Tag Line: It's the kiss of death....From the Back of the Book: Someone is stalking her. It's Darcy Thomas' summer home: The Dungeon of Horrors, owned by Jake, the gorgeous green-eyed uncle she's just met. But the gory fun turns to terror when real bodies are found with the mark of the vampire on their throats...when Darcy discovers a lipstick-slashed note: "You are my chosen one." Chosen for death. By whom? Is it mysterious, evasive Jake? Or Elliot, his assistant, who hides behind dark glasses, always watching, never seen. Or Brandon, with his blood-red carnations and fatal charm. Or Kyle, is he the friend he pretends to be? Or is it Liz, who always got what she wanted until Darcy arrived....who can she trust with her life? Can she unmask the vampire before it's too late?
First of all, there's some messed up punctuation in that blurb. I'm pretty sure a couple of those periods should have been question marks. This doesn't bode well, does it? I noticed that three of the names are surnames from Jane Austen books. Fitzwilliam Darcy was in Pride and Prejudice. Anne Elliot was in Persuasion. Colonel Brandon was in Sense and Sensibility. I feel at home with these names. I'm sure it won't last long.
This book was published in 1991 and I not only read it back in the day, I loved it and kept it. You shouldn't take that as a ringing endorsement, though, because I also kept Silent Stalker and we all know how that turned out. I have a feeling that "adult me" isn't going to feel the same way about this book that "16-year-old me" felt. (Note from "future me": I didn't. Massive suckage.)
We begin with a prologue. Oh goody. These are always sooooooo fun. There's a carnival and a fortune teller is getting ready to close for the day. There's one last group of guys coming through and she decides to end her day with a bang. The first three come through, and she gives them each a pretty standard reading and a warning to never reveal what they have been told. Then the fourth guy comes in. She tells him she sees great tragedy ahead for him because he isn't like all the others. He is walking the earth as the Undead and he will never find peace until he finds his Chosen One. For some reason, he takes his reading as legit and becomes disturbed and afraid. Huh? Why would anyone possibly believe they were Undead? I mean, if some random gypsy woman in a carnival tent told me I was Undead, I would laugh at her. Clearly I am not. I can't imagine any rational person would believe this crap. We're getting off to a bang-up start, Cusick.
We finally make it to chapter one and meet our protagonist Darcy. She's sitting in a car arguing with her mother. They are outside a run-down building called The Dungeon of Horrors. Her mom is...well, she's a bitch. She says she always knew that Jake was insane but she'd hoped he would grow out of it. By the looks of this place he hasn't. Darcy points out that Mrs Thomas hasn't talked to Jake in years so she can't possibly know what he's like. Mrs Thomas counters that logic by saying that Alicia says Jake is a complete disgrace and that's good enough for her. Darcy makes a disparaging comment about Aunt Alicia's judgment and her mom flips the fuck out. She tells Darcy in what I imagine is a super snotty tone, that Alicia is a VERY prominent attorney and HIGHLY respected, thank you very much, and Darcy should shut her damn mouth. Besides, Jake is an embarrassment to the entire family.
Yeah, I'm not loving this lady. Good thing this is a Point Horror book and she's likely to disappear entirely pretty soon because she makes me a little stabby.
Darcy keeps defending Uncle Jake. She doesn't think her mom or Aunt Alicia could possibly know enough about him to form an opinion of him. Their parents divorced when Jake was small and he went to live with their dad while the girls stayed with their mom. Darcy's mom and Aunt Alicia have barely had any contact with him for his entire life. But her mom is perfectly prepared to form opinions based on hearsay and rumors, so there.
Darcy really hates her Aunt Alicia....not hard to imagine why....and she's upset that she has to stay with her aunt while her mom is out of town. It turns out that Mrs Thomas is just dropping Darcy off at Jake's for a few hours until Aunt Alicia can get off work and pick her up. This plan disintegrates pretty quickly though. Alicia has been called out of town unexpectedly. Mrs Thomas does not handle the news gracefully. She screams like a shrew at Jake, telling him how worthless he is and insinuating that he is a criminal with very loose morals. There's no way she would even consider leaving Darcy with Jake for a few days. Jake agrees that the idea is crazy and tells Mrs Thomas buh-bye now.
Only Mrs Thomas has no other options. She's flying off to Europe (of course!!) to get married to husband number 4 or 5 and he doesn't like kids so she can't take Darcy with her. And it IS only going to be a few days. And she really DOES have to make that flight.....
So she leaves. Guess it doesn't matter if he's a worthless criminal with loose morals as long as he'll take the daughter she needs to dump off. Nice. She doesn't even ask him if it's okay if Darcy stays.
Naturally it turns out that Jake is just a few years older than Darcy and a regulation hottie. Darcy is stunned by how gorgeous he is with his insolent green eyes and his deliberate slouch. I think our little Darcy has a thing for the dark, brooding type. I sympathize and it's probably why this book was on my keeper shelf. I mean, I'm pretty sure I kept Silent Stalker for Derrick, so it makes sense that I kept this one for Jake.
Jake doesn't have a high opinion of Mrs Thomas or Aunt Alicia so Darcy thinks they're kindred. He lives in an apartment above the Dungeon of Horrors and he refers to the "inhabitants" as his family. The Dungeon of Horrors is like a wax museum (although I think the figures are more like mannequins). It's filled with all the "bad guys" of film and page and they each have their own little scenes set up like movie stills. He shows her the Mummy and Mr Hyde and Jack the Ripper, etc. There are 25 exhibits and more being developed. His favorite is Dracula. Dracula's scene includes a female victim who has fainted in his arms and a real-life coffin.
