****************TRIGGER WARNING****************
Just a heads up that this recap mentions sexual assault due to some of the problematic behaviour of some of the characters. I want to warn that while there’s no actual sexual assault in the book, there are a few instances where I feel that it is strongly implied to be intended by a character. I lightheartedly call out misogynistic and for lack of a better term, rapey behaviour a lot in my recaps, since these were written in a different time where this kind of problematic behaviour was more acceptable (but still not right), but I wanted to give a special warning that unlike many other books, I feel that Haunted has a more serious tone and the malicious intent is a lot more clear. With that out of the way, please enjoy!
Tagline: There’s a prowler in Melissa’s room—but is he dead or alive?
Back tagline: The Night Stalker
Summary: Melissa woke up screaming. The prowler was at her window…or was he? The recent headlines about a Fear Street prowler had everyone on edge. Her father now kept a loaded pistol in his bedroom. That made it even more frightening—and real. Then the haunting began: her new car driving as if someone else had taken control; her birthday presents ripped open by unseen hands; an invisible force trying to push her out the bedroom window. Out of the shadows of her bedroom came a menacing figure. Who was he? Did he really come from beyond the grave? And why had he come to kill her? If Melissa doesn’t solve the mystery fast, these questions will haunt her—to death!
First impressions: Gee, that blurb seems a lot longer than the blurbs of the later books! Practically giving away the whole damn plot lol. A g-g-g-g-g-ghost on Fear Street should be interesting though I’m praying this is better than The Secret Bedroom [Please, god, let it be better]. Let’s talk about this cover – ghost boy is rocking the double denim but looking at his face, it’s almost impossible to tell whether it’s a teenage boy or a middle-aged lesbian. The latter would be a good story, tbh. Melissa doesn’t look too scared by his presence…is this gonna be a love story between a human and a ghost? Let’s find out!
Recap
Roll call:
Melissa – Our wild-haired protagonist and target of a ghostly haunting.
Buddy – Melissa’s super horny boyfriend.
Paul – The ghost who’s stalking Melissa.
The book begins with our protagonist, Melissa Dryden, waking up and shrieking the house down because someone’s at her bedroom window. She thinks it’s the Fear Street Prowler, but her parents come rushing in and it’s quickly revealed to just be a tree scraping and tapping against her window [Did Melissa even glance at the window before screaming?]. Melissa’s mother isn’t impressed and she gives me the impression that she doesn’t like her husband or daughter very much [Or maybe she’s just irritable because she was woken up at 3:30 in the morning for practically no reason]. Melissa’s father seems much more caring and relaxed, and affectionately calls her Skinnybone [Just one bone? Not plural?] because she’s so skinny, which Melissa absolutely hates [So that’s definitely what I’ll be calling her if she annoys me]. On her father’s insistence, Melissa follows her parents into their bedroom so Dad can show her something ‘”to calm her down”‘, whipping out a small silver pistol from the bedside drawer:
“I bought it right after I read the first news story about the Fear Street Prowler. I just wanted to show Lissa that if he ever does try to break in here, I’ll be ready for him.””
[I think we can pretty much guarantee Mum and Dad won’t be home when the Fear Street Prowler inevitably breaks in] He assures Melissa it’s always in the drawer [And we can also guarantee she’ll be using it towards the end of the book] and then they all go to bed, but Melissa’s too restless to fall asleep – first she had a fight with Buddy, her boyfriend [Buddy is such a child’s name. Like, imagine a 3- year-old named Buddy. Does anyone actually know someone with this name in real life?], and now ‘the false alarm about the prowler.’ Buddy’s been vacationing with his family at the beach for the last two weeks, so earlier tonight was the first time Melissa had seen him in a little while. They’d driven up to River Ridge, ‘the favorite makeout spot of kids from Shadyside High’ that overlooks the Conononka River. Melissa had asked him about his vacation when they’d parked, but Buddy couldn’t keep his hands to himself:
“Buddy, I thought we came up here to talk. I haven’t seen you for weeks.” He pushed her hair back behind her shoulders with both hands. “We can talk later.” “No, Buddy—” But he didn’t want to take no for an answer. Before Melissa even realized it, he had slipped a hand under her blouse. “Move your hand!” She pulled away from him. “Come on, Buddy.” She reached for the door handle. He looked very surprised. “Hey—what are you doing? I thought you’d be glad to see me.” “I said I wanted to talk.”
He’d apologised over and over, but the evening was ruined as far as Melissa was concerned [I’m very glad she stood up for herself! I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded getting down and dirty, since they were at lovers’ lane after all, but at least pretend you wanna talk first, Buddy]. He drove her home shortly after and apologised some more, and now as she lays in bed, she blames herself for ruining their reunion:
Maybe she had overreacted. Sure, he came on too strong a lot of the time. Sure, he could be pushy, even selfish at times. But he really did care about her. And most of the time he was a great guy.
