My Childhood Trauma tag (10-1)

The End of Mr Rainbow

I don't know if you've ever heard of a children's character called Mr Rainbow. He used to be somewhat popular character on Australian television in the early 80s, but I watched it in the late 90s. The idea is that he was a kind of clown character, since he always wore a multi-coloured, curly clown wig under a bowler hat, and ususally wore puffy, yellow jumpsuit pants held up with red braces over a button-up white shirt, but sometimes the colour of the pants would change, or he'd be wearing a jacket as well, but the iconic look was the yellow pants over the white shirt, and he had a whole bunch of animal friends.
There used to be clips on YouTube, but most of them have been DMCA'd into oblivion by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Which is a shame because they haven't released any of the episodes on DVD or Blu-ray so it's hard to find any footage of it, but it was a pretty good show back in the day. It focused on teaching kids about getting along with each other, and having fun. Each episode would begin with Mr Rainbow talking to the camera - usually from inside his colourful house - about what activities he'd been up to, or he'd talk to some puppeteered animal friends, like Cookie the kookaburra, or Cathy the cat. Then he would go through the magic door to the World of Colour, where he'd talk with the animated characters, or present short animated songs or clips.
I think the idea is that this show was basically a rip-off of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, but instead of puppets in a "neighbourhood of make-believe", Mr Rainbow would appear on top of a hand-drawn or animated backdrop using primitive blue screen technology. It was pretty well done for the time, even though they only did about fifty episodes in total, with four seasons. It's pretty easy to tell which season was which, since the budget seemed to increase for every subsequent series. In the first series, it was just Mr Rainbow in his house, and he would usually do magic tricks to start the show. But, in Season 2, they introduced the puppet characters, and in the next season, he would occasionally have kids on the show, that he would talk to, and play games with. The only difference between the third and fourth season is that at some point, they replaced his iconic, black bowler hat for a green bowler hat with a sunflower in the ribbon. But, since it's so hard to find information about it online, I don't know if the hat was replaced on purpose, or if someone lost it.

Since I was covering horror, nostalgia and nostalgic fear for this blog, I thought I'd look into it a little. Most kids find clowns really creepy, and some of the animations were really cheap, so they looked really disturbing. I remember in particular there was one episode where Mr Rainbow was in the World of Colour talking to a house, which had a face on the side - there were eyes in the windows, a human-shaped nose and the door would open and close to talk, but the teeth were sideways because of the shape of the door, which really confused me as a kid. And, because of the poor animation, it had this blank-faced stare whenever Mr Rainbow spoke to it... I can still picture it now. But, I couldn't find any footage of it online, and it wasn't really scary enough to make my "childhood trauma" list.
But, during my research when I looked up Mr Rainbow online, I discovered something I never thought I'd see. When I looked up "creepy Australian kids shows" online, I found people talking about the show, but it wasn't the house or the clown that disturbed people...

According to the sources I could find online, Harold Sallis (the man who performed the character of Mr Rainbow) had been charged with sexual assault of six underaged children, four boys and two girls. I couldn't find newspaper reports or court records... admittedly besides googling it, I don't know how to look up court records, so if someone else does, please let me know what you find. But, according to the forums, and comment sections for these content aggregator sites, most people say the same thing - that Harold Sallis would lure children to the garage of his Newcastle property by wearing his Mr Rainbow costume, and there he would assault them. Some comments even claimed he was promising to take them to the World of Colour. I don't believe that's ever been proven, since not only was there only two people claiming that (and they may have been the same person on two different sites), but I think they were just embellishing the story to try to scare people. But, I mention it because although there's no proof, it sounds like what basically happened - he would use the costume so people would see him as Mr Rainbow. At this point, I found myself asking the question - if I met Mr Rainbow when I was a kid, would I have followed him?
I don't know if I can answer that question. Of course, I never lived in Newcastle, and I was too young to have been alive for most of this.
From what I could find, the majority of Mr Rainbow was filmed in 1983, and it entered into syndication by the late 1980s, but the court cases were in 1994, over ten years later, and in the weeks after the court case entered the news, Mr Sallis committed suicide. Most people see that as reason to condemn him - obviously, he was just trying to cut his misery short, since he had been caught, goes the logic.
Of course, he was never officially tried, so the possibility of his innocence remains, but I don't really believe that. I wish I could, but it doesn't make sense that he would do that if he was innocent. The pieces just don't fit.

I contacted some of the people, but I haven't gotten any responses - they were old messages, that's to be expected. So, nobody could tell me how exactly he committed suicide. It's never included in the stories people are telling, and maybe it doesn't matter, but I can't help but wonder. Worst of all, I can't find information about when he committed these crimes - or the names of the victims. I mean, I get it - usually, people don't name child victims, because they're too young to be exposed in the media like that, but I wish I could find some more information, to make sense of this whole thing.
But it's just so crazy that they continued airing the show on television, even after his suicide. Maybe it was because he was never officially convicted, but I think it's just because this all happened in 1994. It's hard to imagine what the world was like before the internet, but information moved a lot slower, and so perhaps people didn't really know at the network. Either way, it's destroyed my memories of this show. This show was about friendship and magic and children, it was so innocent when I was a child... but it wasn't, was it?
The whole time I was watching this show, I was watching a child molester, I was watching a man who stalked and assaulted six children - not only that, but a man who did so using the very outfit from the show.

In a sense, I guess you could say that nostalgia is simply naivety. In retrospect, the things we remember enjoying as kids seem so much more fun, and colourful and bright. But, it's because we are young, and we only see what we want to see, or what we're allowed to see. It's not that art was better when we were younger, it's that life seemed better because we were too immature to see it for what it really is. Whilst not every family friendly TV character is a child molester, a surprisingly high number were: Bill Cosby, Gary Glitter, Jimmy Savile, Michael Jackson, Robert Hughes, Rolf Harris... and now, Mr Rainbow as well.
But even the ones that weren't, who's to say they were good people? Why do we show kids such fun and bright images on television when something that clean and wonderful just doesn't exist in the real world?

Maybe it's because we want to hope for a better future, and maybe it's because we want to protect their innocense for a little while. Or maybe, just maybe, it's so as to leave them vulnerable to the Harold Sallises of the world - so they can be Mr Rainbow's next victim. I don't know...
All I know is that I remember watching an Australian kids TV show in the 90s, and now I wish that I could forget.

Relive and Regret

Nostalgia and Regret seem to go hand in hand, don’t they? Nostalgia is looking back on the past with a sense of longing, whereas Regret is looking back on the past with a sense of loss. They are opposites in a sense, but also they are the same action, just with different emotions as a result. So, I can’t think of a better way to explore childhood trauma, fearful nostalgia and painful memories than to look at regret.

I don’t really believe in regret myself. Obviously, I believe the concept exists, but I don’t believe it’s a good use of one’s time. It’s an old quote, but it’s often said: “it’s no good pondering what might have been, because there’s usually a good reason it didn’t happen” - and that’s true, we tend to make the best decisions we can, based on the circumstances - and even if our decisions weren’t the best, they were the best we could do at the time. Sure, looking back with hindsight you can see how something could be done better, but that’s not worth dwelling upon. In fact, even more importantly, there’s another much more commonly known quote: “you learn from your mistakes”. This is very true, to the point that if I listed every mistake I’d ever made which I’d learnt from and grown wiser - we’d be here until Halloween 2020. Of course, the only way to learn from your mistakes is to reminisce upon them, and realize why things went so wrong - but reminiscence isn’t the same as regret. Regret is more like when you think about something, but in a negative sort of way... look, rather than try to explain it, why don’t I let Dictionary do my thinking for me. The Word of the Day is: ‘REGRET’

Regret /rə’gret/ v.t. 1. To feel sorry about (anything disappointing, unpleasant, etc.) 2. To think of with a sense of loss: They regret their vanished youth. ♦n. 3. A sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, etc. 4. A feeling of being sorry for some fault, act, etc., of one’s own. 5. (pl.) Feelings of sorrow over what is lost, gone, done, etc.

Do you know what I find the most fascinating about regret? It’s the prefix “re-“. Just as we rethink, redo & re-evaluate, regret is doing something again.
It comes from the Old Frankish prefix re- which basically means “again”, and the suffix -grētan which meant “to weep, mourn” or "lament”. So, to regret something is to mourn it again.

It’s a fascinating concept when you think about it, because it makes sense of the word in practice - we regret things that happened a long time ago. Obviously, we were upset about what happened at the time, and now we are allowing ourselves to get re-upset, to upset ourselves again, to relive that feeling. But, more importantly, one of the purposes of mourning is to come to terms with that grief, so you can eventually come to accept what has come to pass. So, if you are suffering from regret, then that is a sign that you still haven’t come to terms with what has happened - you still need to mourn so that you can finally accept what happened, or what you did, or what was lost...

At the beginning of this post, I said that I don’t believe in regret, and that’s very true. Like I said, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life, but I don’t tend to dwell on them.
In a sense, this is probably a self-defence mechanism for my anxiety. If ever I do find myself dwelling on events from the past, or worrying about their impact on the future, I recognize it for what it is - a ticket aboard a train of thought whose destiny is to be derailed. So, don’t allow me to act all high and mighty here, I do have regrets and I do suffer from them, but I have found that if I don’t quell that regret and if I don’t apply my mind to come to terms with and make sense of those things which happened in my past which presently unsettle or disturb my thoughts, I put myself at risk of greater worry, anxiety and panic.
So, I am forced by circumstance to have greater methods of dispelling regret than most...