Jake inherited the Dungeon from a friend of his, and he loves it, but he doesn't have much time to spend there. He manages a club nearby and isn't around much. A girl named Liz with frizzy red hair and deep red lipstick manages the Dungeon. She shows up with a guy in tow that knows Darcy's name before anyone introduces them. His name is Kyle and he has dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. She doesn't describe him as insolent OR slouchy so I don't think he'll be a romantic interest in this book.
The pair of them bring information from their cop cousin Tony about a murder that was committed a few blocks away. A girl was found with her throat slit and the murderer painted two red marks over her jugular vein to look like vampire bite marks. Darcy is appropriately horrified but Jake seems a little bored with this subject. Either he lives in a high-crime area and he's become desensitized to violence, or he's a sociopath. Since this is a Cusick, I give it even odds.
Jake ends up taking Darcy to the club with him. I guess it's an all ages kind of place? She ends up sharing a table with Liz who clearly doesn't like her. Liz starts in right away about how Darcy looks like she's 12 instead of 17 and she's not as sophisticated as Liz thought she'd be and how Jake never talks about her at all. Pffft. How could Liz expect her to be more sophisticated if Jake never talked about her? Clearly Liz is talking out of her ass here to get a rise out of Darcy. Darcy doesn't take the bait. Liz changes tactics and starts to taunt Darcy for being dumped by her mom. Again, Darcy doesn't get upset. She tells Liz that it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. She's a professional dumpee.
Kyle's the drummer for the band that plays at the club and Darcy thinks he's pretty talented. Liz comments that he has good hands and that comment gives me the MAJOR creeps because Liz and Kyle are brother and sister. Gak. Liz rushes to tell Darcy that she and Jake are close and it comes off like she's warning Darcy away which is super weird because Darcy is his niece and shouldn't need a warning to not hook up with her uncle. This books just has a very incest-y vibe going on right now.
Kyle finishes his set and comes to the table with two more guys in tow. One of them has a ponytail. I know. SUPER hot. Try to contain your hormones. (< That was all written in my sarcasm font in case you couldn't tell.) Liz tells Darcy that Ponytail....I mean Brandon....belongs to her. Like Jake belongs to her??? Does Liz love all the boys? And seriously. A ponytail? Guys, let's be real for just a second here. The ponytail is a look that maybe....maybe....2% of the male population can pull off. The other 98% of you just look greasy. The non-ponytail is named Elliot and he's wearing sunglasses inside a dark club.
I'm guessing it's not a coincidence that we have now been introduced to four male characters and we started out the prologue with four young men going to see a fortune teller. I guess we can assume that one of these four is the one who thinks he's Undead because a woman wearing a lot of bracelets and a scarf told him so.
Liz informs Darcy that Elliot was in an awful accident a month before and he's not "all there" anymore. I know what you're thinking...get your mind out of Elliot's pants - shame on you....but she means he had a pretty bad head injury and now he's "odd". She can't believe Kyle and Brandon still hang out with him. Wow. The guy barely survives a terrible accident and has lasting brain damage and suddenly he's not good enough anymore? There are more bitches in this book than there are in 101 Dalmations, y'all. Superior, nose-in-the-air Missy McPompousPants is my very least favorite type of character and we've encountered three in as many chapters. Sigh.
Darcy thinks Brandon's dark hair and black eyes are a little sinister looking so I guess that means he's in the running for love interest. At least ponytail here isn't related to her. He's just gotten the role of Dracula in a community play. Cusick is really shoving in every possible vampire tie-in she can think of here.
Brandon tells Darcy she's pretty which is pretty awkward considering his girlfriend is RIGHT THERE. Liz gets pissed and blurts out to everyone that Darcy's mom dumped her off like a bag of trash and it gets even more awkward. Elliot touches his forehead and murmurs that his head hurts. I seriously want to give him a hug. Next to dark and brooding, I have a weakness for the wounded. Kyle thinks he should take Elliot home because the club is loud and hot. He asks Liz if she's coming and Liz says she'll get a ride with Brandon. Brandon tells her he has other stuff to do so she's out of luck and forced to leave with Kyle and not freaking happy about it.
As they get ready to go, Elliot leans in close to Darcy to tell her it was nice to meet her. He's a little too close and Kyle leads him away before he can make Darcy too uncomfortable. Elliot breaks away from him, though, and comes back to tell Darcy that he can see the future and he's afraid she's going to die.
Kyle steers Elliot out the door before he can say anything else. When they're gone, Brandon tells Darcy not to worry about what he said. Since the accident, Elliot gets mixed up a lot and says strange things. He also apologizes for the way Liz was treating her and Darcy says she wishes she knew what she had done to make Liz hate her so much. Brandon says that's just how Liz is. Then he tells Darcy - who is a complete stranger to him at this point - that he and Liz aren't getting along and she's smothering him. Sure. Isn't that what the attached guy always says to the girl he wants to cheat on his girlfriend with?
Jake wanders over and he and Brandon start to talk about the play. Jake reveals that he believes that vampires exist. He thinks being Undead is far worse than being dead. You're doomed to walk the earth forever while those you love die around you. It's very unsubtle. Cusick really wants us to think that Uncle Jake is the guy who thinks he's Undead and doomed.
Jake asks the ponytail to walk Darcy back to the Dungeon so she can get settled in. He hands Brandon a key and tells Darcy that her room is in the attic on the third floor. As they walk, Darcy mentions that she has no sense of direction and gets turned around very easily. Again, I sympathize. I've been taking my daughter to the same pediatrician for 12 years now and I still manage to turn the wrong way out of the elevator about half the time.