[Wow, where do I even begin with this. I often mention the borderline abusive behaviour of Shadyside boys and this is a perfect example of how easily Shadyside girls excuse this sort of thing. She’s basically saying “He might be really pushy with sex and try to molest me a lot, but I know he cares about me and most of the time he’s a great guy.” And the fact that she feels like putting her foot down was an overreaction? Pure craziness]. Anyway, Melissa’s starts thinking about the pistol her dad had shown her – although it brings her some comfort, ‘there was something so frightening about that little silver pistol, lying there in the drawer, just waiting to be used.’ [And use it you shall, Melissa, all in good time!]. The next day, Melissa is in her room thinking about how stupid she is for reading a Stephen King novel right now [Is it bad that I’ve never read a Stephen King book? I own several of the classics, but I’ve just never gotten around to reading any yet] when she was so scared of a twig at her window last night [Very stupid]. She’s also thinking about how she loves her wild, curly blonde hair, although her mother as well as Melissa’s best friend, Della O’Connor [From The Overnight], have both made comments that make me wonder if anyone else likes her hair [Her mum told her to brush it and Della suggested she cut it]. Skinny with wild blonde hair? This is what I imagine Melissa looks like:
Melissa also experiences a weird chill in her room, but she quickly forgets about it when her dad comes home early with an early birthday surprise, even though her birthday isn’t until Friday [Lucky gal!]. After some playful teasing [They have a cute relationship tbh], Dad opens the front door and hands her the keys to the brand new Pontiac Firebird in the driveway [I feel like this is Stine’s go-to car. Sponsorship deal, maybe?]! This is all simply too much for Melissa, who can’t possibly accept such an extravagant gift, but her dad reminisces about how poor he was growing up, and it makes him feel good to give her nice gifts [Be my dad(dy), Mr. Drydren. Also, they’re apparently pretty wealthy, but they live on Fear Street? That’s weird, right?]. She heads off straight away to show the car to Della, and on the way to the North Hills section of Shadyside where she lives [The rich side!], the car suddenly veers to the right ‘with such force that it felt as if someone had grabbed the wheel’ [Like a g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost?!]. She slows down, wondering what the hell just happened, and then it happens again, followed by what sounds like a voice whispering her name ‘so insistently, so menacingly’ [Fun fact: When driving home through the main street of a neighbouring suburb late at night after visiting a friend, I heard a woman’s voice on two separate occasions and a baby crying one other time. They all sounded like they were coming from inside my car, and all three times happened driving through the same part of the street. Ooky spooky!]. Della’s house is only a few blocks away by this point, so Melissa focuses on keeping control of the car, but it doesn’t really work because the car suddenly veers to the left, ‘crossing the center lane into the path of an onrushing oil truck.’ Unfortunately the next chapter doesn’t pick up right after that little cliffhanger, and instead we’ve jumped straight to Friday night at Melissa’s 17th birthday bash [Woo!]. Della is just arriving with her boyfriend Pete [Also in The Overnight! Melissa isn’t mentioned in that book, so are she and Della really best friends?], and Melissa mentions her car is at the mechanic’s still as they try to figure out what happened with the steering:
“They can’t find anything wrong. Daddy told them to keep looking until they find it. He’s more upset than I am. And I’m the one who was almost killed by that oil truck.”
[So she managed to gain control before plowing into the truck I guess? Boring. I’m assuming the ghost is responsible, but what was the point of that? Why is he trying to kill ol’ Skinnybone?]. Anyway, Della and her perfect straight, black hair look as beautiful as ever, and Melissa has to force herself not to get jealous of her at her own birthday [What’s with the strong focus on hair in this book? And if she wants straight hair like Della, why not do something about her curls, which she claims to love anyway? Seems like an easy fix]. Anyway, Melissa’s having a gay old time at her party but Buddy arrives late, as usual. Melissa’s disappointed that he didn’t try to be punctual for her birthday [I cannot stand it when people are late], but he finally rocks up, present in hand. Melissa’s planning on opening all her presents when everyone’s gone [That’s some serious self-control], so they dump his gift in the guest room with the rest of them and continue the festivities. There’s a lot of sexual references at the party, including one guy suggestively quipping to Buddy ‘”Bet I know what you’re giving Melissa for her birthday!”‘ and suggestions of playing games like Post Office [Which I had to look up, and it sounds like a breeding ground for herpes] and Dirty Doctor [Which I can only assume is all about the ‘doctor’ inappropriate groping the ‘patient’ but can’t find anything about a real-life version online. Inappropriate groping of the opposite sex definitely sounds like a Shadyside thing, though], but there’s no time for games because it’s past 12:00 and Melissa promised her parents everyone would be gone by then. She hasn’t opened her presents yet though, so everyone follows Melissa to the guest room where they find all her presents ripped open and ‘scattered over the bed and floor.’
[It was probably the ghost but again, what was the point?!] In bed that night, Melissa wonders who could have done such a thing – she didn’t see any of her friends leave the room where the party was, and the housekeeper, Marta, was busy in the kitchen all night, so Melissa can’t make sense of it. She then thinks about the beautiful silver pendant Buddy had given her for her birthday, vowing to never take it off [I’m sure it’ll have some relevance later], before suddenly feeling chilly and getting up to close the open window:
She lowered her bare feet to the carpet and looked up. A young man stepped out of the shadows at the foot of her bed. She couldn’t see his face. The light from the window formed an outline around his dark form. She could see that he had long, dark hair, narrow shoulders. He had no face. Only the blackness of night where his face should have been. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” she cried. He didn’t reply. He moved around the bed, walking slowly toward her. The Fear Street Prowler, she thought. She drew in her breath and screamed at the top of her lungs.