Often, I find myself looking at the person I am now. When I was younger, I was occasionally a bully to people I would call friends and that is wrong; but, to me, those actions are a reminder of the value of not just understanding, but empathy - those past experiences taught me to be a better friend. When I was in high school, I often felt superior to others because of my intelligence and sometimes acted like an arsehole to people; today, I’ve learned that feelings of superiority are pitiable, and that attitude reminds me why kindness and equality are most important - those experiences taught me to be a better member of a team. Less than a decade ago, I realized just how much of the world is biased, broken, cruel, harmful, hateful, ignorant & selfish, and so I became quite cynical in response; however, I’ve come to learn that the ability to identify a problem is only the first step, and if you want your dislike of these ills of the world to have any value, you should work to try to solve at least some of them - those experiences taught me to be a better person.

And some of the things I regret weren’t merely learning experiences, but some of them lead to great things. I once regretted having to live with my grandmother, since it was a lot of responsibility, and I was terrified that I would have to see her die; however, now that she’s dead I cherish every single waking moment I could spend with my living grandmother, and that night when I knew she was going to die, I appreciate that I could have the time to grieve, and move on. I once regretted having such low employ-ability, and being trapped at home all the time, but that lead me to starting this blog; through this I met my ex-girlfriend and although we broke up I could never regret the three years we were together since I truly enjoyed those experiences, and my experience of writing for this blog has improved my writing in both enormous, and immeasurably small ways.

And right now, today... the reason I’m thinking about regret today is, I regretted not writing this blog sooner. See, I had decided that I would do a theme of “childhood trauma”, and that I would explore my own traumas, and conceptual trauma, and Goosebumps... and I was going to write it ahead of time. However, that didn’t happen, due to other obligations, and a fair amount of procrastination on my part.
Little did I know that on the very week that I planned to write this Halloween Countdown, my boss would go on holiday - meaning I would be called in for shifts at work every week; on top of that, I also didn’t know that I myself would get sick - I’ve been coughing up phlegm every morning, just to breathe, and my voice sounds ragged and hoarse & lastly, although I knew that we would be moving house, I didn’t know that our internet provider would cut our internet early. A whole lot of everything that could possibly go wrong has fallen on top of me during this year’s blog post.
However, as much as I once regretted that, I now appreciate that I have been able to think on my feet and find ways to get the blog done - by borrowing public Wi-Fi, and using whatever methods I can think of to get the blog written as quickly as possible.
(Editor's Note: I'm currently uploading this at a McDonald's Wi-Fi, and I hate McDonald's, so I hope you appreciate the sacrifices I make for this blog...)

And, of course, I no longer regret it because it helped to inspire today’s blog post... You see, literally everything is going wrong for me at the moment - I have other obligations, I’m as sick as a dog drowning in pea soup & my internet has been taken away. Yet, I am overcoming each obstacle, one at a time, and I am actually kind of enjoying the experience. As a writer, I always appreciate new experiences, because it helps to add detail to my own stories, and can inspire plots in the future. But more than that, it’s encouraging that I can work so well under pressure - it makes me realize just how much I can do in a short time, when I put my mind to it.

I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and I don’t imagine it is as easy for everyone else to overcome regret, perhaps your regrets are more far-reaching and ever-present... but, I hope that this little reminiscence has helped you to alleviate some of the things that you regret. If not, well, feel free to share your regrets in the comments below - if you think it will help.
Until Next Time, I’m going to move on and see if my throat is clear enough for me to narrate Part 2 of my Childhood Trauma video...

Goosebumps, Revisited II

Last time, we covered all of the Goosebumps books that are great. This time, we’re covering the books that are terrible. Now, for the most part, I still enjoy these books, even if they’re bad, so you might want to check some of these out. That is, except for the Bottom 10 on this list... those really are dreadful, and I hate them, and if you stick around, I’ll tell you why.

But, before we cover the Bottom 25, we have to cover the last six that didn’t make the list., so let’s get started!

Here are our Dishonourable Mentions:

Say Cheese and Die-- Again! [#44]

Like Part 1 of the evil camera sub-series, this almost made the list - but in this case, the bad list. Nobody at school believes our kid about the evil camera, so he has to get it back to convince his teacher. The writing is alright even if the plot sucks, but this is just a rip-off of the first book - but worse, since they seem to forget how to stop it.

The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena [#038]

This has some good elements, but this story seems to rely too heavily on some weird magic. Some kids go with their dad on a trip to the snow and bring back a frozen monster, but when it thaws it attacks the town. This has a lot of good, but the goofy Goosebumps-y qualities of this are too much to save this story from mediocrity.

Vampire Breath [#49]

Whilst this starts off with a cool premise, the story itself is just... so stupid. Some kids find a tunnel in their basement that leads to a hidden vampire crypt, and get magically transported to a gothic castle. I think this would be great if the kids were fighting a vampire at home, but instead we get vampiric teleportation & a clichéd castle.

Night of the Living Dummy III [#40]

Hey, do you remember that story about kids getting blamed for the bad stuff an evil, living dummy is doing? Yeah, so does the writer of this book. Sure, now there’s an attic full of dummies, but that doesn’t add anything. This shtick past its expiry date two books ago, and it’s not only stale, but now it’s starting to smell.

Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes [#34]

I wanted to like this story. I find garden gnomes a little creepy, and they’re made of stone, so they’d be dangerous little imps. But, the majority of this book is about the gnomes enacting garden vandalism, and goes into ridiculous territory as the book reaches its conclusion. This is terrible, and I’m not even up to the Bottom 25 yet...

One Day At Horrorland [#16]

This is where things go downhill. A family visits a theme park called Horrorland, with rides all themed around fear, and the staff all seem to be literal monsters. This story feels surreal - not in a “whacky, woah” sense, but in a “these plot points don’t actually flow together” sense, and the remaining narrative left got lost in the fracas.

The Bottom 25 Worst Original Goosebumps Books

25. Let's Get Invisible! [#06]

What would you do if you could turn invisible? Would you try to fight crime, like a superhero? Would you sneak into the changing rooms to see people naked? Would you break into banks and steal money? Any of these answers could be interesting! But, the only uninteresting thing would be to just stand around and see how long you stay invisible for. That’s literally what happens in this story - kids discover a magic mirror that can turn them invisible, and they don’t do anything with it. What an absolute waste... This is lower on this list because the writing is pretty okay, and some of the scary elements of the mirror are kind of cool the first time you read it. However, this story is just so boring to read! Plus, this was such a disappointing waste of a good story idea that rather than a dis/honourable mention like other mediocre books, I think it deserves its place on the very bottom of this list.

24. The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight [#20]

I think that I had nightmares about this story, but mostly because scarecrows are kind of scary looking, and the idea of them walking around is creepy. But, the story itself is kind of tame. Some kids go to visit family living out on a farm, but their grandparents are acting weird. And two of the farmhands, who are either poorly-educated or mentally inferior, tell the kids freaky stories about the scarecrows moving in the night. I still kind of enjoy how much atmosphere there is in this book, but it’s ultimately wasted since the scarecrows are basically set-dressing, they don’t really attack the kids, instead scarecrows just kind of “show up in places scarecrows usually aren’t” - which makes sense, scarecrows are mostly straw, so they probably couldn’t do much damage. Also, did I mention that there’s a book of magic in this story? Yeah, that’s kind of silly...

23. The Blob That Ate Everyone [#55]

This book manages to ruin two good plot ideas. Firstly, I’ve always thought that The Blob seems like a scary movie idea, but this book isn’t really about amorphous monsters so much as a magic typewriter. A young writer is writing a story about a blob monster, but when the local store burns down, he finds a typewriter in the wreckage. He takes it home, but everything he writes comes true, even the blob monster. This started off interesting, but not only does it get really weird near the end - the twist is total garbage. I won’t spoil anything, but rest assured, the ending is so bad that it makes the rest of the book even worse.

22. Why I'm Afraid of Bees [#17]

This book started off alright, but it bee-railed pretty quickly. Sorry, I’ll try to bee serious. The premise is that a weak and nerdy loner is sick of beeing himself, so he uses a body-switching business to switch his mind with another kid using a machine - but a malfunction causes his mind to get stuck in the body of a honeybee. Unfortunately, Animorphs this is not, so not only is the bee biology in the book not entirely accurate, but there is some buzz-shite about DNA transference which makes so little sense, I think it makes negative sense? And, although this is going to be the case for most of the books on this list, I have to say that the ending really sucks. Body-switching is a classic staple of horror and sci-fi, but at the end of the day this isn’t about transforming or learning to see life from a new perspective - it’s basically about how much it sucks to be a bee, when you aren’t.

21. Monster Blood [#03]

Okay, this is going to be a long one... like I said in the last post, occasionally Goosebumps had stories that continued through several books. Well, Monster Blood was one of those series, and it is collectively the worst continuous series of Goosebumps ever written, which is a shame since it started so well. A kid goes to stay with his creepy aunt, and because he’s bored and desperate to find something to do, he befriends a local girl and buys an ancient green Gak/Play-Do/Slime toy from the local toyshop called Monster Blood. This stuff can stretch, bounce and be generally gross, but over time the toy changes, and not only does it start to feel warm and sticky, but it also starts to grow and grow and grow. As I said above, I think the idea of a blob monster is pretty cool, and if you cut this book in half, yeah, this would be great. But the way this story ends is so bad, genuinely, that without that ending this story might be on the Best 25 list. But, the stupid twist retroactively ruins the rest of the story.

20. Monster Blood II [#18]

I said it was a long one - this still has the characters from the first book, and they can be enjoyable, but it comes back with the same story again - the monster blood grows and grows, and if anything is ever dumb enough to eat it, they will also grow to a monstrous size. Someone feeds it to a hamster, and horror ensues. Cuddles the hamster is yet another unofficial mascot of Goosebumps (“Curly” the purple-mohawked skeleton is the “official” mascot of the series for some reason), but I don’t find Monster Blood scary... though, that’s mostly because the books suck. I mean, it’s a thick, living slimy substance that grows and grows. And hey, it’s monster blood, so could you imagine what monster has this pumping through their veins? But, no, we never get anything that cool. When it comes to monster blood, instead of fighting it, or containing it, people spend the majority of these books eating it. Gross...

