#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.

#0063: Tick Tock, You're Dead!

Now that winter has finally passed here in the southern hemisphere, the weather has begun to turn, and the chilly dismal days are becoming warmer. As such, it is now a requirement that I give myself goosebumps.

This is (obviously) the second book in the series. The kid in the dapper button-up shirt dangling in terror from the clock face is us. The sinister grimacing maw is the enemy. The title represents the precarious flow of time which is to be the epicentre of our story. It probably also severely crippled sales of Arnott's Tic Toc biscuits for a short period of time. It could also potentially be a dire foretelling of the incredibly shitty premier of Kesha fourteen years later. You might think this concept ludicrous, until you delve deeper into the time travelling nature of this tale...

The setting is the Museum of Natural History. I'm on vacation with my family in New York City (kids reading this who actually live in NYC are left to assume this vacation was on a remarkably tight travelling budget), and frankly, it's shithouse.

I figured I'd be checking out the Statue of Liberty, kicking it on Broadway, and getting stabbed in Hotel Carter, but unfortunately, I've been dragged around museums the whole time. If this were an accurate recreation of the Museum of Natural History, I'd find myself accidentally heading towards the exit on multiple occasions, because the layout is frankly infuriating.

This is experience talking.

And worst of all, I'm left in charge of looking after my stupid little red-head brother, Denny. I guess the emphasis on his having red hair may later become a plot point, but for now, let's just assume it's supposed to make us hate him more.

The little fucker runs off, and bolts into a room with a sign that warns of dangerous experiments being conducted inside. The scientist, Dr. Peebles, assumes I'm the volunteer for his time travelling experiment. He doesn't ask why a prepubescent child is the guinea pig, he just wants results, dammit.

He gives me a magical stopwatch, and is about to make the final settings on the time travelling machine, but before he can finish, Denny charges into the device. I try and stop him, but he snarls that 'You're not the boss of me!', and in he goes. In all honesty, I didn't try very hard to stop him. I don't really care if he gets lost in time, hopefully he'll end up in the time when he's not a dick.

Maybe in the future he'll be somebody?

I've got two hours to save him. Two hours to travel through all time and space. Excellent. I like those odds.

I decide to head to the past, mostly so that if I find him, I can tell him that we have to go 'back to the future'. That'd be great. I step into the Chronoport, and then must choose whether to go into the time of knights and castles, or dinosaurs. In the end, I figure, I've already been to England, it's probably going to be pretty much the same, so let's check out some dinosaurs and shit.

No sooner do I arrive, when I'm confronted by a tyrannosaurus rex. Needless to say, that's horribly unlucky. After it decapitates a nearby dinosaur like Johnny Cage (it even puts on the sunglasses and crosses its arms defiantly), it begins to head my way. I run as fast as my little legs will carry me, when, in a swamp, I encounter an even more horrific monster - Denny.

Apparently he's stuck in quicksand. In the process of yanking him from the muck, the stopwatch that holds the key to returning to the present and not dying several million years before my birth, falls into the scuz.

We do a little bit of evasive manoeuvring (accompanied by Yakety Sax) and lose the t-rex, before heading back to search for the crucial timepiece. A volcano goes off, which is no biggie, because we're able to find it and jump in time.

Unfortunately, we're still in the era of dinosaurs. Crikey, weren't they only around for like, 30 years? Tops? Denny thinks 'no more o' this shit', snatches the stopwatch and skips ahead in time, meaning that I can't stick around and watch some eggs hatch. Which sucks, because I really wanted to pretend I was Richard Attenborough, and coo words of encouragement.

It seems that we've arrived in a futuristic city. Winged cars whiz through the sky, the buildings are made of shiny metal, and all around town, they're doing this new dance called the Charleston.

I'm keen to explore further, but I'm immediately arrested by an angry robot, which seems eerily reminiscent of encounters with customs at JFK. I guess I only travelled as far into the future as 2012?

