Chain Letter by Christopher Pike

**This blog contains adult language**

Warning: Contains Spoilers!!!  This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself.  Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/limper from Arkansas is.

Tag Line: Do not ignore this letter...or you will suffer...

From the Back of the Book: They all shared the same secret...now they would share the same terror.  When Alison first read the chain letter signed "Your Caretaker", she thought it was some terrible sick joke.  Someone somewhere knew about that awful night when she and six other friends committed an unthinkable crime in the desolate California desert.  And now that person was determined to make them pay for it.  One by one, the chain letter was coming to each of them...demanding dangerous, impossible deeds...threatening violence if the demands were not met.  No one out of the seven wanted to believe that this nightmare was really happening to them.  Until the accidents started happening - and the dying...

This book was published in 1986.  I was a huge Pike fan back in those days, so I would ordinarily presume that I read this but I remembered NOTHING about it.  I'm going to guess that I missed this one some how back then.  Maybe I'd already spent my allowance on the Canby Hall book.

Ordinarily when I do a recap, I take notes as I go along.  It's just easier.  I usually end up with 10-12 pages of notes.  If it's a Cooney and very little actually happens, I get about 8 pages.  When I finished this book, I realized I had 16 pages of notes.  A lot happened in this book, y'all.  I'm going to try to edit it down a bit so you aren't stuck reading this forever and a day.

We begin with our protagonist Alison Parker snooping through her friend Fran Darey's mail. She notices a strange envelope addressed to Fran. It's taller than it is long and the odd purplish color of spoiled meat. Alison wonders if it's a love letter. Their other friend Brenda Paxson is also in attendance. While Alison is snooping, Brenda and Fran are struggling to put a huge piece of a set in Fran's garage. The set is from the school play You Can't Take it With You. Fran is in charge of special effects, Brenda has a small role and Alison is the star. Naturally. Have any of our protagonists been anything less?

We're told Fran is pretty with the kind of hair that girls will spend a fortune trying to duplicate but she never dates because she's shy and high-strung and can't manage to speak around boys. When Alison shows her the letter, Fran seems to savor the novelty of someone sending her something. She doesn't want to open it in front of the other girls. Brenda is impatient and nosy and snatches it away from Fran. A minor scuffle ensues which Fran emerges victorious from. She again says that she doesn't want to open the letter until she's alone.

Alison remarks that she's curious about the letter too and then she feels bad. Alison says that Fran has always had a minor case of “hero worship” when it comes to her and Alison tries very hard not to say anything that might alter Fran's own internal course. Because if Alison says it, Fran will do it. Quickly she backsteps and says that they don't have time for letters because they need to study. Alison has a long drive ahead of her. It seems her parents relocated before senior started and Alison didn't want to change schools for her last year, so she commutes 35 minutes to and from school. Really? That's a “long drive”? We do that all the time. The new house is in a very isolated area and they are the first and only family in the subdivision, so it's suitably creepy for the genre.

Now we get some details on Brenda. We're told she's pretty with blonde hair and green eyes. She's described as having sharp features and a sharp wit. She can dance and sing and dresses well and the boys love her. Kipp Coughlan seems particularly taken with her but Pike doesn't tell us yet if Brenda is equally taken with him.

Alison runs down her own appearance for us. She has long, curly, wild dark hair. Good body. Big, round dark eyes, button nose, wide mouth, strong jaw, bushy eyebrows. She doesn't think her features really go together very well but perfect strangers stop her to tell her that she's beautiful so she thinks she must be okay.

Fran decides to open the letter. Apparently once an Alison request has been heard, it cannot be forgotten. This is going to take me forever to type out. Sigh. The things I do for you guys.

“Dear Friend,

You do not know me, but I know you. Since you first breathed in this world, I have watched you. The hopes you have wished, the worries you have feared, the sins you have committed – I know them all. I am The Observer, the Recorder. I am also The Punisher. The time has come for your punishment. Listen closely – the hourglass runs low.

At the bottom of this communication is a list of names. Your name is at the top. What is required from you – at present – is a small token of obedience. After you have performed this small service, you will remove your name from the top of Column I and place it at the bottom of Column II. Then you will make a copy of this communication and mail it to the individual now at the top of Column I. The specifics of the small service you are to perform will be listed in the classified ads of the Times under personals. The individual following you on the list must receive their letter within five days of today.

Feel free to discuss this communication with others on the list. Like myself, they are your friends and privy to your sins. Do not discuss this communication with anyone outside this group. If you do, that one very sinful night will be revealed to all.

If you don not perform the small service listed in the paper or if you break the chain of this communication, you will be hurt.

Sincerely, Your Caretaker.”

There are three columns at the bottom. The names in Column I are: Fran, Kipp, Brenda, Neil, Joan, Tony and Alison.

Brenda wants to tear the letter up but Alison stops her. She says maybe they can get some kind of clue from it. The postmark reveals that the letter was mailed locally. Alison suggests that it might be a joke from someone at school, but Fran squashes that by saying that none of them know about that night.

Is anyone else having I Know What You Did Last Summer flashbacks here? That was one of my favorite books as a kid. The movie was meh but I loved the book.

Fran gets upset and says they should have gone to the police. She and Neil wanted to. Brenda calls bullshit on that and says that Fran never said one damn word about the police. Fran is bordering on hysterical. She says that they “killed him” and Brenda snaps that it was an accident and for all they know, “he” was already dead.

Brenda wants to tear up the letter and forget all about it. She's convinced it's either Tony, Neil, or Joan playing a joke on them. Alison points out that Brenda left Kipp off the list of suspects. Kipp is, indeed, Brenda's boyfriend and the smartest of them all. So he's probably the bad guy. It's always the smart one. Alison doesn't think it could possibly be Tony. He's the quarterback and he's gorgeous. She's warm for his form but he doesn't know she exists. You know....except for the fact that he was OBVIOUSLY WITH HER WHEN THEY KILLED THAT GUY SO HE MUST KNOW WHO THE FUCK SHE IS.