19. Monster Blood III [#29]

Once again, something eats Monster Blood and grows out of control - but this time, it’s out main character! Of course, if you’ve read the last book, you’d know that he already did that, but I think that, just as the last two were inspired by The Blob, this one is inspired by Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, and whilst that’s not a bad way to start a story, what takes this down a lot is that, firstly, there are a few more characters here which seem very poorly characterized, and secondly, they don’t really do anything with the 50 Foot Kid thing, that whole section seems to last four chapters or so. Maybe it was longer, but it doesn’t feel that way - and a lot of this is based on the contrived notion that some kid under the age of ten is a chemistry genius, who seems to have invented an antidote for a green slime which, according to the previous books, is meant to work by magic or something.

18. A Night In Terror Tower [#27]

Believe it or not, I don’t hate stories about magic. I kind of like magic, it’s a very cool concept, and it’s one of the reasons fiction can be so imaginative. But, when a story’s entire premise, conflict & resolution all have the same cause, and that cause is literally “a wizard did it”, I have a hard time enjoying it. This isn’t very high on this list because I accept that this is fairly well plotted - a lot of the ideas here seem to fit together quite nicely. Maybe if this had a few more rewrites I would enjoy it, but as it stands it still feels like the reader was an afterthought when writing this, because they’re not privy to any of the machinations behind this plot until very near the end. Even then, the characterization given here is pretty flawed, and as much as the story makes more sense when you understand the twist behind it, it also develops a fair number of inconsistencies.

17. Attack of the Mutant [#25]

I wish this didn’t have to go on this list, because there are some cool ideas here with a kid obsessed with comic books discovering a supervillain’s lair on the outskirts of his hometown. And the villain is a scary concept - he can change into any animal, and any form of solid matter, at will. However, this book is yet another entry in the “well-written, but not-quite-scary” books of Goosebumps. It’s actually more of an action comedy at times, but that’s not what puts it on the worst list. As well as not-quite scary, this book is the first in a series of what-the-hell-is-going-on books - which is to say a book where the plot, setting or characters are so inconsistent that it’s impossible to use logic to understand what’s going on. In this case, the characters in the story seem to react in weird ways, but also there is some strange magic regarding how the comic books that the kid is reading are recounting everything that happens when he goes into the villain’s lair - at first it’s confusing, but when the twist finally rolls around and uncoils itself, it just leaves me staring at the wall with a blank expression.

16. How I Got My Shrunken Head [#39]

Just like the previous entry, this is a story that has some cool ideas, but ultimately it starts to fall into some kind of dream logic. But, this one is worse for two reasons. Firstly, the story takes place in a kind of jungle, but unlike some of the previous versions, this felt so poorly written. Literally, because the writer didn’t spend enough time describing the location, it basically felt like the kid was running around a movie studio backlot covered in fake leaves. It’s a shame because this story managed to use magic more effectively than some of the others which I found disappointing, but the ending of this story also felt pretty weak. 

15. The Haunted Mask II [#36]

You might remember that I put the previous installment of this story on the other list. It wasn’t the best story, but I still quite enjoyed it (despite the odd ending). This story does a few things right - we see the story through one of the other characters’ eyes, that’s interesting. Plus, we change the formula a little so that instead of the same threat, it’s a new danger using a similar theme. Unfortunately, this book did both of those poorly. Instead of the main girl, this time we’re following one of the pranksters who bullied her from the last book. Also, whilst the last mask was evil, and made the girl act evil by scaring people and threatening them, in this book the mask is... old. Yeah, old and it makes the kid act old by feeling tired and grumpy. Also, although they make a few references to how the previous story ended - this actually does something even weirder... so, it’s a lesser copy of the previous book, with nothing new to add except a more boring mask, and less scares.

14. I Live in Your Basement! [#61]

This was the second-last book in the original series, and it’s disturbingly bad. Okay, the premise of this book is that after the main character gets hit in the head with a baseball bat, he starts getting strange messages from a boy who claims to live in his basement - but, every time our main character tries to find him, or reveal the boy to his family, the evidence disappears. Look, I get that the premise of this story, and the horror here, is that this kid gets hit in the head and seems to be losing his mind. But, I’ve seen really good stories about going insane - this book seems to use it as an excuse to become a what-the-hell-is-going-on kind of book. Props, characters, actions and settings seem to occur randomly. And, sure, the kid draws attention to it, only for the book to claim it’s because he was hit in the head and now he’s either in a coma, or losing his mind, or dreaming... yeah, by the end of the book it gets so convoluted that even the explanations the book gives us defy explanation.

13. Go Eat Worms! [#21]

I’m sorry, but worms aren’t really scary. Maybe you, dear reader, are scared of worms, but they’re small, fragile and I think they’re actually kind of cute, in a way. That’s not what gets it on this list, though - I don’t think cuckoo clocks are scary either, but someone managed to squeeze a creepy story out of that. No, it’s on this list, frankly, because it’s so stupid. A young kid is obsessed with worms, because of course he is, and he is told (inaccurately, I might add) that cutting a worm in half will cause one worm to become two. After he does this, however, he seems to anger the worms, as they seem to randomly show up in places where worms usually aren’t. Most of this turns out to be just his sister pranking him, but then completely out of nowhere, the character gets attacked by a worm that is as wide as a tree trunk and several storeys tall! Seriously... seriously. That isn’t even the twist, the twist is even stupider, this is just a random thing that happens near the end. Why a giant worm? Why, book? Why? 

12. The Horror at Camp Jellyjam [#33]

I was enjoying this book, when I first read it. A few of these books take place at summer camps, but instead of ghosts, more ghosts or dangerous camp activities, this one goes in a cool, new direction. Basically, this camp is a sports camp, and there seems to be some weird Stepford’s Campers thing going on where the camp counselors all seem overly enthusiastic, and all of the kids are competing to be the fastest, the strongest and the best - but for some reason, whenever someone is awarded as the champion, they go missing. It’s a creepy, kind of cool premise. However, the reason it gets on this list is the same as Monster Blood and Attack the Mutant before it... the ending ruins the book. That might seem strange to blame the ending for ruining an otherwise good book, but this whole story is built around this mystery - why are the counselors acting like this? Why is there such a focus on competition? What happens to the champions who keep disappearing? So, you’re heavily invested in the answer to that question. However, when you get that answer, if it doesn’t meet the standard of the mystery that it was building up to - and it doesn’t suit the clues you were given - then it feels like the whole thing was a waste of time.

So, I have to admit, I do think that you should read this book, it was good to start with and you might like it more than I did... but the ending was so bad that I hated reading it, which is why I put it so high on this worst list.

11. My Best Friend is Invisible [#57]

In this story, a kid gets a new, invisible friend, but because no one else can see them, the kid is kind of weird and clingy, and starts ruining the main character’s life. What makes this so bad is, firstly, the inconsistency - it’s hard to tell whether this kid is actually being friendly, or if he is genuinely trying to make the main character miserable - but it turns out, no, he’s genuinely trying to be a nice person... so, why was he such an arsehole, then? Also, in one of the earlier chapters of the book, the protagonist’s younger brother telegraphs the climax of the book by revealing that he invented “a flashlight that makes invisible things visible”... okay, fuck you. That’s worse than just bad writing, that’s insulting. I kept confusing this book for I Live in Your Basement! but, can you blame me? Both are about kids being harassed by a strange and secretive, possibly monstrous, boy living in their house, and the ending to both stories are twists that come out of nowhere and which makes a mockery of the rest of the book. Oh, but if you want to know why this gets a worse score? Then you’ll have to look up what the twist is. Oh boy...

10. Egg Monsters From Mars [#42]

I already explained why this book sucks in explicit detail, during my Blogger Beware post for Parody Week. But, let’s cover the basics. Eggs are scary for two reasons - they’re slimy and sometimes they hatch - this book doesn’t go that angle. Instead, the story is about a kid who finds an alien egg during an egg hunt, and when he tries to find out more about where it came from, he gets captured by an evil scientist. That’s such a let-down, not because an alien egg is such a great premise (it’s kind of weird to be honest), but you could do so much more with it than this nonsense. I mean, seriously, if you go now and get a pen and a small bit of paper, like a post-it note, a napkin or the back of an envelope, and write down a list of things that could happen in a story, when in the first chapter or so your character discovers “an enormous, green egg, which looks like it’s covered in purple veins”. I’m sure that you could come up with a much better story than this, because although this is a weird one, there is so much that you can do with a premise like that. But this book chooses, instead, to go the “what if the scientist is a meanie?” plot. And since half of the book is spent with the kid trapped in a mostly-white room, it gets boring pretty quickly.

9. Monster Blood IV [#62]

This is the last book - both of the Monster Blood series, and the original Goosebumps series. And if you want to know how bad it is, just look at how much further down the list it got. In this story, our main characters return a fourth time, but there’s a new kind of monster blood. Now, that’s a cool idea to start off with, because frankly there wasn’t much more you could do with the green slime. However, this book struggles to make any sense. Firstly, the new monster blood is just found, randomly, in a dumpster behind a science lab. Second, this monster blood turns into little blue slugs with eyestalks and razor-sharp teeth, which multiply when they get wet - kind of like gremlins, I guess. This starts off weird and dumb, but it gets even weirder and dumber when we learn how to defeat these things... are you ready? if they get big enough, blue monster-blood slugs eat each other. So, if you want to know the plot of this book, tape a blue balloon over the end of a hose and turn on the tap so it fills with water and pops. That’s basically what happened. And the twist... well, let’s just say that I should have seen it coming when I saw which dumpster they fetched this new stuff from, but nothing prepared me for this ending...