The featureless, shadow-like figure continues to advance toward her but her parents quickly barge in, turning on the lights. Naturally, the figure is gone, and her mother in particular doesn’t seem to believe that anyone was there in the first place, suggesting all the excitement from the new car and her birthday has simply caught up to her [She’s not very sympathetic about it though. I swear she hates her kid hahaha]. Melissa gets snappy with them and everyone goes to bed again, but she’s wide awake now so decides to gaze out her window onto Fear Street, which she thinks is ‘by far the most interesting street in Shadyside’. And then two hands shoved her hard from behind with ‘startling, almost inhuman power’ [!!!]. Melissa manages to latch onto the sides of the window frame to keep herself in and pushes back against the force, and when she’s finally able to whirl around and face her attacker, ‘There was no one there’ [Oop]. She searches her whole room while saying ‘”I know you’re here”‘ several times, but no-one pops out so she returns to bed and falls asleep, oblivious to the ‘cold shadow’ that drifts over to her bed and hovers over her [Someone watching someone else sleep will never not be creepy]. The next day Melissa visits Buddy’s house where he’s cleaning out the garage [Boring] and looking super sexy with his vacation tan. They talk about what happened at her window last night and he doesn’t really seem to believe her, suggesting it was the wind or shadows or something. ‘”Shadows don’t push you out windows”‘ says Melissa, admitting that she’s frightened by the thought of the Fear Street Prowler breaking into her house. Buddy’s basically like “yeah right, as if he’d come to your house” [He’s not very supportive], and then Melissa heads off to meet Della at the mall. Melissa and Della bump into another friend, Krissie, at the mall, and inside the Clothes Closet [Great name lol], Della tells old Skinnybone how good the wine-coloured sweater she’s trying on looks because it fills her out. Melissa is offended, because as we know, she hates when people comment on her weight [If this wasn’t a Fear Street book, which surely can’t be that deep, I’d say there could be an eating disorder here]. And then we get a taste of Krissie’s privilege when she points out a girl entering the store wearing plastic pedal pushers:
Krissie couldn’t get over the girl across the store. “And look at that tacky top with the fringe. Oh, no. I don’t believe the white plastic boots!” “Hey, I know her,” Melissa said, watching the girl go through a stack of faded jeans on a table.”Her name’s Marylou. I forget her last name. She was at my day camp when I was little.” “Someone should send her to camp in that tacky outfit!” Krissie said. Melissa didn’t laugh. “She’s just poor, that’s all.” “Huh? What do you mean?” “Don’t you know what poor means, Krissie? It means she doesn’t have much money. Her family lives over in the Old Village. She has a whole bunch of brothers and sisters. She probably can’t afford nice clothes.” “Being poor is in bad taste,” Krissie said and then laughed at her own joke. “Not funny,” Melissa said disgustedly. “I don’t ever want to be a rich snob who turns up her nose at people.”
[Wow, Krissie is awful. Good on Melissa for sticking up for the underprivileged of Shadyside! I’ll admit, the outfit does sound bad, but @TheHauntedOutfit completely changed my mind! If you haven’t seen her Instagram account before, Katie creates visualisations of the fashion from Point Horror books and manages to make even the worst-sounding outfits look good! Check her out]. Melissa then points out that much like her own, Krissie’s wealth is down to pure luck thanks to their parents rather than having earned it themselves, and Krissie gets upset about being lectured, making Melissa feel bad [Here’s a tip for everyone – don’t ever feel bad for calling out someone else’s toxic behaviour. Krissie should be the one feeling bad right now]. But Melissa meant every word, and we learn that being rich makes her feel uncomfortable because she often wonders what poor people think of her and ‘how much they resented her for being so lucky.’ [I know this is Stine’s attempt to make Melissa seem better than her friend, but this also sounds very egotistical to me. Like, it comes across like she doesn’t feel bad for poor people, but rather feels bad because of what she perceives poor people to think of her? Like, “All the peasants must hate me because I’m so lucky and rich, poor me :(“]. A few hours later, Melissa is driving home in her mother’s station wagon thinking about the conversation and deciding she should apologise to Krissie [No, Krissie should apologise to poor people] when once again, she hears ‘the sound of air, whispering her name’ and the car suddenly becomes cold:
And suddenly, there he was, in the passenger seat beside her. A young man, probably about her age. Tough looking. With black, greasy hair down to his collar bone. And dark, dangerous eyes. Dressed in all blue denim. Melissa cried out, and crashed into the car ahead of her.
[Long, greasy black hair? That’s not the ghost boy on the cover >:|] Melissa is so startled that she doesn’t move until the man from the front car taps on her window. She apologises and tells him boy popped up in the passenger seat, and then they’re both confused because now she’s all alone in the car. With no damage to her car and just a scratch on his, the man kindly suggests they simply forget about it, and Melissa heads home thinking about how she’d been in ‘My own dreamworld where boys appear and disappear, and the wind whispers my name…’ [This idiot just crashed and still isn’t paying attention to the road lol]. At dinner that night, Melissa tells her parents about the crash, but once again they don’t believe her about seeing a boy. They’ve got an upcoming work trip to Las Vegas the following weekend and think it’d be good for her to join them, but Skinnybone is super rude about it and declines. She heads upstairs to get ready for a date with Buddy, but as she’s putting Buddy’s necklace on, the ghost boy appears beside her, the clearest he’s ever been. He seems off balance at first but quickly gets his bearings, and she notices that his dark brown hair [It was black in the car?] looks like it hasn’t been washed in weeks, while his mouth ‘seemed to fall naturally into an unpleasant sneer.’ Melissa isn’t frightened anymore, just angry, and demands to know who he is before scolding him for making her dent her mother’s car. He’s all like ‘”you can just buy another one”‘ [True, but not the point] before getting all up in her grill and telling her she should remember him, since she killed him [!!!!]. There’s a lengthy back and forth about how she doesn’t remember him and that he can’t be dead since he’s right here, but she finally tries to grab his arm and realises he really is a g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost when her hand goes right through him.
She still hasn’t seen him before, insisting she’d remember if she killed somebody, but he knows for a fact she killed him, although he doesn’t remember how she did it, or why. Melissa’s quite scared now, but the fear does nothing to deter her lust as she decides ‘He’d be good-looking if he washed his hair and stopped sneering like that’ [Melissa, please]. He tells her his name is Paul, but he doesn’t remember his last name, or much else about his life [But you remember that she supposedly killed you? OK]. He explains that he keeps ‘”fading in and out”‘ and can’t control it, and again Melissa insists he’s haunting the wrong house. But there’s two things our greasy-haired antagonist knows for sure, and that’s that Melissa killed him, and he’s come back for revenge [!!!!]. She tries to escape, but he blocks her path [But…he’s not solid? Why wouldn’t she just go through him?] and gets right up in her face again:
“You’re a liar,” he said quietly, and his handsome face suddenly turned quite ugly. “A rich liar. And rich liars have to die!”