Fran defends Neil because she has mad unrequited love for him. Brenda says it must have been that bitch Joan and Alison wants to agree with her. Joan is the prettiest girl in school and after Tony. Naturally this means that Alison and Joan are bitter enemies and will likely trade eye-rolling barbs throughout the book. Even though it burns a hole right in the center of her soul, Alison points out that Joan has just as much to lose as the rest of them if the news gets out. She thinks that one of them (either accidentally or on purpose) must have told someone outside the group.

Alison asks Fran if she has a copy of the Times so they can check the personals for Fran's assignment. The Caretaker wants Fran to paint over the school mascot's head with a red and black goat head. Fran doesn't even think twice – she starts making plans to give Teddy the koala a new head. Alison tells her to hold off. They need to talk to the others and determine whether one of them is responsible for the letter.

Wow. That was a lot of words for one chapter.

Chapter two lands us in Tony's head. He's hanging out in his room with Kipp talking about how they're both going to hell....or jail....I wasn't really listening because I was distracted by Pike's second mention of Nastassja Kinski in 13 pages. Now I have to put the book down and Google because I don't know who the hell this person is and apparently Pike has a major jones for her.

Ah, it all makes sense now. 

Anyway, Tony has a picture of her wearing a snake and nothing else on his bedroom wall and it's a real thing that exists. I didn't post it for you because I don't want my blog flagged for nudity but you can Google and check it out if that's your thing. Hey, I don't judge. You do you.

Tony gives us a huge humble-brag spiel about how he's great at sports but doesn't really care except for the fact that it makes up the entirety of his self-image and self-worth. He hides all his medals and trophies in a trunk to prove he's above it all but tells us in the very next breath that he's the only reason any of the teams succeed which....sigh. He can't relate to his brethren, however, because he's much too intellectual for the jock crowd, so he prefers to hang with Kipp the Brain and Neil the Unattributed instead.

We're told that Kipp has a buffoon's nose, rabbit ears and fair hair that sticks up every which way. Also small black eyes. This.....this does not sound like an actual human, Pike. When's the last time you saw a human with ears like a rabbit? An elephant, sure. A mouse, maybe. I'd even accept a giraffe...but a rabbit? Nope. I won't debate the existence of black eyes. It's been done to death. I will say that small, black eyes remind me of a rodent. I find Kipp disturbing even if he isn't the bad guy. Rabbit ears and rodent eyes just aren't the most comforting combination on a guy. We're told again how smart he is. He's going to MIT in the fall. I hope people there will accept his rodent eyes and rabbit ears.

Tony and Kipp haven't been friends long. The “incident” forged their friendship in the fire of shared trauma. Kipp asks Tony why he didn't invite Alison. Tony dodges by asking Kipp why he didn't invite Brenda. Kipp says he didn't want to deal with a “hysterical female” which....fuck you, Kipp. Brenda isn't even close to hysterical. Tony backs me up on this one and says that Fran is the one that's upset. Kipp dismisses this because Fran is ALWAYS upset. Kipp the Brain With the Rodent Eyes and Rabbit Ears is not really my favorite character in this book.

Kipp teases Tony about the Alison situation and Tony brushes it off. He thinks Alison is the bees knees and all but he thinks she just likes him for his image and not his soul. Besides, Neil is all about Alison and Tony would never break the bro-code. Bros before hoes, y'all. It's a thing. I guess. I doubt it lasts two chapters, but, whatevs.

Oh, crap. We get the deets on Neil and he has a limp, came from Arkansas and wears a leather jacket no matter what the weather is. This pretty much means he's the bad guy and I can't hate Kipp. My world is crumbling at my feet, y'all. I don't know if I can find the strength to go on. But in all seriousness, if Neil doesn't turn out to be the bad guy, I'll eat this book. Arkansas, leather jacket, limp. It couldn't be more obvious. Neil is soft-spoken, shy and sweet. Sigh.

The boys read over a copy of the letter. Neil is stricken. He says the person who wrote it is very dangerous. Kipp disagrees and thinks it's a joke. He thinks one of the girls blabbed and the information got back to someone with a “kinky” sense of humor. He says girls in general can't be trusted and I so wish Neil didn't have a limp because Kipp sucks. Tony sticks up for the girls and Kipp says it might not have been on purpose. Maybe they were discussing it in a public place and someone overheard. Which would be pretty damn dumb so apparently he thinks girls are idiots too. He suspects Fran and says they should get her alone and “squeeze” the confession out of her. I hate this asshole.

Tony feels like he has more to lose than anyone else because he was more responsible for whatever the fuck happened. Stop dancing around it and just name it, Pike. This is old already.

Tony says Fran should be questioned but gently by her friends and not “squeezed” by anyone. He asks Neil what he thinks of the whole thing and Neil squirms a bit before answering. He thinks it's one of the group but not as a joke. He thinks one of them wants to hurt the others and this is how he/she is doing it. Kipp thinks it's bunk and asks what the motive could possibly be for hurting everyone else. Neil replies with our favorite: “Crazy people don't need a motive”.

Sigh.

Seriously. I'm crazy....by technical definition....and I've never once set up an elaborate scam to make my friends do bizarre things under the threat of bodily or psychological harm. Maybe authors could find a better word. Sociopaths probably don't need a motive. Psychopaths don't need a motive. Your garden variety “crazy” person probably operates under the same values and morals as the rest of society.

Enough of that.

