Tagline: a summer you won’t live to regret…
Back tagline: The most exclusive holiday club is one you have to be dead to enter…
Summary: When five teens arrive at Spinnaker Lodge, a glamorous luxury holiday resort on an island off the east coast, they’re all set for non-stop partying (and vaguely trying to hold down their flaky summer jobs).
But then the murders begin, and rumours circulate about a nightmarish figure wielding a scythe – a ruthless killer who’s picking off the tourists one by one. As the deaths close in on the five new arrivals, the island begins to seem less like a millionaire’s playground and more like a graveyard…
First impressions: This is part of the 2003 batch of Point Horror books, which I assume may have been an attempt to revitalise interest after going on hiatus from 1996-2002 while Point Horror Unleashed was being released. This is a very basic cover that shows us nothing but the cloaked killer, but I like it because it’s a scary sight. This is my first Peter Lerangis book though, so I’m not quite sure what to expect. It sounds like it’s gonna be a slasher, which is my favourite horror subgenre, so I have high hopes. I’m not sure if Point Horror would work so well in the 2000s, when cell phones and the internet were becoming more mainstream and easily accessible, but there’s only one way to find out! Let’s read.
Recap
Meet the crew:
Carter – An arrogant, cocky womaniser.
Anna – Carter’s love interest who doesn’t seem to like him much.
Erica – An aspiring reporter who’s African-American and won’t let us forget it.
Martin – A nerd with with a possibly dangerous mental illness.
Henry – An island local with a penchant for stealing.
Rachel – A sexy rich girl who may or may not be an expectant mother.
Obadiah – The island’s mysterious vagrant.
The book opens with some sort of business page for Spinnaker Lodge, Inc., owned by Lemieux & Daughter. The owner/CEO is Alphonse Lemieux, and his daughter, Gabrielle, is president. The lodge is on Essex Island, Massachusetts, and we also get some reviews of the place, such as “Most exclusive new resort in the USA” and “SCS (Sun-Celebrity-Sex) Index: Off the charts!” We’re then privy to a confidential email sent by Gabrielle to VP of operations, Cyril Barker; Director of Food Services Walter ‘Smitty’ Smithfield; and Director of Reservations and Summer Hires Edward ‘Duke’ McCord. Gabrielle is excited because they’ve held some interviews and have acquired ‘six perfect young helpers – hard-working, handsome and hot hot hot!!!’ The men are told to sort out nametags ASAP, and then the new hires are listed as well as some information about them, including 1-10 ratings on their image (I), work potential (W) and family influence (F), all of which I’ll include in another roll call [There’s seven people on this list, but one already has a working relationship with the Lemieuxes so I guess he doesn’t count as one of the six?]:
New hires:
Carter Hale– A blue-eyed, blonde Caucasian who’s 6’1” and about to enter Harvard. He’s smart and a track star, is drop-dead handsome and is perfect for the lodge’s image, so Gabrielle wants him in as the restaurant’s bus boy where he’ll be in full view of the customers. His father is a high-tech businessman. I=10, W=9+, F=9.
Anna Karpathos – A statuesque, Greek-American high school senior who’s 5’9″ with dark brown hair and eyes. She’s the granddaughter of an exiled Greek king with high prestige, and she’s requested maid duty, so Gabrielle wants a sexy uniform created for her. I=10, W=8+, F=10.
Erica Patterson – A 5’7″ African-American high school junior with black hair and brown eyes. She’s a beautiful go-getter with great style and is class valedictorian. [How is she valedictorian when she’s a junior?] She’s also won awards for her high school journalism, and Gabrielle thinks she’ll be useful in PR. Her parents are presidents of a real estate board. I=10, W=9+, F=10.
Martin Hsu – A 5’10” Chinese-American high school junior with black hair and brown eyes who’s wickedly brilliant, cute and funny. He programmed the entire school district’s computers [As a high schooler? Are we stereotyping here, Lerangis?] and will be useful for in-house tech support, so Gabrielle wants him behind the front desk, helping with reservations and systems. His father is Lemieux’s accountant. I=7, W=10+, F=4.
Henry Finney – A 5’9″ Caucasian local boy with red hair and hazel eyes. He’s rugged, working-class and handsome in a rough-hewn way and might have an attitude problem. His father’s a drunk but knows Alphonse, and hiring Henry will help diminish Spinnaker’s carpetbagger criticism. [I had to look it up – a carpetbagger is an opportunistic person who comes from afar to exploit the local populace for their own financial, political, and/or social gain] He’s got a building permit and can be used as for carpentry, heavy lifting and as an bellhop. I=8, W=8, F=10.
Rachel Cominsky – A 5’7″ Caucasian high school senior with blonde hair and brown eyes. This triple-varsity athlete is sexy, friendly and bouncy, with extremely wealthy and social parents. I=9, W=8, F=10.
Sam Fanelli– A 5’8″ Italian-American Yale freshman with sandy-blonde hair and brown eyes. He interned at Lemieux & Daughter during the year and is an excellent worker who’ll probably head a Fortune 500 company some day. He’s a strong leader who doesn’t care what others think of him and is willing to be unpopular. I=6, W=10, F=3
[Why do we need to know their heights?] It’s also probably worth noting that Anna, Erica, Martin and Rachel all attend the same high school. With that out of the way, it’s time for a prologue! Our villain is watching from afar as tourists arrive from the ferries, noting their ignorance to the fact that ‘once upon a time death and suffering were the way of life’ on the island. These people are selfish and worship consumption, but in time they’ll learn that everything is consumed:
It is a lesson best learned young.
And they will learn.
One by one. As it was in the beginning, now and ever shall be, world without end, Amen.
Welcome, my children, to X-Isle.
[No idea wtf he’s on about] Our main story begins on day one of the teens’ summer jobs, with Carter frothing at the mouth over Anna in her maid uniform, who he describes as ‘more than hot. She was a hormone-activating device’ [What a weird way to describe someone lol. Also, I already don’t like him] and having sleepy lips, whatever that means. Apparently they’d been at the same party last week, and he’s kicking himself for not noticing her then – ‘How could he have spent all that time rolling in the dunes with…what’s her face, the girl with large, er, tracts of land (can’t even remember her name!).’ [Tracts of land? Does he mean her boobs? Wtf??? Also, this is his inner dialogue, I doubt a horny teenage boy would refer to breasts as tracks of land, or call a sexy girl a hormone-activating device. I am not liking where this book is going and we’re only on page 3 💀]
We learn the checkered history of Essex Island as Carter takes in his surroundings. Back in the 1600s, the 11-mile-long, one-mile-wide island was a desolate outpost for exiled colonial thieves and their jailers after the native Madekonset tribe was driven away. Then the whaling industry transformed it into an island of millionaire ship captains with cliffside mansions, and when that industry went bust in the 20th century, so did Essex. The town nearly burned to the ground at one point, and over the years the community grew back into ‘a depressed, sleepy fishing village of fiercely defiant souls.’ Many of those people and their descendants remain on the island, such as Henry, and they sneer at ‘the well-heeled New Yorkers, Bostonians and Washingtonians who had transformed their island into a place where a half-mil bought you a one-room apartment above the fishmonger, and the cost of one beach house matched the gross national product of a Third-World country.’ To the Spinnaker crowd, the island is the place to be, but to the locals, it’s an island of haves and have-not-who-serve-them. Spinnaker Lodge is super exclusive and to get here, you need a bloodline, a connection, ‘or a reservation three years in advance.’ Carter has none of those things, but knows how to bat his baby blue eyes to get what he wants, which is how he convinced Gabrielle to hire him.