[Her life is in danger and all she can think about is how handsome he is? I hate this girl] He basically thinks that Melissa is just too rich to remember taking such a poor, insignificant life and is even more determined to get his revenge. Melissa begs for a chance to help him, promising to do everything she can to find out who really killed him and how and why he died. Paul is sceptical but agrees, since he can kill her anytime he wants, and then he fades away [Considering he can’t control when he fades in and out, he comes and goes at super specific times lol. Also, this better not become a love story between Melissa and a fkn ghost hahaha]. Melissa drives straight over to Buddy’s in her Firebird, having gotten it back from the mechanic’s earlier, and the idiot drives straight through a red light and a four-way intersection without stopping because she’s thinking about Paul the whole time [How the fuck is this girl allowed on the roads? We haven’t seen any good driving skills from her yet]. She doesn’t know anyone named Paul and doesn’t recognise him from school, so she’s sure Paul’s made a mistake. Anyway, she picks Buddy up and they drive to the countryside so they can talk without distractions [No River Ridge this time, Buddy!]. She asks if he remembers anyone named Paul from school, someone who was killed, but Buddy says ‘”No one from school has been killed.” [Which sounds false, because it’s Shadyside! But this was an early book, so many no-one had died by this point? I think i’ve only read the first two books years ago, but can’t remember if any Shadysiders died or not. Maybe Stine didn’t get trigger happy until later in the series!]. They find a park and she eventually tells him about Ghost Paul, but Buddy finds it impossible to believe her farfetched story and suggests they get her some help right away. Frustrated, Melissa demands they go back to her place so he can prove she’s telling the truth [She knows Paul can’t control when he appears, so why does she think this is a good plan?! Paul’s obviously not going to materialise and then Melissa will look even more unhinged to Buddy!]. At home, Melissa drags Buddy upstairs, all the while he grows more and more concerned over her mental state. In his defence, he’s just being logical, but Melissa’s super rude about it and accuses him of calling her ‘”too stupid to know when I’m awake and when I’m asleep”‘ [Well, you are too stupid to pay attention to the road while you’re driving, so I don’t blame him]. In her room, Paul fails to appear, but Melissa insists he’s there because her room is so cold. Buddy can’t feel the cold though, and tries to calm her down by forcing her to get frisky:
Buddy pulled her face down close to his and started to kiss her. “No, Buddy.” She pulled back. “I’m really not in the mood.” “Sshhh. Come on,” he said.
[No means no, Buddy! >:(] He kisses her again, harder this time, and feeling safe, Melissa allows herself to get lost in his kiss, but then she opens her eyes to see Paul standing over them, looking super angry. Melissa screams and points Paul out, but it soon becomes clear that Buddy can’t see or hear the ghost, and feels nothing when Paul attempts to punch him in the back of the head. Paul then fades away, and Buddy thinks Melissa’s totally lost the plot and offers to get help. Melissa’s done with his disbelief for tonight though and orders him to go home, mad that he won’t just trust what she’s saying [Why can’t she understand that what she’s saying is super hard to believe?]. Paul reappears once Buddy’s gone and says he’d never treat Melissa like that if she was his girlfriend, and then immediately rips into the rich again:
“I know you rich girls. You’re all alike,” he said bitterly. “If I were alive, you wouldn’t even look at me.” “How do you know that?” Melissa asked. “I know it. You rich people like to stick together. It makes it easier for you to stick up your noses at people like me.”
[Go haunt Krissie, she’s the one that needs to be lectured about this]. Melissa points out that Buddy isn’t rich, because ‘”His father works at the post office”‘ [Don’t defend yourself to this pleb], so Paul wonders what she even sees in him. It really seems like he’s jealous, and Melissa realises this too after he whines some more tthat she ‘”never would have given someone like me the time of day.”‘ [Paul, you’re the one with all the prejudice here! I can’t stand him lol].
He debates just killing Melissa now, but she argues that he couldn’t even touch Buddy, so how could he possibly do that? Apparently he was just mucking around then, and he reveals now that he can basically become solid at will [Is that why she couldn’t get past him earlier when he blocked the doorway? He’d become solid? She didn’t even try to get past him though, so how would she have known?], explaining he was the one that jerked the steering wheel to the side, tried to push her out the window and ripped open her presents [Duh, Fred]. He accuses her of breaking her promise to help him [Dude, it’s been like two hours, relax] and reiterates that he’s going to kill her, but first he wants ‘”to have some fun….”‘ The next day, Skinnybone heads to the library to check the copies of the local newspaper from the last six months for any news on Paul’s death. Her search is fruitless and on her way out, she bumps into Della and asks if she remembers anyone named Paul dying. She doesn’t, and Melissa determines that because Paul is poor, he must have gone to South [Whatever that is], and we get this great little tidbit:
“Well, my cousin Tracy goes to South,” Della said. “The one with the teeth?” “She had them fixed,” Della said. “Want to see if she’s home?”
