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Summary: Jess is eager to start college – until she arrives at her off-campus dorm.
She can see why everyone calls it Nightmare Hall. Especially when she learns the dark secret within the house.
A girl named Giselle hanged herself there. In Jess’s room.
But was it really suicide?
Or was Giselle murdered?
Echoing through the house, Jess can still hear the sound of Giselle’s last scream…
First impressions: I love the covers of the Nightmare Hall series. Each one has a window that you can see in, showing you an unsuspecting part of a scene. When you open to the inside cover, the full scene is revealed, often more scary and ominous than it first appeared through the window. I don’t think this gimmick was phased out by the end of the series though, at least for the copies I have.
If the scene depicted here is supposed to be of Giselle, not sure why that rope’s broken. and even if she did hang herself, that rope is way too long for anyone to hang themselves?? Surely no one believed she committed suicide? I guess we’ll have to read to find out. It’s a pretty cool image, though!
Recap
As usual, roll call first:
Jess – Our heroine who moves into Nightmare Hall.
Ian – The hunky love interest.
Jon – The handsome rich guy.
Linda – A swimmer who’s keen on Milo.
Milo – A sensitive poet type.
Cath – The studyholic and a bit of a bitch.
Giselle – The student who died in the dorm the previous summer.
Trucker – The live-in handyman who’s really good-looking underneath his baseball cap.
We begin with a prologue, and the housemother of Nightingale Hall, Mrs. Coates, finds student resident Giselle McKendrick hanging from the lighting fixture in her bedroom [Things got dark pretty quick! Hopeful ly a good sign]. The room is super cold despite the sunny weather. Giselle’s outfit description matches the girl on the cover, so I guess that is her [Still not sure how she hung herself with such a long rope though. Probably an artistic decision].
After Giselle’s death, the five other student residents leave for the summer, vowing to never return to what has now been nicknamed Nightmare Hall by the whole school. Giselle’s death was ruled an “apparent suicide”, which makes absolutely no sense to everyone who knew her. The housemother also leaves for the summer, hoping to forget about the tragedy.
It’s the start of a new school year and our protagonist, Jess, has just arrived at Nightmare Hall, which is more of a house and less of a dorm, where she’ll reside while attending Salem University. The other residents are there already, too – Ian, who would be too good looking if not for his hooked nose; Jon, who is too good looking and knows it; Linda, who Jess pegs as a swimmer because her yellow hair is tinged with green [OK]; Cath, who would be pretty “if she didn’t look so tense and anxious” [Can’t all have perfect mental health, Jess!] and Milo, who has long hair, a beard, and glasses [Sounds yucky].
There’s also a handyman there named Trucker [I hope that’s a nickname lol], who lives in an apartment above the garage and is desperately needed because the house is so rundown and shambled. Mrs. Coates isn’t home, but had mailed a key to Jess, who accepted the house monitor role for a cheaper tuition.
Inside, the freshmen explore the huge, spacious house before going to their rooms. Because she’s the protagonist, Jess’ new room belonged to Giselle. The gang don’t know this yet, but we figure it out quickly because it’s so00oOOOoo0o0 cold in there. Jess isn’t too bothered, though, because she has her own room for once, not to mention the size of it!
That night, the gang has a porch party [Sounds thrilling] to break the ice. Jon, seems interested in Cath, Linda seems interested in Milo and Jess seems interested in Ian, who has a super cute gap tooth [Damn, I guess we won’t be getting a love hexagon].
Linda and Ian are living off campus because their respective swimming and baseball scholarships didn’t cover the room and board. Cath’s parents are strict and want her to have no fun, because education is of the utmost importance [Boring. Poor girl]. Finance issues also brought Jess and Milo here, but Jon, who easily could have afforded to live on campus, thought the rules would be more lenient here.