Joan calls and Tony tells us that she's “gorgeously gross”.  I absolutely love that description.  Her angelic face lets her get away with being rude and crude. At least with the boys. She doesn't have many girl friends. He and Joan are semi-involved if you call heavy necking semi-involved. Tony's hoping to be more “fully” involved soon. It almost happened once and Joan was ready but he got cold feet.

Pike is different from the other PH authors because he allows his female characters to have a sexuality without being labeled “loose” or “easy”. In Pike's world, girls can like kissing and touching every bit as much as the boys. It's healthy and it's real. It's one of the reasons I tend to like him even though his books are bizarre at times.

Tony hangs up with Joan and notices Neil rubbing his bad knee. He asks Neil when he's going to have the surgery to repair the cartilage he tore in gym class. Neil is embarrassed and says that they're trying to save up the money for it. It's just him and and his mom and they already have a lot of bills due to Neil being recently diagnosed with diabetes. Neil thinks someone has hexed him. He wonders if it could be the man in a tan sports coat.

Oh. My. God. Just tell us what happened, Pike!!!!

Neil goes on and on about how “he” might not have been dead after all. Maybe he died for a bit and then recovered and came back with mystical powers that enable him to curse people from a distance. Tony thinks Neil is just being superstitious as usual but he DOES wonder if the man could possibly be alive. The grave they buried him in was pretty shallow.

Chapter 3 is labeled “Last Summer” so I think we're about to time travel, y'all. Put on your helmets. I can't be held responsible for time-hopping-brain-injuries.  And remember not to step on any butterflies or you might end up being your own grandma.  I'm my own cousin.  I don't think it's because I time-traveled and stepped on a butterfly though.

We're in Tony's head. He's leaving a Beach Boys concert and feels high from all the marijuana smoke in the air. Joan, Kipp and Brenda are with him. We're told Kipp and Brenda are rather drunk. I don't know about Joan. Neil is along too but he is not impaired at all. They get in the car and Kipp is driving. So now I not only hate him, I hate everyone else in the car. How could they let him drive when he is already drunk and continuing to drink? No respect for anyone else on the road.

They are in the long line of traffic leaving the venue and moving at a snail's pace when someone knocks on the window. It's Alison and she says that Fran's car won't start. Joan has little sympathy and says they'll call the auto club first chance they get. Tony tells Kipp to get out of line so they can take a look. After a little investigating, they decide that the starter is gone and there's no way it's being fixed that night. They decide to all squash into the car together. Tony says he'll drive. He's only had two beers and the thinks he's a better choice than Neil who hasn't had any even though he just told us he felt high a few paragraphs ago.

I hate them all at this point. Driving under the influence is a HUGE no-no in my world.

Two hours later, they're completely lost out in the middle of the desert. There's not a house or a car to be seen. Everyone has continued to drink – including our driver Tony. I'm not sure if Alison has had anything and Neil doesn't drink but the rest are loaded. Alison has a tattered map and she's trying to find the way back to the freeway. They're in LA so it's complicated. Oh, the days before GPS. It was the dark ages for sure.

Kipp is telling stories which are highly entertaining but less than factual. Everyone's having a great time. Then he launches into a story about sneaking into the football coach's house to steal the kitchen sink. While there, the coach comes back with a student and the two get busy in bed. No one believes him, so he produces a tape. Tony listens for a bit and then realizes that both voices on the tape belong to Kipp. 

So he set this up in advance??  Why?

Anyway, he's impersonating the coach and the girl so well that no one else notices. Then the “coach” moans the name Joan and all hell breaks lose in the car. Joan vehemently denies the validity of the tape while everyone laughs their asses off. Joan keeps demanding that Tony turn off the tape but he's having trouble controlling the car by this point. So she reaches over and, for some reason, turns off the headlights.

Tony is too drunk to handle the situation and the car goes off the side of the road. He tries to correct and ends up sending the car off the opposite side of the road instead. Everyone in the car is screaming. Tony slams on the brake and the car begins to skid. They are almost completely stopped when they hit something big and soft and heavy. Tony tells himself it's a cactus.

Everyone is more or less okay when the car finally stops. Tony turns on the headlights and sees that they haven't spun out far from the road. He's pretty proud of his drunk skills. The car starts up.....um......when did they turn it off?.....and Tony decides to drive off without checking to see what he hit. He's a few yards away when a simple “Tony” spoken by Neil forces him to stop and turn the car off again. Tony tells us that Neil is his conscience. Despite protests from Kipp....who seems to suspect what they hit....Tony grabs a flashlight and gets out to investigate.

Tony finds the man not far from the car. He's small and slight of build. Tony thinks he looks about 30 and he's dressed in a tan sport coat. Kipp joins him and says that it looks like the man has been dead for awhile but Tony can see the blood running from the man's mouth is fresh and wet. Everyone starts freaking out and blaming each other. Only Alison remains calm. She asks Tony what he thinks they should do.

Tony says they should try to figure out who the man was. Kipp goes through all the pockets and doesn't find a wallet. To him, this proves that the man was already dead because no one dressed that formally would be out in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night without a wallet. He theorizes that someone robbed and killed the man and dumped him out there. Someone suggests that the wallet might have been flung out on impact and Kipp alone goes to look for it. He returns saying there was no wallet and I'm not sure I believe him at all.

Tony suggests they put the man in the trunk and drive him to a police station. I get that this book was written before CSI made us all aware of the importance of not contaminating a crime scene, but surely everyone knew, even back in '86, that you weren't supposed to move a body??? It doesn't matter in the end because Kipp says there's no way in hell that they're putting a dead body in his car.

Everyone but Fran wants to just drive away and forget it happened. There's no sense in ruining their lives over a man who may have been dead already. Neil doesn't say a word. Tony waits for him to, because Neil is his conscience and he will do what Neil says, but Neil remains silent. Alison says they need to show a little decency at least and bury him.