8. Attack of the Jack O'Lanterns [#48]

I have so many questions about this story, but I know that none of them will have satisfying answers. This story is about a kid and her best friend who believes that two of the kids from school are to blame for always ruining Halloween. So, they decides to get payback by enlisting the help of two of her friends to dress up as scary Halloween monsters and torment them. The first half of this book is dedicated to flashbacks, but after that the majority of this book is two people in jack-o’lantern costumes forcing kids to trick-or-treat non-stop, then eat all the candy, then keep trick-or-treating to the point that I’d call it a form of torture. And then it all ends with a twist which, whilst it does explain some of what happened, it’s also incredibly stupid and it raises more questions than it answers. Considering that this book had such awesome cover art, it’s a shame this book sucked so much.

7. It Came From Beneath the Sink! [#30]

Hey, guess what’s not scary?! That’s right, sponges! Seriously, this book is about an evil sponge. And sure I get it; the plot kind of makes sense of it. A girl moves to a new house and discovers a weird sponge under the sink that looks like it has glowing, red eyes, and it seems to feed on her misfortune, pulsing and absorbing all of her hatred and anger. Y’know, kind of like the way a sponge doesn’t. But, more than that, it’s said that if she ever tries to get rid of it, she will be killed. How does she learn this information? Well, from a book in the library of course. It tells her all about the creature, explaining that it’s a monster called a Grool and that the only way to get rid of it is to pass it on. Even if this book gave the monsters less goofy-sounding names, I think the fact that the major antagonist is a very angry sponge makes this book laughably bad. The only reason it’s not higher on this list is because I kind of like the way this conflict was resolved, even though it was very silly.

6. Don't Go to Sleep! [#54]

I have already talked about books which I put in the what-the-hell-is-going-on category. This book is one of the worst offenders, since the premise of this story is a kid who goes to sleep and wakes up in an alternate reality. Now, whilst alternate realities can be a cool idea in general, this book basically treats each reality like a waking nightmare, with people acting strange and unrealistically, and each one comes and goes within a chapter or two, so quickly that it feels vague and insubstantial. Then the ending revolves around the kid being tried by the “reality police”... it’s an absolute mess. Not only is this plot generally messy and uninteresting, but if you think about it, the moral of this story (if it has one at all) is that you should be content with your life, even if it sucks, because it could be worse. That’s a terrible moral! Sure, be grateful for the positive things in your life, but you shouldn’t be complacent with those things which make your life a burden. So, bad story, bad moral - oh, and bad writing too.

5. A Shocker on Shock Street [#35]

A pair of siblings are brought out to test a new theme park - it’s called Shock Street, and apparently it’s inspired by the Shock Street horror film franchise. The kids are huge fans, and they get a sneak peak of the park because their Dad’s part of the production. Based on “One Day at Horrorland and this book as well, I have a sneaking suspicion that R.L. Stine has never gone to a theme park. For one thing, rides usually have operators, so kids just jumping on and off running ride cars makes no sense. But, more importantly, animatronics tend to be very expensive, so they’re unlikely to be very big, and they are almost always secured to the floor, so the giant, animatronic praying mantis, as depicted on the cover and in the story itself, makes no sense. But, that’s all just preamble to how random this story gets, going from place to place, falling through death trap after death trap.

Then, once again, an ending which is so bad it retroactively makes the story worse... I hate it when that happens.

4. Beware, the Snowman [#51]

I’m not sure why this is the case, maybe I can’t remember why (haha), but this book isn’t very memorable. I have read it, from cover to cover. But, I struggle to remember what happens in it. But, based on the summary I read online, maybe its because this book is boring, and the plot feels disconnected. A girl moves to a snowy town, where everyone has a creepy snowman out the front of their house, and she is told a story about an evil wizard or a wizard duel or something... and there’s a cave on the mountain, and a poem. I swear, I read the summary before writing this, but I can’t remember it at all. It doesn’t help that snowmen just, generally, aren’t very scary, even if they have a scar on their face, i.e. someone drew a line in the snow of their face - woah, scary(!). Plus, this is another plot where the conflict and resolution are all “a wizard did it”. Ugh, so boring... these books are usually good, I swear, just please, don’t read this one.

3. The Barking Ghost [#32]

Okay, okay, we’re on the home stretch. But I think I need to clarify, every single one of these books has something in common. First of all, their all what-the-hell-is-going-on books. In this story, two kids are being haunted by a pair of ghostly dogs, which lures them out into a shed in the woods called the Changing Room (seriously? I hate you). When they enter the shed, the two kids become the dogs! and the dogs become the two kids too... yeah, that’s what happens. Then they try to get their parents to help, but “oh no”, they’re dogs, dogs can’t talk, silly. And they’re also ghosts, so they sometimes can go through walls, but not always, since the parents always call them “dogs” and never “ghost dogs” (or, dare I say, “barking ghosts”?... I’ll see myself out). But they can’t seem to convince their parents to help, so they finally just attack the ghost-dogs-in-their-bodies, and drag them back to the changing room. That’s the story. I picked up a book that was meant to be about a ghost dog haunting a house, and instead I get a story about the whacky hijinks of two undead canines who were kids before they got lost in the woods. Is it possible to hate something so much it hurts? Because I have a headache.

2. The Beast From the East [#43]

I don’t think I’m the first person to make this comparison, but this whole book is basically a novel-length round of Calvinball. If you don’t know what that is, it’s a game where you make up the rules as you play. The plot of this is that kids get lost in the woods, and discover monsters who make them join in their game - which is impossible to follow, as although it “supposedly” has rules that people follow, it’s clear that the writer was just making it up as they went along. Ostensibly, it’s kind of like tag, except you have to tag people from the East (hence the title, Beast from the East... can I go home now?). Also, the woods are like half-monstery too, so the setting is all weird and unnatural too, so there’s literally no logic to come into play - there are no rules, and there’s no reality that we can rely on to keep us grounded. I hate this. When I read this story, I put it down and decided that I would never read it again, and I would warn people not to, because it is the worst Goosebumps story ever written... Yep, definitely the worst. It can’t possibly get worse than this. Seriously, how could it get worse?

1. Legend of the Lost Legend [#47]

Fuck you, R.L. Stine. You’re a part of my childhood whether you had ghost writers or not - but, fuck you for writing this book. I hate this. Like, yeah, I hate The Beast From the East, but at least it had monsters in it, and at least the woods were... weird. But, Legend of the Lost Legend “supposedly” takes place in the real world - a Dad and his two kids are on a camping trip in the middle of the woods. Yeah, they’re in the fictional country of Brovania, to find a legendary manuscript called “The Lost Legend”, and although Brovania isn’t real Europe is, & presumably so too are all the other -vanias: Transyl, Pennsyl, Castle... anyway, let’s do a quick dot-point of the plot. A large viking woman, uses noodles to tell their fortune; the kids are sent on a ‘survival test’ in the Fantasy Forest; The trees start raining nuts, which pop open to reveal robotic mice that attack them; the kids knock down some plastic trees, are attacked by bats, then fall into quicksand; then the kids are attacked by giant cats that are several storeys tall & try to eat the kids, but then decide not to and spit them out, and the kids return to the cabin only to learn that the viking woman is actually a wind-up doll...

That’s not even the half of it. This book is just random bullshit, and all of it leads up to a twist that is bad enough to have ruined any other book, but for this story, it just made me feel deflated. Do not ever read this book, unless you are planning on using it as a guide for how books ought not be written. Fuck this book, Fuck R.L. Stine, Fuck you for making me want to do this list, and Fuck me for actually deciding to read this fucking book. Fuck.

Anyway, that’s my list. It’s getting late, so I need to get going, but I hope you enjoyed this list a hell of a lot more than I liked reading the books that appear on it. I will always love Goosebumps books, because of the role they played in my childhood, but every rose has its thorns, and I’ve grasped this bouquet and bled profusely so that others won’t have to...

I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and Until Next time, I’m going to read a book that isn’t Goosebumps...

Goosebumps, Revisited I

I don’t know if you know this... but, I really like Goosebumps. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I’ve mentioned it several times throughout the last few Halloween Countdowns, and I’ve already mentioned it once before in this year’s Countdown - I’m kind of obsessed. But, since this year we’re looking at horror, nostalgia and the fears of childhood... I have to talk about it once again. However, I don’t think I’ve actually talked about the plots of these books... I talk about Goosebumps tangentially, or I write weird fan-fiction about it with my own plot - but, I haven’t actually gotten into the plots of these books with any kind of depth. Also, whilst I talk about how Goosebumps books are good, but also really bad, I think I should bite the bullet and actually separate the good from the bad, in explicit detail... although, I won’t spoil the twist - you’ll need to visit Blogger Beware for that.
There are exactly 62 books in the original series. so, I’m going to organize them into two lists. The Top 25 Best Original Goosebumps books & The Bottom 25 Worst Original Goosebumps books - and, since that leaves only a remainder of twelve, I’ll mention how each of those falls on the spectrum as well with some Dis/Honourable Mentions.
That’s right, we’re going to talk about every single book, what it’s about, and why I love it or hate it - we have a lot to get through, so let’s get started, starting with the Best!

First, some Honourable Mentions:

Calling All Creeps! [#50]
This one is a bit too silly to be called great, with the aliens and their goal of making people eat alien seeds. It’s pretty weird, all around, but I still think it’s worth a mention because, firstly, the ending is unexpected and actually kind of cool. And secondly, this is the first Goosebumps book I ever read - no joke.

Bad Hare Day [#41]
A magic-obsessed kid sneaks out at night to watch a magic show and faces bad consequences as a result. I kind of liked the idea of the kid stealing a magician’s bag, in fact that kind of inspired my Bag of Tricks story that I wrote when I was younger (and shared on this blog), but the plot relies too much on magic to score any higher here.