Anyway, the new hires are waiting in the lobby for the orientation meeting to start, and Carter decides to put the moves on Anna, suggesting they head upstairs and change some bed sheets together. Anna plays hard to get; [Or probably just isn’t interested] she’s tough and rich, a combination Carter likes. He introduces himself, bragging that he’ll be attending Harvard in September after graduating from Dunster School. To his annoyance, Anna knows of another Dunster student on the island, Jared Myer, whose family owns the lighthouses. After a bit of banter, Erica butts in from behind the reservation counter to tell them Lemieux is on the balcony above them. Erica’s one of the few people of colour on the island, which has a history of diversity if you consider the few Princetonians among the Harvards and Yalies. [Lollllllll] Erica’s always writing and has the kind of eyes that see everything, which makes Carter nervous.
Up on the balcony, Lemieux, a fake-tanned, botoxed, too-trim man in his 50s, is standing with his beautiful daughter Gabrielle, who is smiling directly at Carter, [How old is she? Because he’s only 17] and Cyril, a pasty, bald man. [There’s soooo many characters, so I’ll probably remind you who some are when they pop up. Cyril is the VP of Operations and basically Lemieux’s assistant] He begins telling the new hires of a very special guest arriving today, but that’s as far as he gets before the most bankable star in the US, Justin Riggs, waltzes through the door, protected by bodyguards and surrounded by cameramen and reporters. Erica pulls out a writing pad from her pocket to work on her first article for the Essex Mirror teen column, explaining to the others that Justin trashed a hotel room last week because he was depressed that his new movie bombed at the box office, and Carter agrees that the movie was crap. [He also seems jealous of Justin, tbh]
The Lemieuxes, Cyril and Duke, a surfer-stoner type with tan skin and unruly curls [In charge of summer hires] rush to welcome the celebrity, who’s clearly drunk, and the lobby quickly fills up with adoring fans. Cyril orders Erica to get Justin’s room key and Henry to get his luggage, and then beckons Anna, who tells Justin she’s at his service. Justin looks her up and down and is impressed with what he sees, telling Erica to give Anna a key to his room too because ‘”She’s my guest.”‘ Carter becomes insanely jealous because I guess he thinks he owns this girl who he’s said 10 words to, and completely loses it when Justin puts his arm around Anna and comments that he’s on first base. [Seriously, this is exactly what Carter would do lol, why’s he so mad?] Carter charges at Justin, and somehow manages to jump over the bodyguards’ heads [???] and comes down on Justin’s back, tackling him to the floor. Carter starts pummelling him as flashbulbs pop all around him, and it takes three bodyguards to tear him away.
We jump to Martin now, who’s on the beach studying Spinnaker Lodge from afar with some bearded old man. Martin’s supposed to be inside right now at the meeting, but he can’t go in just yet because it isn’t safe. He holds up an old library book to the man, open to a page that shows a photo of the lodge back in 1903, and explains that if you look at the shingles on the roof at a certain angle, the sun shades the roof in such a way that you can make out the message ‘Help me’ on it, from the wife of the whaling captain who lived there at the time. [I’m confused, did she remove some of the tiles to create the message or what? It just says that the message is ‘etched in sunlight and shadow.’] The old man already knows this story, but Martin tells him it anyway, I guess for our benefit. William Harkness was the captain’s name, and the story goes that he returned from a long voyage and then kept his wife, Abigail, trapped in the mansion for some reason. No-one knew where she was [Did they try checking the house?] and when Harkness would vacantly wander through town, everyone thought he was searching for her. She was eventually found, but Martin trails off because the Lodge has been replaced with the old mansion, just like in the book’s photo. Above its entrance is a ship’s bowsprit, where Abigail’s corpse is tied up, still dressed in her bonnet and black dress, her eyes staring vacantly. [Is this a vision or hallucination or what?]
The man with Martin then laughs, and Martin’s immediate thoughts are that he’s Harkness, and Martin should kill him. [???] Martin knows he needs to resist the impulse and realises he needs his medication. He sifts through his backpack and finds the bottle, and the little white pills spill out over the sand. He swallows one anyway, and it takes him two minutes before he feels normal again. At the edge of the beach and main road is an old man who he’d been discussing the island’s history with earlier (as in before the chapter started) and Martin wonders if he told the man anything, because all he remembers is the urge to kill. Relieved, embarrassed and disgusted with himself, he collects the pills from the sand and heads to the Lodge. [I am so confused by wtf just happened. I think this whole scene we just read was his imagination, prompted by an earlier encounter with the old man?]
Next, Erica emails her boss at the Essex Mirror an article she’s written about the fight between Justin and Carter – it’s not part of her duties for a teen column, but she couldn’t resist! The article details how Justin was being a jerk, and Carter swooped in to defend the staff and was fired.
It’s the next night now, and Carter and Anna are frolicking amongst the dunes of Breakers Beach. Anna reveals that Erica’s printing a story about last night, but Carter isn’t too fazed; his family will take care of it Justin decides to sue. [Why is Anna saying last night, though? It happened yesterday morning?] Anna’s still playing hard to get and makes little digs, like her family would handle it if she were sued but she’s not spoilt like him, and Carter pulls her in closer – ‘She struggled against him, but Carter knew what that meant. It meant, more. It meant, You’ll just have to overpower me. He had to do this right. Firm, confident, not psychotic.’ [What the actual fuck]
She tells him to knock it off and gives him a soft knee to the groin, then runs off over the dunes, laughing an apology. He takes off after her, enjoying the little game she’s playing, but the problem is she’s summered on the island for years and knows the ins and outs, so ‘if he didn’t watch out, she actually could escape.’ [He’s literally thinking like a rapist or something???] It looks like she’s heading for Trent Point, which is apparently too much of a risk so he encourages himself to ‘GET HER.’ [Maybe we’re supposed to think he’s our bad guy? Also, Lerangis is putting some of these characters’ thoughts in brackets and I really hate it] He starts sprinting and catches up with her at the lighthouse, tackling her from behind. This time Anna doesn’t struggle and is clearly waiting for him to kiss her, [OK, I guess she is toying with him but still, his thoughts are crazy scary] and soon they’re making out and rolling around in the sand. Carter’s back hits the base of the lighthouse and he immediately feels a droplet fall on his neck. They think it’s rain at first, but as more drops fall they realise this substance is much darker:
Carter rolled away. And looked up.
Bolted above the door of the lighthouse was a flagpole. Something had been wrapped around it. Tethered.
Something large.
Someone.
Staring downward, his eyes vacant and his mouth dripping blood, was Justin Riggs.
[Very similar to how Abigail Harkness was found! Also, where were his bodyguards lol] Anna is terrified and runs off, wanting to call the police, but Carter grabs her and insists they can’t do that because they’ll think she murdered Justin. That makes no sense to me or Anna, but insists the law is just like that and they’ll need to do it anonymously. He tells her she’s being hysterical [Carter is fucking awful, I need him to die asap] but Anna shoves him away and takes off again, glad he doesn’t know the beach the way she does. She weaves between the dunes and stops at a bathhouse, satisfied that she’s lost Carter. She thinks back to Carter attacking Justin at the Lodge, and is very suspicious that Carter tried to convince her not to call the police, as if he has a secret. She quickly pulls out her cellphone and dials 911.