They talk about the murder some. Brandon says it was so grisly that the person must be "crazy". Gak. Not this again. Yes, Point Horror, some mentally ill people are dangerous. So are some blonde people and some men named Craig. You never hear a character in one of these books say "That murder was so grisly the person must have been Blonde!" or "The scene was so disturbing it could have only been committed by a Craig." All crazy people are not dangerous and all dangerous people are not crazy. So stop with this "crazy" stuff already.
Brandon reveals that the marks on the neck were made by pressing a deep red lipstick really hard against the skin. You don't really have to push very hard on lipstick to make a mark and if you DO press hard, you're probably going to leave a spot the size of a quarter or something. What kind of self-respecting vampire leaves fang marks the size of a quarter? Maybe he lived in Hollywood before and had his fangs augmented?? But the detail about the lipstick being pressed hard clearly has the neon "IMPORTANT CLUE" sign flashing right over it, so I've made note.
They get back to Jake's place and Brandon checks the apartment out in a bizarre show of chivalry that Darcy did not ask for. Before he leaves he writes his number down on a notepad in case she needs anything and he cracks a lame vampire joke on the way out. I'm already sick of lame vampire jokes and it's very early on.
Jake lives like a stereotypical bachelor so the place is a mess and there's no food to be found. He's clearly made an effort to make her comfortable, though, because her bed has fresh sheets and he's left clean towels out for her. He's even opened the window so the mustiness airs out. She can't find any mirrors in the entire apartment which she finds suspicious.
Darcy looks more closely at the bed and realizes she sees an impression in the blanket as if someone was just sitting there. The pillow is oddly tilted so she looks under it and finds a headless rat. She screams and Jake conveniently arrives home just in time to hear it. He disposes of the rat and tells Darcy that stray cats sometimes get into his apartment and he figures one of them must have left her a little surprise. Ugh. Does this mean he has rats in his apartment? What the fuck is it with Cusick and rats?
Jake has to go back to the club. He had only returned to conveniently save the day...I mean to pick something up. So Darcy is left alone to stew about stray cats and headless rats.
The next chapter is from some unknown girl's point of view. She's alone in an isolated place and I'm not feeling very confident about her odds of making it out of this chapter. Sure enough, a man shows up to block her way. He says she must choose. She can't see his face but notices he's wearing a long, satin cape. He asks her if she'll stay with him for all eternity but doesn't give her time to answer before he slits her throat. Well. Okay then.
The next morning, Jake tells Darcy that he fired Liz and now Darcy can work in the Dungeon of Horrors. He doesn't even ask her if she wants to work there. She hasn't even been trained. Darcy is annoyed that he just gave Liz another reason to hate her. Elliot works security in the Dungeon. He's very good at hiding and observing, so he makes sure that no one steals anything. Jake takes Darcy through the Dungeon again and stops in front of his favorite, Dracula. Elliot sneaks up on Darcy and touches her shoulder which causes her to scream at him to never do that again. He tells her that when he touches her, he feels death.
Darcy is left in charge of the place despite the fact she has no idea how to run it. When lunch time arrives, she realizes she doesn't even know when she can leave to eat. The only thing to do is to find Elliot and ask. It takes her awhile to find him. When she does, he tells her that he had a dream that another girl was killed so he's pretty sure they're going to find a body that night. Oh, and he picked up a veggie pizza for lunch. Okay then.
After work, Darcy wants to go to the laundrymat to wash the sheets because of the dead rat incident. Elliot tells her he'll check the place out and lock up. Darcy finds the laundrymat and puts her stuff in the washer. She decides to leave to explore the town while it washes. That's a good way to get your knickers stolen, Darce. She finds the theater and decides to go in. Brandon is rehearsing on stage. Kyle appears and they talk about how good Brandon is and how he really immerses himself in everything he does. Right now he's eating, sleeping and breathing vampires. Kyle's not very into this vampire stuff and make believe monsters.
Brandon finishes up and joins them. There are a lot of annoying vampire references and jokes here. Nothing remotely clever...or important. The three of them go to a cafe to eat. I guess Darcy's one of those inconsiderate people who tie up a washer by never moving their clothes to a dryer. I hate those people. After dinner, Darcy is startled because she thinks she sees Elliot standing down the street staring at them. I don't know why this startles her exactly. He's their friend, not some kind of ax murderer. The boys tell her that it can't be Elliot because he has a night job at a gas station clear across town.
Kyle asks her how she and Elliot are getting along and she says she doesn't see him much. He tends to stay in the Dungeon. Kyle says Elliot is more comfortable in the dark because his eyes are really sensitive to the light now and it gives him headaches. That's why he's always in sunglasses as well.
The boys have places to go, so Darcy is left alone to find her way back to the laundrymat. As she walks, she thinks she hears someone following her, so she takes off running, knocking the crowds of people out of her way. She doesn't know where she's going and ends up ducking into a dark alley to hide. Yep, folks, you read that right. She leave the relative safety of a street full of people to hide in a dark, abandoned alley. Makes perfect sense. She's so dumb it physically hurts me.
Naturally while she's in this remote, deserted alley, she discovers the body of a girl who has had her throat slashed.
The next chapter picks up with Darcy at the club. Jake and Kyle are with her. She seems to be very shaken. She's already talked to the police. She doesn't want to go home alone but Jake can't leave so he tells her she can hang around the club. He questions her about the footsteps she thought she heard and wonders if she recognized the person following her. Darcy is too rattled to know anything.