I wonder if Pike will ever tell us what the hell that guy was doing out there in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere wearing a sport coat. Car trouble maybe? Walking home because the car ran out of gas or the timing chain broke or whatever? Abducted by aliens from a cornfield and then dropped off by the side of the road? {Note from future me: Nope.  He never does.}}

They bury him in a shallow grave about 50 yards from the road. Neil insists on taking the crucifix from around his own neck and leaving it with the dead man. They say an Our Father and then go back to the car and return home.

Now we're back in present time.  Fran has completed her Caretaker assignment and everyone is shocked to see Teddy the koala with a goat head.

At lunch, Alison and Joan exchange the eye-rolling barbs I predicted oh so long ago while an exhausted Fran looks on. It's tiresome and I'm not going to waste my time recapping. Joan tells Alison to stay away from Tony and I think it would be far more effective – and less boring to read – if she would just pee a circle around him and be done with it. She slinks off and Tony and Neil take her place. Fran is trembling in Neil's presence and the whole thing is so tragic knowing that Fran loves Neil and Neil loves Alison and Alison loves Tony and Tony loves Alison or Joan or Alison or Joan.

The principal approaches and offers Fran $200 to repaint the mascot. I bet the Caretaker will just love that when he hears about it. Although he already has because....sigh....it's totally Neil and he's standing RIGHT THERE. The principal and Fran take off so she can sign some kind of paperwork. Neil leaves almost immediately, saying he has to go to his locker. Alison hopefully asks if he might be chasing after Fran and Tony sadly tells her no. They talk for a minute about their “situation”. Tony tells her that Neil thinks the Caretaker is one of them. OF COURSE IT IS. IT'S HIM! Alison would love to say it's Joan but she's mature enough to recognize that the accusation is based on hormones and not fact.

We jump a week into the future and land solidly in Tony's head. Way to stick the landing, y'all. You've been practicing. I'm hella proud.

Kipp's instructions were to flunk the next Calculus exam but he doesn't. So far the Caretaker hasn't taken any action and Kipp is feeling fucking smug about this. Neil reminds him that there was no time limit set for the hurt to rain down. Tony thinks Neil is really sick. He missed the previous week of school and has dropped a bunch of weight. He's also losing his hair pretty rapidly.

Pike's going to blame this on brain cancer or a tumor or something isn't he? Poor Neil can't be held responsible for his actions because he's sick. Sigh. Let's just hold on to the hope that it's not going there and keep going.

Don't let me down, Pike. I tell everyone that you're the best of this group. Don't let me down.

Anyway, Tony, Kipp, Brenda and Neil are all standing in the parking lot of the school. Brenda seems to pick a fight with Kipp out of thin fucking air and she takes off instead of riding home with him as usual. Neil is in pain and asks if he can have a ride home since Brenda passed. He and Kipp get into Kipp's car and....oh my goodness....I bet you can't guess what happens!! My, oh, my it's something SO UNPREDICTIBLE and UNEXPECTED! You'll never ever ever in a million gazillion years guess so I'll have to tell you. Hold on to your socks because they're about to be blown off your feet.

Kipp's brakes go out and the car crashes into the brick wall that serves as a noise barrier between the school and the houses across the road.

Are you shocked?!?!? It was so OUT OF THE BLUE.

They're pretty much fine. Neil wasn't wearing a seat-belt and he still manages to only bang his head a little. He's bleeding from the glass but otherwise okay. Tony wants him to see a doctor but Neil begs him not to press the issue. He wet his pants in the crash and he's super embarrassed. Tony is a good friend. He ties his shirt around Neil's waist so no one will be able to tell, helps him inside and loans him a pair of sweatpants from his gym locker.

I know he's a dick who drove drunk and killed a guy..................boy, there's a sentence starter. It's hard to come back from that. I was going to say, I think he's a really good friend to Neil but once you start a sentence that way, anything but abject hatred seems super inappropriate.

We're back in Alison's head now. She and Brenda are talking about Brenda's assignment. She's supposed to tell the drama teacher that he's the worst director in the world. Alison is worried about the poor teacher's feelings but Brenda is worried about being kicked off the cast. She doesn't like her part and wishes she had Alison's but that doesn't mean that she wants to be in the audience instead of on the stage. Still, she isn't about to refuse to do it. She doesn't want to go sailing into any brick walls.

The opportunity presents itself at the next rehearsal and Brenda takes advantage of it. She goes above and beyond and does, indeed, get herself kicked off the cast. Alison wonders how the Caretaker will know that Brenda did his assignment because only the the cast and crew are present. She figures he will hear the gossip somehow.

They keep mentioning that Fran still hasn't returned the set pieces. I keep wondering if it's supposed to be important because Alison and Pike keep making such a big deal out of it. I'm mentioning it in case it turns out to be a major point that the entire plot hangs upon.  {{Note from future me: it totally doesn't.}}

Two weeks pass. There's no mention of what Neil or Joan had to do for the Caretaker. They were the next two names after Brenda. I assume it will come up at some point. Alison is preparing for her first real date with Tony. I guess he's no longer worried about hurting Neil's feelings or pissing off Joan.  I knew the bro code would bite the dust pretty fast.  Tony asks Alison if her family is still alone in the complex and she says they are and it will probably stay that way. There's an issue with the contractors not getting paid and construction and sales have been halted until it's straightened out. She tells him there's a security guard named Harry who drives around in a golf cart once in awhile but he's usually drunk.

Sigh.

Pike, seriously. Enough with the drunk driving already. It's not cute.

They have a nice date and then Tony drives Alison back home. She's nervous about what happens next. She has no intention of losing her virginity to him, but she's hoping he'll tarnish her image just a little. They kiss a bit and she ruins the moment by slipping off the seat and banging her head on the dash. I can honestly say this never once happened to me and now I have a serious case of the giggles picturing her slipping off the seat mid-kiss.

