#0093: Trapped in Bat Wing Hall

I may not look it, but I'm actually a very hardy young man. I've survived being forcibly conjoined, painfully frammilized, and subjected to Gwyneth Paltrow's acting. Despite all of these mishaps, I've still come out swinging. Not my fists, mind you, but atop a wrecking ball, stark naked. It wasn't as sexy as I expected, and rather cold, to boot.

But perhaps my luck(?) has come to an end, because evidently, I now find myself Trapped in Bat Wing Hall. Good gracious, Ignatius! How did that happen? Did I misplace the key? Has Bruce Wayne taken me hostage? Do I have a third gag to complete this tired analogy (no, I do not)?

Indeed, we return to the mayhem and the maiming - I wanted to say maimhem, but it sounds vaguely Yiddish and I didn't want to offend - of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books with the third entry in the venerable series. Oddly, every single book so far has appeared on this blog on a number ending with 3, and I swear to you that it wasn't intentional. Partly because I lack the self-restraint to implement such a practice, but mostly because that is a really fucking random tradition.

Some of the GYGs got more runtime under my eyeballs than others, and Bat Wing Hall falls under the 'I can't remember a goddamned thing' classification. Whether it failed to impress, or if I was just swamped with Goosebumps titles at the time, I can't quite decide. Going in blind ought to be a double-edged sword, then, potentially thrilling but most likely disjointed and ending in my swift demise.

A quick scan of the back cover reveals that I'm the new kid in school, and tragically, I haven't a friend in the world. That is, until I meet up with Nick, a member of the Horror Club. I swear to god, if this leads to another meta R.L. Stine reference, I am flinging this thing out the fucking window.

Anyhow, my first encounter with Nick is of a dubious nature, as it seems to imply that he captures my attention by tossing a pebble that hits me in the back. Afterwards, we have a pleasant discussion about our hobbies and living arrangements, before he invites me to Bat Wing Hall to join his club.

I'm crying foul early. Why did you throw a rock at me, Nick? Do you not know how fucking dangerous that is? What if I turned around unexpectedly? You could have taken my eye out. I may have fallen victim to an unfortunate ricochet, and lost two eyes. Moreover, I'm a drunken thirty year old man and yet I'm still in high school, there is clearly something wrong with me - get the fuck away from me, Nick.

Bat Wing Hall is the eerie mansion at the end of the street. It's possibly haunted, or at very least loaded with asbestos, but I decide to screw my courage to the sticking place (I have no idea what that phrase means, so I assume I screwed my courage up my ass) and accept his offer. I have suspicions that turning him down would result in an early game over. Maybe he would just straight up shank me for my refusal, like the time I decided against becoming a Mormon.

I meet up with Nick at nine o'clock, and he introduces me to a skinny, fidgety girl named Debbie, who has messy, long dark hair and always seems to be squirming about. She sounds like a Japanese ghost. She also receives far too many adjectives for my taste.

The three of us make our way to Bat Wing Hall. It's a huge, dilapidated building with broken windows and menacing trees with gnarled branches. The previous owner, Professor Krupnik, died two years ago, leaving it to fall into a state of disrepair. It was completely abandoned until Nick and his cronies pried the boards off the front door like the thugs they are.

Inside, we encounter the other members of the Horror Club. Among them are a shrill girl with short, curly hair named Marcie and a large boy with bulging arm muscles. Isn't he, like, twelve or something? He must be eastern European. My arrival is met with disapproval (art imitating life), because tonight's schedule won't be consisting of the usual spooky storytelling. It's game day. And no, that doesn't mean we're taking on the Packers at Lambeau.

An argument ensues. Some of the kids are open to me joining in their reindeer games, while others don't think I'm up to the task. Sick of waiting, I bravely voice my opinion. "Fuck you, you pansy ass bitches, I'm playing your shitty game!" or something to that effect. Debbie tries to warn me at the last moment to flee, but the group finally relent, and allow me to participate.

Apparently we'll be playing a rousing round of The Hunt. They split up into two teams; the red team, consisting of Nick, Debbie and a smelly kid named Connor, and the blue team, made up of Marcie, the roided up kid (who is apparently called Martin, but I'm pretty sure they just misspelled Bogdan) and Lara, a beautiful girl with long blond hair and green eyes.