[What was wrong with Tracy’s teeth?!? I need to know more! I like how this is just sprinkled in there though, it kind of adds more realism to the story, as if Melissa’s world exists outside of this book]. With nothing better to do, the girls go visit Tracy with the teeth in the Old Village, and Tracy remembers Melissa as ‘”the one with the hair”‘ [I almost forgot about her wild mane because no-one’s made a comment about it in a while!]. They ask her if any boys from South have died in the past year, and guess what? There was a boy ‘“who died just before school let out last spring.”‘ [I bet it’s not Paul though!] The girls head up to Tracy’s room to grab a yearbook where Tracy points out the boy who’d died, but unfortunately it’s a guy named Vince who died in a freak diving accident when ‘”His head hit the end of the diving board”‘ [Poor Vince :(]. Melissa drops Della home before heading back to her own house, wondering if maybe all the stories about the Fear Street Prowler are causing her to crack up. She’s absolutely sure the ghost is real, but she doesn’t have a clue why she hasn’t been able to find any information about him [Yeah, that part is weird]. Arriving home, Melissa notices the front door wide open and she can see that ‘Someone—just a shadow—was moving about the living room’ [The Fear Street Prowler!?]. Deciding a prowler wouldn’t be pacing back and forth in a stranger’s house, Melissa bravely ventures inside and finds Buddy dressed like he’s still on vacation in ‘a sleeveless blue t-shirt and very Hawaiian-looking baggy trunks’ [I wonder what makes them look very Hawaiian-looking?]. Her mother let him in and then left to go shopping [And neither of you wanted to close the front door?], and he’s here to apologise and ask her out to Shadyside’s hottest teen dance club, Red Heat, tonight for some fun! Even though she’s still mad because Buddy doesn’t believe her about Paul, she recognises that he’s making an effort, since he hates dance clubs, and agrees to go:
He grinned back at her. “That was easy. Wow. What would you have done if I’d asked you out for dinner too?” “Don’t look at me like that,” she replied. “I’m not the kind of girl.”
[I’m sick of Buddy and his one-track mind lol. Dump him, Melissa!] So that night they’re at Red Heat [Apparently it used to be a farm equipment warehouse and is nearly a city block long], which has red walls, a red bar, and red furnishings as well as clashing, fifties-coloured squares all over the floor [Sounds like a good place to be on drugs!].
Melissa’s wearing ‘a sparkly midriff-length top and black Spandex bicycle shorts under a thigh-length purple skirt’ [Sounds very ’90s hahaha], and she and Buddy are having a boogie when Melissa has to go and bring up Paul again, because it’s hard not to think about it when Paul had threatened to kill her [Yeah, I’d say that’s fair]. Buddy gets mad and says she’s ‘”going to spoil the whole night”‘, but Skinnybone retorts that Buddy already has [No idea whose side I’m on here. Buddy took her here to have a fun night and not talk about Paul, so she’s kinda in the wrong, but at the same time, it would be hard to stop thinking about the person who’s planning on killing you, right? He could be a bit more supportive and understanding. They’re both annoying though so I also don’t really care hahaha]. She bolts out of the club and starts walking across the parking lot, not paying attention to where she’s going because she’s just so angry at Buddy, so hurt:
Buddy just wanted her to be cheerful and happy and pretend everything was okay. He wasn’t the least bit interested in her problem, in her very real problem. Buddy really thought she was crazy. Crazy! As long as she kept to herself, he was happy. He didn’t care. He didn’t care what happened to her. As long as she shut up about it.
[Buddy is only being rational and wanted to get her mind off it, but it would be very frustrating for her to not have his support. But maybe if she wasn’t so self-centred either…] She’s eventually spotted by a small group of guys, ‘some long haired, some with spiky flattops,’ all wearing double denim or leather jackets and drinking beers [Not alcohol in Shadyside! Oh, the humanity!].
The boys call out to her, and one of them is pushed off the car bonnet he’s resting on and comes rolling to a stop at Melissa’s feet. Looking down at him, she recognises the long-haired git – it’s Paul [!!!]. She’s flabbergasted that the other boys can all see him too, but Paul has no idea who she is. It gets kind of predatory for a little while as the drunken guys form a circle around her and argue over which one she wants [Stine’s not really giving poor people a good rap here. Does he think poor people just sit around all day hating wealthy people?]. Paul thinks she’s hitting on him and is really possessive, accusing her of thinking she’s too good for them [Yep, that’s Paul!] and screaming at one of his friends when he tells her to just let her go:
“I’ll let her go when I’m finished with her,” Paul said, his voice turning low and threatening. And without any further warning, he lunged at his friend, grabbing his shoulders, and the two of them fell to the gravel, rolling around, wrestling hard and furiously, screaming and cursing at each other as the others gleefully looked on.