Eventually, Ian reveals Giselle’s death the previous spring and Jess is horrified to find out it happened in her own room! An upstairs window suddenly slams shut, and since they’ve lost their partying moods anyway, they head back inside. Mrs. Coates, who’s standing at the top of the stairs, suddenly tumbles down them, almost like she was pushed. She’s taken to the hospital for a dislocated hip and will be kept there for a while, but before she goes, she tells the group they can’t stay here alone and must call her friend, Maddie, to come watch them.
Maddie doesn’t pick up, and after Trucker mentions having met Maddie before and that she’s a bitch and will refuse anyway, the group decides they’ll manage by themselves [Very suss, Trucker…]. In the kitchen, Cath makes an insensitive remark about Giselle’s death and the kitchen light goes out. Trucker informs them it just happens sometimes, and they all head to bed. That night, Jess is woken by a scream, but when she asks around the next day no-one else heard anything suss, so she decides she dreamed it [Maybe it was a g-g-g-g-ghost!].
They head to the campus to get registered where they learn that Giselle’s suicide wasn’t proven, just assumed. Later that afternoon, Jess calls Maddie and is delighted that she’s not keen on babysitting, but will pop in from time to time [Porch parties galore!].
As Jess flicks through her new, second hand textbooks, enjoying the smell [Uhhhh…?], she notices one of them was owned by none other than Giselle McKendrick of Nightingale Hall! Jess thinks it could be more than just a coincidence, though [Twins! I like Jess, she seems smart].
That night, the gang take the 15-minute walk to town to suss the local hangouts. Milo stays behind because he’d rather go fishing in the creek behind the house, much to Linda’s dismay. In town, they bump into Trucker, and Cath is mortified when Jess invites them to join them on their tour.
“But he’s the handyman!” Cath whispered as a smiling Trucker joined them. “He isn’t even a student!”
[Wow, fuck you, Cath!] Jokes on her, because Trucker is a student, since he signed up for night classes at Salem. They all head to a place called Duffy’s first and go straight for for the photo booth to document their first day of college. Ian and Jess go first, and the whole group is shocked when there’s a second girl in the photo with them. Her image is a bit cloudy, but a sad expression and pale hair is are clearly visible [Giselle! Yay, ghosts!]. Ian decides it must be double exposure from the person who last used the booth, but Jess isn’t so sure and can’t stop thinking about the girl.
The next week flies by as the gang study and have fun, except for Cath who does nothing but study, and Milo who doesn’t seem to care about his education because he does nothing but fish [Why are Jon and Linda so into these two?]. One night, Cath screams bloody murder because her Lit paper, which is due the next day, is missing. She’ll get a C if she doesn’t hand it in on time! [Don’t shame the C students, Cath! Does anyone else feel attacked right now?].
Cath accuses Milo of stealing it because he’s in the same class and hasn’t even done an outline for the paper [Makes sense to me!]. Hurricane Cath tears Milo’s room apart but comes up with nothing, so retires to her room to rewrite it while the others have a popcorn break in the kitchen. We find out that everyone visited Salem University for an orientation day except Jess, who wasn’t able to make it. Jon missed the showdown, so when Milo and Linda leave the room, Ian and Jess explain what happened, and Jon takes Cathy’s side because “Milo’s too far off centre.” Jess suggests he’s just shy, but can’t help feeling a little scared when she remembers the anger in his face when Cath accused him of theft [I wonder who did it? Surely not ghost Giselle].
The next morning , Giselle’s brother, Avery, arrives to pick up a trunk of his sister’s stuff. He’s in the army and was stationed in the Philippines, so hasn’t had a chance to collect it until now. Avery says he bumped into Trucker outside and he’s gone to find the trunk in the cellar. Then Milo appears, and it’s revealed he knows Avery because he and Giselle were close friends until high school. Milo is super awkward about it and quickly heads down to the cellar to help Trucker with the trunk. Before Avery heads down there too, he tells Jess how positive he is that Giselle didn’t kill herself.
Jess moves to the kitchen, surprised to see Trucker in there, raiding the fridge. Jess is upset about her conversation with Avery and snaps at Trucker, who says Milo sent him upstairs to fetch some rope and he was just stopping for a drink [OK?].
