Happy Halloween! Time to wrap up this year’s Goosebumps! Last chance for any wild predictions how this book ends.
Previously, innocent human children Erin and Marty have gone through an absolute gauntlet of horrors designed by Erin’s dad, ranging from giant bugs to werewolves in catsuits to ghost trains. Most recently, shit got psychological as a director came out to tell them it was all fake, but then he turned out to just be a robot. Yeah, shit’s getting deep in this year’s Goosebumps, you guys. What is reality? How can you know what’s real? Why does Erin’s dad have such a huge budget?
But First, Let Me Take You To Back To Somewhere In The Kansas City Metropolitan Area In The Mid 90s
A young boy is scared shitless. His dad had just finished reading a Goosebumps book out loud to him. In a somewhat bored voice, the dad answers the young boy’s question, explaining that, yes, that’s really how the book ended, and then begins to explain the concept of a plot twist. The young boy is confused, but not as confused as he is deeply disturbed by the absolute mindfuck this children’s book has just unleashed on his developing mind.
Here’s another plot twist: that young boy… was me!
A Shocker on Shock Street: Chapter 26
Erin bravely runs after Marty, who just walked into Shockro’s House of Shocks without realizing the director who pointed them in that direction was secretly a robot. Let’s take a minute to appreciate the actual character growth in this year’s Goosebumps, because it’s actually… effective? Erin is braver! Marty has begun his journey grappling with the expectations of the social construct of masculinity and is putting on less of an act that he’s not scared of anything all the time! I am possibly reading too much into the latter one! Regardless, let us appreciate this rare inclusion of character development, because this is still Goosebumps, and none of this will matter soon.
Also, if anyone in our readership happens to be, like, a professional choreographer or an engineer or something, could you please explain where everyone is supposed to be here:
My bare feet pounded the hard pavement. I plunged up the path as Marty trotted into the doorway.
“Stop!”
I flew to the doorway. Reached out both hands. Made a wild dive to tackle him.
And missed.
I skidded across the walk on my stomach.
As soon as Marty entered the house, I saw the flash of white light. I heard a loud buzz. Then the sharp crackle of electricity.
I reread this four times and my best guess is that when Erin says she “missed”, more accurately she just dove way too early and didn’t even land close to where Marty was initially standing.
Erin runs into the house to help, not caring if she would get shocked too. She shakes Marty, but he doesn’t open his eyes.
I suddenly felt a chill. A dark shadow slid over me.
And I realized I wasn’t alone in the house.
Chapter 27
Was it Shockro? Some other scary creature?
A tall figure leaned over me. I squinted into the darkness, struggling to see his face.
“Dad!” I cried as he came into focus.
OH FUCK. THE SCARIEST CREATURE OF ALL. GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE, ERIN.
Dad leaned closer. Behind his eyeglasses, his brown eyes were cold. His face set in a troubled frown. […] And as his face came into the soft light, I saw that he wasn’t my father!
Oh, fuck off, Erin. It’s all “Marty is dead! Never mind, it’s just dark.” and “It’s my dad! Never mind, it’s not my dad.” with you. Learn what things are.
“Who are you?” I shrieked. “You’re not my dad! Why aren’t you helping me?
Why aren’t you helping Marty? Do something—please! Where’s my dad? Where is he? Who are you? Help me! Somebody? Help me AAAAAARRRRRRRRR. Help MRRRRRRRRRRRR. Dad—MARRRRRRRRRRRRRR. DRRRMMMMMMMMmmmmm.”
Uh oh.
Chapter 28
Mr. Wright stood staring down at Erin and Marty. He shook his head unhappily. He shut his eyes and let out a long sigh.
Jared Curtis, one of the studio engineers, came running into The House of Shocks. “Mr. Wright, what happened to your two kid robots?” he demanded.
Mr. Wright sighed again. “Programming problems,” he muttered.
He pointed to the Erin robot, frozen in place on her knees beside the Marty robot. “I had to shut the girl off. Her memory chip must be bad. The Erin robot was supposed to think of me as her father. But just now, she didn’t recognize me.”
So. OTHER Goosebumps books have spooky plot twist endings like, “Oh no! The evil camera has been used again!” Or, “Oh no! We’ve been turned into pigs!” Or even, “Oh no! The evil theme park (different from this evil theme park) gave us free tickets to come back next year!” But this fucking book? Nuh uh. This fucking children’s book’s spooky plot twist ending is “Oh no! What if your life is a lie because you’re not real?“
I really cannot stress this enough. This particular entry in a horror-lite children’s book series ends with, “Hey, wanna hear something spooky? What if your memories are all fake and you only exist because a business needed to test an amusement park?”
Now, sure, other Goosebumps books dabbled in psychological horror. The very first one’s twist was “Oh no! A plant is claiming to be my real dad! Again!” That’s some scary shit! Not all of these books end with “Oh no! A potato is going to eat me!” or whatever. But this motherfucking book takes it way further. This isn’t “what if you can’t trust other people?” This is “what if I can’t trust myself?”
“Hey, Mr. Wright, it was a great idea to make robot kids to test the park. I think we can fix them.”
It’s even rather well done for the usual Goosebumps standards? This twist doesn’t come out of nowhere – this shit was carefully set up. Remember the other robot that convincingly passed as a human? Remember the time Erin asked about her mom and Mr. Wright paused, scared, thinking “what the hell?”
“I should have known there was a problem yesterday,” Mr. Wright said. “We were in my office. The Erin robot asked about her mother. I built her. She doesn’t have a mother.”
Mr. Wright tossed up his hands. “Oh, well. No problem. We’ll reprogram these two. Put in new chips. They’ll be good as new in no time. Then we’ll try them out once again on the Shocker Studio Tour, before we open the park to real kids.”
“Does existential horror exist if your memories don’t?” ponders this children’s book.
He took the Marty robot from Jared and slung it over his shoulder. Then he picked up the Erin robot. He tossed it over his other shoulder. Then, humming to himself, he carried them to the engineering building.
Thank you for reading Goosebumps with us this year! Or did you?