[OK, this is definitely the same Paul as Ghost Paul… is Ghost Paul from the future or something? Is this a time travel book? Either way, he deserves to die for being so entitled and woe is me and rapey lol]. Melissa seizes her chance to run away but the boys are hot on her heels, yelling out to her that they just want to have some fun [Gross]. Melissa doesn’t understand why Paul’s acting so different, so cold and horrible, like he doesn’t know her at all after she spent all day trying to help him [Bruh, his behaviour isn’t that different lol]. She makes it back to the front of the club before she realises the boys have stopped chasing her [I’m glad Melissa was terrified and not turned on by their behaviour! This might be the most problematic book we’ve had so far in terms of male behaviour, and it’s so early in the series too! Maybe he eased up a little after this one]. She eventually finds Buddy and he takes her home, but she doesn’t tell him how she was almost attacked by Paul and his cronies because she thinks he won’t believe that she saw him again. In bed that night, Melissa can’t stop thinking about what happened in the car park, and most troubling of all is that Paul seemed to really hate her. She decides Paul really has come back to kill her, realising how silly she was to think that she could reason with him, to help him, because with all that bitterness and hatred inside him, ‘he would never be her friend’ [I think he wants to be more than friends anyway, Melissa]. Paul suddenly appears and floats over her, but Melissa screams at him to go away and leave her alone, and he fades away just as quickly, telling her he’ll be back because he’s ‘”not finished here”‘ [I wish we were finished here. I’m sick of this book]. The next day, she decides to go to the local Stop ‘N’ Shop after realising she recognises one of the guys from the parking lot as Frankie, a boy who works there. She remembers that last night, Frankie had sort of hung back from the other guys and didn’t threaten her or block her way, and he’d ‘seemed a little embarrassed by the whole incident’ [Good, drop Buddy and Paul and date Frankie instead. Actually, don’t date him either if Paul’s the kind of person he associates with lol]. Melissa finds Frankie, who doesn’t want any trouble but takes his break to hear her out. He says that Paul is ‘”a bad dude”‘ but insists he doesn’t go along with everything Paul and the other guys do. Melissa has no interest in what he’s banging on about and just asks him when Paul died. Frankie’s confused, because he had no idea Paul’s dead, and he spoke to him on the phone this morning, so a confused Melissa suggests they’re talking about different Pauls. Frankie’s break is over now so he heads back to work while Melissa tries to make sense of everything [It’s gotta be Paul’s ghost from the future, right? Come back to solve the mystery of how he died?]. As she walks back to her car, Melissa notices she’s being followed, but whoever it is hides behind a car each time she turns around to see. From the quick glimpse she gets, it looks like Paul, but why is he hiding? She decides to run the rest of the way back to her car, chased by the mystery person, and when he’s almost on top of her, she turns around and it is Paul, getting a little too close for comfort:
He pressed his face close to her cheek. She could feel his breath, hot against her skin. Feel his breath? Did a ghost breathe?
[Hahahaha Does a ghost breathe?] He acts super rapey again [Sorry if that word is insensitive, I just can’t think of a better way to describe Paul], staying close to her as she tries to move away, and tells her he wants what ‘”any red-blooded American boy”‘ wants from “a nice-looking girl”‘ [And who cares what a nice-looking girl wants from a red-blooded American boy, right? God I hope this guy stays dead later]. Melissa demands to know why he’s being such a creep when she’s just trying to help him, but he takes that as a sign that she’s into him [Buy a vowel, Paul!]. She runs off, but Paul chases after her because she hurt his feelings now, and ‘”I don’t like it when rich, snobby girls hurt my feelings”‘ [And I’m sure she doesn’t like it when entitled povo people don’t take no for an answer]. He snatches her bag [At this point, I hope she really does kill him lol] and laughs as she demands he give it back:
“Give it back—now! You’re not funny!” He didn’t give back the bag, and his smile faded. “You’re not gonna give me a chance, are you?” he said. “What?” “You heard me.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Just give me back my bag.” “I’m not a bad guy. Really. But you’d never want to find that out.” “Paul, you’re talking crazy. Please give me back my bag. I’ve got to go.” She made anther wild grab for the bag. He pulled it out of her reach and drew it under his arm. “I can play rough,” he said, his dark eyes wild as they stared into hers. “I can play real rough if I have to.”
[I’m surprised his problematic behaviour hasn’t been turning her on; she’s a Shadyside gal after all! But in all seriousness, Shadyside aside, in what world would these kind of antics make anyone want to go out with him? I just want him to die so bad hahaha]. He wants to know how she knows his name, and because she still thinks there’s no difference between Ghost Paul and this Paul, she’s just as confused because he’s the one that told her. A police car rolls by and the officer asks if there’s a problem, and Paul gives Melissa’s bag back as Melissa tells the officer everything’s fine. Apparently everything’s not fine because she’s parked her car in a No Parking zone [Seriously, how does this idiot have her license?], but someone radios in an emergency and the cops leave. A relieved Paul mentions how he’d ‘”never get a break like that”‘ [Probably because you’d be antagonistic if you were in a situation like that?], but Melissa isn’t interested in his bullshit and jumps in her car to leave. Paul apologises for giving her a hard time, explaining it was just a little fun, but she drives off, expecting him to disappear into thin air as she watches him in the rear-view mirror [Watch the fucking road!], which he doesn’t.
Back home, Melissa’s pissed off when she finds Paul sitting on her bed, waiting for her [It’s obviously Ghost Paul, but she still has no idea that both Paul’s aren’t one entity] and wondering why Melissa seems so scared of him all of a sudden. Melissa’s all like ‘“Don’t play dumb”‘ [He’s not playing, hunni, he is dumb], but Paul just tells her he’s losing control and can’t control his strength anymore and as he speaks, his ‘entire body shimmers and started to fade’. Melissa’s not in the mood for his games and demands to know how he got here so quick. They go back and forth, her accusing him of being at the supermarket and also Red Heat, while he insists he’s been here all day, fading in and out, and most definitely was not in a car park with his buddies [That he doesn’t even remember having] last night, and finally Skinnybone realises what’s going on:
“We just assumed you were a ghost from the past,” she said. “Huh? What do you mean?” he asked without turning around. “We assumed that you died some time ago. You died in the past, and you’ve come from the past to the present to avenge your death.” “Yeah, well…of course,” he said, obviously confused, not understanding where her thoughts were leading. He turned around and looked at her skeptically, waiting to see what came next. “Well, maybe we were wrong,” Melissa said, struggling to get her idea straight in her own mind. “What if you are a ghost from the future?”