After Avery leaves with the trunk, the gang quiz Milo, who says his friendship with Giselle drifted in high school because she was a big deal and he wasn’t. He also mentions that she had a boyfriend from out of town [Even though he’s probably just a red herring because he’s the obvious suspect, I still feel Milo may have been involved? I don’t know. Maybe Diane Hoh doesn’t use as much clichés in her book].
Later that day, Jess returns home after her classes to an empty house and discovers a trail of muddy footprints that start in the middle of the hallway and end in her room. Linda returns home and assures Jess that it was probably just someone who put muddy shoes on in the hall and took them off again when they realised the mess they were making [OK, but why would someone put shoes on in the middle of the hall in the first place? And surely you could see they were muddy as you put them on? And why would they stop in Jess’ room and not their own?? Use your brain, Linda]. As Jess cleans the mud up, the footprints start to fade by themselves. There’s clearly something ooky spooky going on, but Jess convinces herself that’s just how dried mud works [???].
Jess wakes from a nap that evening to find a shadow on her wall of a body swinging back and forth from the lighting fixture [I’d probably shit my pants if I was Jess]. When Linda, Ian and Milo barge in to investigate her screams, the shadow disappears. The trio decides she was just having a nightmare, but Jess knows it was Giselle. She brings up the scream she heard the first night, but allows herself to be convinced she was dreaming then as well. It’s the logical explanation, after all.
Later, Jess heads to a party with some of the others and meets Beth, who tells her the day before Giselle’s death, she’d seen her being beaten around by a guy on campus. Like, proper domestic violence. Beth didn’t recognise the guy, but he had longish, dark hair [You know who else has longish, dark hair? Ian!]. Jess doesn’t make the connection, though, and really likes Ian, so is ecstatic when he kisses her that night before bed. He’s yet to ask her to the upcoming ball, though.
After school the next day, Linda discovers that her swimsuit has been cut into ribbons right before her swim meet! But who could have done it? Cath is all like “Well, now you know how I felt about my Lit paper, sweaty xx”, so of course Linda blames her for it, suspecting Cath wanted to get back at her for sticking up for Milo. Cath denies it and absolutely wrecks Linda:
“You should be relieved, Linda. Those suits are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. Even on people with good figures.”
[Hahahaha I hate Cath]. Trucker pipes up to defend Cath, since he’d been fixing the light bulbs in the hall all afternoon and never saw Cath leave her room. Linda suggests she used the fire escape outside both their windows [Seems like a lot of effort just to shred a bathing suit], but Cath claims she wasn’t able to open her window last night or this morning, almost like it was glued shut. When Trucker investigates, he easily slides it open, and Cath seems genuinely surprised so I’m inclined to believe her.
A week later, Jess is returning home from campus, dismayed that Ian still hasn’t asked her to the ball, but excited to change from her sweatshirt into a t-shirt because it’s soOOoo00 hot, but her t-shirt drawer is all messed up! Her cold weather clothes are at the top, where her t-shirts should be. She reckons she must have swapped them around and just forgotten, but as she fiddles around in the drawer looking for a t-shirt, she feels something warm and smooth moving around. She jerks her arm back to find it covered in worms [Hahahaha gross. Would that even be possible? It’s not like worms can hold onto you???].
You’d think it’s a drawer full of snakes by the way Jess carries on, and Trucker and Ian arrive to save the day, finding Jess rocking back and forth on the floor [Jess, please. You were more calm after the shadow incident]. Jess hates slithery things, so the big, strong boys clean out the worm drawer before Jess and Ian decide to go out to dinner. They invite Trucker, but he doesn’t want to stand in the way of love, so rejects the offer [Trucker is great!]. Alas, it’s not much of a date because all their friends from campus are there, too, but when the conversation turns to fishing and someone mentions worms, Jess puts on the theatrics again and she and Ian quickly leave [Jess, you’re losing my respect here, calm down]. Also, Ian constantly calls her “kiddo” which is a huge turn off for me and also super weird because they’re the same age?