The Headless Ghost [#37]
This is kind of scary, kids going into a haunted house to meet the dead within. But, ultimately, this becomes kind of goofy, and the ending was just silly. Also, the writing was a bit poor here - I think because the characterization was a bit thin. But, a scary idea is a scary idea, so this at least earns a mention.

Ghost Beach [#22]
I think the best way to describe this is that I liked the story, except for all of the things that happened in it. I enjoyed the cool ideas, with the beach and strange kids, but the weird elements like ghosts eating random stray animals, and so many people having the same name - and don’t even ask about the cave-dwelling ghost expert.

My Hairiest Adventure [#26]
This one is quite goofy - I mention a few times, some of these stories are written entirely around the twist. This is so weird, most people have spoiled it. I won’t, but I will say, I both like and dislike this story, and it’s all because that ending is so weird. I appreciate that it did something different, but it was too different to be really great.

Say Cheese and Die! [#04]
This almost made the list. I like the idea of a camera taking creepy photos, even the idea of it being a misfortune-teller, bringing about the worst future. But, when you learn how to defeat it, it’s pretty tame. Not to mention, some of the plot is about who built the camera and why, and it is so bad, it’s awful, then so awful it’s amazing.

The Top 25 Best Original Goosebumps Books

25. The Girl Who Cried Monster [#08]
This book is kind of silly, but it’s fun enough to scrape its way onto this list. It’s about a girl who loves pulling pranks - especially making up stories of monsters to scare her little brother - which takes a turn for the ironic when she discovers that their local librarian is a monster. So, you get it, very much boy who cried wolf... I mean, it’s what the title is parodying, so it’s very bog-standard. But, despite how formulaic this premise is, I enjoyed this for the build-up. The librarian is shown eating flies and bugs, and later turtles and fish - and when he suspects that someone knows his secret, the implication that he might also eat tattling little girls is creepy enough that I think it’s a pretty good Goosebumps book. Of course, not that good, since the ending kind of sucks, but it’s good enough to take twenty-fifth place.

24. Chicken Chicken [#53]
This may seem weird (especially to readers of Blogger Beware, since Troy absolutely despises this book), but I enjoyed this story. Basically, two siblings come across a pretty young woman in black, who whispers the titular magic words into the main character’s ear, and so the girl slowly begins turning into a chicken throughout the story. Whilst some think it’s basically 100+ pages of child abuse, I’m used to scary stories having disproportional punishments; that’s practically a Goosebumps staple. But it’s this low on the list because even I admit that it’s a bit much after a while. But, I like how it took something as mundane as a farmyard animal, and managed to make it really creepy - and as the girl gets smaller and smaller, the book escalated in fear and conflict as it went along. Also, of course, it’s this low because the ending kinda sucks.

23. The Haunted Mask [#11]
A lot of people rate this one pretty highly - even R.L. Stine himself seems to. Basically, a girl gets a very creepy, ugly mask from a secretive section of the local costume shop. But, when she puts it on, she can’t seem to get it off. And it seems to be changing her on the inside, so that her personality reflects the monster that she now appears to be. This is a classic, and although a slow burn, I think this story works best building up piece by piece. It’s higher because the writing is better, and I think there’s a lot of adult horror to be found in the idea of a kid getting a stretchy, rubber headpiece stuck over their face. But it still leaves a lot to be desired in the conclusion, since it goes for a really cheesy resolution that even falls below Goosebumps standards (i.e. this ending sucked too).

22. Welcome to Dead House [#01]
Although this one has a lot of flaws, it has to be on the top of the list because I liked it more than I disliked it. It’s about a family moving into a large, mysterious new house in the town of Dark Falls, and the girl who moves in feels a bit unnerved - especially when the people around town start acting strange, and their pet dog starts to act scared when they go out of the house. This does have some early-installment weirdness, like odd chapter breaks, and the horror of having monster-people melt like candles in the oven isn’t something I’d expect to read in a book aimed at 12-year olds. But, I liked this story, and as weird as some of it was, I like how this series began. Oh, and finally, and ending that doesn’t suck! It was weird, but at least it didn't suck. It was just, kind of strange...

21. How I Learned to Fly [#52]
One of the things you’ll come across, if you start investigating Goosebumps, is that there are occasionally some well-written, but not-quite-scary books. This is one of them. A boy goes into an empty house, and discovers a book called Flying Lessons that can teach him how to fly - literally! He gains the ability to soar through the air. He uses it to impress some of his friends, but his new ability doesn’t stay secret for long. There are one or two scares, and I think there is one point when the kid is falling out of the sky for a moment, but otherwise this is just a good story about a kid who becomes famous because he can fly. So, it scores high for being a great story, but it’s not really a great Goosebumps story, which is why it’s so low on this list. Also, the ending not only doesn’t suck - it’s actually kind of brilliant. Definitely worth checking out.

20. Be Careful What You Wish For... [#12]
I really liked this story, and a lot of that has to do with the writing. In this story, a tall, awkward, lanky girl helps out a strange woman, who then promises to grant the girl three wishes for her kindness. After a wishing mishap, the girl realizes that the wishes will come true, but she struggles to find a way to make her wishes come true, without ruining her life in the process. Some of the writing can get really bad in these books (wait until the Worst list, ugh...), but the characters are written quite convincingly, and besides one or two strange moments, this plot fits together well, and the ending ties it up in a neat, little bow. It’s everything you could wish for in a Goosebumps story. Ha... puns.

19. How to Kill a Monster [#46]
Don’t let anyone tell you that nostalgia doesn’t play a part in their love of Goosebumps. In this story, two siblings are stuck in a house in the middle of a swamp, visiting family. But, their relatives abandon them to go “run an errand”, leaving them locked in the house right as a monster is let loose in the house. I fully admit, although there are a lot of weak elements to this book I read this in school in 1998, and I found it very compelling, even the ending - it was a great story to read in between classes. I loved the way the kids had to try to escape all while locked in the house, and although the ending is the kind of thing that should put it lower on this list, as silly as it is, I feel like it suits this story. You might not enjoy this as much as I did, but I still think it’s worth checking out for yourself.

18. Deep Trouble II [#58]
Although this series is “horror anthology”, occasionally the stories are part of a little story arch. In this story, we reunite with a boy and his younger sister, as they once again join their Uncle, Doctor Deep, on a marine science expedition - this time hunting giant fish. Although I usually prefer science-fiction to fantasy, this story is mostly about dangerous sea monsters as opposed to the preceding book, and it’s quite disappointing. Both books have engaging prose, some well-crafted scares regarding swimming, drowning, monsters and being trapped on a small boat out in the middle of nowhere. It almost sounds like I didn't like this book, but I really did, these were fun characters. It's just that this one is just less exciting, because it deals with less interesting monsters, so it’s harder to stay excited. It’s like a faded photocopy of the first book - still good, but rougher around the edges.

17. You Can't Scare Me! [#15]
I saw the Goosebumps TV show episode based on this book before I read the actual book, so I thought I’d hate this since I hated the episode. The monster is lectured to death. Good grief... But this is a little different. This story stars two pranksters who love scaring kids at school, but there is one girl in school who is totally unflappable, they can’t scare her no matter what - so, they decided to pull the biggest prank of all time. It’s a great premise, and a good excuse to deliberately explore fear, whilst also scaring the reader. The ending is a little unoriginal, but it’s still streets ahead of the stupid TV show version, and helps to cap off a pretty good story.

16. Werewolf Skin [#60]
When I first bought this book, the cover alone was enough to sell me on the story. I didn’t realize at the time that it was inspired by mythology. A guy and a girl discover that two of the people in their town are in fact werewolves - but what makes them change isn’t the moon, but rather a pair of creepy wolf-skin furs that they put over their body. This is more than just a weird idea, it’s inspired by old myths about werewolves and skin-walkers. But more than that, this story is so well written, following the two kids as they investigate and plan how to deal with this potential threat in their town. You can judge this book by the cover, since the contents are as cool as the artwork.

15. Ghost Camp [#45]
Sending kids to a sleep-away camp in your horror story is putting your best foot forward - since it leaves your kids isolated, often unprepared, alone & defenceless. In this story, two siblings join “Camp Spirit Moon” very last-minute, and show up at an empty site. When the other campers finally reveal themselves, they all act strange, weirdly unfazed by the ghost stories told by the camp leaders, or by the fog that rolls in each night. This story has a simple idea, but it’s well executed, and has enough strange and unexplained elements to keep readers on edge. I think some of the unexplained elements are a bit too weird, so that lowers the score here, but otherwise, this is a great horror story about a creepy summer camp.

14. Deep Trouble [#19]
I already mentioned the sequel, and this too has two kids on a marine science expedition - the same kids, in fact. What makes this one better, though, is that their uncle is working to discover what he can about mermaids. Come on, you have to admit that "mermaids" is a lot more fun than "bigger versions of regular fish". There’s also an interesting and somewhat realistic sub-plot about modern pirates, and it makes the story feel that much more scary and dramatic, but that premise alone is a pretty good starting point. But, what gets it this high on this list is that it still manages to be pretty creepy and thrilling. Not overly so, since most Goosebumps books just don’t do that, but it was enough that I was impressed. You don’t have to read the sequel, but this is a good book to dive into.