Tony helps her back on the seat and then begins to trace “erotic circles” inside her ear with his finger.

What??????????

Oh my God I think my spleen is about to explode. I. Cannot. Stop. Laughing.

Fucking hell, Pike. In what world is a guy sticking his finger in your ear and twirling it around in circles erotic? It sounds like he's trying to clear out some wax or something. Maybe he thinks she has an inner ear problem since she fell off the seat and all. He's probably just trying to make sure she has proper balance to walk up to the house.

Erotic circles with his finger inside her ear. I'm dying.

Anyway, Tony seems to remember that Neil loves Alison with the fire of a thousand suns and he feels guilty about trying to extract her ear wax. He suddenly pulls back and gets distant which confuses the hell out of her since a minute ago he was lovingly cleaning out her ears. She basically asks him if they'll have a second date and he says that depends on someone else. She assumes he's hung up on Joan and she's hurt and confused.

Neil's assignment was to get sick in class. He faked a fainting spell and it was so effective that it scared Tony who knew it was coming. Neil seemed to enjoy it until his mother had to come get him, shaking and crying and scared. Joan's instructions were to come to school dressed as Bozo the Clown. Alison didn't think the assignment was too bad but metal-and-leather-wearing Joan can't bear the thought. She refuses. A week passes and then Joan calls them all into a meeting in Fran's kitchen. Alison says it's the first time since “that night” that all of them were in the same place at the same time.

Fran is playing hostess, passing out milk and cookies. Neil seems nervous, twisting a ring around his finger. Alison asks to see it because she likes jewelry and, oh my McGuffin. The ring is a triangle-shaped emerald. Alison asks if it's a family heirloom {{cough**McGuffin**cough}} and Neil nods.

Not subtle, Pike. Seriously. Could that have had a bigger NEON arrow pointing at it???? **IMPORTANT PLOT POINT RIGHT HERE! DID YOU SEE IT?? DON'T MISS IT! IMPORTANT PLOT POINT HERE!**

Sigh.

Joan tells them that the night before something was thrown through her window that contained hundreds of roaches. It broke on impact and the roaches were released into her bedroom.

Death.

I'm out.

Forget this book.

*************Time Passes**************

Okay, I've had time to recover. I think. Roaches. {{shudder}}

Joan is deathly afraid of bugs and sensitive about looking like she's weak. Tony points out that the Caretaker is targeting things that will cause the most embarrassment or pain. Fran was proud of Teddy the mascot, Kipp was proud of his car, Brenda was proud of being in the play, Neil hates people treating him like he's sick and Joan was proud of her tough-girl image. It's clear that the Caretaker knows them all very, very well.

Because it's Neil.

Alison isn't sure she believes Joan. She asks if Joan cut her feet on the glass from the broken window. Joan says she did and Alison asks to see the cut. Joan gets all offended and then when Tony takes Alison's side, she gets pissed. She says that he's only siding with Alison because they went on a date and he cleaned out her ear wax. Neil seems surprised to hear that Tony took Alison out and I'd feel really sorry for him if he wasn't the Caretaker.

They try to reason things out for a bit and then Neil again says that maybe "the man" is responsible. Everyone but Fran dismisses it outright. She, whether because she loves Neil and wants to support him or because she actually believes it, says that there are plenty of stories out there about a group of people being targeted by a dark force. No one is having any of that , though. This is a Pike not a Cooney for pete's sake.

Neil begs Tony to make things right. He tells Tony that this is killing him and he just wants Tony to end it by going to the police. Despite telling us EIGHT MILLION FUCKING TIMES in the first two chapters that Neil is Tony's conscience and Tony will do anything Neil asks, Tony tells Neil no. It's too late for that. They'll just have to figure out who the Caretaker is and put a stop to him.

Tony's assignment is to come in last at the track meet. He talks to Neil before the meet.  Neil is sitting beside Tony's personal cooler of his personal, specialty lemonade that Pike described to us in WAY too much detail. NEON arrow again. Pike's really beating us over the head with these things.

Tony drinks some of lemonade and then heads for his first race. He has no intention of losing. The match is too important to his school and his teammates. During the race he begins to struggle. He isn't breathing as well as he should and his legs feel stiff. His stomach is acting up. He wins but just barely and his time is almost two seconds slower that usual. The coach tells him to rest and sit out of the sun, so he goes under the bleachers and falls asleep.

He wakes up to see Alison beside him. She tells him he was awesome and he knows she's a damn liar. He glances toward the field and sees Kipp and Joan rummaging through the ice cooler. He wonders what they're doing for about a tenth of a second and then tells Alison that he needs to warm up his legs for the next race. He's cramping and sluggish as he walks up and down the side of the track. He begins the race and it goes even worse than the last one. He wonders if he was poisoned or hexed. Long before the finish line, he hits the ground and passes out. Later we learn he was dosed with codeine.

The Caretaker didn't play fair with this one. He wasn't given the chance to throw the race. He was impaired before the racing started.

We head-and-time hop. Alison has been instructed to flub her lines on opening night and there's no. damn. way. that's happening. We're told two things in the outset: Fran has finally returned the sets and the drama teacher's keys were missing for the better part of the week. Gee, I bet the key thing won't turn out to be significant or anything. Sigh.

Oh, and Alison's parents are leaving soon for a business trip so she'll be nice and alone in that empty, isolated, unpopulated housing development. Mighty convenient. What parents actually DO this? In town, with neighbors around, sure. I spent 2 weeks alone the summer before my senior year while my parents and sister took a camping trip through Colorado or something and it was amazing. But I wasn't in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no people around.