Cut to Erica at the scene of the crime just before midnight, surrounded by police and a crowd of onlookers as she scribbles down notes to write an article about Justin’s murder. From what she’s overheard, Justin was stabbed to death and nearly eviscerated, and his eyeballs removed ‘”like they were candy.”‘ [I don’t understand this analogy lol] Henry approaches from the crowd, wondering if the police know who killed Justin. Erica, who’s not too fond of ‘toughened white boys where “race” meant the 100-meter dash’ but believes everyone deserves a chance, tells him they have no idea, but county and state police are heading over to help with the investigation. Henry approves of that because the island police can’t even handle shoplifting, and Erica’s sure they don’t know how to handle ‘a black female high school reporter with body piercings’ either. [Not Erica just assuming everyone here is racist lol. Does she just hate all white people?]
Erica mentions getting a brief statement from a young officer before he was pulled away and ordered not to talk to the press, and Henry informs her they always do that. Apparently there’s a brutal murder like this every few years, which is always blamed on some outsider and kept quiet because it’s bad for tourism, but this is the first time the victim was a celebrity. [Yeah, that surely won’t be kept quiet] Erica suggests the murderer might be local then, and Henry speculates it might be a ghost. Erica’s a non-believer, but Henry tells her to enquire about the Island Curse with the men at Dock Rats Club. They blame anything bad on the Curse, including bad weather and pimples. Erica jots this all down, but Gabrielle suddenly appears and rips the clipboard out of her hands. She rips off the top sheet and tells Erica she can’t mention the Lodge in the media in any negative way, warning that ‘”any behavior — on or off the job — that results in adverse publicity for the Spinnaker is grounds for dismissal.”‘ Erica protests against this violation of her First Amendment rights, but Gabrielle rips the page up and pockets the scraps.
We cut to a cloaked old man, our bad guy, walking out onto the jetty, shaking his head at the shameful loss of life that’s occurred. He pulls out a gold star from his pocket which has the image of Baphomet on it; the events it prophesied are unfolding. From the rocks below, the man reaches down and retrieves a blade, wrapping it in his cloak:
It is clean.
It is meant to protect, not to harm.
He takes no joy in what happened.
The next day, Martin’s fixing a bug in the Lodge’s computer system, something he knows will earn people’s admiration; ‘Smart techie — two words that fit together in their minds with Chinese, along with clean shirts and mooshu pork.’ [Is clean shirts a Chinese stereotype? I’ve never heard of that] Erica’s pacing back and forth behind the front desk with Martin, threatening to quit her summer job and write a huge exposé as revenge against Gabrielle. Martin secretly doesn’t want her to quit because he’s got a big crush on her, and she’s apparently one of the only girls who can nearly make his nose bleed, which happens when he gets too excited. Erica rants that this is a huge story and slaps down a copy of the Boston Globe, which has a front-page article about Justin’s death that barely even suggests he was murdered and doesn’t mention the altercation with Carter at all. She bangs on about how unethical it is, and how Lemieux probably paid them off.
We learn that Martin has no memory of the night Justin was killed, but tries not to think about what that might mean – ‘The feelings — that “fantasy killer” instinct he and his shrink always talked about — they were just that. Feelings. He would never actually act on them.’ [Is there a mental illness that makes you fantasise about murdering people?] He argues that Erica is going about this the wrong way, and brings up a website about Essex Island’s history, clicking through to a photo of 15 men in robes standing on a bluff that overlooks the sea. They’ve got a big flag spread out between them with a strange star in the middle of it [Ooh, like the Baphomet star the killer had before?], and the whole image reminds Erica of the KKK.
The picture is from late 1800s of the Essex Freemasons, which allegedly descended from the mystical Knights Templar society, started during the Crusades. After not having anything to fight for centuries, the Knights Templar had grown too powerful and were burned at the stake, and those that managed to avoid persecution went underground to become a secret society. Rumours of human sacrifice and revenge killings followed, and Essex’s most prominent whalers were members, including William Harkness, the guy who owned the mansion before it eventually became the Lodge.
Martin points out the similarities between Justin’s death and Abigail Harkness’s, [This is the first time it’s mentioned that Abigail’s eyes were gouged out; when Martin had his little episode earlier it only said her eyes stared vacantly, similar to how Carter’s discovery of Justin only said his eyes were vacant. Both times I just interpreted it to mean their eyes were lifeless, not that their eye sockets were empty. Way too much is left unclear in this book lol] the latter of which William was thrown in jail for. People tried to ban the Freemasons but were unsuccessful, and over the years it transformed into what Martin calls a lame club for the wealthy, which still exists. Lemieux is a member, and Martin thinks it’s possible that he and/or the Freemasons are involved in Justin’s death, since every few years there’s a grisly murder on the island. Erica, excited to have something to research, plants a big kiss on Martin’s lips and declares she loves him [Platonically, of course] before excitedly scurrying out the door, leaving Martin with a nosebleed.
Meanwhile, Henry’s waiting by the jetty with a paper bag full of food from the restaurant for a man named Obadiah, who seems to be uncharacteristically late today. Sam, one of the head summer guys, appears and is super condescending, wondering what Henry would do in his shoes if he saw an employee dallying by the beach instead of working. If Henry was Sam, he’d kill himself, and Sam makes a face and leaves.
Obadiah finally rocks up in his rowboat and Henry wades out to meet him, dropping the bag inside. This is an everyday transaction, and by the sound of it Obadiah never shows gratitude that Henry steals for him and risks being fired, but Henry keeps his mouth shut. Obadiah’s a creep, but he’s saved Henry’s drunk father from the water at least twice and always drags him home from the bar, so Henry feels indebted to him.
That night, Erica visits the Dock Rats Club’s lopsided building after not finding any information about the Freemasons at the island’s library. An old man with a walking cane, Gershon Phelps, invites her inside to show her a folder. Erica opens it to find a cracked, faded photograph of Abigail Harkness, ‘unblemished but for a jagged black gash in her right cheek and a missing left eye.’ [So only one eye was gouged out then?] Phelps explains how William Harkness got mad and killed her, then was declared insane by the town fathers, who turned the mansion into the Good Shepherd Sanatorium. He takes out another photo, this time of William Harkness hanging from the rafters. [So this guy has a file of photos of dead people? Creepy] It happened a year after Abigail’s death and was ruled as suicide, and Phelps reveals the sanitorium was shut down after 12 more suicides over the next few years. As time went on the property became a theatre, which was gutted by fire, then a flophouse and a brothel, both ending in tragedy. Lastly it was an amusement park in the ’70s, [How??? How can a mansion be turned into an amusement park? Or does he mean it was just on the property?] but ‘”a carousel went out of control and crushed little Bobby Fletcher’s skull.”‘ [How? Like, one of the horses than move up and down crushed his skull? That’s the only way I can think of. But also, how did the carousel go out of control?] Phelps explains that until Lemieux opened the hotel, the place was closed, except for ‘”this crazy old bum, Obadiah, who lived inside by himself.”‘
According to Phelps, the Curse goes way back, before Harkness killed his wife, and Erica wants to know if he believes the Freemasons are involved in all these deaths. There’s a sudden snore from an old man sleeping on a chair in the corner, and Phelps looks at the electric clock on the wall, which is 2.5 hours late, before announcing he has to prepare for a meeting. He leaves her with some parting advice – think twice about working at the Lodge, because there’s got to be a connection between that building and the deaths over the years.
