Tag Line: Don't stop now. (Well, that was a pretty uninspired tag line.)From the Back of the Book: Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a deadly ride.... He wants a ride. She wants a thrill. So in spite of her best friend Terri's arguments, Christina stops to pick up the handsome hitchhiker. He's everything she thought he'd be. And more. Much, much more. Maybe too much more. Maybe enough to thrill Christina and Terri....to death.... (Well, that was a pretty dumb blurb. We're getting off to a bang-up start, Stine.)
We're back to a real Point Horror this time, y'all. I don't know whether that's going to help us or make us cry. Even odds?
This book was published in 1993. I'm beginning to think that 1993 was a huge year for Point Horror. I've never read this one before, so you get all my reactions and opinions as they happen. Lucky you.
We begin in Key West with a guy named
James. He's described as being powerfully built and muscular with
buzzed blonde hair and olive-green eyes. We're told he's handsome
but always angry. He's standing on the side of the road hitchhiking
and having flashbacks of some girl begging him not to hurt her.
This book is going to hurt, y'all. I
mean, Stine's books always hurt, but this one seems like it's going
to be worse than pouring hand sanitizer in a paper cut. We started
with an effing "bad guy chapter" for pete's sake. Granted, we don't know if he's the bad guy at this point, but the first chapter is clearly designed to make us believe he is. Are we being informed or manipulated?
He wants to get out of Key West. The
only reason he's here is because his parents were smeared all over
the highway when he was a preteen and he had to go live with his
Aunt. He hates everything about this arm pit of a city. I'm sure the
arm pit doesn't exactly care for James either.
An old man in a nice car eventually
stops and picks James up. He tells James he can take him as far as
Fort Lauderdale. He seems like a nice old guy. I hope he's not dead
in the next chapter.
Now we're with Christina and Terri.
I'm not sure which is our protagonist yet. We'll figure it out at
some point I hope. I think they're down in Florida for Spring Break
or something. It sounds like they've done quite a bit of partying
and now they're headed back to wherever they belong. Christina is
driving fast and a little recklessly. Terri is begging her to slow
down. She keeps saying they don't want to get stopped by the police.
Kind of makes you wonder why, hmmm?
Christina is described as slim with
blonde corkscrew curls, dramatic brown eyes and a mischievous face.
I picture her eyes reading Shakespearean sonnets in dark, smoky
coffee houses while her face glues everyone's butts to their chairs.
Terri is described as cautious with
straight black hair, pale skin and sky-blue eyes. I was hoping one
of them would have violet eyes because that would clear up the
protagonist mystery super quick. We all know the main chicks always
have violet eyes. Oh, in the next sentence we're told that Terri is
chubby. Whelp, that settles it. Mystery solved. Do we ever have
chubby protagonist in these books? They're always the sidekick.
Because a chubby girl can't be the heroine, amiright? That
would like destroy the entire fabric of the universe or something.
We'd all die. I guess mischief-face is our girl.
They don't seem to know how to work the
car. Maybe they borrowed it for Spring Break but my bet is it's
stolen. Mischief-face seems like the type to jack a car. They
discuss the trip and where they want to go next year instead.
Christina isn't paying attention to the road and they swerve into
another lane. Stine does one of his chapter cliffhangers by telling
us the crash was deafening.
Do not fear, gentle readers. Our girls
are just fine. They simply ran some poor truck driver off the road
into a concrete embankment that's all. Terri wants to stop to see if
he needs help but Christina drives on. Terri is upset but Christina
blames the truck driver instead. They don't talk for awhile and then
begin talking about boys and parties again until Christina spots our
hitchhiker along the side of the road. Terri begs her not to stop
but Christina thinks he's cute and pulls over to pick him up.
James gets in the back. He thinks
they're both hot and he could go for either one. Or both. They say
they're headed for Tampa and he says that works for him. He has a cousin who lives there. He asks
where they're going after Tampa and they say Cleveland. He decides
he's going to try to get them to take him all the way to Cleveland.
They ride in silence for awhile and the
silence gives James too much time to think his bad thoughts. He
keeps remembering hearing that girl begging him not to hurt her. We
still don't know who it is. After awhile, they pass a diner
and James asks them to stop because he's hungry.
