re not going to find anything interesting. There’s nothing here at all. It’s as if Roger doesn’t have a life.”
Cara’s determined, though, and ends up finding a loaded pistol in one of Roger’s drawers! They head to a neighbor’s to phone their parents at work, because surely they’re at work, right? Wrong! No answer, no message machine, nothing.
So Mark and Cara decide to Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys it and head off to visit their parents’ work to see what they can find out. On the way, though, Mark sees the same weird van from last night. He has balls and just confronts the guy, asking if he’s waiting for Roger, but the man claims to have no clue who he’s talking about. Anyway, when Mark and Cara arrive at Cranford Industries [This place has high security type shit], they’re told that no-one with their parents’ names work there. They end up sitting with the CEO [As if?], Mr. Marcus [Remember this name!], and insist their parents were hired to install some computers, but he informs them they aren’t having any computers installed – “There’s no one named Burroughs working here. There never has been.” [So the kids are pissed, obvi. Why did their parents lie? Their first instinct isn’t to be concerned that their parents are missing, though; they’re just mad that their parents are involved in something and didn’t tell them about it, which I find funny – what could they be involved in? Why lie about their jobs?]
The kids head to school to use the payphones there and call Roger for some more information before they go to the police. The phone line at home is now fixed and Roger answers because the parents still aren’t home, but he has to run so can’t give them any information. Gena is nowhere to be found at school, so Mark calls her as soon as he’s home. She ends up tearfully breaking up with him and because he’s so obsessed with her, he’s very heartbroken and can’t stop thinking about it afterwards, especially because she didn’t seem like herself on the phone.
Cara calls Captain Farraday to tell him their parents still haven’t returned, and he promises to investigate while reassuring her that the police would know by now if something bad had happened to them. Before hanging up, Cara hears a click and realises Roger was eavesdropping on the call from the attic’s extension! They go up to confront him, but Roger is able to turn the tables with some expert gaslighting before insisting they need to stick together.
After another phone call from Gena later where she seems to be struggling with someone in the background, Mark cuts through the Fear street Woods to get to her place and this little adventure is probably the most hilarious thing ever. He’s heard stories of monsters in these woods, so he’s already spooked when he begins hearing noises… and then a dog starts chasing him! Mark falls into a hole in the ground, and now he’s fighting the dog inside the hole [A 16-year-old kid is fist fighting a dog].
I tried scrambling up the side of the hole, but fell back, landing on the dog’s back. He roared out his unhappiness and tried to struggle out from under me, but I grabbed his head under the chin and started to pull up.
Mark goes into some Hulk-type mode and apparently has some insane strength, because he manages to break the dog’s neck, also noticing it has a familiar white monkey on its collar [!?]. There’s also a broken chain attached to the collar, and when Mark escapes the pit, he spots a stake nearby, with the rest of the chain attached. Mark now realises the dog was trained to sneak up on people and attack quietly – ‘Someone wanted to keep people away from this part of the woods.’
He finally makes it to Gena’s yard and climbs through her bedroom window, cutting his hand on a rose thorn in the process. Gena isn’t there, though, and the fresh vacuum lines on the carpet indicate she hasn’t been there recently [Ahhh those fresh lines! My 30-year-old self is appreciative of that]. He steals a sock to wrap around his heavily bleeding hand and also finds an identical white monkey head on the floor. Then Gena’s dad suddenly bursts through the door with a gun, but he immediately shifts and is so friendly. He’s all like “Omg, I could have shot you, your hand is bleeding, let me help you, blah blah” and reveals Gena was so upset that she went upstate to visit her cousin [Side note: Gena has Dennis Quaid posters all over her door, which like, meh. But Dennis’ son Jack in the new ‘Scream’ movie? Yum].
Meanwhile, Cara’s been tailing Roger and tracks him all the way to a coffee shop, where he sits in a booth with the guy from the creep van. Roger def sees her spying and confronts her, explaining he’s just meeting with his advisor from college or whatever, but she’s not buying it. She gets outta there and on the way home, a car is definitely following her…. It’s Captain Farraday! [Hmm… sketch] He gives her a ride home and presses for any more information she can give him and she’s like, “Okay, I trust you, let me tell you all about the people I suspect could be the bad guys,” and he’s all, “You’ve got my card, call me if anything happens.” [Um, he’s a cop, I feel like he could do more than just give her a business card]
There’s still no parents on the next day [And the phone is also dead again], and that night, Cara suddenly remembers Wally, a supposed co-worker of their parents. They find his address and head on over, and Wally confirms that their parents do work for Cranford Industries, showing them a directory of the employees when they pretend they need to call them at work. So now Mark and Cara have proof that the CEO guy was lying about their parents working there!
Arriving home, Mark and Cara notice that some of the upstairs lights are on, so they head up to talk to Roger, but are met with a grisly sight in his bedroom:
And there was Roger, slumped forward, his head facedown, his arms hanging at his sides, hands down on the floor. An arrow was stuck in his back just below his neck. His shirt was soaked with dark red blood.
Captain Farraday appears from behind the door, and he’s being super weird, holding Mark’s bow – “This your weapon, son? Why’d you kill him?” Mark obviously denies it, and Farraday leads them downstairs to discuss things calmly. But then Murdoch [The creepy van guy] bursts in and doesn’t seem to recognise Farraday, who shoots him after Cara shouts that he’s the one Roger had been meeting. He uses their phone to call for backup, and then Mark heads to the kitchen for a drink of water, where he realises that the phone line is actually dead – Captain Farraday is a crook and full of shit! Had he killed Roger? Is he planning to kill Mark and Cara too?