There’s a fog rolling up Main Street as Erica leaves the Dock Rats Club, and as Erica strolls toward her parents’ art gallery and rental apartment, she wonders why Phelps cut the meeting short. Was it because the other man was waking up? Was Phelps worried about being seen with a young woman in the club? ‘Because the club didn’t admit women — or non-whites? Then why had he let her inside in the first place?’ [I guess she’s gonna be bringing up her race every time we cross to her 🥴]
Erica suddenly notices a shadow that seems to be following her and quickens her pace. She’s way past the restaurants and clubs now, and once she reaches the crest of the hill the street lamps will disappear. She breaks into a run and hears her pursuer’s footsteps become louder and closer, and she ends up tripping over a cobblestone.
We now find ourselves with Rachel for the first time. She’s playing some tennis with her mother, who wants her to quit her job at Spinnaker Lodge because of Justin’s murder. Rachel is pissed about that and storms into the house for some ice cream, determined to no longer be Little Miss Nice; everything’s always about what Mum wants, and if she continues trying to ruin Rachel’s life, there’ll be consequences. For the first time in her life, Rachel’s felt like a separate person to her family; she enjoys having a job, and a potential boyfriend. Mum comes in and insists it for Rachel’s own safety, but Rachel argues that Justin Riggs was targeted due to his celebrity status, probably by a psycho fan or something.
Mrs. Cominsky reminds Rachel that ice cream goes straight to your thighs, and Rachel spits out her mouthful and shoves tub toward her mother. She storms off, declaring she’s going to her boyfriend Carter Hale’s house, [Oooh, Carter?!] ‘”A nice, sane goyisch boy from a Catholic family,”‘ knowing that dating a Catholic boy is way more terrifying to her mother than what happened to Justin. Not that Rachel knows if Carter is Catholic; she barely knows him at all, so they’re certainly not a couple. All she knows about him is what she learned while they were rolling around in the sand together at last week’s party. One thing led to another, and now she knows ‘beyond the shadow of a doubt he was not Jewish.’ [Hahahahahaha]
Rachel can’t believe she’d slept with him; she clearly wasn’t thinking. She’d been due her period since the party, but it hasn’t arrived. She has no idea how to talk to Carter about it, [Oh god, not a pregnancy scare!] not least because he hasn’t even looked at her since, like she doesn’t exist, or he doesn’t remember their sexcapade. She heads towards the docks, wondering if people would remember her if she threw herself into the water and floated off into the bay. [Dark, Rachel]
Elsewhere, Anna’s almost home to her aunt and uncle’s house when she spots Carter come out of the woods and onto the road on one of his regular runs. Anna ducks behind a tree, not wanting to be spotted because she still has suspicions that he murdered Justin. She watches him run past and notes how handsome he is, even while sweaty and grimacing. Everyone falls under his spell, including Gabrielle and her father, who agreed to rehire him when he begged them for his job back earlier today. But there’s something evil hidden behind those looks, and Anna can’t look at him without thinking about how he’d had reacted when they found the body. She wonders if he took her to the lighthouse to murder her too, [What? He was chasing you, if anything you lead him there] but then thinks that’s crazy; surely Carter isn’t capable of that. Earlier, Anna had voiced her concerns to Erica, who had taken notes but clearly wasn’t convinced. Carter is full of surprises, but Anna really hopes he’s not a killer because ‘she was slowly, against her will and better judgement, falling in love.’ [You’ve known him, what, three or four days, max. Come on, Anna]
Over to Henry, who turns out to be the one following Erica. He apologises for scaring her as he helps her up, and she’s just so beautiful that he can barely resist leaning down and kissing her. Erica’s smart and sees through all the crap here, unlike the other girls on the island – ‘He had never imagined thinking he could spend his life with someone. The idea was scary. And exciting as hell.’ [Why are people on this island catching feelings so fast? This is so embarrassing] It seems Henry had followed Erica to the Dock Rats Club and waited for her to emerge so he could ask her out, and hopefully she’d think he just happened to be there. But she’d left while he was peeing off the dock, and by the time he got back to the street, Obadiah was following her – ‘That old wino always got in the way.’ [Where’s the old cooter now?]
As the pair walk up the street, Henry lies that he just happened to see her leaving the Dock Rats Club and wanted to say hi, then jokingly asks if she’s considering a membership there. Erica retorts that she’s ‘”Too young, too female, and too black,”‘ [New drinking game: take a shot every time Erica references her race! You’ll be hammered in no time. Are people really like this? It’d be different if she was bringing it up so often because she has been experiencing racism on the island, or because she’s proud to be Black, but so far she’s just making digs about what she’s decided in her head is a racist community without any evidence to support that opinion] and reveals she was researching Justin’s murder and had been talking to Gershon Phelps. Erica thinks Phelps isn’t all there in the head because he told her a crazy story about Harkness killing his wife and cursing the island, [That’s not at all what he said; he told her the Curse started way before Harkness…] and Henry clarifies that the Curse [Lerangis seems to pick and choose when he wants to capitalise curse, but I’m gonna keep it capped for consistency. I’ve noticed he also likes to capitalise random words that don’t need it] is a result of the Native Americans being slaughtered by the settlers. Erica also mentions being told about Obadiah, but Henry tells her he’s just a harmless old vagrant. [So why was he following Erica before? And where the hell did he go?]
The duo come to an intersection and can either go left, to Erica’s house, [Henry apparently knows where she lives?] or right, to the beach, and Erica doesn’t resist when Henry heads to the right. Erica huddles closer, ordering Henry to keep her warm, and agrees to sit on a sand dune for just a minute or two, because she’s ‘”not interested in you-know-what.”‘ [You’re almost an adult, Erica, you can say sex] As they look for rocks to skim over a pond behind the dunes, Henry pulls a polished shark tooth from his pocket, carved with intricate designs and decorated with feathers, and pretends to find it in the sand. He gifts it to Erica, who thinks it looks familiar and asks if there’s a similar one at the Lodge, but Henry denies that because he doesn’t want her to realise he’d stolen it.
Soon, it seems as though they’re about to kiss, but they hear the sudden swish of beach grass above them on the dune. Henry shines his pocket flashlight and reveals an animal that he assumes is a coyote, which quickly scampers off. Erica is hyperventilating and wants out of here right now, and Henry begins leading her up the dune toward the road, but his flashlight shines on a forehead. Thinking someone’s sleeping or hiding, Erica shouts out a warning about the animal, but the figure doesn’t move. Henry scrambles further up the hill to investigate and sees that it’s Sam, looking as mocking as ever. Henry orders him to get up, but it falls on deaf ears:
Sam’s eyes didn’t move. His pupils, caught in the full glare of the flashlight, were wide. Dilated.
“What’s wrong with him?” Erica asked.
Henry climbed closer. Sam was buried up to his head in sand.
Quickly Henry began to dig around him.
Sam’s head wobbled.
Then tipped on its side.
Slowly, it slid down the dune, leaving a trail of red.