Liz shows up wanting the gory details. She berates Darcy for being so stupid to be out alone at night. Darcy lets it slip that she had been with Kyle and Brandon and Liz isn't too happy to hear that. Darcy just wants to go home and she asks Jake how long he'll be. He thinks he'll be at least an hour. Liz says that Brandon is coming to pick her up and they can give Darcy a ride home. (What happened to Kyle? Wasn't he just sitting there? Can't he take Darcy home?) Darcy thinks she's better off staying at the club but Jake encourages her to go. We've just had pages and pages of Darcy trying to figure out if she's leaving the club or not. Sigh.
Brandon arrives and the two girls get in his car. Liz fills him in on the details while he shoots Darcy worried glances in the rearview mirror. He doesn't want to leave Darcy alone but Liz is not going to let her date get ruined just because Darcy decided to be an idiot and walk around in alleys alone in the dark. Brandon isn't happy, but they drop Darcy off outside the Dungeon.
I guess she's never going back for those sheets at the laundrymat.
When Darcy gets inside, she realizes that there's a light on in the Dungeon. They are all supposed to be off, so she goes to investigate. It's the Dracula exhibit that's all lit up. Of course. The red ring on his finger seems to mesmerize her for a minute. The lights go off, scaring her. She screams and then feels fingers slide around her neck.
Once again, Jake conveniently arrives just as Darcy screams. He calls her name and she feels the fingers slide away. Jake wants to know what she's doing and she tells him about the light - he says it's very unlike Elliot to forget a light - and then about the fingers. First he makes a joke about the monsters coming to life at night which doesn't amuse her at all. Then he says it was probably a cobweb which makes her mad.
Jake is headed out again. He only came home to conveniently hear her scream and to "pick something up" yet again. Gak.
Darcy goes up to bed and falls asleep pretty easily for someone who found a body and got choked in a Dungeon. She wakes up some time later to someone whispering her name. She hears a scratching sound and looks at her window. She can see something red glinting in the low light and fingers clawing across her screen. This time she doesn't scream. Maybe because Jake wasn't going to be able to conveniently arrive? Instead she just goes back to sleep. Double you tee eff?
When she wakes up the next morning she sees rips in the window screen where the hand clawed it the night before. Jake isn't in the apartment so she goes downstairs and finds Kyle and Elliot eating donuts in the lobby. Kyle tells her that Jake is already at the club. Elliot says that Darcy has the "bad dream face" and he thinks she must have had nightmares. She snaps at him and asks him how the hell he knows that. Elliot moves behind Kyle like he's afraid of Darcy and I really just want to give him a hug. Kyle tells her that Elliot's mom is dying and she has a lot of bad dreams. I hope Darcy feels like crap now.
Darcy tells them that someone tried to get in her window the night before. Kyle thinks it was a dream and Elliot points out that someone would have to fly to be able to reach that window. She snaps at him again and wants to know how he knows what room she sleeps in. Well, probably because it's the only other bedroom in the apartment, Darcy. It doesn't take a genius to figure out you're not sleeping in the bathtub. Poor Elliot. Kyle offers to go check it out and I honestly think he does it to get Darcy away from poor Elliot.
Darcy doesn't think she's been enough of a bitch to Elliot yet, though, and before they go upstairs she snottily tells him that he left a light on the previous evening. Elliot tells her that he never forgets and he didn't leave any lights on.
As she and Kyle go upstairs, Darcy asks him if Elliot's always been that weird. Kyle says Elliot is harmless and Darcy snottily replies "Are you sure?". Man, I want to slap this girl.
Kyle examines the screen and is dubious. It's an old screen and he thinks the scratches have been there all along. She tells him that she clearly saw fingers clawing at it and he looks out the window and tells her that he doesn't think it's possible for someone to get that high. Darcy has no choice but to let it drop.
Kyle tells Darcy that everyone but Elliot is going to a concert in the park the next night. Darcy isn't sure that Liz would want her to be there but Kyle tells her to just ignore his sister. As if she heard her name being spoken, Liz arrives at the Dungeon. She wants to go to the workroom to clear out her stuff. Elliot doesn't want to let her since she doesn't work there anymore. She gets snappy with Darcy about stealing her job and Kyle ends up getting so mad he storms out. Darcy wants to work things out with Liz but Liz gives zero fucks about what Darcy wants. Still, Darcy pursues her through the Dungeon to talk it out. She ends up lost somehow. On a path that only goes one direction. She finds herself in front of the Dracula exhibit because that's where everyone always ends up in this book. She notices something is different. It takes her a minute but she finally pinpoints that the red ring is missing. Now she's more convinced than ever that she saw fingers wearing the ring clawing at her window.
Darcy abandons her quest to make Liz be her BFF and goes to find Elliot so she can accuse him of doing a crap job at security. He has no idea what she's talking about and says he doesn't remember a ring. She thinks he's lying to get out of trouble since something got stolen on his watch.
After work, Kyle calls and invites her to come down to the club that evening. Before she leaves, Darcy decides to go inspect the side of the building to see if she can prove that someone could have gotten up to her window. She makes sure the door is unlocked as she goes out. I have NO idea why she didn't take her key. I guess because Cusick needed her to do something dumb to further the plot.
There's a fire escape on the side of the building that ends at a door that she assumes goes into Jake's room. She seems to find this fire escape highly suspicious. She thinks Jake purposely kept it a secret from her. What? Why would he need to keep a fire escape a secret from her? And why does it matter if he did? It's not like it ends in HER room and someone is using it to get in and out of her space. Maybe then it would make sense that she thinks it's sinister.