[It sounds pretty dumb, but this is a dumb book and she’s obviously right]. They realise that’s why she doesn’t remember killing him, but Paul insists she’s still going to. Melissa promises that she won’t, and points out that rather than coming back to avenge his death, he’s come back to prevent it. Ghost Paul hugs her, and to Melissa’s surprise, the air is warm now, rather than the usual chill. Paul’s strength starts coming back [What, because they’ve realised the truth?] and he thanks Melissa for helping him, and she suddenly realises ‘to her surprise, that she cared about him, about what happened to him’ [Well, I don’t, so hurry up and kill him for good!]. Melissa decides she’ll take Ghost Paul to Alive Paul tonight so they can warn him about his impending doom. When Melissa had mentioned Frankie earlier, Paul remembered that Frankie was his neighbour, so Melissa looks up Frankie’s address and they head over, deducing Paul must live on either side of him. Paul spots his last name, Starett, on one of the letterboxes and is flooded with memories, but he doesn’t seem happy, ‘only overwhelmed, filled with sadness’ and apprehension. Ghost Paul heads inside to confront Alive Paul as Melissa waits out front, unsure how she feels about the prospect that if they can successfully communicate, she may never see Ghost Paul again [I will not tolerate her having feelings for him >:|… Also, she’ll still be able to see Alive Paul, right? Not that that’s any consolation lol]. We then leave our protagonist to follow Ghost Paul as he moves around his house, remembering more and more as he heads to his bedroom where Alive Paul is sitting on the bed:
How strange to walk into a room and find yourself. How frightening. How sad. The ghost Paul drifted closer, into the centre of the narrow room. The live Paul tilted a beer can up to his mouth until it was empty.
[That first part does sound quite sad. But I don’t like Paul so I refuse to feel sorry for him]. As Ghost Paul watches, Alive Paul heads the kitchen and looks up Melissa’s number in the phone book, but obviously she’s not home when he calls. Angry, Alive Paul starts getting ready to head out, and Ghost Paul decides it’s time to show himself. Unfortunately Alive Paul can’t see him, so Ghost Paul follows him outside, expecting him to bump into Melissa, but there’s no sign of her either [What? Where’d she go?]. Alive Paul heads to the corner shop and buys some alcohol, then finds Frankie and another friend, Kenny, in the car park who ask him about his girlfriend, ‘”that rich girl with all the hair”‘ [What is the obsession with her hair?!? No wonder she’s so self-conscious]. Paul brags that ‘”I can have her anytime I want”‘ [Hahahaha no you cannot], and Frankie points out that he’s the one she came to see at the supermarket this morning. He eventually admits that she was there to ask about Paul, and then a policeman comes so they pile into Kenny’s car as Ghost Paul tags along, trying to think of a way to give Alive Paul a sign. Frankie complains that they can’t go anywhere because they’ve got no money, but Paul tells the boys ‘”there are ways to get money”‘, and more memories come back to Ghost Paul, this time of breaking into houses and grabbing whatever he could [So Paul is the fear Street Prowler!]. They boys head to Fear Street where Alive Paul breaks into a house before Ghost Paul can give him a sign to stop him, realising these burglaries will lead to his death [I bet he’s gonna break into Melissa’s house and she’s gonna shoot him with her father’s gun!]. A woman screams from inside and Alive Paul comes barrelling out the window again, jumping back into the car as it drives off. Later, Melissa’s just returned to her room after a shower when Paul materialises. She apologises for leaving, but ‘”It was too creepy there”” [You live on Fear Street, hun, I’m sure you could have handled it], and asks him not to be angry:
“I spent my whole life angry,” the ghost said. The darkness from outside the window seemed to seep into him until he was all shadows. “Being poor can make you angry. It can make you do all kinds of things.” “Are you going to start putting me down again for being rich?” she asked wearily.
[Sorry, but being poor is not a free pass to break into people’s houses or steal. He’s happy to complain all day and night about being poor and say that rich people are snobs, yet he’s not really doing anything to counteract people’s (accurate, mind you) perceptions of him. Paul’s entire character is fucking awful]. He tells her he’s not gonna put her down again, because he saw her in the mall that day when she got angry at Krissie so knows Melissa’s different [This happened before she first spoke to him in her room, so why was he calling her a snobby rich bitch then if he knew she was different?]. Paul seems defeated as he reveals that his living counterpart couldn’t see him, but Melissa decides that she’ll go talk to Alive Paul. Ghost Paul thinks it’s too dangerous, but Melissa points out that there’s no other option, and Ghost Paul is truly moved that she’d do this for him. She’s also doing it for herself though [She really got on her high horse with Krissie earlier, but she’s just as self-centred lol], as she explains she’s scared that what Paul said is true, that she really will kill him, and she’ll do anything she can to stop that from happening [But you couldn’t go inside and talk to Paul when you were at his house? I’m so over this book]. Paul starts fading again, but tells her to just forget it because ‘”We can’t change anything”‘ before he vanishes. The next night Melissa heads over to Paul’s and finds him in the corner shop parking lot with Frankie and another guy [Probably Kenny but Melissa doesn’t know his name], drinking away. Paul is as aggressive as ever and pulls her into the dark, away from his friends so they can chat. He reveals he found her house on Fear Street, since she found his, so it’s only fair [Even though as far as he’s aware, this is the first time she’s tried to come to his house]. She tells him he needs to stay away from her and her house but won’t explain why, so Paul takes it as a threat, calls her ‘an ugly name’ [Like Skinnybone?] and storms off. Back at home, Melissa’s all packed to spend the next few nights at Della’s while her parents are in Vegas and plans on heading over after dinner, but Della calls with bad news. She’s stuck at her cousin’s house and won’t get home until tomorrow, so Melissa will have to stay home tonight. Melissa’s not too worried because she’ll have Ghost Paul to keep her company and decides not to tell her parents she’ll be staying home alone, not wanting to worry them [Sounds like Paul’s gonna die tonight!]. Melissa’s parents head off after dinner, and while she tries to keep her mind occupied, she can’t help but feel a little nervous. She tries to talk to Ghost Paul, but he doesn’t seem to be around and by 11:30, she decides to just go to bed. It’s way too hot in her room, so she falls asleep in her parents’ bed instead, but wakes up a short time later to someone ‘trying to open her parents’ bedroom window.’ [The Fear Street Prowler!] As she watches in horror, Alive Paul drunkenly climbs through the window and she finds herself ‘only slightly relieved that it was Paul and not the Fear Street Prowler’ [You’re about to get a rude awakening, sweetie] because Paul looks just as dangerous, and I’m pretty sure he’s planning on sexually assaulting her:
“But I’ve come to show you how good I am.” His mouth formed an ugly smile, a cold, menacing smile. “I’m good enough. Really. I’m real good.” “Paul, I’ll call the police.” He snickered. “I’m too fast for the police.”