Anyway, the next night, Jess is in Linda’s room, helping her pick an outfit for a library date with Milo. Linda wants to look super hot, but Jess isn’t so sure Milo sees this as an actual date. Giselle’s death gets brought up again and straight away, Linda’s mirror explodes [OK, my current theory is that ghost Giselle is agro that her reputation is being slandered by the idea of suicide, so is doing all this stuff to get the gang to investigate. Doesn’t explain the missing paper, swimsuit or worms, though, so maybe that’s the killer doing stuff?].
It explodes with such force that Linda’s pillows and bedspread are torn by the flying glass, but Jess and Linda are miraculously unharmed. Everyone else hurries in and it’s decided that someone must have thrown something in through the open window [Which doesn’t explain why glass went flying to the other side of the room, but OK, we can go with that]. Their search for something that could have done it comes up short, though.
Then Jess realises that something strange happens in the house every time Giselle’s suicide is brought up! For instance, the night Ian told them all about her death at their porch party, a window had slammed shut, and afterwards when they’d continued the conversation in the kitchen, the light had gone out, and now this [Giselle, cut the crap let them try to help you instead of freaking them out!]. She decides that’s way too weird a theory, but can’t help feeling uneasy anyway.
Anyway, Linda and Milo go to the library, which may or may not be a date, while Trucker, Cath, Jess and Ian go out for a movie and pizza, and Jon goes on his own date with a pretty blonde that Jess had heard him on the phone to earlier in the week. Unable to sleep later, Jess decides to organise all the papers on her desk and finds a photo of the blue-eyed blonde, Giselle McKendrick, with a big black slash scribbled over her face. She remembers Ian grabbing a pile of things from under the drawers after the worm incident, and realises it must have been among them [Let’s speculate: when Jess had overheard Jon on the phone the other night, he’d told the girl on the other end how he loves blondes with blue eyes. We know Giselle was being abused by someone the day before she’d died, so maybe it was Jon?!? I always say how the most innocent suspects are innocent, but maybe that theory doesn’t apply to the Nightmare Hall series. I guess we’ll find out!].
Anyway, Jess recognises Giselle as the girl gatecrashing her photo with Ian in from the photo booth, and also finds a letter addressed to Giselle among the pile of papers:
Dear Giselle,
Your time has run out. You’ve stalled long enough. You haven’t answered any of my phone calls or my letters. So I’m coming there and you’d better be ready to leave with me. I’m not taking no for an answer.
Your Forever Love
And finally, Jess realises what the reader has assumed from the first time we learnt of Giselle’s “apparent suicide” – that it was a murder disguised as suicide [We’re on page 157 out of 229, took her long enough].
The next day at breakfast, Jess shows everyone the photo and letter and announces her plan to search for the other letters that this one mentions. An annoyed Ian questions why she wants to play Sherlock Holmes, which rankles Jess. For those unfamiliar with the word, like I was, it basically means annoy [Big shout-out to Diane Hoh for increasing my vocabulary, because I will definitely be using this word from now on].
Jess wonders why he’s so angry about it, which leads to her pegging all three male housemates as potential suspects, using the same reasoning I pointed out earlier in the recap [Wow, am I Jess?]. She remembers that Giselle was seen fighting with a guy with long hair, like Milo and Ian; had blue eyes and blonde hair, which Jon goes weak at the knees for; and that all three boys were on campus for orientation around the time of her death. Milo also knew Giselle previously, so maybe he was obsessed with her?
The rest of the gang reckon the letter and photo were empty threats, and Cath mentions that Giselle took her own life, resulting in the cellar door flying open and violently slamming against the wall [Ghost Giselle needs to chill].