Anyway, she discovers that if you climb all the way up the fire escape, there's a ledge that goes around the building and someone could have made their way very carefully along this narrow ledge to her window. IF they were very tall, they could claw her screen. And I'm sure absolutely no one on the street would notice a person clinging to the side of a building three stories up.
When she gets back to the door, it's locked and she doesn't have a key. She can see the lights in the Dungeon going on and off so she knocks and begs whoever is in there to let her in. No one responds. Darcy decides to see if she can find another way in. She finds a basement window and lowers herself through it. The door at the top of the basement stairs is locked so now she's locked inside a basement instead of locked outside. I guess it's an improvement.
She hears footsteps coming from the alley outside. To her horror, the footsteps slowly approach the window and then she sees someone start to climb inside. The person is wearing a cape and holding something sharp and shiny. Darcy starts pounding on the basement door. It opens just in time but this time it's not Convenient Jake. It's the ponytail. Brandon seems strangely angry at her for being in the basement. She tells him she was almost sliced and diced but he doesn't believe a word out of her mouth.
Then something hideous happens.
Brandon says he came in the unlocked front door. Darcy asks if it's possible that the murderer got in the front door as well and is now hiding in the Dungeon. You mean the guy in the basement, Darcy? He's ALREADY inside. He's in the basement. Why would you be worried about him coming inside when he's already inside? I suppose she could be scared he climbed out the basement window, ran around the building and came in the front door but not very much time has passed to make this possible. That was dumb but not the hideous part. Here it is. Brandon responds to her fear about the murderer who is already inside getting inside by saying "Not unless he has a key." A KEY. He just told us that the door was unlocked and that's how he got in. Why the fuck would the murderer need a key to walk in an UNLOCKED door??? Cusick, you're killing me here. It physically hurts my head. The only way this makes sense is if the door is magic and only unlocks itself for guys with ponytails but stays locked for murderers in capes. This book could use a magic door.
Brandon begrudgingly checks the place out and then makes fun of her for being so scared. Darcy flies off the handle and tells him to GTFO. He realizes he's messing up his chances of making out with her, so he apologizes and tells her she can talk to him because he's a super understanding guy. Gak.
Darcy tells him that she thinks someone tried to break in her room the night before. Brandon has already heard the whole story from Kyle and he just isn't sure why someone would bother. You hear that, Darcy? The ponytail doesn't think you're speshul enough to attract a killer's notice.
They decide to head to the club. Brandon is doing a lot of swooping and grand posing and Darcy seems charmed. Have I mentioned how sick I am of all this vampire nonsense? Yes, I KNOW. It's a book named Vampire. It's not like I didn't expect there to be vampire references. I just didn't expect all the lame jokes and bad puns. Silly me. A bunch of random vampire facts spew from his mouth all through here. I won't make you read it. Let's just say obsessed is not a strong enough word to describe Brandon.
He decides he wants to show her something so he steers them in another direction. They end up at an empty Farmer's Market. Brandon sure knows what the ladies like. Darcy thinks the place is creepy with all the deserted stands where caped murderers could be hiding. Totally out of tune with how scared she is, Brandon decides to dart away leaving her alone. He returns with a bouquet of blood-red carnations and she is insta-suspicious. Because getting flowers from a completely empty Farmer's Market MUST be a display of vampire powers or something. That's what vampires use their powers for. Carnations. Oy, Darcy.
The flowers do the trick though because they end up kissing as the chapter ends. Oh, the romance. I'm aflutter.
In the next chapter, Liz shows up at the club and isn't too happy to see Darcy's flowers. She tells Brandon that they need to talk. Kyle offers to give Darcy a ride home after he tells Jake what's going on. Darcy waits for him outside and thinks she sees Elliot watching her from across the street again. When she tells Kyle, he again reminds her that Elliot is at work. Darcy doesn't believe him, so he drives the 20 minutes across town to the gas station. Elliot is there and looks like he's been there all along. Although Darcy does insist later that he simply could have beaten them back to the station.
Elliot is wary of Darcy....for good reason. He thinks she's there to yell at him again. He quietly mentions that he finally did remember the ring. Darcy really needs to keep in mind the head injury that is making Elliot's life hell right now. He thinks that Brandon might have borrowed it for the play. Kyle discounts this by telling them that Brandon decided against using the ring and didn't take it.
On the drive back into town, they see Liz walking alone. She and Brandon had a fight and he kicked her out of the car in the middle of nowhere. She's been walking for miles. This is our love interest, y'all. A guy who makes a girl walk for miles in the dark when there's a killer on the loose. Sigh. Kyle is worried about Liz being out there alone. She yells that it will serve everyone right if she gets murdered but they'd all probably just be glad to see her gone. She's generally mean to Kyle and he ends up driving off and leaving her there.
They go straight to the Farmer's Market because Kyle is sure they'll find Brandon there. Does Brandon have a thing for this Farmer's Market? Brandon is indeed there sporting a lump on his head from where Liz punched him and knocked him into the backseat of the car. He's too dizzy to drive, so he's called Jake to come get him. Jake arrives with Elliot so that Elliot can drive Brandon's car back. I'm not sure how much time has passed, but the book makes it seem like it hasn't been long. How did Elliot get off work so fast and get back over to the club in time to help Jake with this errand? I really think Cusick doesn't pay attention to a single word she writes. She gives zero fucks about continuity.
Jake is pretty annoyed at being dragged into more Brandon/Liz drama. He tells Elliot to drive Brandon and Darcy home so Kyle can go back after Liz and he can get back to work.