[I’m really enjoying these gory deaths! I wish we could actually get the death scenes though, instead of just finding the remains] Meanwhile, Carter’s finishing up his run, congratulating himself for messing up but still not being suspected after 24 hours. We learn that Carter Hale isn’t his real name, and he’d previously posed as 16-year-old Chuck Streeter in California [Ooooh, I’m intrigued. He’s definitely a red herring because an old man is our killer. But he could have an accomplice! Also, how old is Carter?] Carter heads to the back of a property belonging to Mr. and Mrs. Fenimore Billingsley, [Now that is a rich person’s name!] where he and his knife collection live in an apartment that had been a garage 20 years ago. It’s smelly and unkempt, but Carter doesn’t care right now; things are getting complicated! He’s stressed about the Jared Myer guy who’s from the same school Carter’s pretending to have graduated from, because obviously Carter has no idea who he is. Then there’s Rachel, who must have told him about her pregnancy. There’s no way Carter’s getting tied down because then he’d have to tell the truth! He’d really wanted to ditch her, but he resolves to get closer to her so he can convince her to have an abortion. [Maybe don’t have unprotected sex with strangers you meet at beach parties and you wouldn’t have this problem]
Over to Martin, who’s playing a computer game at home when he spots Rachel walk past outside. [I should probably clarify again that besides Henry, none of the others live here, and are just staying at their families’ holiday homes or whatever] Martin didn’t know he was a boob guy until he’d met her, but he’s quickly realised she’s far more than her breasts; the thought of her makes him light-headed and the sight of her practically causes hives – ‘She was his Great Awakening.’ [So we’ve moved on from Erica, then?] Martin tells his parents he’ll be back soon and rushes outside to stroll with Rachel, refusing to let her walk on her own because she looks sad and he is a self-proclaimed anti-sadness warrior. They end up walking on the labyrinthine docks where Rachel tells him about her predicament. There’s no way for her to find out for sure if she really is pregnant, though, because her dad’s a doctor and knows all the other ones in the area. [Buy a pregnancy test?]
They walk further into the maze of docks in silence for a bit, until Martin hears footsteps on the planks behind them. He turns around to see a figure slipping in and out of the shadow of a two-storey boat, holding something long and blade-like. Martin has been taking his meds on schedule, so is almost certain it can’t be his imagination. They continue to walk, and soon even Rachel hears the pounding of footsteps approaching – someone’s coming after them! The pair bolts, twisting and turning through the dock’s many pathways, and eventually duck inside an open door on an enormous boat, closing it behind them. Martin sneaks a peek through the window to see the scythe-wielding hooded figure stop on the walkway’s intersection, looking up and down the paths before tucking the weapon into his cloak and walking away. [Spooky! That was a fun little chase scene and would look really cool in a horror movie!]
It’s 6:30am the next day now, with the whole Spinnaker Lodge staff called in for a publicity stunt photoshoot to show the world everything is fine. Erica and Henry are the only ones missing, having spent all night discussing their grisly find at the beach with police. Afterwards, Martin leads Rachel outside to tell her he’s figured out who attacked them. Martin believes it’s Smitty, the Director of Food Services, because he’s the same height and build as the scythe-wielder. [It was dark with barely any light when they were chased, so I don’t know if I trust Martin’s judgement] Martin’s thought up some leading questions to ask Smitty that will reveal if he is the culprit, and they head around the back to enter restaurant through the rear.
Martin’s about to open the screen door when they hear a muffled scream from inside, and just behind the screen door another is flung open. Martin and Rachel quickly duck behind the dumpster as Smitty bursts out, looking disoriented and dishevelled. Martin opts not to talk to him right now because he seems stressed, and they watch as Smitty struggles to light a cigarette before angrily tearing off his apron and throwing it on the ground. Martin and Rachel watch him walk off before creeping out of their hiding spot, and they notice the apron is caked with blood, which upsets Martin because he’s a vegan.
Rachel wonders what Smitty was so upset about and decides to sneak through the back door, followed reluctantly by Martin. They find themselves in a long hallway; at the far end is the kitchen area, to their right is a large pantry, and to their left is the meat locker. They decide to snoop in the meat locker and as they open the thick metal door, and the cloud of cold air dissipates to reveal, among some sides of beef, skinned chickens and most of a pig, Sam’s headless corpse rocking gently as it hangs from a hook [Grossssssss, why is it being kept with the food?! I wonder if Smitty/other people at the Lodge are in on the murders, or if the body’s just being kept there to preserve it for evidence or something]
A short while later, Rachel and Martin have given their statements to the police, who have gone after Smitty, and are now being hassled by Erica for information too. Neither of them are really keen to talk about it, so Erica eavesdrops on Duke’s conversation with the cops nearby. He gives them Smitty’s address and reveals he’ll be taking over Smitty’s Head of Food Services role. He’s looking pretty smug, so Erica makes a note to investigate him at some point; it’s clear he’s always hated Smitty, and is anybody really as laid back as Duke seems?
Erica suggests to Martin that Smitty might be innocent and has been framed, but Martin is positive he’s the murderer and explains last night’s dock adventure. There’s not a doubt in his mind that it was Smitty; the attacker was the same height and build and limped just like Smitty, and was even brandishing a scythe. Erica hasn’t noticed that Smitty limps and points out that scythes are used to harvest wheat, not chop meat, causing Rachel to storm off because the conversation is upsetting her. Carter’s waiting around the corner of the building for Rachel, but she doesn’t want to talk to him right now. He apologises for what happened [As in the unprotected sex?] and hands her a note and a room key, asking her to meet him in the Captain’s Penthouse Suite tomorrow at 9am so they can talk.
While everyone’s outside ogling the crime scene, Henry takes the opportunity to loot the lost and found box in the lobby. He scores a dead Palm Pilot and a Dartmouth College class ring from 1975, then moves over to the exhibition of Native American artefacts to steal a big whale tooth that has fringey things hanging from it, much like the shark tooth he gave Erica.
Carter finishes his shift at 5pm and heads home, hoping that the meeting he’s tried to set up with Rachel for the morning will help win her over. We learn that Lemieux swore the staff to secrecy about Sam’s body, reasoning that if word got out the Lodge would be shut down, collapsing the island’s economy and bankrupting everyone’s families, and Carter reckons he probably paid off the cops to keep their mouths shut too. He picks up a copy of the Essex Mirror on his way home, which has the headline ‘BODY FOUND IN WOODS’ , a very quick cover-up!
Carter stops by the main house on his way to his apartment to say hi to Mr. Billingsley and his nurse, Arabel. Billingsley isn’t too friendly towards his Harvard Law boarder and is still waiting for Carter to adjust his will for him. [Ohhhhh, I see where this is going lol] He reminds Carter to take his deceased wife out of the will and leave all his money to the Essex town treasury – ‘”They can use it for a school, if they name it after me.”‘ Carter assures him he’ll take care of it and takes the papers to his garage apartment to get to work. Using a scanner he’d brought along, he digitally replaces the deceased wife’s name with his own real name, Richard William Grusen, which he only uses it when he has to, like right now. He saves and prints the new document and stamps it with a rubber notary stamp he has hidden under his mattress. [I wonder how many times he’s done this shit]
The next morning, Erica waits patiently on a bench at the corner of Main and Dock Street, pretending to read a book. She’s sure that Smitty is innocent and being used as a scapegoat, [It’s suspicious that he left right before Rachel and Martin saw him, but he could have been going to fetch the police] with his picture appearing in the morning paper already. Lemieux filled the head chef position with a woman named Sierra, and Duke was promoted to Smitty’s other role, just as he’d said. Duke’s still one of Erica’s main suspect because his goofy exterior becomes pretty focussed when the media’s around, and he’s the last person anyone would think is capable of murder.