The diner is empty except for a young
man working the counter. He ignores them as they come in and seat
themselves in a booth. James starts getting angry. He calls the guy
to come over and take their order but the guy doesn't come right
away. When he does, he flirts with Christina instead of paying
attention to James. James asks him if he wants his teeth knocked in.
The guy responds by touching James' shoulder and James explodes like
Diet Coke and Mentos. He slams the guy into the counter a few times
really violently and then tells the girls that they're leaving.
Outside, Terri is clearly afraid of him
but he can't tell what Christina is thinking. He tries to play it
off as all the counter guy's fault. Christina tells him that he has
a really bad temper and he thinks she doesn't know the half of it.
For some reason, the idiot girls let
him back in the car and they drive on. He falls asleep around
Sarasota. Terri is mad at Christina for picking him up and says he's
dangerous. Christina says that's what she likes about him and tells
Terri that she watches too much General Hospital. Christina needs to
watch a little more Dateline and maybe she'd not be so keen to pick
up hitchhikers.
James wakes up just outside of Tampa
and they ask him to drive for awhile because they're both tired.
Brainless too, but his driving won't help that any. He gets behind
the wheel and they get back on the road. They don't get far before
sirens sound behind them. Terri and James both panic but Christina
just yells at them to pull over.
It was just a meaningless cliffhanger.
They pull over and the police car speeds on into the night after
someone else.
They get back on the road and Christina
uses the opportunity to flirt pretty obviously with James. Because
this is a Stine, the dialogue is incredibly corny and stupid. I'll
spare you. James, for his part, seems to be unreactive to
Christina's charms. He turns on the radio and it blasts out a gospel
channel. Seriously, these two girls were not at any time listening
to a gospel channel. I swear they stole this car.
As the chapter ends, a news report
comes on about an elderly man found beaten on the side of the road
outside of Fort Lauderdale. It is believed he picked up a
hitchhiker. The car is now stolen. See, we're supposed to think
this is James because he got into the car with the old man earlier
and because he keeps flashing back to some girl begging him not to
hurt her, and because he's clearly a violent man with poor impulse
control. I think it was the girls. It would be a good twist and a
better book if the girls were the bad guys here. So....I guess that
means I'm wrong and it will be effing Justin...I mean James....after
all. Sigh.
Now it's some time later. They're
driving around a new housing development in Tampa because that's
where James has told them his cousin lives. I totally thought he was
making it up until cousin Paul does indeed pop out of the house and
greet them. Color me shocked. They have supper with Paul and his
little family. It's determined they will stay the night to get some
rest. After dinner, James reminds Paul that Paul owes him money.
He's surprised when Paul immediately gets up to pay him back.
There's some insinuation here that Paul has more money than he should
and he obtained it in less than honest ways.
Paul flashes a big wad of money in
James' face which seems pretty stupid to me. It's clear Paul is
madly in love with his cash. I feel bad for him. I'm betting Paul
and his money are about to get divorced. I wonder who will get the
kids. I mean, think of all those precious little quarters, nickels
and dimes who will have endure a broken family now. I wish Paul and
his money had made different decisions in life before it all came to
this. Those coins didn't ask to be born you know!!! Won't anyone
think of the change....I mean children?????????
It's possible I might need a nap.
They all go to watch TV. A news story
comes on about the old man found on the side of road. Again, it's
repeated that they think he picked up a hitchhiker who beat him, left
him for dead and stole his car. James can feel Christina and Terri
looking at him with concern. He asks them if they want to go for a
walk with him to get some fresh air and they don't answer so he goes
alone.
Later that night after everyone else is
asleep, Christina comes down to where James is staying. She tells
him that she can't sleep. She plays the helpless little girl card
and claims that she gets frightened in new places. James doesn't
believe her, but he's willing to let her crawl onto the couch with
him. They end up kissing....at least. That's all we hear about anyway.
The next day, James tells the girls
that he wants to ride to Cleveland with them. Christina is thrilled
but Terri doesn't seem too happy. Paul asks him to stay in Tampa
instead. He thinks he can get James working a construction job.
