Yep, we’re putting our Trigger Warning reading on pause again. I almost feel bad about it, but there’s something kinda funny to me about how we’re just constantly interrupting this one book that’s just the maddest about liberal millennials. It’s not our fault it’s motherfucking spooky season, Trigger Warning.
And do you know what hallowed, Halloween tradition that means it’s time for over at Bad Books, Good Times? Do you, the reader, feel a certain need to… beware? Perhaps because… you’re in for a scare?
It is time for our annual revisiting of the children’s horror series from the 90s! It is a time for an entirely different kind of shitty book, as we wonder… wow, we were scared by these, how stupid are children? IT IS GOSH DARN GOOSEBUMPS TIME.
Now, usually this is the point where we get you all excited and then offer a poll to pick this year’s spooks, like that scene from Cabin in the Woods (you know the one). We’re not doing that this year. No, it’s not because we hate democracy, Trigger Warning. Silly.
It is because it is time for me to conquer my fears.
Reader, when I was a child, I loved Goosebumps. You might be thinking, “yeah, no shit,” because you read the title of this post and also the parts about how I do this every year. But it is time for me to come clean about my secret shame. You see, I certainly looked the part. I had the expansive collection of Goosebumps books. I know what time the show was on every day. I even dressed up as that stupid gross hamster for Halloween, which I am now realizing I should have put some effort into trying to find photographic evidence of, and will unfortunately have to settle for googling an internet rando’s twitter:
But here’s a real Goosebumps-ass twist for y’all: I never actually read the books.
Except for one.
Because it scared the absolute bejesus out of my six-year-old brain.
But I’m tired of running. I’m tired of putting this book in the poll, wondering if maybe, just maybe, this year will be the year that the public unwittingly makes me re-process this trauma. But I turned 29 last month. I’m sure as shit not carrying this fear into my thirties.
It is time to return to A Shocker on Shock Street.
Goosebumps: A Shocker on Shock Street Chapter 1
“This is creepy, Erin.” My friend Marty grabbed my sleeve.
“Let go!” I whispered. “You’re hurting me!”
Marty didn’t seem to hear. He stared straight ahead into the darkness, gripping my arm.
“Marty, please—” I whispered. I shook my arm free. I was scared, too. But I didn’t want to admit it.
It was darker than the darkest night.
Let’s meet this year’s idiots doomed children. Our narrator, the wimpy Erin. Her best friend, the brave Marty, whom Erin is quick to inform us needs to be brought down a peg.
Even though I was frightened, a smile crossed my face. I liked seeing Marty scared.
I really enjoyed it.
So, to recap: Marty “always brags that he is braver than me”. Erin, however, is cold af for a twelve-year-old. They’re also totally about to die.
I heard crunching sounds on both sides of us. Close behind me, someone coughed. But Marty and I didn’t turn around. We kept our eyes straight ahead.
Waiting. Watching….
As I squinted into the gray light, a fence came into view. […] I had the urge to run. Just turn and run as fast as I could.
But I couldn’t leave Marty there all alone. And besides, if I ran away now, he would never let me forget it. He’d tease me about it forever.
So I stayed beside him, listening as the scraping, clawing sounds turned into banging. Loud crashes.
Was someone trying to break through the fence? […]
Before I could say another word, the fence crumbled to the ground, and the monster came bursting out.
It had a head like a wolf—snapping jaws of gleaming white teeth—and a body like a giant crab. It swung four huge claws in front of it, clicking them at us as its snout pulled open in a throaty growl.
“NOOOOOOO!” Marty and I both let out howls of terror.
We jumped to our feet.
But there was nowhere to run.
Except – and I have to say this every year – this is Goosebumps, where nothing means anything:
Chapter 2
“Please sit down, kids,” a voice called out behind us. “I can’t see the screen.”
“Ssshhhh!” someone else whispered.
Ah, the classic Goosebumps gotcha! It was just a movie the whole time! The monster? Fake! The crunching noises?
I sank low in the seat. I heard crunching sounds all around me. People eating popcorn.
Dumb kids never heard of popcorn before! The coughing noise behind them?
Someone behind me coughed.
Just someone coughing! Wait, what the f-
I wonder if six-year-old me was scared by the constant chapter cliffhanger fake-outs, or if many tiny baby brain was like “wait, so, the fence ‘came into view’ was just the book trying to be super vague about how they were approaching a fence but not actually walking up to it because they were just watching a movie oh my god my brain it hurts“
Marty takes this opportunity to reinforce his one character trait: that he’s a real dick.
“What’s your problem, Erin?” Marty whispered, shaking his head. “It’s only a movie. Why did you scream like that?”
“You screamed too!” I replied sharply.
“I only screamed because you screamed!” he insisted.
And Erin reinforces her probably unintentional character trait of being a stone cold motherfucker.
On the screen, the wolf-crab reached out his big, red claws and grabbed the kid on the trike. SNAP. SNAP. Good-bye, kid.
They sit down and enjoy the rest of the movie. Erin tells us (at decidedly the least convincing time she could do so) that she and Marty love scary movies, and that the Shocker on Shock Street movies are their favorites. We also learn they’re at an advance screening of Shocker on Shock Street VI, which gives us the book’s first real scare in that this is a world where a movie called Shocker on Shock Street was made and then got five sequels.
We also learn in no uncertain terms that they’re not related.
“Hey—look out!” she cried. “You twins should be more careful.”
“We’re not twins!” Marty and I cried in unison.
We’re not even brother and sister. We’re not related in any way. But people always think that Marty and I are twins.
I guess we do look a lot alike. We’re both twelve years old. And we’re both pretty short and kind of chubby. We both have round faces, short black hair, and blue eyes. And we both have little noses that sort of turn up.
But we’re not twins! We’re only friends.
This is so many words to explain that you’re not twins! Was R.L. Stine just going back to this draft after draft like, “Dammit, it’s not clear enough yet that they’re not twins! Does it sound natural if the random lady addresses them as twins? There’s no other way.“
Marty, who is a real dick, tells Erin he wasn’t scared and thought the special effects were actually pretty bad. Which he then follows up with the logical following thought: wondering if the monsters were real.
“Hey—what if they are real?!” Marty exclaimed. “What if it isn’t special effects? What if they’re all real monsters?”
“Don’t be dumb,” I said.
I’m with the scary child here. You’re dumb as shit, Marty.
We turned the corner into another hall.
The wolf-crab stood waiting for me there.
I didn’t even have time to scream.
Don’t forget, this is Goosebumps. It’s never what it seems to be. It’s gonna be way dumber.