The robot judge (in association with the robot devil) sentences me to either school or the zoo. I consider my options closely... what will my role in the zoo be, exactly? Will I be an exhibit, left before the leering eyes of all robot kind? Or will I be relegated to the role of zookeeper? Will the animals talk to me, like in the Kevin James movie of the same name? Will they show me the light? Will they advise I throw poop at them, because that always works?

Too many questions, too little time. I opt for school, because school is COOL.

In the classroom, the robotic teacher quizzes the human children with impossibly hard questions.

What is the capital of Ulan Bator?
What is 43,000,000 divided by 7.645328?
What is your favourite colour?

One by one, the students fail to correctly answer, and they're put into a metallic box called the frammilizer that seems to make them disappear. 'Frammilized', as the book so aptly puts.

When it's my turn, the teacher asks a question that fills me with bemusement. It's about an ancient wizard Morgred, who used three magical objects to travel in time. My heart sinks, just like it had when I was standing atop the Doom Slide. Another Goosebumps question? What the fuck, man! Has literature diminished so much in the future that R.L. Stine books are considered historically significant?

I stand there, tapping my foot and tilting my head slightly. Were they three white stones? Or a pin, a pipe, and a potato? The stones sounds less ludicrous, but shit, that'd be fun, wouldn't it? Travelling through time with the power of a potato? I guess, if I'm going to die anyway, it may as well be the result of having given the stupidest answer possible.

"A pin, a pipe, and a potato!" I blurt, puffing my chest proudly and shooting a fist to the air. There's a hushed whisper among the students around me, and the teacher considers my answer for a moment, whirring quietly. Either I was right, or I had said something so unorthodox that it took time to process. Or maybe the teacher was having a network error. That would be a winning scenario, too.

...Tragically, Morgred the wizard did not use three random objects that happened to be lying around the house to travel through time. I go down in history as having given, in technical terms, the worst fucking answer of all time. I shrug, strutting towards the lethal box and offering my hand for a high five with the other students as I pass by them. None of them take me up on it.

I climb into the frammilizer, and mysteriously tap my head a few times, as if to say 'I know something'. In the end, the gesture meant nothing, I was just trying to look clever. I die a horrible death of frammilization. On the plus side, my final words are both pensive and meaningful.

"OH SHIT!!"

Final result: 21 pages.

#0053: Escape From the Carnival of Horrors

Book reviews are something of an oddity here on this blog, because the focus of each entry primarily revolves around my (rarely) hilarious and (hardly) witty observations on the abnormalities of each of my toys from yesteryear. The thing about books, you see, is that it’s all right there in writing, quite literally.

Then, you throw an extra monkey wrench into the works when you add the ‘choose your own adventure’ element. As a kid, I loved these things, just absolutely loved them. The concept that, through your own decision-making, you could influence the progress of the story, was a revolution like no other.

Of course, either to help up the ante, or because I was a sick fuck who liked the concept of being beheaded on occasion, I preferred the ones that had a horrific element to them. For you see, the stakes should be high; if you choose unwisely, you will die a horrible death! …And if you were anything like me, you would return to the previous page and choose the alternative route!

Perhaps it defeated the purpose, but I felt some odd sense of accomplishment as I progressed deeper into the plotline, and I needed to press on as far as possible. Also, I historically made a lot of really stupid decisions in the early stages of the book, and would frequently die within five pages. I was like the Kenny McCormick of the gamebook world.

Also, did you know that there are erotic gamebooks out there? A choose your own adventure of intercourse? Apparently so, according to Wikipedia. I wonder how that would work, exactly?

Do you have sex with Jennifer? Turn to page 96.
Do you have sex with Amy? Turn to page 50.

Page 50: Amy is a prostitute. You get gonorrhea. GAME OVER.

If you read both pages at once, it’s kinda like having a threesome.

…

…

…Right. So my gamebook series of choice was the significantly less sexy Give Yourself Goosebumps. R.L. Stine was basically required reading of any literate kid in the 90s, and though I didn’t really get into the primary Goosebumps books, I made it my duty, nay, my very cause to amass as many of the GYGs as I could. And, to my credit, I did admirably, collecting all but two of them. If two out of three ain’t bad, forty-eight out of fifty must be downright okay.