In the living room that night, they’re all getting cosy by the fire when Cath’s missing essay falls out of Milo’s notebook as Linda is flicking through it. Things get super awkward as Milo denies stealing it and doesn’t know how it got there, and I still believe him, as does Linda [Which isn’t a surprise because she wants to jump his bones]. The tension escalates until finally Jess and Ian are left alone in the living room. Ian takes the opportunity to finally ask her to the Fall Ball, and although she is reluctant at first because he’s a potential murderer, she accepts [She’s complained the whole book about him not asking her, and now she’s complaining when he does?!].
The following night, everyone goes to a frat party instead of Jess, who fakes a headache so she can search for Giselle’s other letters. She hears a noise downstairs and from the window, sees a flashlight beam outside heading to the cellar. Then the power in the house goes off. Jess thinks that maybe Trucker decided to stay home and journeys through the darkness to investigate the cellar.
She calls for Trucker at the top of the cellar stairs, too scared to go down there, but there’s no reply. Then she’s shoved from behind and tumbles down the stairs, hearing the door lock right before she falls unconscious [OK, surely not ghost Giselle and one of the boys instead, right?].
When Jess comes to, she realises there’s gas leaking from the furnace! She tries to escape through the outside cellar doors, but of course they’re locked, too. After using a piece of fabric she finds caught on a nail to cover her nose and mouth, she eventually finds a valve and shuts the gas off before smashing her way to freedom through a small, dirty window. But she’s not out of danger yet!
Someone is standing above her, and whoever it is pins her to the ground with their foot. Jess can’t identify the attacker’s voice because they’re whispering, but knows it’s one of the boys of Nightmare Hall because he mentions knowing she was faking her headache. He also reveals that Giselle promised to marry him, but had to die because she was lying and just said that so he’d let her go to college first. Now Jess has to die, too because she’s figured out Giselle was murdered! He also gloats about finding the other letters, the ones Jess was searching for, in the trunk of Giselle’s things that was given to Avery [And I suspect Milo or Trucker, because they both helped Avery with the trunk… and if my usual theory of the least obvious suspect being the killer, then Trucker would be it! Was he Giselle’s secret boyfriend??].
As the attacker wraps a noose around her neck, Jess manages to slice at him with a shard of glass from the window. A car pulls up in the driveway and the attackers runs off after telling Jess he’s not finished with her. But the car isn’t her housemates returning, it’s just some random turning around, and Jess falls unconsciousness again, too weak to get up and run.
She’s woken by the sound of her housemates, including Trucker, returning, and she explains what happened. She remembers the bit of fabric she’s found on a nail in the cellar and pulls it from her pocket, recognising it from one of Milo’s jackets. The gang drops the bombshell that Milo didn’t go to the party with them, but he doesn’t seem to be home either [Oooooh, maybe he is the killer. He was probably fishing, though, since that’s all he does].
She points out that Milo had been down in the cellar the day that Avery visited and had sent Trucker upstairs because, Trucker says, “Milo wanted a soda” [Except when Jess saw him in the kitchen, he actually said that Milo sent him up to find some rope! Jess doesn’t realise this, but now I’m sure Trucker is the killer and my theory still stands].
Anyway, Linda can’t believe what Jess is getting at because she’s in love with Milo. Everyone follows Jess to Milo’s room to search through his stuff, where they find the other letters. Each letter is signed “Your Forever Love” and are very possessive and aggressive. Linda still doesn’t believe this massive amount of evidence [And probably rightly so], revealing that Jon and Ian had both left the party for a while so one of them could have attacked Jess [It is definitely Trucker; he’s the only one no-one is considering a suspect!].
Then Milo appears, wearing a jacket with a tear in it. Jess interrogates him, but he denies everything, saying he was in the library studying and that the jacket he was now wearing had reappeared in his room after being missing for two weeks [Sneaky, Trucker!]. Knowing they can’t go to the police because there’s no concrete proof he killed Giselle or that he attacked Jess, Milo leaves Nightmare Hall for good.