Obadiah is her other main suspect and here he comes shuffling down the street now with a noticeable limp, muttering to himself. Erica watches as he makes his way to the docks toward a ramshackle boathouse, where he chucks a backpack into a rowboat and sets off with slow, painstaking strokes. Erica heads towards the boathouse and asks a nearby worker, Walter Cropsey, where Obadiah is going. Walter explains that Obadiah supposedly lives on Little Pequod, which is closed to the public because it used to be a secret military operation involving nukes, toxic chemicals and genetic stuff. Obadiah’s the only one who goes near the place, and Walter’s surprised he doesn’t glow in the dark!
Erica wants to know how to get there, and although he thinks she’s crazy, Walter agrees to drive her to the west end of the island, which is the closest place to set sail from. He warns her to be careful of both Obadiah and the riptide, and Erica sets off on a rented Sailfish. She doesn’t have much experience on the water but quickly gets the hang of it, and soon she can make out some danger signs attached to the rusting cyclone fence as she nears her destination. She follows Obadiah around to the island’s south, keeping her distance, but the wind soon picks up, blowing erratically from one direction to another. Erica notices that she’s quickly approaching a riptide and tries to turn her vessel around, but the sail doesn’t move, and soon the boat is tipping. She screams out for help but Obadiah has disappeared behind a rock outcropping by this point, and then the mast snaps.
At the Lodge, Anna’s trying to take fresh towels to the Captain’s Penthouse Suite, which has been booked last minute by some CEO flying in. Carter’s trying to prevent her from going up to the suite, knowing Rachel’s in there waiting for him, and tries to convince her she misheard the booking and is supposed to be setting up the Presidential Suite instead. Anna’s got good hearing, so Carter ends up taking the towels from her and offering to bring the towels up himself while she heads down to confirm with Duke what room the CEO booked. He proposes that if he’s wrong, he’ll help her set up the suite, and if he’s right, ‘”I get to take you to my family’s thirty-five-room beach house”‘ since their shifts are both ending soon. [What? He told Rachel to meet him in the Penthouse Suite at 9am? Surely their shifts aren’t finishing at that time? I guess they could do split shifts or something, but 9am seems like a weird finish time to me]
Anna agrees and as soon as she’s out of sight, Carter bolts to Duke’s room, where he knows he’s getting frisky with some babe. Duke was the one who said Carter could use the Penthouse Suite and gave him the universal key to pass on to Rachel, so Carter wants him to lie to Anna and prevent her from going to the room. Carter doesn’t want to ditch Anna or Rachel, but the most important thing is to keep the girls separated so they can’t get to chatting about him, and he decides it’s best to whisk Anna way and come up with a really good alibi to tell Rachel.
Meanwhile, Rachel’s let herself inside the suite and is in awe of the stunning view it offers. She’s not sure if Carter is hiding somewhere and after not finding him in the master bedroom, she heads up the spiral staircase to another bedroom, which has a mirrored Jacuzzi. [Fancy!] Realising Carter’s running late, Rachel plops down on the bed and decides to force him to talk about the situation before they get down and dirty. She freshens herself up in the bathroom, then notices a silhouette inside the glazed-glass door of the shower that stretches across the room’s width. Assuming it’s Carter, she opens the door, and the body of Gabrielle Lemieux tumbles out, ‘the hilt of a knife in her back.’ [Oh, I wasn’t expecting her to die lol. I wonder if any of our main characters will get the axe? So far it’s only been people we’ve seen once or twice]
Erica comes to on a dock, with Obadiah kneeling beside her. [And we learn he has a beard, so I guess he was the old man Martin was with at the start of the book? Unless that was a hallucination] He’s surprised she knows his name and she explains that Phelps told her about him, but didn’t say anything bad. Obadiah reels in the collapsed sailboat, which had been tied to his rowboat, then suggests they leave quickly ‘”before they notice you ruined boat their boat.”‘ [Sneaky, sneaky!]
Over to Martin, who’s just regained consciousness himself, but in a bathroom stall, his hands wet with blood that has dripped all over the floor. He can’t help but step in the pools as he exits the stall, and after looking in the mirror, he realises that the mess is just from a nosebleed. He initially thought the voices in his head had prompted him to finally kill someone, because his meds don’t always banish the voices, and we get some more insight into whatever his condition is:
Most of the time, when they came, he was alone — no one to hear him, no one to scare. Or to hurt.
But sometimes he’d be in a crowd. That was bad. He connected the voices with faces. Real people. That’s when he got into trouble. When he lashed out at others. When he wanted to kill them. Kill the voices. If he could think straight, he would hide. He would lock himself in a place where he wouldn’t be able to harm anyone. Like this bathroom. He’d be safe there — safe from himself, safe from harming others.
So that’s what happened. Nothing bad. He had had the urge. He had run from it. No-one was harmed.
Martin cleans up the mess and leaves the lobby bathroom, and as he passes the Lodge’s office, Henry comes out. The cops are grilling Rachel in the office, and Henry warns Martin not to go in because they’ll call him soon enough. Martin hasn’t heard about Gabrielle yet, so Henry fills him in. Apparently, Alphonse is at the hospital having a nervous breakdown, calling Gabrielle’s name over and over, and the cover-up they’re going with is that she’d had a heart attack.
Martin moves behind the reservation desk and starts noting the reservations and cancellations left on the answering machine, but notices Henry lingering by the displays,. The next time he glances up, Henry’s moving quickly out the door, and it’s clear the display has been rearranged. Inspecting it closer, Martin notices the decorated whale’s tooth, his favourite piece, is missing, and takes off after Henry. He accuses him of being a kleptomaniac, but Henry’s figured out Martin’s secret too, suggesting the police will be very interested to know an unstable, paranoid schizophrenic is working behind the desk at Spinnaker and currently has blood on his shoes. [As if you didn’t clean your shoes, Martin!]
Martin insists that his medication prevents him from being a danger and that the blood is from a nosebleed, but Henry knows that won’t matter to the police, and questions whether Martin really is as harmless as he claims. Satisfied that Martin will keep his mouth shut, Henry continues on his way, leaving Martin with the urge to strangle him – ‘and this time he was feeling completely rational.’ Watching Henry disappear into the crowd, Martin decides to follow him…
Rachel exits the office-turned-interrogation room to find Cyril accosting Duke – no-one’s been manning the reception area when Duke is supposed to be on-shift right now with Erica and Martin. Rachel interrupts to ask if they’ve seen Carter, and Duke apologises that she had to see Gabrielle’s corpse. He explains that someone rented the room and he’d sent Anna up there to make sure it was presentable, ‘”And then… well, you know. Carter’s with her now — they’re at Lemieux’s house in Chilcott Head. They don’t know about Gabrielle.”‘ Cyril gets even angrier now because that location is supposed to be top secret for security reasons, and Rachel heads off as Cyril rips into him about being a callous gold-digger.
Rachel can’t believe Carter ditched her just like that for Anna and wonders if they’re in Lemieux’s master bedroom, or just strolling along the beach together. She decides to go scratch their eyes out and bikes up to Chilcott Head, one of the last areas on the island with wide-open spaces. It’s got 10-acre zoning and is prime real estate where you can’t see one mansion from another, so it’s not surprise Lemieux lives here.
