Fear Street #3: The Overnight

I’m reading every Fear Street novel from my childhood and summarizing them here. Instead of subjecting you to all of the teen angst and bad decision making that turns Shadyside into the #1 place to be if you want to be murdered, I’ve taken on the burden.

Who am I kidding? I love trash horror. Enjoy the spoilers.

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Of all the books I’ve read in the Fear Street series, which admittedly is both too many yet not enough, The Overnight might be the most straightforward one. There’s no real mystery, no threatening phone calls from a mysterious source, and no  teenagers go on a weirdly murderous rampage to solve otherwise mundane problems.

Della O’Conner is our “protagonist.” She’s one of those teens that thinks the cycle of breaking and making up with her boyfriend is some kind of foreplay. The lucky guy is Gary, and they both have the personalities of turnips. They’re members of the Outdoors Club, around which our drama revolves.

Other members include the very punk rock Suki Thomas, who is very up for stopping the fun and games between Della and Gary. Maia is the very overprotected friend with the requisite strict parents. There’s the preppy Pete, who also wants to end the shenanigans between the unhappy main couple by hooking up with Della; Ricky Schorr breaks up the monotony by having the sole trait of cracking bad jokes for 99% of his dialogue in the book. Because of this terrible habit, everyone is really mean to him, because Shadysiders are way more interested in picking on the weird kid than identifying possible murderers in their midst. The cast finishes out with some random parents, Mr. Abner (the teacher in charge of the Outdoors Club), and the two strangers who come into play during the overnight.

The story starts with the Outdoors Club meeting about their upcoming overnight trip. After some bad jokes from Ricky and bullying from the other members of the club, there’s some posturing over who gets to date Gary from Suki and Della. Mr. Abner comes in to end all of their fun. He has a family obligation so he can’t chaperone the upcoming overnight trip.

His suggestion to postpone it was vetoed without him present. Maia spent a lot of time convincing her parents to let her go because they appropriately treat her like a teenage girl loose among other teenaged Shadysiders who could be evil ghosts or have an axe stored in their locker. So, the teenagers decide to go on the trip by themselves. Della’s mom thinks the overnight is a bad idea even with Mr. Abner there. But they still go. To Fear Island. Because that ever goes well.

They make it out to the island with minimal distress from Ricky and lots of flirting from Suki (Gary) and Pete (Della). Della gets particularly pissy because Suki crawls up Gary’s ass, and it’s obvious, but guys, they’re on a break.  Ricky is a fan of ZAP, so he brought along some paintball guns. After they set up camp, they play some boys vs girls, and this is where the fun begins.

Della meets this creepy guy in the woods, and first mulls over how handsome he is. Like… a movie star, folx. He starts talking about how everyone is lacking in communication then attacks Della. She pushes him down a ravine; while she’s burying him with leaves, the rest of her rag-tag campers show up and verify that “he’s dead.” Instead of anyone thinking that they should tell their fucking parents, they all get very upset that someone might find out that they took the trip by themselves. Maia worries not one bit about the dead dude, but how she will never again be able to leave her house. Only Ricky has any sense, and in one of his few serious moments, he throws up everywhere. The friends agree to a cover up, and I honestly thought this would transition into a I Know What You Did Last Summer moment.

Instead, they go home and get terrorized for a week by people ding-dong-ditching them and sending threatening notes that include a charm from the dead man’s neklace. Maia is less worried about being murderated than her parents finding out, so they don’t end up going to the police. They do this even after they find out that the guy Della knocked down the hill was probably one of two men who robbed an old man and killed him. I’d say the suggestion of the culprits being ghosts was far-fetched, but they get points for considering a very real threat in Shadyside.

As a side note, Pete spends his time of abject horror also asking out Della. And even though she initially thought he was kind of a square, I guess watching Gary move on has opened her up to the possibility of dating someone whose main quality is being nice while wearing a popped collar. They go out on a date at a club together to seal the deal, and almost get run off the road by a psycho killer, but still no police, right?

Mr. Abner reschedules the real overnight with a chaperone for the next week, and the teenagers are appropriately terrified and provide a bunch of excuses. However, they realize they left one of Ricky’s ZAP guns on the effing corpse, so they agree to go back to retrieve it. Maia has no problem explaining the second overnight trip to her parents, so maybe they’re only strict when it’s convenient to explain plot points.

After a hike, they set up camp (again), and Mr. Abner sends the kids out to gather firewood. Not too far out though, because hanky panky is required on spooky islands. Della tries to get far enough out to retrieve the gun but is interrupted by Maia screaming. Someone knocked out Mr. Abner. Instead of leaving the island to get him help, they go out on an adventure to  find the gun. They find the spot where Della knocked the guy into the ravine and find that he’s not there. She gets attacked and starts to run, finding out both men are still alive.

The men’s entire idea was to blackmail the kids so that their rich parents would pay them. Their robbery was apparently a bust, except for killing that old guy. There’s some back and forth cartoon shenanigans, until Della finally escapes to the campsite. Thankfully, despite no one calling them, the police wait for her there so they can take the burglars into custody. Surprise police are best police? In this one case only?

Then, we finish off with the prerequisite snappy ending. Della is definitely dating Pete and never again wants to go outside. Probably smart, given the town they live in.

Death Count: 0 (2 Fear Street deaths total)

Death Count on Fear Street: 0 (1 total)

Actual Ghosts: 0 (0 total)

Rating: 10/10 for making it easy to write about.