A week later, while packing up Milo’s room, since he left his stuff there, Jess, Trucker and Linda find a typewriter in his closet. Jess doesn’t remember hearing a typewriter clacking away from his room, and Linda points out that’s because he didn’t know how to type and had been handwriting all of his school assignments. The letters to Giselle were all done on a typewriter [Which should be their first clue that he was framed]. When they type on the ancient thing, the letter ‘O’ is filled in and the ‘G’ is a bit broken, matching the letter to Giselle they’d found, and Jess declares that he was lying about his typing abilities! Linda finally realises Milo isn’t the guy she thought he was [But you were right all along, Linda! He was framed, I tell you!]. Ian doesn’t want to take this new evidence to the police because it still isn’t concrete evidence, but agrees to at least try on Monday.
That night, they go to the Fall Ball and have a wonderful time. Afterwards, everyone goes to get food except Jess and Ian, who walk back to the house. They decide to sit on the porch for a while, but Ian goes inside to get Jess a jacket because it’s cold. Then a car pulls up and a girl gets out. She’s returning Milo’s jacket after he loaned it to her the previous week so she wouldn’t be cold on her walk home [Such a gentleman, that Milo]. So Milo was telling the truth about being at the library when Jess was attacked! The girl explains she was helping him type up his essay because he can’t use a typewriter and the teacher had said he can’t hand in another handwritten paper [I knew he wasn’t lying!].
The girl leaves, and Jess hears a voice urgently calling to her from the creek. When she arrives, there’s a photo of Giselle in the water and Trucker is there, claiming he saw Milo put it there and run away while calling for Jess so she would find it. But Jess knows better than that now, but apparently doesn’t know enough to realise he’s the killer until he bends down to pick up the photograph and his collar opens further, revealing a fresh slash on his neck, obviously made the week before from the broken glass.
Trucker realises Jess has solved the case and reveals Ian is tied up and out like a light, so he can’t help her. He starts monologuing about how he’d given Giselle all the attention she’d needed while her dad was by her terminally ill mother’s hospital bed, but then her father finally started taking an interest in her again and encouraged a college education. Giselle had told Trucker she’d go just for a year then come back, but she never did, so he came to Nightingale Hall and strangled her in a fit of rage and then made it look like a suicide. [Surely there’d be handprints on her neck, though? Or would the rope marks cover up them up?].
Anyway, he’d returned to the house and managed to get a job there, the perfect cover to search for the letters. Giselle had constantly mentioned Milo because she felt sorry they were no longer friends, and when Milo showed up on the first day, Trucker realised he had the perfect patsy, and soon set to work making everyone suspicious of Milo.
Finished with his bad guy speech, Trucker lunges towards Jess, holding a wire necklace for her [Which I’m sure will match her velvet ball gown!], but the photo of Giselle rises up from the water and plasters itself to Trucker’s face, suffocating him [So ghost Giselle was real??? Why did she push Mrs. Coates down the stairs? lol]. Trucker collapses and his head hits a rock, killing him.
Milo shows up with the rest of the housemates, and he explains how he suspected Trucker and had gone back to his hometown to investigate him. Then he’d returned tonight to clear his name to his roommates and found Ian tied up in a closet. The others had returned home by that stage, and they noticed a flashlight beam at the creek, following it to find Jess and Trucker. Giselle’s photograph rises up again and drifts off into the wind, and Jess realises the muddy footprints and the hanging shadow were Giselle trying to tell her. The gang return to Nightmare Hall, satisfied that Giselle is finally at peace.
Final Thoughts
I really liked this book! Lots of page fillers that didn’t add much to the story, but also lots of character development, too, which is always nice. I liked the supernatural element, it wasn’t super overbearing and unrealistic like some other Point Horrors, and it was secondary to the main murder mystery plot.
I don’t really understand why it’s called ‘The Silent Scream’, though. I guess because you can’t scream while you’re being strangled, maybe? Anyway, I’m looking forward to reading another Nightmare Hall in the future!
12 rankled Jess’s out of 14.