13. Piano Lessons Can Be Murder [#13]
Okay, I know that the ending is kind of weird and dumb... I know, but I don’t think you can get more quintessentially Goosebumps than this. A young boy is haunted by the sounds of a ghostly piano playing at night; but when he warns his parents about it, they discover the piano and book the kid in for piano lessons. Little do they know that their son’s new piano teacher, Doctor Shreek, is not what he appears to be. I always suspected that Tim Jacobus, the main artist for Goosebumps, drew the pictures first, and then R.L. Stine wrote a story to fit it - and that’s most evident for this book. But, I still very much enjoy the mystery and atmosphere of death and danger that pervades this kid’s music school, as well as the disturbing quirks of his teacher. The ending is very weird, but I kind of love it... it’s what makes this story so good. Definitely a must-read Goosebumps book.

12. Welcome to Camp Nightmare [#09]
I appreciate spoiler warnings, I think it’s good to see a twist for the first time in its proper context. However, some stories are written so that the story is just as good whether you know the twist or not, and this classic story is one of them. Summer camp seemed like fun, but the people running it are strange. They don’t care when kids get hurt - including when someone gets a snakebite! - and some kids tell stories about a secret, forbidden bunk, and how kids will sometimes disappear. This story is very much built around its twist, but I still enjoy the characterization and the escalation of just how strange this place can get, all of which helps to build up the mystery and how the kid is going to stay safe in this crazy place. Some people might hate it, because of the twist, but I think that the writing still holds up either way.

11. Return of the Mummy [#23]
This story doesn’t seem as original as its predecessor, but it’s still a pretty interesting read. A boy and his young sister return to Egypt to visit their Egyptologist uncle - as he is about to discover a new cavern in a pyramid - legend says a Egyptian prince is said to be buried there, but legend also says that the cavern was cursed. If you’ve heard of cursed mummy stories, you’ve heard of this, but I still think that this is very well written, and especially for a Goosebumps story it’s impressive how Egypt is more than simple set dressing, and you actually get a sense of the age, sands, culture and heat of the place. Also, I like the way the mystery and magic unfolds in this one - it makes it feel more real, to me.

10. The Curse of Camp Cold Lake [#56]
Yet another amazing cover wrapped around an amazing story... In this story, a young girl is sent to a summer camp, but she hates it - the “lake” is full of slime, she can’t seem to make friends, and she hates the outdoors - but it gets worse when, after an accident at the lake, she starts seeing ghosts. This is pretty well done, overall, especially with how eerie and cold the lake is. I really enjoyed how eerie this whole book was - and although it’s a weird word to say so many times, “eerie” is definitely the word to describe this book. And when you start to realize what the actual threat of the story is, this story can be genuinely scary. I don’t know what else to say except that you should check it out and see what the fuss is about.

9. Night of the Living Dummy [#07]
I recognize that dummies look creepy, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to try to make them creepy. But, this story still managed to play around with the idea of these creepy, wooden doll-puppets and make something out of it. This is the story of two twin sisters, one of which finds a Slappy the dummy in a dumpster, but when her sister gets jealous she gets one of her own, called Mr Wood. However, this takes a sour turn when the new dummy starts acting of his own accord. I like how this story has something of a psychological aspect to it, but then when things get heated up it goes into a much more supernatural horror direction. See, the only “weird” thing about dummies is that they can talk, when you make them (even though everyone knows its you). So, when the dummy says such horrific things of its own accord, and people assume the girl is to blame, that’s probably the best and most story-rich direction you could have taken this.What’s most weird is that the main “dummy” antagonist of this story is the second dummy, Mr Wood. Slappy doesn’t do much at all throughout the story. I don’t know why people saw sequel potential in this, but it was a pretty good story nonetheless.

8. Phantom of the Auditorium [#24]
You might have noticed by now that something I enjoy are stories which don’t deal with magic explicitly, but rather toy around with it, or leave it vague. In this story, a young girl is rehearsing for a play that her teacher is producing, a script which was performed at their school once in the past with grim results. As opening night approaches, someone keeps sabotaging the play, and since the main girl and her friend are pranksters, they have to look into this mystery if they want to avoid being blamed. This story is obviously inspired by Phantom of the Opera, but it goes very Goosebumps by eschewing the romance for mystery surrounding the school’s past, and the auditorium being literally haunted, as opposed to the vagrant of the original, French story.

7. The Haunted School [#59]
Okay, you know how I say that some of these stories are weird? Usually, they’re weird because someone acts in an unnatural way, or the weird witch/ghost/monster of the book having some strange rules or traits that makes the plot go in a weird direction. This story is also weird, but in a way that makes the story much scarier. A kid and his friend get lost in their school after wandering through a creepy art display, for several kids that went missing. After one wrong turn, they find themselves trapped in a colourless world, with no possibility of escape. This story is weird, but not in a “huh, that isn’t how people act” way, but rather in an “oh god, that’s really fucked up, you’re in danger, someone help” kind of way. I can’t really explain that without spoiling the story - but speaking of the story, the plot all fits together quite neatly, and it makes for a great Goosebumps book. Definitely read this one.

6. Night of the Living Dummy II [#31]
I don’t actually like Slappy the Dummy, because he’s not so much a threat as he is a snarky jerk. But, in this story, Slappy is adopted by a new girl who learns ventriloquism so that she can be just as talented as her artistic siblings. However, when Slappy starts insulting her family and friends, and defaces her sister’s art, people start thinking that the girl herself is just a mean brat. So, you see, despite Slappy just being a jerk, I like this story because it plays to his strengths. This doesn’t go supernatural horror, it is 100% about psychological horror - Slappy is trying to ruin this girl’s life. People smarter than me have pointed out how the dummy/ventriloquist dynamic in this story might have domestic abuse themes, about a psychotic asshole controlling a young, desperate girl. Add onto that the fact that this story is actually about Slappy, and not some also-ran like Mr Wood, and this sequel is actually better than its predecessor. It’s the last good story in the Dummy series, but it’s good enough to be in the top 10 best Goosebumps book.

5. The Cuckoo Clock of Doom [#28]
Remember how I said that some stories are sort of “good, but not that scary”? Well, this story is kind of like that, since the idea it plays around with here is more cool than scary (in my opinion). When his dad gets a new grandfather clock, our main character finds a way to get back at his sister by defacing the cuckoo bird in the clock and blaming his sister for it. However, the next day, he wakes up and its yesterday - time is going backwards! So you see, like I said, a cool premise. But, this scores high for two reasons. Firstly, it does manage to be scary, since not only does the kid get weaker and smaller as he de-ages, but the idea of becoming so young that you become unborn - meaning that he will basically cease to exist - is a scary idea to a kid. Secondly, this is basically a time travel plot, and watching someone experience time backwards gradually is a cool idea - but it’s not all fireworks, there is a plot here, with the kid trying to find out where a thing will be based on where it was in the past. A cool idea, executed well, and although it’s kind of cheesy, the ending was still kind of fun. Definitely worth your time.

4. The Ghost Next Door [#10]
This is a weird story, because it’s a Goosebumps book. In this story, a girl discovers a new boy living next door, but she never saw him move in, and he acts strange. Things take a turn for the strange and supernatural when she notices that his hands can pass right through her, and she starts to see dark, ghostly figures on her street. What makes this story weird is that it is so well written that it almost feels too good to be a Goosebumps book. In fact, that's the only reason why I don't rate it higher on this list: it's a great book, but it's not really scary or cheesy enough to be a great Goosebumps book. As you can (hopefully) see by this list, Goosebumps books aren’t bad, but this is another story written around its twist, and when you understand what it is that you’re reading, it becomes a bittersweet, hauntingly beautiful story moreso than a scary one. I don’t recommend it if you want to get into Goosebumps, but I do if you like good stories in general.

3. The Curse of the Mummy's Tomb [#05]
What makes something quintessentially Goosebumps? I’ve used that phrase twice, so I should explain - to me, Goosebumps is about taking something classically scary, properly scary, but making it a little milder, then serving it to kids with a side of cheese. In this story, a kid goes to Egypt to visit his uncle on a pyramid dig, and although he’s scared of the old tombs, he bought a small, fake mummy hand in America called ‘the Summoner’, which is said to have magic powers. See, to me, facing off against a mummy... with a little, probably plastic fake hand, that is totally Goosebumps. This story explores Egypt, bandaged zombies, curses & ancient ruins, all with a silly, young American boy that is constantly getting lost, and being teased by his young sister. A great example of what Goosebumps should always be, and why it can be both fun and scary.

2. Stay Out of the Basement [#02]
Take something scary, and serve it with a slice of cheese - it’s the winning Goosebumps recipe - and since this is a winning story, how does it manage to follow that formula? This story is about two kids who become worried when their mother goes off on a trip, and their Dad starts acting very strange - they think their dad is turning into some kind of monster. But not just any kind of monster... an evil, monstrous, plant! Yes, plant. You take a creepy premise of a person being mutated into a monster, like The Fly, but instead of insects, you make it a houseplant. But this is so high on this list because this story actually manages to make it scary, and despite the wacko premise, the story is so affecting because the monster is their Dad. As a young kid, you rely on your parents for safety, so the idea that your parent can’t be trusted is a deeply disturbing idea. Plus, the ending to this is done pretty well, and although as an adult I can see it coming a mile away, this wasn’t written for adults, so I’ll give it credit for doing it so well anyway.

1. The Werewolf of Fever Swamp [#14]
I basically scored these books, not by quality or theme or merit - I simply went through the list and asked myself “which of these books did I prefer to read?” and despite comparing it with every other sbook on this list, I decided that this is the book I enjoyed reading the most. In this story, a family moves out to a swamp so the parents can conduct a survey of swamp deer, when the kid finds a nice dog that he decides to call Wolf, and keep as a pet. However, the family learns about some of the local legends, of the creepy swamp hermit, and monstrous howls heard at night, and when an animal starts attacking their property, the kids start wondering just how much of those legends is true. First of all, this has several of your Goosebumps cliches such as having just moved house and parental scientists. Also, this follows the recipe with something scary - werewolves - served with a slice of cheese - the parents suspect that the pet dog did it, and decide to deal with the problem, shotgun style. That may not sound cheesy, and I admit the fact that it’s so dramatic is why this rates so highly, but “a boy and his dog” is the starting premise of a lot of child-friendly films. But, of course, the main feature that scores top spot here is the fact that I think the story is actually scary - there’s actual blood and death in here. Sure, they’re animals, but I like animals, and it really makes this threat feel real. Plus, I think the ending is really cool.