We get a few pages of Alison telling us about her acting process and it's every bit as boring as it sounds. At one point toward the end of the play, Alison is supposed to lightly lean against the set wall. It went off without a hitch in rehearsal but in the performance, the wall comes tumbling down. She's on her back when she sees the lighting rig start to fall as well. She puts up her hands to protect her face and the glass shatters against them. She gets a tiny shock when her fingers tangle with the wires. She's bleeding and sore and again, the Caretaker didn't wait for her to flub her lines at all. There was still time left and clearly he had to have set up the wall to fall before the play even started. Why did Kipp and Joan have the opportunity to defy the Caretaker and Tony and Alison didn't? Even though they were going to, the Caretaker shouldn't have known it if he wasn't one of the group.

But, of course, he IS because it's Neil.

On Monday, Fran gets a second letter and I experience pure joy at the knowledge that I have to type it all in again.

“My Dearest Friends,

No longer can I say you do not know me. In these last few weeks, I feel we have come to know each other intimately. The closeness both stimulates and disgusts me. While I can now more readily share your zest for the performances of the tasks that will be set before you, I must also wallow lower and lower in your evil. But this it to be a temporary situation. The hourglass runs low.

At the bottom of this letter is a list of your names. The directions and conditions will be as before, only now your names are to find their way from Column II to Column III. Due to the delicate nature of your tasks, they will appear in the paper in a secret code befitting a secret society such as ours. Starting with the first letter, every third letter will help make clear your duty.

Some of you have sought to defy me. From experience, you have learned how uncomfortable that can be. As your tasks will now be more exciting, your punishment, should you choose to be stubborn, will be equally exhilarating. Remember, you have been told.

It has come to my attention that you suspect I am one of you. Let this made painfully clear: I am not.

Love, Your Caretaker”

Fran's decoded assignment is Streak Naked School lunch. As soon as she gets it, she starts crying. Alison tries to be supportive. She suggests a mask. The Caretaker is not completely inflexible even if he DOES jump the gun sometimes. Fran points out that someone would grab her before she could get away and rip the mask off. Alison suggests that she go away for awhile. There's a grandmother in another town that Fran's parents have been trying to get her to visit. Maybe if she goes there for a couple of weeks (and doesn't tell any of the others where she's gone) she'll escape the Caretaker's wrath.

Fran questions Alison's feelings for Tony and Alison suddenly realizes that Fran is thinking of going to the police and throwing Tony under the bus. She cautions Fran to remember loyalty and what it will mean if she rats out the group. Fran says that Neil wants to go to the police too. It's true and Alison can't dispute that, but she reminds Fran that Neil isn't throwing Tony to the sharks. He wants Tony to do the right thing on his own. Fran finally agrees and says she'll go to her grandma's house to wait things out.

We're back in Tony's head and he's making out with Alison so it feels a little weird. I wish we'd land in Tony's head at better times. Like when he's making a ham sandwich with mustard or something. They are in the car in broad daylight in the parking lot of a local park which seems like a pretty bad place to be getting so horizontal. In mid-kiss someone knocks on the window and wants to know what time it is. Tony is annoyed because the guy can clearly see he's busy but he gives the time. Then the guy recognizes him and wants his autograph.

Yeah, right. He's a high school football player. No one knows who he is.

Tony's rude to the man and he leaves. Alison offers sympathy to Tony for being well-liked. It's a terrible burden to bear. They're supposed to meet the rest of the group (minus Fran) in 15 minutes and suddenly Tony remembers that it might crush Neil's soul to see him with his hand up Alison's shirt. He tells Alison that they should talk about things before the others arrive. He brings up the fact that the Caretaker seemed to know ahead of time that Tony wasn't going to lose the race and Alison wasn't going to flub her lines. Despite the protest that he wasn't one of them, Tony thinks it's pretty clear that he IS.

Because he's Neil.

And, yeah, I'm going to feel like a jackass if I'm wrong.

But I'm not wrong.

Because it's Neil.

Despite the fact that Fran didn't send it, Kipp got his letter. It had Fran's named removed. Kipp was instructed to tell everyone, including MIT, that he cheated on the SAT. Tony thinks Kipp might be the Caretaker and gives a few feeble reasons that I don't care about because it's Neil. Alison makes a case for Fran and then brings up Neil. Tony takes immediate defense and gets all snippy that Alison could even consider it. They go through Brenda and Joan and then Alison suggests it might be a Murder on the Orient Express kind of situation.

They all meet at the rocket ship but nothing new really comes to light. There's a lot of snipping and arguing and then Brenda asks where Fran is. Alison reminds them that Fran is in hiding. Neil makes a casual comment about the town Fran is hiding in and Alison is shocked. He says he heard it from Brenda who says Fran's parents told her.

Then why did she JUST ask where Fran was? Continuity, Pike.

Tony asks if Alison's talked to Fran and she says she just talked to her the night before. There's a pay phone nearby (convenient) and Tony hands Alison some change and asks her to call again. When Alison comes back, she reports that Fran has been missing since that morning.

The next chapter treats us to a 3 page Alison dream sequence which is pointless and irritating. The phone blessedly ends it. Tony is calling Alison at 3 in the morning to ask her to come to Kipp's house. When she gets there, there are police cars everywhere. Neil approaches her car and waits with her but doesn't tell her what's going on. Instead they talk about nightmares and dreams. Tony shows up and tells her that Kipp is missing and there's a lot of blood left behind. Tony and Neil had been the last to see him, so the police called them over to give an account of things.

Tony hands her a note and says he found it on his car seat when he got in to drive to Kipp's.

“If you are not certain they are dead, do what you know you shouldn't, and be certain.

Your Caretaker.”