Her tyres sink into the sand as she nears the beach, so Rachel starts walking the bike instead. She notices movement within the woods but tells herself it’s just a harmless animal. As she approaches the spot where her path meets the beach, a thicket moves and two feral eyes stare out at her before something jumps out at her as she screams. [Is it the coyote Henry and Erica saw?]
Out in the ocean, Obadiah’s rowing Erica towards the shore. He can tell she’s scared of him and notes that ‘she had been afraid of him since the day she’d seen him on Main Street. She’d learned a lot that day. So had he.’ [I’m confused, what did they learn? As far as we know, they haven’t crossed paths yet] He needs to make a stop before going into town and pulls the boat to port near the woods while Erica remains uneasy.
Meanwhile, Henry’s arrived home to find the power out due to his father spending all his money getting drunk at bars. Apparently Mum and Dad used to argue a lot, and one day she took off without so much as a note. [Maybe she was murdered and her body hidden?!] He heads out to the backyard, which ends in the woods, ‘a conservation area and the only nice thing about living in this godforsaken hole.’ He follows a narrow path that he’d made himself as a kid out to a clearing that’s surrounded by trees in every direction, blocking out everything else.
At the centre of the clearing is a huge wooden spool, left years ago by a cable company, and Henry pushes it aside, revealing a hole in the ground. It’s about 15-feet deep and 4-feet wide, and it expands at the bottom to be wide enough to fit six or seven people. He found this hole when he was a kid, claiming it as his own and creating a sturdy rope latter to enter and exit.
As he descends the ladder, he thinks he hears a scream coming from the beach, [Rachel!] but ignores it and continues on down. This is where Henry stores his collection of stolen treasures, each with its own story that brings a smile to his face. Reaching the bottom, Henry discovers a harpoon standing upright in the centre of the room that he hasn’t put there himself. Before he can really react, Martin calls down to him from the top of the hole and pulls out a pocketknife, suggesting Henry would get in lots of trouble if Martin led the police here while he was trapped:
Martin dug the knife under one of the rope halves of the ladder. And then his face went slack.
A black-clad foot landed on his rear end. And it pushed.
Martin tumbled silently into the hole.
Out on the beach, Anna hears a scream muffled by the wind, [I guess this is happening simultaneously with Rachel being attacked and Carter going to his hole] but Carter thinks it’s just a seagull. He smiles and puts his arm around her, and although Anna wants to trust him because he’s handsome with a gorgeous, unbelievably huge house, after all, [So people with giant houses should be trusted! Good to know. I bet he didn’t even take her inside, lol] he only makes her feel cold, so she pulls away. She’s determined to figure out if he’s the island’s murderer [Not sure why she agrees to be alone with him so much if she thinks he’s so dangerous. Does she not think he’d kill her too?] and proposes they play a game of asking each other questions, and no matter what, they have to answer truthfully. She’s not sure where to start – Justin’s death? Had Carter lied when he’d insisted she wasn’t supposed to clean the Captain’s Penthouse Suite?
She decides to go with something less suspicious and asks if the beach house is really his, and he admits it’s not. The game gives us more information about both of them. Carter lied about the house because he wanted to impress her, and he really isn’t very rich, [Which we already knew, but it’s a surprise to her] and Anna’s not the granddaughter of an exiled king and doesn’t come from a wealthy family. Her father owns a successful diner and does well enough, but Anna’s living with relatives on the island.
Anna then outright asks if he murdered Justin Riggs, and he’s not sure if she’s being serious. Before he can answer her question, they hear a female scream coming from the woods behind them. They run up the beach and down the path that leads into the scrub, noticing bicycle tracks that veer off into the woods. They follow the tracks and find a bike among the thicket that looks familiar to Carter. There’s a woman’s shoe nearby on the ground, and then Anna spots a bare foot poking out from behind another tree. Next thing she knows, a green-eyed beast jumps at her, its claws extended. [I don’t think it’s actually a coyote, because surely it’d be called that in the book. Lerangis is only using beast, animal and creature when referring to it]
The pair take off running through the woods until they reach a clearing, where Anna ducks behind a large boulder that seems strangely out of place, and Carter hides behind the huge cable spool nearby. The sunlight’s beginning to fade now as they peer out, and soon they’re hearing twigs cracking. These footsteps are heavy-footed and don’t seem to belong to an animal, and Carter can make out the outline of a human among the trees. He moves forward to confront the figure, but his third step skips the ground and sends him falling into Henry’s hole, where his foot catches in the rope ladder and his ankle snaps. [Oof] His body dangles down, his head almost to the ground, and a light blinks on from above:
The beam caught the outline of a body, then moved slowly over it.
Carter turned. He recognized Martin’s slumped form.
Impaled on a harpoon blade.
[I was wondering if any of our core cast would get the axe] Back in the woods, Rachel’s clinging to the branches of an old pine tree as the beast paces back and forth below her. It doesn’t seem interested in her; it hadn’t attacked while she was unconscious, and when she awoke screaming in panic, it simply watched as she scrambled up the tree. It seems more like the animal is trying to protect her, and as the sun is setting, she falls asleep. [I don’t know if I’d be able to fall asleep in a fkn tree like that hahaha]
Back in the clearing, a man dressed in dark colours and wearing a black mask orders Anna to get into the hole as well, gesturing at it with his flashlight. It’s an older man’s voice and the man is stocky, with sloped shoulders, but that’s all she can really tell. Anna does as she’s told and ends up falling as she tries to avoid the dangling Carter, landing on top of Henry, who’d been unconscious until right now. They both notice Martin’s impaled body and scream, along with Carter, before a clump of dirt falls from above onto Martin’s head.
Henry realises their attacker is burying them alive and he and Anna quickly get Carter untwisted from the ladder as soil continues to rain down. To Anna’s surprise, Martin’s eyes open and he reveals he was just playing dead – the harpoon blade had only stabbed through his shirt, not his body. [Lame, I want death!] Henry was knocked out, [How?] so Martin was hoping the assailant would think they were both dead and go away, but clearly that ain’t happening.
Anna shouts up to the man, asking what they’ve done to deserve this, and the digging stops as his shrouded head appears over the hole. He demands the whale tooth, which he calls a talisman, so Martin throws it up to him against Henry’s protests. There’s silence above as the man retreats, and the gang is relieved they’re not about to be buried alive. Anna grabs the ladder to make the climb up, but dirt starts raining down once again, faster and in larger clumps as the sun finally sets. [Could someone really be buried this way? Like, couldn’t they at just stop on the new dirt? I guess they all wouldn’t fit in the hole as the gap between the floor and roof fill, but surely they could do something to get out of the hole before it gets to that point. Scramble up the ladder quickly and run off, or something!]
Rachel is woken by the sound of Carter’s voice calling for help. The ground is clear below, so she climbs down, retrieves her missing shoe and stumbles through the darkness, but she can’t hear Carter’s voice anymore. She’s about to turn around when she hears a constant thudding sound, following that until she reaches a clearing. Ahead of her, she can make out a boulder and a man shovelling dirt into a hole, and she can hear her friends protesting from within the hole. [Has she even interacted with Henry or Anna?] She considers jumping the man, but he seems strong, so getting the police before he can fill the hole is her best option. As she moves back toward the road, a twig snaps beneath her foot , catching the man’s attention…
Over to Erica, who’d been abandoned by Obadiah when they heard voices. [Are we supposed to think Obadiah’s our killer? Because it’s never crossed my mind that he’s responsible haha it’s too obvious a red herring to even consider] She’s been wandering through the woods ever since with absolutely no bearings, but is following the distant, urgent voices, wondering if she’ll find Obadiah there.