James declines and he and the girls get the car loaded up to leave.
They are just pulling out of the drive
when Paul races out of the door screaming about his wallet being
stolen.
Please think of the
change!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He accuses James of taking it. My
money's on one of the girls. James tells him that he didn't steal
the money but Paul doesn't believe him. He isn't going to let them
leave until the wallet is returned. He makes the mistake of grabbing
James and James explodes again. The dude does NOT like to be
touched. I get that. I don't like it either but I don't usually
start throwing people when they do it. James knocks Paul out with
one punch to the chin and they take off in the car.
Terri is pissed. She keeps telling
Christina that this is bad. Christina keeps telling her to shut up.
We're supposed to think this is about James. Since it's a Stine, it
probably is. I'm still hoping and dreaming that these girls are
sociopaths though. James denies taking the wallet again but he can
tell the girls don't believe him by the looks they are giving him.
Things get tense in the car for awhile.
James turns on the radio again and they fight over Metallica and New
Kids on the Block which just takes me all kinds of back. Then the
music is interrupted by a news report that the man found beaten on
the side of the road has died. The crime is now a murder. Terri
orders James to pull the car over to the side of the road so that she
and Christina can get out and talk.
The girls argue outside of the car for
awhile. James observes that Terri looks scared while Christina just
looks angry. Then Terri starts to cry for awhile. The fight goes on
and on and James is tired of waiting for them to settle things. He
considers just getting out and finding another ride with less drama.
Then he realizes he has the keys to the car and he can just drive off
and leave them instead. The chapter ends as he picks door number two
and drives off.
Of course, it was just a dumb useless
cliffhanger because he only went a few feet before stopping again.
Terri decides to drive now. Christina
and James get into the backseat together and proceed to make out
until Georgia. Terri has a very convoluted inner dialogue about
Christina always having crazy ideas and always ditching Terri for
boys and the word hitchhiker just keeps swirling around in her
brain. It's all very surreal and stupid.
At some point in Georgia, Terri
announces that a blue car has been following them since Gainesville.
Christina thinks it's Paul coming after his money. They try to evade
and elude. They leave the highway for a country road. The car
follows and begins to try to run them off the road. Eventually the
blue car succeeds and Terri runs right into a tree. Everyone is
fine, but now the blue car has them trapped. A man in dark clothes
gets out of it. James tells the girls to get out of the car and run
into the woods. Good plan.
The girls are frozen and can't get out
of the car. Suddenly James sees lights approaching and he gets out
to flag them down. I'm not sure what the mystery guy is doing during
all this. He seems pretty lazy about actually getting to these kids
after all the trouble he went to in order to run them off the road.
The lights belong to a tow truck (deus ex machina indeed). When they
look back to the road, the mystery man and blue car have disappeared.
Well, that was just all very incredibly dumb.
The tow truck driver pulls their car
back a little and it turns out the only real damage is a busted
headlight because “they put good bumpers on these cars”.
Seriously. That's what it said. They hit a tree head-on going super fast
in high speed chase and they only broke a headlight because “they
put good bumpers on these cars”.
Fuck
this book. I'm going to bed.
Okay,
it's a new day. Let's do this.
The
tow truck driver directs them into the next town where they can get
their light fixed. They stay in a motel for the night. James can
hear Terri and Christina arguing in the next room and he wishes
they'd stop. He doesn't know what Terri's problem is, but she's
beginning to make him angry the way she's treating him all the time.
He's surprised when the fight ends and Terri knocks on his door
asking to talk to him.
They
decide to go for a walk and get some fresh air. Terri leads James
into the woods around the motel. He asks where Christina is and she
tells him that Christina wanted to try to get some sleep. Terri is
pretty heavily flirting with James at this point. I can only hope
she's luring him to his certain death here because otherwise this is
just gross.
There's
a stupid chapter-ending jump scare where the kids think the bad guy
is coming after them but it's just opossums. Yeah, you read that
right. Opossums. Effing Stine.