Anyway, that’s the first half of the Original Goosebumps - the greater, more readable half. Of course, anyone with a list of books and a pen can find out which books are on the worst list, but please, come back tomorrow to find where they fall on a scale from “really silly, but still kind of fun” to “this is why I’ve included R.L. Stine in my suicide note”.
I’m the Absurd Word Nerd, and Until next time... reader beware, you’re in for more scares.

REAPER - Chapter 3 (of 3)

  Woodlawn Park Cemetery was a well-kept field of graves and grass, wide and flat and green. And although the trees looked as twisted and menacing as trees always do in cemeteries, and the grey iron fence with its square columns and sharply-tipped iron bars seemed to ward off those seeking happiness; Frances watched eagerly as she, Jasper and Rosa walked alongside the park, and saw wandering, pale shapes amongst the gravestones. There looked to be a hundred of these figures, just within view, clustered around different sections of the lawn.
  “Who are they?” asked Frances, staring forlornly through the bars.
  “Just a few wandering spirits,” said Jasper. “Some haunt the place, but most come for the company, since this is a place they can actually call their own.”
  Frances stepped through the bars and began to waft towards the crowds. But suddenly stopped and turned back.
  “Thank you,” she said, and she smiled, for the first time in too long, and then she drifted onwards. Jasper couldn’t help but smile, himself.
  “Another saved soul, eh?” said Rosa.
  “I’m allowed to enjoy the moment,” said Jasper. “It almost makes this curse worth it.”
  “Well, your moment’s up. We need to go back to Casa Boa.”
  “What? I thought you wanted me to stay away from Santero turf.”
  “I do... but now I believe you. They said Sophie bought drugs there, Emily was attacked in that building, and now Frances O.D.’ed after being raped. We need to have a talk to the drug dealer.”
  “What drug dealer?”
  “I found him when I walked through the building, a guy in Apartment 4D with a little cooking operation going on. I think he’s allied with Santero.”
  “And you want me to talk to him, ask if any of his buyers have a history of hurting girls?”
  “Something like that, yeah.”
  “I thought we were just looking for a mugger or something ... drug dealers and rapists in gangland? It’s getting more heavy than I thought it would.”
  “You can take care of yourself, can’t you?” said Rosa.
  “You know I can,” said Jasper, and he took the razor from his back pocket, and as he opened it, the blade seemed to glint with a ghastly light. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

#

  Jasper carefully made his way back to Casa Boa. He took off his hoodie and wrapped it around his waist so he wouldn’t be as recognizable, although he felt much colder in the near-midnight air. He snuck into the alcove of the apartment building’s door, and he found and pressed the buzzer for apartment 4D, the buzzer was a grating electronic rattle, and the occupant answered it quickly.
  “Hey, how’s it?” asked the speaker.
  “I’m looking for a dealer,” Jasper replied.
  “Dealer? I’m not sure what you mean, guy...”
  “His name’s Benicio,” said Rosa. “I read it on his mail.”
  “This is Benicio, right? I’m a friend of Sophie’s,” said Jasper. “She said you were... cool.”
  There was a pause before the speaker crackled as he hung up on the other end. After a tense second, the front door made a loud click as the door unlocked. Jasper ran forward and opened it, heading inside a dim and dusty-smelling lobby.
  “So, we enter the dragon’s den,” said Rosa lyrically, “Never to be seen again.”
  “Don’t be so dramatic, I’m just going to ask some questions,” said Jasper, making his way to the lift and pressing the call button.
  “Last time we went around asking questions, three gangster with weapons threatened you.”
  “Rosa, I love you, but you’re much too cynical,” said Jasper.
  “What can I say? Dying gave me a different outlook on life.”
  The elevator arrived, and they stepped aboard. The trip up to the fourth floor was quick, but the elevator shuddered uncomfortably all the way up, and when the door opened, the floor and the elevator cabin didn’t line up exactly, creating a two-centimetre step. Jasper and Rosa headed down the dingy hall and up to the door of apartment 4D, the lower part of the door was scuffed and dirty, and the keyhole was surrounded by scratches in the metal from missed attempts at unlocking with a key. Jasper knocked, and the door swung open.
  “Come in, man,” said a slightly ragged voice within. Jasper stepped inside and instantly a smell hit his nostrils like melted plastic, it made him cough as he headed further into the apartment. Inside Jasper saw a guy who looked to be in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a purple jumper with a basketball logo on the front and beige cargo shorts, and he had long, messy hair down to his shoulders. He was organising something on the coffee table next to a couch that looked to have been patched with electrical tape and when he turned around, Jasper saw he had a five-o’clock shadow on his thin face and large, buggy eyes. When he spoke, his voice had the hint of raspiness like a chainsmoker. “So, what do you want?”
  “I’m just asking around. You’re Benicio?”
  “Beni,” he corrected.
  “Do you know who Sophie is?”
  “Uh... no,” he said. “She use?”
  “Yes,” said Jasper. “I think she buys from you. She has pink and black hair.”
  “Ohh yeah, she’s pretty hot,” said Beni with a smirk. “Got that punk thing...”
  “Right. Well, she tried to kill herself, tonight,” said Jasper.
  “Oh,” said Beni, and his smirk dropped. He pursed his lips and shrugged. “That sucks.”
  “Yeah, she came around here tonight. Do you know what happened to her when she was here?”
  “Nah, man. She came her, smoked and took off,” said Beni.
  “Do you know if anyone else was around here? Or if someone attacked her?”
  “I dunno, man,” said Beni, he shrugged and dropped his hands by his side. “There’re some whack’s out there, man. Do some crazy shit. Could be someone from her school or somethin’... oh, I nearly forgot. Did you want to buy somethin’?”
  Jasper didn’t say anything as Beni nervously turned around and opened the box on the coffee table. He took out two small ziplock bags with what looked like clumped rocks of slightly yellowed sugar inside.
  “I don’t think so,” said Jasper.
  “Are you crazy?” said Rosa, snapping around to glare at Jasper. “He’s our only lead! Pretend you’re buying, or he’ll kick you out.”
  “I mean... I’m not sure,” said Jasper. “I’ve never done it before.”
  “Ah, I thought so,” said Beni. He dropped the bags onto the table and took a brown-stained tube out of the box with a bulb on one end; a crackpipe. He walked over to Jasper. “I get a lot of ‘nauts that like to take off in here, do you need a pipe?”
  Beni held the pipe out for Jasper, and as he did a nasty smell invaded his nostrils. It wasn’t as strong as the burning plastic smell, but it was very distinct ... body odour.
  “No...” said Jasper, “No thank you.”
  “Alright,” said Beni. “Well, it’s fifty for a baggie. There’s a few rocks in each. Do you know how to do it?”
  “No, not really,” said Jasper. “Could you show me?”
  “Alright,” said Beni and he walked back to the table, grabbed a bag and sat on the half-collapsed couch. “Don’t go snorting it, since it won’t do as much that way, and needles are gross. You just.”
  Beni reached forward and grabbed a lighter from the box, and opened a bag.
  “Do you know who Frances is?” asked Jasper.
  “No,” said Beni half-mindedly, as he put a rock in the pipe. “Now, what you do is cook it, till it bubbles, and just...” The dealer inhaled the fumes that had developed in the pipe and leant back, closing his eyes before exhaling.
  “Do you want to try?” he asked.
  “I think I get it,” said Jasper, and Beni nodded, using the pipe again. “What about Emily? Do you know who she is? She used to live here,”
  “Emily ... yeah, I knew her,” said Beni, looking even more dazed than usual. “She was real hot, the whole girl-next-door thing.”
  “Do you know what happened to her?” asked Jasper.
  “Moved out,” said Beni. “It’s a shame, she was a good lay...”
  “Lay?”
  “Yeah,” said Beni. “I see a lot of ass... girls want some crack, and sometimes, they can’t pay. If they want to get some crack, they gotta give some crack, y'know?”
He chuckled weakly, peering at Jasper.
  “Like Sophie?”
  “Mmm...” Beni said, nodding. “But sometimes, they just want it. Emily... she just wanted it, if you know what I mean.”
  “No way...” said Rosa, shaking her head. “He doesn’t even care, does he?”
  Jasper started to grind his teeth as what he was hearing started to fall into place in his mind.
  “So, yeah... fifty for a bag,” said Beni, rubbing his eyes and getting up off the couch.
  “Right... Y’know, I don’t think I have...” said Jasper as he took his wallet out of his pocket, and showed nothing but cards and spare coins. “Yeah, I forgot to go to the ATM. Sorry, I better go.”
  “No, wait,” said Beni, picking a little bag off the table. “You said you’ve never had it before, right? Well... have one free.”
  Beni put the smaller bag into Jasper’s hand which was holding his wallet.
  “Thanks...” said Jasper coldly.
  “It’s cool. If you want more, come right back, yeah? But you only get one for free.”
  Jasper turned and left as quickly as he could, closing the door behind him.
  “It’s him, isn’t it?” said Rosa. “He attacked Sophie, and Emily and Frances.”
  “I think so...” said Jasper, marching with purpose to the elevator.
  “What are we going to do?” said Rosa. Jasper closed his eyes, and tried to stop grinding his teeth, but his jaw was still clenched tight as the elevator took them to the bottom floor. Then he opened his eyes and marched outside onto the street.
  “We need to make sure it’s him,” said Jasper. “And if it is...”
  Jasper trailed off as he saw a public trash receptacle along the footpath. He walked over and threw the sealed bag of drugs into it.