Back to the hole, where the assailant has seemingly disappeared. Henry carefully climbs up the ladder and peeks out, noticing the man struggling with something in the woods. A few seconds later, Rachel is shoved into the clearing. Easing out of the hole, Henry jumps to his feet, preparing to bash the man in the head with his flashlight, but unfortunately Rachel’s face reacts when she spots him and the man spins around, yanking a scythe from behind a tree. As he’s about to attack Henry, the black animal charges out of the woods and lunges at the man who swings the scythe at it. The beast is flung sideways and lies in a heap, and to Henry’s surprise, it changes shape, glowing as it swells and shrivels, momentarily takes a human form before fading into nothing. [Whaaaaaaaaaaat?]
No-one else seems to notice, and the man quickly forces Rachel and Henry back into the hole, [I would just run???? Surely you’re faster than this old man. And why didn’t the other three climb out? Carter probably can’t walk with his snapped ankle, but the other two could have!] and soon the dirt is raining down once again, filling the hole quickly up to their knees. [See, couldnt they just stand on the new dirt? Or throw it back up at him? There’s literally five of you down here, you can get more dirt out than he can get in, surely. It might not work, but it’s better than standing there doing absolutely nothing] The teens plead for their life and want to know why he’s targeting them, and we finally get a motive – he accuses them of raping the countryside and driving up the cost of real estate, putting out the people who do real work for a living. Martin argues that its adults who do that, not teens, which gets a laugh from the man:
“You’re part of it. You don’t even know it. They use you to justify what they do. ‘Providing security for my kids.’ ‘Giving them a little step-up.’ You will inherit this, and you will think you deserve it. And where will the real ‘kids’ be — the sons and daughters of Essex?”
Meanwhile, Henry’s been gathering up a pile of dirt that’s now just just high enough for him to reach the shovel’s blade, which is poised at the hole’s edge while the man talks. Henry suddenly launches himself up and grabs it, pulling the man off-balance. The man falls to his knees at the edge of the hole, groaning in agony before producing a revolver from his back pocket. He says he didn’t want to do it this way, and Henry closes his eyes, bracing for a bullet, and hears the shot. None of the teens are injured, though, and they can see a booted foot dangling over the hole’s edge, completely still. The gang realise the man must have shot himself and Henry starts climbing the ladder, but slides back down in panic because someone else is up there!!
It’s just Erica, who helps the gang out of their would-be burial site, and everyone embraces her for saving their lives. It turns out she’d whacked the man in the head with an oar, so he’s unconscious but alive. [The gun was pointed at Henry right before he closed his eyes, so how did it not shoot him when it went off? Or are we supposed to believe that sound was the oar connecting with the man’s head?] Obadiah then appears from the woods, [Is he the beast?] which surprises everyone because I guess they all thought he was the masked man. [We never Anna, Carter or Martin interact with Obadiah, though, so why would they suspect him?] Henry leans over the man and pulls his mask off, revealing Gershon Phelps looking very peaceful. [Lame, we literally met him once lol]
Later, at midnight, the gang is leaving the police station after giving their stories independently to the cops, and finally have a chance to discuss what happened amongst themselves. Erica explains how Obadiah saved her at sea and took her to Nowhere Cove, telling her to stay put while he disappeared into the woods. Erica wasn’t staying there by herself so she took off after him, and eventually followed the teens’ voices to the hole. Obadiah had had a hunch about Phelps, knowing that he’d been keeping an eye on Henry for a while and would find Henry’s hiding place sooner or later, so he’d been scoping it out too. He explains that he used to take care of Henry when his parents were fighting, and now Henry brings him food and books and stuff, but Obadiah it’s stolen so has been watching over Henry as well. [Cuteeeee]
Obadiah confirms that many of the locals believe that the rich are killing the island, but Phelps had been losing his mind for months so belief was a lot stronger. He was obsessed with the Island Curse and would often talk about devils and rituals, as well as the massacre of the Madekonset people. He was angry at Lemieux for displaying the tribe’s artefacts in the Spinnaker, and when he realised stuff was being stolen from the displays, he lost it. Despite not being rich like the others, Henry was a target because of his thievery; Phelps used to work at one of the stores Henry would steal from frequently, so he quickly figured out who the culprit was. Phelps is now looking at life in prison while Erica’s looking at the scoop of the century, [I hope Smitty’s out of jail now!] but Henry’s still confused about what happened to that animal. Rachel remarks that she’d thought it was going to kill her at first, but then it seemed like it just wanted to hang out, and Henry decides he imagined it shapeshifting.
The group heads back to the Lodge for some ice cream, [Because that’s what everyone craves when they’re almost murdered] and walk straight past the Duke, asleep while manning the reception desk. They enter the restaurant, [Wait, is Carter walking? What about his snapped ankle? Did it miraculously heal? It hasn’t been mentioned since he was twisting in pain as he came out of the hole] and the book ends with this cliffhanger [And a typo]:
The place was dark, and Carter disappeared to the right. A moment later Erica heard the loud click of a light switch.
The restaurant glittered, the chandelier bulbs casting prisms of light through crystal, the recessed back-lights in the walls bringing to life the paintings and shelf displays.
But no one move toward the kitchen.
They could only stare upward.
Above them, swinging limply from the shark jaws, was the body of Alphonse Lemieux.
[Spooky! Iis it just one last scare to go out on and Phelps killed him before going after the teens, or is there an accomplice? It seems like a pretty weird place to end the book on]
Final thoughts
I really wasn’t expecting much after the first few pages, so I’m surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it, although it didn’t really feel like Point Horror. [Not necessarily a bad thing!] Splitting the story between multiple protagonists isn’t always a good thing, but I think it was done successfully here, especially in regards to keeping everyone a suspect. As much as I hated Carter at the start, he got way less rapey and I ended up liking him, although I don’t like him stringing poor Rachel along. There were several parts of the book where I wasn’t really sure what was even happening, so I hope that’s just specific to this story and not a common thread in Lerangis’ books. Ambiguity can be a useful tool sometimes, but things should still be clear enough to a certain extent!
There was some social commentary about racism which is nice to see in a book written so long ago, but I think it could have been explored in different ways. Martin was sort of critical about being stereotyped as good at computers, but it was a true fact for his character, so I’m not sure what the point was there. On the other hand, Erica was constantly bringing up skin colour when literally no-one else was shown making any sort of reference to it. It seems like someone could give her a friendly smile as they passed on the street and her mindset would be, “They’re only smiling at me because I’m African-American.” Maybe she was just going off her past experiences, but we weren’t given any sort of backstory for her, only her own pre-conceived ideas about small communities. Despite this, I did really like Erica, but I think whatever Lerangis was trying to do with the subject of racism would have been a lot more impactful if Erica was actually experiencing it on the island, even if it was just a small microaggression here and there.
The book was very character-driven but still had a decent amount of kills, but I wish we could actually see the murders in action instead of just finding the remains with the characters. As much as I like our principal cast, I think one or two of them should die in the sequel to raise the stakes a bit more, instead of just the fringe characters we don’t spend any time with.
Anyway, 70 boys referring to hot girls as hormone-activating devices out of 89, and don’t forget to check out my recap of Return to X-Isle!