Terri
kisses James “in apology” and he instantly gets all hot and
bothered. He tries to kiss her again but she steps away. She tells
him she isn't going to mack on her best friend's guy.....you know,
except for that one time when SHE JUST DID. He calls her a tease and
gets angry. She tries to walk back to the motel but he grabs her and
tells her that he's the big bad wolf. {insert eye roll} Then he asks her if she's
afraid of him and he can tell by the look in her eye that she is.
We
skip to James waking up with Christina beating on his door. She says
Terri is missing. I guess we're supposed to think that James killed
her in the woods. Sigh.
James
suggests calling the police. Christina says the town is so small
that they probably don't even have police or they have really stupid
ones. James thinks of calling Terri's parents next but Christina
says they'd be the last people to know where Terri is. James is
running out of ideas here. He says they should just hang around and
wait for Terri to show up. She probably just went out for a bit.
Christina hates that idea too. She says they should look around the
motel and then maybe drive around town in case Terri is lying
somewhere hurt and needing help.
They
check out of the motel and go down to the parking lot where they
discover the car is missing. Seriously? You would think that
Christina would have checked the parking lot first thing. James
again wants to call the police but Christina launches into this big
dramatic show about how the bad guy got Terri and he's coming back
for them and they have to just make a run for it. James argues a bit
but Christina just gets more and more hysterical until he agrees.
They
decide they're just going to hitch it from here on. They walk
outside of town to get back to a major road. No one stops. It
starts to sprinkle. James admits that he saw Terri the night before
and Christina freaks out on him. She accuses him of doing something
to Terri in the woods.
Suddenly
shots are being fired at them.
Only
it was a chapter-ender and the shots were actually being fired at
some quail by a couple of hunters. Kind of irresponsible of them to
be shooting so close to a road like that, but whatever.
A
white car stops to pick them up. They guy says his name is Art and
he's headed to Atlanta which is just fine with James and Christina.
They get in. After awhile, though, they realize that Art seems to be
heading south instead. They start screaming at him to stop but he
says he has something he wants to show them. It turns out he's the
guy from the blue car the night before.
He
pulls a gun on them and then drives them back into Florida. They
arrive at some kind of a cabin in a swamp. James tries to jump “Art”
as they get out but is unsuccessful. When he comes too, he and
Christina are tied to chairs in the cabin. Christina offers Art
money if he'll let her go. James is confused because he knows she
doesn't have any money. Duh, James. She has Paul's money.
Sure
enough, when Art goes through Christina's bags he finds Paul's
wallet. James is stunned. I'm going to say that I am too. I mean,
I know
I've been saying all along that Christina is the bad guy but I didn't
actually think
Stine agreed with me. Let's face it, the bad guys in a Stine are
usually stupidly obvious from the get-go. A true Stine would have
James as the bad guy. So, yeah, I knew it SHOULD have been Christina
but I didn't actually think it was going to be. Make sense?
Art
takes the money but doesn't let them go. He says it isn't enough for
what they've done. Poor stupid James, the biggest red herring in the
history of red herrings, has NO idea what's going on. Christina
keeps asking Art why he's doing this and finally he tells her it's
because her and her friend killed his father.
Oh,
hell yes. I cannot believe this is happening. Way to fuck with my
mind, Stine. You wrote the right book and I so
expected you to write the wrong one as usual that I had given up all
hope.
You
know, when he's “on” he writes a hell of a thing. Too bad he's
so rarely on.
Art
accuses Christina and Terri of killing his father who picked them up while they were hitchiking. Christina just tries to flatly deny it for
awhile and James believes her. He thinks Art is just crazy. Then
Christina changes tactics and starts to blame James. She tells Art
that James is the one that killed his dad. James is astounded
because he's really not very bright.
Stine
gives us a few seconds of Art seeming to believe Christina just for
giggles and then Art reveals to Christina that he was there. He just
happened to be passing
down the road at the exact
time that Christina and Terri pushed his dad out of the car and drove
off. Oh, Stine. I just told you that you finally wrote the right
book and you go and do this. This is badly done, cupcake. This is
an epic level of coincidence and no one is buying that it happened.
No one. Sigh.
Christina
continues to deny but even James isn't believing her anymore. Art
says that Terri already confessed. He got it out of her before he
punished her for her crime.