#

  Sophie slowly opened her eyes, and felt a dreamy numbness over her body, thanks to the drugs. She saw the tiles, white ceiling above her, and she tried to sit up, but her neck felt weak and there was a dull ache in the back of her head. She laid her head back on the pillow and turned her neck to look around. To her left was a light-green privacy curtain, she looked to her right, and she saw a familiar boy wearing a grey hoodie, sitting in a chair by the bed. Jasper’s eyes were closed, and he looked to be asleep.
  “You?” said Sophie. She couldn’t lift her head, so she turned her head to look at him. “You caught me.”
  Jasper opened his eyes, perked up and smiled when he saw her.
  “You’re awake. That’s good.”
  “My head’s a bit fuzzy...” said Sophie, rubbing her forehead with her hand, then she stopped to look at her hands in front of her face. “How did I get here?”
  “You were brought in an ambulance. You fell off the bridge, do you remember?”
  “Yeah...” said Sophie, sounding a little self-conscious. “What happened to the girl?”
  “Which girl?”
  “She was glowing... she said I shouldn't move,” said Sophie. “I saw her when I died.”
  “Oh... you remember all that, do you?”
  “Of course, it was so strange. What happened?”
  Jasper nodded, then grabbed the chair by the wall, dragged it closer to the bed and sat down.
  “You fell off the bridge, onto the road,” said Jasper. “The force of the landing rattled your head around, and crushed your chest so hard it caused your heart to stop. You were dead for sixty seconds... but I was quick enough that I managed to bring you back before you completely slipped through to the other side.”
  “And what about the girl?”
  “The girl you saw is my girlfriend, Rosa. She’s my ‘partner in crime’ I guess.”
  “She’s a ghost?”
  “Yes. She’s here right now,” said Jasper, gesturing over her. “Standing on the other side of the bed.”
  Sophie turned, but saw nothing.
  “How come I can’t see her?” asked Sophie.
  “She’s invisible. You saw her when you crossed over because you were seeing with a different set of eyes. But now that you’re living and breathing, she’s on the other side of the veil again.”
  “But you can see her?” says Sophie.
  “Yeah... I’m special like that,” said Jasper.
  “And you can do things?” said Sophie. She pressed a hand to her chest. “You pushed me back inside my body... how is that possible? How did you do it?”
  “It’s a little complicated to explain... it’s something I got from my dad.” said Jasper. “Basically, I’m part-death. I can see dead people, I have visions of death, and I can kill people just by touching them...”
  Sophie recoiled at his words.
  “That sounds pretty dangerous.”
  “Don’t worry... as my dad explained it to me, I can only kill by touching people ‘with my skeletal body’. So, you don’t have to worry about me patting you on the back,” said Jasper, holding up his empty hands. “As long as my bones are covered with skin, my touch won’t kill you.”
  “But, everyone’s bones are covered with skin” said Sophie. “So, you’re totally safe unless you... break a bone, or something?”
  “No, not entirely,” said Jasper. “Because of my teeth. They’re a part of your skeleton. So, if I ever bite someone... or kiss someone.” Jasper trailed off as he stared mournfully at the unoccupied space on the other side of the bed.
  “Have you ever used it before?”
  “Only once, and it was an accident,” said Jasper. “That’s kind of why I’m here, though.”
  “What do you mean?” asked Sophie.
  “You’ve been asleep for a few hours, now, Sophie... in that time, I decided to look into what brought you to the bridge.”
  “Okay...” says Sophie, her voice sounded hollow. “What did you find?”
  “Sophie, I know you were attacked. I also know who did it, and I spoke to him... and I don’t think he has any regrets. In fact, I think he’s hurt other girls before, and that he’ll do it again.”
  “Okay,” says Sophie, sounding a little upset, and she sniffed a runny nose as her eyes welled with tears. “Why are you here?”
  “First of all, I need to know that I haven’t made a mistake. You are the only valid witness to your attack, so I need to know, was it the drug dealer, Beni? Was it him that attacked you?”
  “Yes,” said Sophie, her voice cracking into a pitiful whine and tears pouring down her face.
  “I’m sorry,” said Jasper. “I don’t mean to make you live through it again, but there’s something else I need to ask you. Because I have the power to make him go away...”
  Sophie sniffed and wiped her eyes, managing to calm herself down.
  “What do you mean?”
  “You said it yourself, my power is dangerous. I can hurt people without trying, but I made a conscious choice to be a good person, and right now I’m trying to decide the right thing to do. Because I can make it so that he doesn’t hurt anyone else ever again, but I don’t think I should be the one to decide.”
  “So you want me to choose?!” asked Sophie, sounding shocked, and shaking her head as much as she could with a sore head.
  “No, not quite...” said Jasper. “Actually, I’ve already decided what I want to do. I don’t have any doubt in my mind that he deserves it. But, that kind of certainty frightens me... it makes me question whether I’m the right person to make this kind of choice. I asked Rosa, and she said she wasn’t sure. So, we’ve decided to give you the chance to say no.”
  “What do you want me to do?”
  “You don’t have to do anything,” said Jasper. “But, now that I know we’ve got the right man, I’m going to leave here, confront him and make him pay for what he’s done. If you want to stop me, if you would rather go to the police, or whatever... all you have to do is say ‘Stop’, and I will. Do you understand?”
  Sophie cleared her throat and laid back on the pillow. She stared at the ceiling for almost thirty seconds before she spoke.
  “I understand,” she said softly.
  Jasper nodded and slid the chair back with a squeak, to rest it against the wall. He walked to the door, and before passing through it, he stopped and lingered in the doorway for a few seconds. After a moment of silence, he left the room and headed out of the hospital.

#

  It was after midnight when Jasper returned to the Casa Boa Apartments. Nobody saw him slip through the streets, the doors unlocking and opening before him, as his unseen, ghostly companion stepped through and opened them from the other side. He walked up the stairs to the fourth floor, and Rosa opened the door for him, so he could step inside the drug dealer’s home. The room was dark, it still smelled of burnt plastic and chemicals, but the air was cold and black.
  “His bedroom is this way,” said Rosa, and she lead down the dark hallway, with mouldy smelling carpet and dark stains on the walls. She walked through the half-open door to the bedroom, and Jasper pushed it open to see a filthy room with posters stapled to the walls, clothes everywhere, a disgusting smell of body odour, and a mattress in the corner with twisted bedsheets on it and, tangled in the covers, a sleeping Benicio.
  “Are you sure you want to do this?” said Rosa. Jasper ignored her, he took the razor blade from his back pocket and knelt down beside the bed. He opened the razor and held the blade over Beni’s throat.
  “Beni!” Jasper barked. The drug dealer inhaled sharply and flinched, but his eyes were closed and he was too drowsy to do much, Jasper touched the blade to his neck. “Don’t move, I have a razor to your throat.”
  “What the fuck?” grunted Beni. Jasper felt his throat move under the blade as he spoke, the dangerously sharp blade slightly cutting into the surface of his skin. “What is this?”
  “I know what you did to Sophie,” said Jasper. “and Frances and Emily too.”
  “What? No. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Beni, scared. “You got the wrong guy.”
  “It wasn’t a question,” said Jasper. Beni seemed scared, and his eyes started to focus in the dark.
  “What do you want?” he asked. Jasper thought for a moment, but he didn’t know what to say. “Do you want money? Or, drugs? I can get you drugs.”
  “I don’t want drugs!”
  “What do you want from me, man!” said Beni, in a panic.
  “...I want you to stop.”
  “Yeah, sure, whatever you want,” said Beni.
  “No, I need...” thoughts were racing through Jasper’s head. He knew what he had to do, but...
  Suddenly, Beni kicks from under the blanket and it throws Jasper across the room. Jasper hits the wall with a crunch of the plaster that takes most of the force and drops onto stinking clothes.
  “You want to mess with me, motherfucker!” yelled Beni his voice straining with the volume as he stood up, picking up an aluminium baseball bat from behind the mattress. “You mess with Santero, bitch!” He stepped forward to swing the bat down, but Rosa casually grabbed the end of the bat, making the bat stop mid-arch, and Beni grunted with the effort.
  “What the hell?”
  Jasper climbed to his feet, and he grabbed one of Beni’s raised arms, and in one move, lightly bit him on the forearm. Beni’s body instantly collapsed around his spirit, Rosa still held the bat in midair as Beni swung his empty, ghostly hands at Jasper.
  “What in the... woah...” Beni looked at his hands, then down at his body. “Hey, what did you do to me!”
  Beni gave Jasper a shove, which pushed him back, but didn’t hurt him.
  “You won’t hurt anyone else, now,” said Jasper. Beni looked confused, but after a moment, he started to look scared. Before he could speak, Jasper raised his razor blade. “This is for Sophie ...”
  Jasper swung the blade through Beni’s form, and it instantly dissipated, like smoke in the breeze.
  “We’d better go,” said Rosa. “Someone might have heard that. Why did you wake him up?”
  “I wanted to give him a chance...” said Jasper, as he made his way out of the apartment.
  “To do what?” said Rosa.
  “...to stop me from killing him,” said Jasper, as he entered the lit hallway.
  “He could have killed you, though,” said Rosa.
  “No, My Dad wouldn’t let that happen. I guess I just wanted him to give me a reason...”
  “You did the right thing,” said Rosa.
  “I know I did,” said Jasper. “That’s what worries me...”
  He pressed the button for the elevator, the door opened and they both stepped inside.
  “Duel the monster in his hole; you’ll win the fight, but lose your soul...” said Rosa eerily.
  “Don’t be so dramatic,” said Jasper, pressing the elevator panel;
  Rosa just smirked as the doors closed.