Later Darcy wakes up to voices in Jake's room. Jake is clearly upset and talking about how there was so much struggle this time and how he has to take care of Darcy. His clothes are bloody and his hand is bleeding. Darcy sees him toss something on the floor of his closet, but she never sees who he is talking to. She goes back to sleep for awhile and then wakes up when the phone rings. It's Brandon calling to make sure she's okay. I have no idea what time it is now. She's been asleep twice, though, so it would seem like it's the middle of the night. Why is Brandon calling now?
Darcy goes back to sleep AGAIN. Before dawn she's awakened by some kind of movement and squeaking in her room. She thinks it's another rat at first but it turns out to be a dozen or so bats instead. She goes looking for Jake but he's not at home and his bed hasn't been slept in. There's only one thing to do. Darcy calls the ponytail and asks him to come over.
Brandon just appears in the apartment. He says he knows where Jake keeps a spare key so he let himself in. He gets a little pervy about seeing her in a bathrobe. Teenage boys, y'all. I can't even. Brandon's idea is to remove the screen on her window and then to shoo the bats out by waving towels at them. They have no idea where Jake keeps his towels so Darcy decides the most logical place to look is his bedroom closet. Because EVERYone keeps their towels in their bedroom closets dontcha know.
She discovers a door in the back of the closet that she assumes leads to the fire escape. Again, she treats this discovery as if it is sinister in some way that Jake could use the fire escape to come in and out of HIS OWN ROOM. I have no idea what her problem is here. Jake has zero need to sneak up and down a fire escape into his own room and, even if he did, what would the problem be with that? You could argue that she's worried about someone else using it and that makes far more sense, but she's worried about JAKE using it. If I were her, I'd be far more worried about that basement window that lets a murderer climb right through than this door that Jake has no reason to use. But, whatever, Darcy. Freak out about Jake using an alternate route into his bedroom.
Since she's already invaded Jake's privacy, she decides to snoop around a bit. Something falls out of one of Jake's pockets. She picks it up and it's a deep red lipstick worn completely flat instead of tapered. This leads her to believe that it's the lipstick the Vampire killer uses. That is such flimsy evidence. Every woman's lipstick looks different. Some are tapered on one side, some are tapered on both sides and some are flat across. It all depends on how that particular woman puts her lipstick on. But we were given that Important Clue earlier about the killer pressing down super hard so the lipstick would therefore be flat across and ergo, Jake must be the killer.
Brandon decides shooing the bats out the window is a dumb plan after all, so he tells Darcy they should wait until morning and call Kyle to come help him remove them. Darcy's good with that. Brandon is going to just stay, though, so she isn't alone. Does he not have parents that might wonder where the hell he is all night? Oh. Right. I forgot this was Point Horror. Apologies.
They do a review for us in case we haven't been paying attention to all the things that have happened to Darcy in this book. Darcy tells Brandon that Elliot is stalking her. He thinks she's being dramatic. She thinks someone is tormenting her. He thinks she's being dramatic. Why is she hot for him again? The ponytail? They talk about Liz. Brandon tells her that Liz is spoiled and entitled and likes to get her own way. Darcy would know that if she bothered to read the back of her own book. Brandon feels bad for Kyle because nothing Kyle has ever done has been good enough for his parents. Oooh. I feel like we might be setting something up here.
Brandon tells her he fell for her before she even arrived. Jake showed a picture around a couple of days before she got there and that's all it took. Guess we know that Brandon didn't fall in love with her mind or her personality or anything since he fell in love with her looks. Darcy is good with it, though, and they end up making out on the couch. It must have been pretty boring, though, because they fall asleep in the middle of it.
Darcy wakes up all cuddled up with Brandon but they aren't alone. Jake is in the kitchen and Liz and Kyle are in the doorway. Liz is furious but Jake and Kyle seem amused. Darcy tells them about the bats. She notices that Jake's hand is bandaged and he looks pale and she asks him what happened. He says he hurt his hand but doesn't elaborate. The reason he didn't come home all night was because there was a minor fire at the club.
Kyle tells them that getting rid of the bats will be easy now because it's daylight and they'll be asleep. All they have to do is pick them up. Really? The bats won't wake up? This needs more research. Anyway, it works and the boys clear out all the bats. Darcy is so grateful that she offers to cook them all breakfast. There's no ingredients in the house, so Kyle suggests a trip to the Farmer's Market. What is up with this place? They are all obsessed with it.
Jake doesn't want to go so they pretty much force him. Darcy notices he's very nervous the entire time they're there and he's impatient with the rest of them. They all keep asking each other WTF his problem is. I guess they missed the part where he said he was up all night because of the fire and got zero sleep. Brandon thinks that Darcy and Jake should switch rooms and Jake says he will if Darcy wants to but he doesn't see what the big deal is about some bats that probably just came out of the crawl space and didn't hurt anyone.
Darcy thinks she sees Elliot in the crowd again and it's apparently highly suspicious that he would be in a public place with everyone else. She decides to chase him, leaving the others behind. She ends up behind the market with no one to be seen. She feels like she's being watched. She sees sunglasses on the ground and knows Elliot has been there because he's the only one in the entire town that ever wears sunglasses. {sarcasm font} As she bends down to get a closer look at them, a hand grabs her ankle and leaves behind a bloody print.
Darcy grabs a piece of woods and swings it blindly behind her. She ends up clocking Jake, not the person who belongs to the bloody hand. Jake hits the ground stunned and none too happy. She tries to tell him that Elliot grabbed her with a bloody hand and points to the sunglasses as proof but they've disappeared. Jake isn't amused by any of this and he wants to get the hell out of there. She accuses him of lying about the fire at the club and demands to know where he was all night. He tells her not to nag him and says she sounds just like her mom. Darcy takes a swing at him but he tackles her to the ground.