Christina
tearfully confesses. She says it was an accident. She hadn't meant
to hit him so hard. She and Terri just wanted the car because they
were tired of hitchhiking. Some guys had stolen their money in Fort
Lauderdale and they just wanted the car. Art asks her where his
father's car is now. James is surprised because he's been assuming
that Art had it. Christina says that she hid it the night before.
James can't believe she lied about that. James is really getting
pretty comical at this point. It's hilarious how naive our
red-herring really is.
Christina
offers to take Art to his father's car if he'll just let her go. He
says he has other plans for her. He unties James and Christina and
leads them at gunpoint through the swamp. He says the place belongs
to a friend of his with an interesting hobby. It turns out this
swamp has a fresh water pool and his friend raises piranhas.
Oh,
for fuck's sake, Stine.
Gators
would have made more sense.
But
both ideas are hella dumb.
Piranhas
take the cake though.
Art
tells Christina he's going to push her over the side, which gives her
the warning she needs. She drops to her knees and the motion of his
push carries Art over the side instead.
That
was really anti-climactic. I didn't even condense that for the
recap. It was literally a sentence.
Stine
spends several paragraphs describing Art being eaten alive though.
That was special.
After
the feeding frenzy has ended, James tells Christina they should
leave. Christina grabs Art's pistol and tells James that he isn't
leaving. He's going to swim with the fishies too. Our dim boy
really should have seen that coming.
Christina
tells him that he either jumps over the side or she'll shoot him
first and then push him over. But before she can, a bloody Terri
staggers out of the swamp.
I
don't know whether to laugh or cry at this point. He wrote the right
book but it sure is stoooopid.
Christina
grabs her and throws her into the piranhas.
People,
I wish
I was making this up. I'm laughing so hard right now. This book is
ridiculous.
Christina
and James struggle. He manages to kick the gun over the side of the
cliff. Christina gets the upper hand by kicking him in the no-nos.
Just when James thinks he's going to die, a hand reaches up from the
edge of the cliff, grabs Christina's ankle and pulls her into the
piranhas.
It's
Terri. She's just been hanging out on a tree root.
I
cannot believe this book. Why is this so funny?
James
pulls Terri to safety. He takes her to the hospital and calls the
police.
Terri
explains that Christina had hit her on the head and left her in the
woods after hiding the car. Art found Terri and took her to the
swamp. He threw her in the pond but she's a good swimmer and got
away. Not sure this makes sense since neither Art nor Christina were
able to do the same, but whatever. Also not sure how Art drove Terri
from Georgia to Florida, did the whole piranha thing and then drove
back to Georgia in time to pick up Christina and James. But again,
whatever.
Terri
asks James what he's going to do now. James says that he's headed
back to Key West. There's this girl named Melissa and he hurt her
pretty bad (by breaking up with her, of course) and he wants to go
back and make things right with her. Terri asks him how he's going
to get there and he tells her he's going to hitch.
And
that's all he wrote, folks.
Whew,
what a messed up ride that book was.
Final Thoughts: Okay, James was pretty obviously a huge effing red herring from the very beginning and I'll tell you why. First of all, we knew in the first chapter that the guy he got in the car with was outside of Key West. The guy who was killed picked up a hitchhiker outside of Fort Lauderdale. The girls were the ones in Fort Lauderdale, not James. Plus, if James had stolen the car after killing the guy, why would he be hitchhiking again right after? I guess he could have ditched the car, but it never made sense. Plus, the girls clearly had no idea how to operate any of the controls on the car. Even if they'd borrowed it for their trip, they'd been driving it for a week at this point and should have figured a few things out. Or at least changed the radio station. Plus, he was always the first person to suggest calling the police. If he was the bad guy, he'd never suggest going to the police. So it was pretty obvious that James was NOT going to turn out to be the bad guy in a well-written book. The reason we were still surprised is because this....well, this was a Stine. We weren't expecting it to be well-written and I don't think any of us would have been surprised if Stine had made James the bad guy. That's usually his level. I'm glad it was the girls. I'm even glad there were piranhas because that just made everything so ludicrous that I enjoyed the story ten times more. I still say gators would have made more sense.
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