[…] “Come on, Melissa. No more teasing. No more games. Tonight’s the night.” “No. Go away. I mean it. Just turn around and go back out the window.” “But I’m good enough for you, Melissa. You’ll see. I’m real good.” He spoke quietly, but his eyes revealed excitement, every word sounded a threat.
[This is getting a bit too dark now]. While Melissa’s always stood up to him, she can feel her bravery giving way to terror now [Get that gun and shoot!]. She remembers the pistol in her father’s nightstand, ‘waiting to protect her from Paul’, and she lunges for the drawer and whips it out [Very convenient that she randomly decided to sleep n her parents’ room tonight]. Melissa aims it at him, intending to just scare him off rather than shoot him [I’m gonna be mad if she doesn’t shoot him]. Paul’s not too fussed by the weapon and calls her bluff, and Melissa eventually lowers it, unable to bring herself to pull the trigger [Fucking hell, Melissa]. That’s when Paul makes a grab for the gun and it drops to the carpet, so both Melissa and Paul dive for it. Paul manages to grab it first and threatens to kill the ‘”rich snob”‘, gloating ‘”What good is all your money now?”, and since he’s blocking the doorway, Melissa basically accepts that she’s about to die. Ghost Paul suddenly materialises next to Alive Paul, who can’t see him, and in one quick motion, Ghost Paul yanks the gun out of his hands and tosses it to Melissa [Really? You’re just gonna carelessly throw a loaded gun?]:
As her hands wrapped around it, the gun went off. “No!” Her scream was as loud as the explosion of sound between her hands. Paul groaned loudly and grabbed his chest. A dark red circle formed on the front of the denim jacket. “Oh, no,” he groaned. “Not me…”
[Yes you, motherfucker!]. Paul drops facedown to the ground and dies as a red puddle spreads beneath him on the white carpet [Never has there been a more deserving death in one of these books. But also, what the hell was the point of this story? Like, Paul wouldn’t have died if he hadn’t have intervened, right? Paul probably would have shot Melissa. So basically he came back from the future as a ghost to hopefully change his fate, but his interference is what actually got him killed in the first place? It just seems like a pointless story. This book is so stupid]. Melissa asks Ghost Paul why he sacrificed himself like that, and he explains that he cares about her too much to let her die. She admits that she cares about him too and they share an embrace and a kiss [Omfg lol, this book is so dumb. What about Buddy?]. The ghost starts to float away now, unable to stop himself, as he explains he can rest now that he knows what happened to him. He tells her not to feel guilty for killing him because ‘“You were the only one who ever cared about me”‘ [She cared about ghost Paul, not Alive Paul, though?]. Then he fades away, gone forever. Melissa suddenly realises there’s someone pounding on the front door and pokes her head out the window to find Buddy standing on the porch. He explains he got worried when she wasn’t at Della’s [You went to visit her at Della’s house after 12am? I don’t think Della’s family would have liked that], so he came here and heard the gunshot when he got out of his car. Melissa runs downstairs to let him in, and she leads him back up to her parents’ room, where he stops short upon seeing Paul’s body:
“Lissa, is that your ghost?” “No,” she said. “That’s not him. The ghost is gone, Buddy. Gone for good. That’s just some prowler.”
[Why is she so casual about this? Paul wanted to sexually assault her and almost killed her?]. And the book ends with the couple heading downstairs to phone the police.
Final thoughts
This was bloody stupid, and I’m still trying to make sense of the plot. What the hell was the point of this story? A ghost from the future returns to find out how he died, but doesn’t change things anyway, and is actually the one who causes his death in the first place? He wouldn’t have died if he didn’t return as a ghost, so why did he even come back? Ghost Paul obviously died the same way in his own timeline too, so what was the actual point of any of this? This didn’t need to be a story at all. Is something not clicking in my brain and I’m just not understanding something, or is it as stupid as I think it is? Ol’ Skinnybone wasn’t a great protagonist either. I found her pretty annoying for the most part, but I liked how she didn’t stick her nose up at those less fortunate than her and stood up for herself when the boys were being creepy/pushy. The classism was very real in some other characters though. Buddy was a pretty bad boyfriend, and Paul was just fucking terrible, so I’m glad he got what he deserved. This one was definitely missing the fun factor that the later books in the series have, and was a lot darker in tone. I joke about how rapey and seedy Shadyside boys can be, and Paul is the perfect example of that. I’m surprised how clear it was that he was planning to assault Melissa at the end, especially because this kind of behaviour is more subtle and open to interpretation in this books rather than being so blatant. My last big issue is Melissa’s driving. Not once when she was on the road did she drive safely – her mind was always elsewhere, she ran through read lights and intersections, and even crashed her car! How the hell did she get her license? Why did her parents trust her with their car, let alone her own? It just blew my mind how her driving wasn’t a big deal to anyone hahaha. Anyway, 34 rich liars that have to die out of 98!