I have no idea what that means and I hope Pike plans to explain it to us at some point.  {{Note from future me: he totally doesn't.}}

Brenda receives the letter next. Kipp and Fran's names are missing. Her coded assignment in the times translates to “Tell Every Teacher School Go To Hell.” She's determined she might as well enjoy doing it, so she starts with a teacher she hates. The first teacher doesn't understand her and the second teacher just tells her to go to hell back. The third teacher gets upset but Brenda gets the better of her. Unfortunately, the fourth teacher she picks is the football coach and he marches her smart mouthed ass right down to the principal's office.

Neil is assigned to burn down the school. Well, that escalated quickly. Dayum.

We're residing in Tony's head again. He and Neil are sitting in Tony's room. Neil isn't going to burn the school down, of course. Tony wants to do it for him but Neil won't let him. He asks if he can have one of Tony's dad's guns. Tony hands one over and tells Neil how to use it. Neil seems pretty sure that he's going to be dead soon. He asks Tony to do two last things for him but we don't get to hear the requests.

The next chapter opens with Neil's funeral. His house burned to the ground and a skeleton was found in his bed wearing Neil's ring.

Oh, Pike. Learn how fire works. Clearly the skeleton is the body of the man they buried and not Neal because....Science.

Neil's mother pulls Tony and Alison aside and reveals......................

Fucking hell.

SURPRISE!! Neil had cancer that spread from his knee to his brain.

Pike. You are a punk and this was the punk way out. I will never again say you're the best of the lot.

After they are alone again, Tony tells Alison that Neil had been in love with her. The news devastates her. He hands her Neil's burned ring. He says Neil asked him to do two things if the Caretaker got to him. One was to give Alison the ring and the other was something Tony can't mention and was unable to do. Alison asks why Neil hadn't given the ring to Tony when he made the request and Tony says that Neil wanted to have it cleaned first.

Bullshit.

Neil wanted the man's body identified as Neil, so he needed the ring to force an identification. Which would never fucking happen. They'd match dental records or something, Pike, you idiot. They wouldn't just say “Oh, he's wearing a ring that looks like a ring Neil had. It must be him. Let's bury him.”

Alison asks if Neil's mom was okay with her having a family heirloom and Tony replies that Neil's mom didn't even recognize the ring. Which means THE BODY SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED BY IT.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Alison is confused because she remembers Neil saying it was a family ring.

Joan's assignment is to tell everyone she's gay. She refuses. Eight days pass without punishment.

Alison's parents leave for their business trip and Alison is home alone on a dark and stormy night. She tries calling Tony but can't reach him. Joan and Brenda are supposed to come over and spend the night but they never show. The lights keep going off and on and the phone rings but no one is on the other side. Pike has really checked off all the PH requirements in one fell swoop. {{rolls eyes}}

Alison is spooked and goes into the attached garage to fetch her father's shotgun. While in there, she hears a knock at the front door and assumes Brenda and Joan have finally shown up. There's no one there when she goes to check, though. Someone knocks on the back door and she doesn't even go to look this time. She knows that no one with good intentions shows up at the back door in the dark on a stormy night. She's smarter than most of our protagonists.

The phone rings and again no one answers her greeting. She decides to call the security booth and for some reason the name of the drunken guard is now Harvey instead of Harry.

Continuity, Pike.

Sigh.

The security guard doesn't answer. Alison decides to call the police but the line is cut just as the dispatcher answers. Then the lights go out again and stay out.

It's final showdown time, y'all.

Alison hears something begin to batter the back door and she thinks the Caretaker is hacking at it with an axe. She decides to quietly grab her keys and head out the front door so she can get in her car and avoid this final showdown all together. The front knob has been jammed, though, and she can't turn it to get out. Using the gun, she breaks the glass panels in the door and tries to figure out what's obstructing the knob by reaching her arm through the remnants of the glass. Just as she does, the Caretaker grabs her arm from the outside and a tug of war erupts. Alison's blood works to her advantage and the Caretaker loses his grip just enough for her to get away.

She's on the verge of passing out from fear and blood loss, so she decides to retreat to her room with the gun and rest a bit before the next stage of the showdown. She hears him coming up the stairs and then suddenly comes to the conclusion that the Caretaker is Joan. Because.....reasons. She yells that she knows it's Joan and she has a gun, but the Caretaker doesn't slow his ascent. Alison fires the gun and the kickback dazes her for a bit. When she recovers, she goes to the door and opens it to find nothing. The Caretaker was not hit.

The phone rings and the Caretaker tells her that he has her last assignment and she needs to meet him to get it.

Um.

Wait.

How the hell did the phone ring when the line was cut?

CONTINUITY, Pike. For fucks sake.

The house is empty so Alison retrieves her purse and heads for her car. She's feeling smug about the Caretaker making a mistake and leaving her a way out but then she realizes her car has been disabled and the Caretaker is a step ahead again. She's standing in the rain with the shotgun trying to figure out what to do when she hears the sound of music coming from one of the houses. Hoping to find some help, she takes off running toward the sound. The idea that she's running toward a trap never occurs to her.

So....not so smart after all.

She reaches the house and can see lights and hear voices as well as the music. She's giddy with relief. She doesn't want to burst into a party holding a shotgun so she leaves it propped outside. When she opens the door, she realizes she's been tricked. There is no party. The sound stops and the lights go out. She feels an arm go around her neck. A struggle ensues and Alison gives as good as she gets. She bloodies the Caretaker's nose and inflicts some other pain and damage. When the Caretaker loses his grip on her, she runs for the front door and the gun. She grabs it and turns to shoot.

Neil steps into her field of vision.

Called it.

It's always the limper.

I hope Pike intends to tell us how he became strong enough to grapple with Alison when he's been described as weak and at death's door.  {{Note from future me: he totally doesn't.}}

She's shocked to see him for a moment and then tells herself it doesn't matter and she pulls the trigger. He anticipates it, though, and slams the door in her face. The gun is forced upwards and the shot goes into the sky. Alison turns to run, slips and knocks herself out on a brick planter.