Darcy yells at him to get off her and asks him what kind of uncle acts like this. He yells back that he's not her uncle and they aren't even related. He was adopted which is why her mom and Aunt Alicia hate him so much. Darcy is stunned by this news. I guess that means we should feel better about him laying on top of her but it's still squicky. She was raised believing this man was her uncle.
Kyle finds them just as the sound of police sirens fill the air. He tells them another Vampire victim was found nearby.
Later, Darcy decides to snoop through Jake's closet again. She wants to know what it was that she saw him throw on the floor the night before. She finds a bloody towel in there. Jake comes home and busts her. He orders her to stay out of his room and she thinks it's because he's the killer. I think it's because he doesn't like people snooping through his private things.
Kyle comes to pick her up for that concert I already forgot about. They arrive before everyone else and sit talking. Kyle says he owes her an apology and needs to clear his conscience. He and Liz are the ones that left the rat in her room. Liz was jealous of Darcy and mad about losing her job and she blackmailed Kyle into helping her by threatening to tell Jake that Kyle sneaked beer into the club. Darcy storms off alone which is pretty stupid considering the current state of affairs in the town.
She ends up coming across Liz and Brandon and listens to their conversation from behind some bushes. Darcy really doesn't respect people's boundaries. Liz is asking Brandon what is so special about Darcy. Brandon says Darcy's nice which is a nice change of pace. Oooh. Burn. Liz scoffs that it will turn out like all the others. Eventually Darcy will dump him and he'll come crawling back to Liz. So he's done this before? He's a serial cheater? Even Liz doesn't deserve to be strung along like that. Liz tells Brandon that if he doesn't stay away from Darcy, she'll fix it so no one ever looks at Darcy again. It's implied that Brandon chokes her here but we aren't told exactly what happens. He warns Liz that if anything happens to Darcy.....but he walks away without finishing the threat.
Darcy is a little concerned that Liz might hurt her in some way. She has weird dreams all night and at some point wakes up to find someone standing over her. She doesn't know who it is, but the person leaves when someone knocks on the door. Darcy creeps down the stairs and hears Kyle and Brandon talking to Jake. The boys are worried that Liz might do something awful to Darcy and they want Jake to protect her. Jake thinks Liz is all bark and no bite but he tells the boys that nothing will happen to Darcy.
The next morning Darcy confronts Jake again about where he goes all night. He goes off on this rant about how he hates girls that nag and manipulate and use men. I guess we're supposed to conclude that he hates all women and he's the killer but honestly I think Darcy just irritates him. She'd irritate me if I was in his shoes. She's a guest in his home and she's demanding that he justify the way he lives his life to her.
Darcy goes back to her room to discover a note written with deep red lipstick. "You are my chosen one."
Darcy is full of uninteresting, random thoughts at work. I tune her out. Elliot comes up to her during the day and is super nice to her but she snaps at him anyway. He thinks his sunglasses make her uncomfortable and that's why she snaps at him so much so he takes them off even though the light hurts his eyes. She tells him to get back to work. I hate her. I just hate her.
Brandon and Kyle show up at closing time and she's super happy to see them. She tearfully asks them if they think Jake could be the Vampire killer. She tells them about the lipstick, towel and Jake's nervousness at the Farmer's Market. The boys don't think much of her evidence so she takes them upstairs to show them the towel in person. It's gone and she thinks that proves that Jake is covering up a crime. I think it proves Jake does laundry. She says there's also the issue of the door in his closet that goes to the fire escape. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PROOF OF AND WHY ARE YOU SO OBSESSED WITH IT?????????????????????
Darcy thinks that Elliot is assisting Jake in his crimes. Maybe Elliot stalks the girls for awhile and then Jake kills them. Brandon finds this theory really ridiculous and even Kyle seems to be hiding a laugh. Darcy is annoyed that they aren't taking her seriously and she tells them to leave. After they do, she realizes that Elliot is standing in the doorway of the Dungeon. She wonders how much he heard. She asks him super casually if he was at the Farmer's Market that morning. He says that he is her only hope and for some reason this causes her to run from him. I don't understand why she's afraid of this guy. He says odd things at times but he hasn't been remotely threatening. Darcy runs through the Dungeon and past the barricades that block off the area that is under construction. One of the exhibits is Invasion of the Body Snatchers and it has a grave site dug into it. She decides to hide in there.....
Guys, I have to pause because this is so ridiculous I can't even stand it. Why is she hiding from poor Elliot? Oh, I hate her.
So she decides to hide in the hole but it's already occupied. Liz is inside with a cut on her neck and two lipstick marks.
At the hospital later, they learn that Liz is going to be okay. She wants to talk to Darcy. Liz takes two pages of stilted dialogue and like a zillion ellipses to tell Darcy that she's sorry for the rat, she didn't leave the note, she didn't recognize her attacker and before he slit her throat, the Vampire said "Tonight I choose Darcy."
Afterwards, Jake seems super interested in what Liz said to Darcy so that makes him more suspicious I guess. Brandon and Kyle want to go eat but Jake insists on taking Darcy home because she's had quite a shock. This scares her, but instead of using her words, she tries to communicate with two teenage males by using only her eyes. Bet you can guess how well this worked.
Jake and Darcy start home. She tells him to pull over because she's going to get sick. As soon as she's out of the car, she makes a run for it. He catches up with her and tells her she picked the worst possible part of town to run off. She tells him to leave her there and go away because she doesn't want to go home with him. Way to act like a 5-year-old, Darcy. If he IS the murderer, you're just pissing him off. If he isn't...and I think we all know he isn't....you're just acting like a spoiled baby.