Cara is all blabbing to the cop again and Mark is like stfu, he’s not legit and attacks Farraday, who turns the tables with his gun and ends up admitting to murdering Roger as well. He really wants to know where their parents are, and threatens to shoot Mark and Cara because he doesn’t believe they’re completely clueless. Gena then shows up out of nowhere to save the day with a big ol’ rifle, having hitchhiked back to Shadyside, and is like, boom, hands up. They lock Farraday in the garage, and then Gena insists Mark and Cara come with her because some meeting is about to start.
The trio head into the woods where they find some people just moseying around wearing hooded robes and carrying candles [WHOA, things just got super cool and creepy and I am here. for. it.] [Jack: A cult in Shadyside makes a lot of sense!]. They stay out of sight and sneak past to get into Gena’s basement, where she’s got some of the same robes the people in the woods are wearing!
She explains that her dad is in the Brotherhood, but Gena had no idea they killed people. Her dad made her break up with Mark when she found out what was planned for his parents, then sent her away so she couldn’t interfere – ‘”He doesn’t believe in killing. But he’s too afraid to stop it.”‘
Mark and Cara just blindly follow Gena and put the robes on [No questions on that, guys?], and then head back out to join the gathering, grabbing candles on the way. They follow the Brotherhood into the woods, where everyone forms a circle before two hooded figures step forward, their faces hidden behind masks exactly like the monkey heads Mark and Cara have been finding! [This is some cult type shit that I am eating up] The ring leader steps forward, revealed to be Mr. Marcus, ‘the big cheese at Cranford,’ and he rips the masks off the other two figures, exposing them as Mark and Cara’s parents!
Mr. Marcus then starts just blabbing on to this group about how they’re taking back America, sick of standing by while others decide the fate of the nation:
He kept his arms raised high as he talked. “The government of this nation has given in to criminals, but we are going to change that! Our revenge will be swift and our justice will reign. No criminal will be safe once our army has proven its capabilities. We will take back our community—and our nation from the criminal element—by force!”
The roved figures, except for my parents, cheered behind their hoods.
“No to the courts! No to the weak-kneed police! Yes to the Brotherhood!” Marcus screamed, and another cheer echoed through the woods.
It becomes obvious that Mom and Dad are not part of this secret society anymore [They have been napped!], and are about to be sacrificed by Mr. Marcus because “The Brotherhood of the White Monkey is always merciless to traitors!” Mark realizes he HAS to do something and reaches into his pocket because, very conveniently, that’s where the monkey head from Gena’s room is. He takes it out and throws it straight at Marcus but, of course, it misses ‘by several inches.’ [Guess he’s not a good archer after all. Aim is a tad off].
But it does work as a distraction, allowing Mom and Dad to jump up and snatch a gun from Mr. Marcus’ henchman. Dad aims it at the ringleader and is all like “FBI, bitch!” The Brotherhood is definitely not down for that and they all scatter, so essentially, the parents saved the day.
They then confess everything to the kids – they’re FBI agents, which is why they move around all of the time, and the computer stuff is just a front. They went undercover at Cranford Industries to infiltrate the Brotherhood and had been kept in the basement there this whole time after being found out.
They ask where Roger is [Um, oh yeah, about Roger… he’s dead…] and the kids explain how he and Murdoch were murdered, and the parents are bummed, of course, because they were both FBI agents, too [So I guess they died for a cause?]. Farraday, it turns out, was a bent cop they put behind bars, so I guess he’s out of jail now and was tracking down the parents for revenge?
So wrapping up, the parents are moving the kids again. Gena and Mark have a tearful goodbye, and she’s going to live with her mom in another state since her dad was arrested with some of the other Brotherhood members. They have a long, wonderful kiss and she slips a package into his hand before heading off. Opening it up, Mark finds a little white monkey head with rhinestone eyes, but in it’s mouth is a bit of paper with Gena’s new address and a message – ‘Can you keep a secret? I love you.’ [Barf] [Jack: Weren’t Mark and Cara like, super new to Shadyside? What a clinger] The monkey doesn’t feel cold anymore, but warm instead [With love?] and although Mark doesn’t need it to remember Gena or his time on Fear street, he ‘planned on keeping it a long time anyway.’ [Aw that’s cute] and the book ends.
Final thoughts
This book is on a different playing field than most Fear Street books. It had so much potential but kind of fell apart at the end. But still, the whole cult-like Brotherhood was something I was totally onboard with! I could have read a whole second book just about the Brotherhood and how it was created [Jack: 100%, the Brotherhood should have had its own trilogy or something! Cults are fun!], but it all went so fast at the end and I was left missing something [Missing, get it? 😛 ]. There’s a generous amount of cheese here, from the archery to the love story, and I have much appreciation for that.
Roger was the worst FBI guy ever – after the parents have been missing for, like, 48 hours, you def should have spoken up and said the truth. Instead, you looked super guilty and got arrowed in the back so… he’s the worst character. Gena was the best character because she saves the day with this massive gun and she has the best lines at the end. Such a badass!
Over all, I give this one 12 throwing-rhinestone-monkey-heads out of 15!