So close.

So very close.

We're with Tony now. He's in the desert digging up the grave where they buried the man. It's empty except for the crucifix that Neil had put around the man's neck. Tony knows about the switcheroo now. He knew before he got to the grave but he needed to prove it to himself. He'd examined Fran's coded assignment and did the decoding from the end instead of the beginning.

“Go To Police Please Tony Or I Will Die Yours Neil Hurly”

Alison comes to in a room filled with other people. Everyone but Neil and Tony are present and they're all bound with two sets of interlocking handcuffs around their wrists and ankles. Alison asks where they are and Kipp tells her they're in an abandoned house not far from hers. He asks her if she wants to hear their stories. She tells him just to give her the highlights because her head hurts.

Fran was at her grandmother's house when Neil appeared and asked her to go for a walk. He offered her a codeine-laced soda and she woke up in the back of a van. Kipp was dosed when Tony and Neil were at his house. He woke up in the house with Fran. Joan and Brenda were flagged down on the way to Alison's. Seeing Neil back from the dead was almost as surprising as the gun he pulled on them.

Kipp toes Pike's party line by saying that Neil can't be held responsible. He doesn't know what he's doing. The disease has taken over his brain. You punked this one out, Pike. Sigh.

Neil comes in and tells them that Tony is dead. He's killed himself. Alison is horrified but she keeps her head and tries to talk to Neil. He says the man is making him do this. The man was innocent and he would have been Neil's friend if he'd lived but they ruined everything. Now they all have to go back to where it started. He pulls out a needle and some vial of medication and Alison knows that he intends to drug them all to make them easier to transport. He has a gun tucked in his belt and when he kneels beside her, she tries to angle herself so she can grab it.

She manages to get the gun and she points it at him. She tells him she won't miss a third time and she wants the keys to the handcuffs. Neil is unconcerned. He begins to prepare Alison for her injection by sterilizing her leg and filling the needle. She wants to shoot him but she can't. She knows he has terminal cancer and he's already been “buried” and mourned but she still can't do it. She tells him she'll give him the gun if it will prove to him that she's his friend. He nods. She gives him the gun and then he injects her.

We hop into Tony's head. He's driving back from the grave site, trying to decide what to do. He thinks about going to tell Neil's mother that her son is alive but he doesn't know how to explain the Caretaker to her. In the end, he decides to drive to Alison's instead. He's worried about her and he wants to bring her back into town where she'll be safe.

As he turns into the development, he notices a house that has lights on and he thinks maybe someone else moved in. Alison's house is empty and there are signs of a great struggle inside. Broken glass, splintered wood, blood everywhere. He tries the phone and finds it's dead again because Pike can't remember his own fucking story line. He's terrified that he's too late. Then he remembers the house he passed with the lights on and he hurries that way.

We learn now that we've gone back in time a little. As Tony enters the house and climbs the stairs to the second floor he can hear the whole thing where Alison distracted Neil and grabbed the gun. Just as Neil injects Alison, Tony kicks in the door. Alison receives half a dose tops. Neil reacts by grabbing her and dragging her further away from Tony. He pulls out a switchblade and holds it against Alison's neck.

Tony tries to get Neil to let Alison go but Neil isn't interested in that kind of ending. He spews a little hatred about how the rest of them led such charmed lives while his sucked. Tony kneels next to Fran and unlocks her with the keys he apparently found downstairs. CONVENIENTLY. He tells Fran to go get Alison because Fran is the one person who has never hurt Neil in any way and Tony's sure Neil won't hurt her now.

It's a rather stupid gamble, but in the end it proves true. Neil recognizes Fran as a person who has never had anything but pure intentions toward him and he allows Fran to take off Alison's cuffs. He pushes the girls away and the mood turns away from murder and toward suicide. Neil wants to end it now but Tony and Alison convince him not to. He tells them that he couldn't help himself because the disease got in his brain. Then he begs Tony to take him away. Tony lifts him up and carries him out.

Now we get an Epilogue. Tony and Alison are hanging out at her place. Alison takes us through how Kipp helped her repair all the damage done to her house by her heroic fight for life. Tony tells us how Fran and Kipp explained their disappearances to the police. Fran claimed to be kidnapped by a deaf man who brought her to an isolated cabin and forced her to draw dirty pictures of him all day. Kipp claimed to be kidnapped by three beautiful women who just drove him around in the back of a van for two weeks.  The police believed Kipp because apparently they've had reports like that before.  

Tony's been with Neil for a week or more. He rented a cabin by the lake and told his parents that he needed some space to deal with things. They were apparently okay with this despite the fact he missed his graduation. I don't really buy that, but whatever. Neil died peacefully in the end. Now that everything is over, Tony asks her if she remembers that Neil asked him for two favors before he faked his death. One was the ring. The other was to bury him beside the man. Of course, Tony couldn't accomplish the second thing at the time. Before Neil died for real, he asked Tony to take him and bury him IN the grave where the man had been. Tony presumably did so.

Alison tells him that he lost his best friend and she lost her greatest admirer. She doesn't think she could ever take Neil's place as Tony's best friend, but she asks Tony if he could take Neil's place as her admirer. He tells her he'll try and the book ends.

Final Thoughts:  Wow, Pike struggled through this book.  He telegraphed his every move WAY too obviously and had some serious continuity errors.  Blaming everything on a brain tumor is such a punk move.  It's every bit as bad as blaming it on "crazy".  Make a villain and OWN him.  It's your job.  Do your job.  I think the story had some good points and I liked Alison and Tony except for the drunk driving part.  They seemed like real people that I probably knew in high school.  I'd still rather read a Pike than a Cooney or a Hoh but it's not as big of a margin as it used to be.