It's up to me which team I want to join up with. I'm really keen to see how things pan out with Debbie - is she really a ghost? Does she put out? - but ultimately, I opt for the blue team because I always gravitate towards hot blondes. The aim of the game is to scavenge about for the scariest item you can find, like a voodoo doll or an existential crisis. Bogdan demands I scope out the cemetery across the street first, because I'm the new guy.

That seems like both a terrible idea and a really strange place to put a cemetery, but I won't be so easily rattled. I've got my courage screwed up my ass, after all. I make my way there, eyes peeled for some cool shit to steal, and happen upon the KRUPNIK CRYPT. It sounds pretty badass, though it comes with a warning engraved on the door that declares that "WHO TURNS THE STONE WILL GROW BAT BONES".

Such a harrowing message might frighten most, but I'm fortunate enough to be illiterate. I pull open the heavy door and enter, only to find nothing but cobwebs, a bat, and a coffin. Could I just bring back a dead body? I think that would win the contest. When I emerge from the crypt, everyone seems to have bailed out. Ugh, this happens every time I make a quick trip to the cemetery. So lame!

I make my way home, feeling rather ill, and plop into bed. Knowing my luck, I probably contracted tuberculosis while I was dicking around in that graveyard. When I awaken a few hours later, I am horrified/bewildered/vaguely aroused to discover that I have been transformed into a motherfucking bat!

Oh no, not again!

The thoughts rattle around my little bat brain like a castanet. This must have something to do with that stupid warning I had chosen to ignore in the cemetery. At the time I thought it was a little cryptic (badum-tish!) but now I'm fully aware of its severity. Perhaps if I close the door, it'll reverse the spell? Kind of a 'make it that didn't happen' for the world of bat-related curses?

With a few flaps of my wings, I shoot out of the window and into the night sky. Alas, I fly about as well as I drive, crashing into trees and striking several pedestrians, and I end up discombobulated and unsure of my location. Nearby, there is a young couple taking their dog for a walk. I briefly consider asking them for directions, before concluding that, wait no, that's fucking stupid, and try my best to find the cemetery on my own.

It takes a few hours, but as dawn begins to break, I've finally located the crypt. I swoop in (an adjective I so rarely get to use), only for the door to slam shut behind me. Now I'm trapped, and still at least 97% bat. It's pitch black, but with my sonar I'm able to find a crack in the floor with a message engraved that reads "WHO ENTERS HERE WILL BE". Man, whoever constructed this crypt is sure fond of engraving.

Fresh out of options, I descend into the crack. I try to flap my wings as I fall into the void, but they've turned back into arms. Why, I'm a real boy! That would be awful swell, if it didn't mean that I was now plummeting towards my inevitable death.

When I finally hit the bottom, I find myself in a strange swamp. A smell of decay overwhelms me and mournful cries fill the air. The logistics of this are far too bizarre for a man of my simple upbringing, but I'm confident that I would rather not stick around here for longer than absolutely necessary, or at least long enough to take a cute selfie.

I happen upon a sign that points in two directions. One leads to the crypt, while the other is so old and weathered that it has no words left on it at all. It's a moot point, since I can't read, but I like the broad possibilities that lie with the blank option. Maybe it goes where I choose for it to? They always told me I can achieve anything if I just wished hard enough.

After a few short steps and an ill-advised game of hopscotch, I hear footsteps behind me. They're big, heavy and terrifying, and odds are they don't belong to someone nice like the king of the wild things or Robert Wadlow. I scurry into a cave marked as the MONSTER LIBRARY to make my escape. Hopefully security can escort this villain out for being too noisy.

Before I can lose my pursuer or at least check out a copy of Where's Waldo, a bony hand lands on my shoulder, and I'm face to face to face with a hideous two headed beast. It stares me down and demands to know where my library card is (no, for real), before warning me that there's only one way back to the crypt. Before it can tell me, it politely asks if I'll join it on a tour of the monster library.

Considering that I was recently transformed into a bat, going on a tour of a monster library guided by a two headed ghoul sounds comparatively normal. Sure, I'll play ball. The books are your standard spooky fare: monster cookbook, monster travel book, monster encyclopedia, monster at the end of this book...

After a little while, I ask the monster if it can please show me to the exit. It says that it will, on the condition that I first read it a story. All of the stories. In the whole library. Otherwise it'll eat me. It's at this point that it dawns on me that I'm probably going to be stuck here for the rest of eternity.

...Also, if we're going with the running gag here, I can't actually read in the first place. Uh-oh...

Final result: 27 pages.