Eventually she gets back in the car and they go home. Jake switches rooms with her. It seems to me like she wouldn't want to switch because of the EVIL FIRE ESCAPE DOOR IN THE CLOSET but she seems grateful. She waits until he falls asleep and then she calls the ponytail.
Darcy tells Brandon that Jake is acting weird. Here's what she says and I picture her saying it with her bottom lip stuck out. I encourage you to picture her that way too. "On the way home I felt sick and kind of panicked but he made me get back in the car." She sounds like a petulant toddler. He made you get back in the car because you were in an awful part of town and there's a murderer on the loose, you brat. She lays out all her evidence against Jake yet AGAIN and tells Brandon that she's sure Jake is the killer.
Jake comes up behind her and makes her hang up the phone.
Darcy asks him if he's going to kill her and he tells her that he probably should. I kind of wish he would. Then he calmly sits across from her and asks her why she thinks he's a killer. When it's clear she's terrified of him, he gets up and starts pacing around. He rambles on about how wonderful she is and how pretty she is and how she's nothing like what he expected. He says if he wasn't such an honorable guy.....He leaves that thought unfinished and I'm grateful. I know they aren't blood related and have never met before this book, but she was raised thinking he was her uncle and a love story between the two of them feels kind of icky.
She brings up the lipstick and the towel. He tells her that he picked the lipstick up off the floor of the lobby the other day and there wasn't a trash can nearby so he shoved it in his pocket to throw away later. The towel was covered in his own blood from where he hurt his hand. She asks him why he talks to the statues downstairs if he's not crazy. He says he takes care of the statues and, yes, he talks to them sometimes. Gus was a great friend to Jake and he loved the Dungeon so much that Jake just wants to take good care of the place to honor his friend. Besides, the statues never hurt him and they never leave him. He sounds so sad that Darcy gets up to comfort him. Jake says it's been so long since he let himself care about anyone and that's why her accusations really hurt him.
They end up hugging in a way that I'm not strictly comfortable with and then he carries her off to bed, tucks her in and gives her some warm milk. It's all very squicky. She begs him not to leave her and he promises that he'll watch over her.
We're in the home stretch now. Thank goodness.
Darcy wakes up very disoriented. She's being carried somewhere by Elliot. He takes her down to the workroom and ties her up. He says he's helping Jake take care of her and he needs her not to move or make noise. Elliot tells her that she wasn't supposed to wake up and it would have been easier for her if she stayed asleep. He tries to get her to drink something that will put her back to sleep but she won't cooperate.
Someone comes slamming through the door. It's Kyle and he and Elliot fight for several paragraphs. Eventually Elliot hits the wall and Darcy can see that he's been slashed across the stomach. Kyle unties Darcy, telling her the whole time that he was afraid he'd lost her, which is pretty odd considering the two of them aren't together.
Darcy tells him that Elliot and Jake are trying to kill her. He says that Brandon is taking care of Jake but they need to get out of there. She can't walk so he carries her up to the Dracula exhibit and sits her down on the floor. She watches as he takes the cape from the statue and puts it on. She sees the red ring on his finger and the scalpel in his hand. Kyle says she must choose and he asks her if she'll be with him for all eternity.
Kyle starts babbling about how he's immortal and invincible. He's always been in Liz's or Brandon's shadow but he's the star now. The gypsy at the carnival recognized his power and told him how to succeed. He's chosen Darcy to be his immortal bride. Darcy realizes that he's been using Liz's lipstick on the victims and symbolically killing her every time he killed. It's all very deep, y'all, and gives a new meaning to sibling rivalry.
Kyle puts Darcy in the coffin and then gets in beside her. It's a tight fit. They are going to have a wedding ceremony and then he will mingle their blood so they can be together forever in the afterlife. He cuts her wrist but then Jake appears and pulls Kyle out of the coffin and wrestles him to the floor, knocking him unconscious. Brandon helps Darcy out of the coffin and wraps her wrist up to slow the bleeding. She tells them that poor Elliot is probably bleeding to death in the workroom so Brandon races off to save him.
In the end, we learn that Elliot WAS following Darcy around. Jake owed money to some scary people so he asked Elliot to keep an eye on Darcy so nothing would happen to her. Jake's theory was that Brandon was the Vampire killer and he thought that Brandon would come after Darcy that night. I'm not sure why he made either assumption but it's the end of the book and I do not care. He drugged Darcy so she'd sleep through the whole thing and then asked Elliot to take her somewhere and keep her safe. Jake figured he'd catch Brandon and Darcy would just sleep through the whole thing.
Brandon and Jake engage in a little play-fighting over Darcy. I hate Brandon and this whole Jake thing is just gross so I hope she chooses neither of them. She can't have Elliot because she's not good enough for him.
She asks Elliot what he sees in her future now and he says he sees happiness and people who care about her. And the book mercifully ends.
Final Thoughts: I still have NO idea what was up with Darcy and that fire escape. It will remain one of the great mysteries of my life. I really think most of the things that happened in this book could have been avoided if the characters merely sat down and were honest with each other about what they were doing. But, I guess we wouldn't have had a book then. Certainly we wouldn't have had a Point Horror book. I'm 99% sure I kept this book as a teen because I was madly in love with the dangerous and brooding Jake. As an adult, he gave me the creeps. It all felt very inappropriate and icky. Elliot was the one I felt attached to during this reading. He couldn't save this train wreck of a book, but at least there was ONE character I didn't hate at the end. I guess that's something. {shrug} Skip this one, y'all. It's just annoying.
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