It puts a mild strain on my heart to part with the very first of the series, a book I remember receiving from book club all those years ago, but a new generation must be blessed. The children of today need to know about how they’re going to get eaten by a swamp monster or turned into a human volleyball or forever condemned to bounce on a trampoline.

The children of today must Escape from the Carnival of Horrors, known to some as Fenway Park.

The premise? Late one night you decide to join your friends Brad and Patty to check out the fairgrounds as they’re being set up for the annual carnival. Brad is a sulky loser. In my mind, Patty is Patti Mayonnaise from Doug.

This year, they’re going for a macabre look; creepy and dangerous, like the east side of the French District. The carnival manager, Big Al, invites you in to test out some of the rides. Me personally, I’d decline this offer: riding roller coasters under construction in the dead of night? Come on, how stupid could you be? But you, as the protagonist dubbed ‘you’, decide otherwise.

I haven’t read this book since about the dawning of the new millennium (sounds like a really long time when you phrase it that way), so I don’t really remember which paths to take. Follow me as I delve deep into the eerie world of a pretty, shiny book!

It begins with Patty demanding we go to Bennet’s Field, and I warily reply that I have a nine o’clock curfew. Brad calls me a pussy, and I ask him what does he expect from a mid-20s guy who apparently lives with his mom.

When we arrive, Patty decides we should jump the fence. I attempt to avoid entering the fairgrounds and go home instead, but unfortunately, the book forces me onward. Holy shit, R.L. Stine introduced me to peer pressure. What a revelation!

Despite the curious way all of the rides spring to life upon our arrival, we do what all mischievous kids would do: fiddle with shit. And possibly spray paint ‘lush’ on one of the walls. Our fun is cut short when we happen upon Big (Gay?) Al, a man with ‘coal-black eyes and a thick mustache to match’. He questions our presence, looking like he’s about to give us the business, but then decides that we should stick around and check some shit out. Yeah, he’s potentially evil, but it’s just as likely he’s just bored and can’t be fucked ejecting us.

Shall I try out the rides? Or head over to the midway to investigate the freak show? I’m gonna go with the rides. Those freaks are employees like everyone else, and probably don’t appreciate late-night intruders prodding them for shits and giggles. Plus, that Tod Browning movie from the 1930s indicated that freaks are best not messed with.

We climb aboard the Space Coaster, an astronaut-themed ride that I can’t help but associate with Futurama’s moon theme park. That’s the second Billy West-related reference in only eight paragraphs. Clearly, I need to get away from the television for a little bit. The ride flips around at a break-neck pace before taking us through a darkened tunnel. Then it stops. And maintenance takes twenty minutes to fix it. Ugh, what a buzz kill.

Actually, Brad and Patty’s sections of the ride appear to have detached, leaving me all by my lonesome. I would break out my 3DS, but this is 1995 and I didn’t even own a Game Boy at the time. Overtaken by boredom, I hop out of the car. I amble towards a dimly lit tunnel with shit dripping from the ceiling, and get molested by a dwarf with scraggly red hair and a toothless smile.

He offers to lead me out of here, but I’m hesitant. As the book says, ‘Is he part of the ride? He looks really evil.’

However, I just can’t resist that grin. He seems like a nice fella, I’m gonna follow that strange little man to the ends of the earth! He takes me to a pair of doors. One is red, and has a sign that says ‘DANGER’. The other is blue, and is signed as ‘BIG DANGER’. I choose the blue one, because it makes me think of Sonic the Hedgehog, and that puts me at ease. It leads to something called the ‘Doom Slide’, which I assume is the preferred method of commute for Victor von Doom.

After climbing a long steel ramp, I’m standing atop the Doom Slide. Which is a misnomer, because there’s ten of the damned things, which would suggest pluralizing is necessary. But enough about grammar. It seems somehow familiar, and then it dawns upon me; ‘It was in a GOOSEBUMPS book that you read!’.

If I choose the wrong slide, I’ll be left to plummet for all eternity. And this is unfortunate, because despite what my fictional self claims, I never read the damned Goosebumps book in question, leaving me with a significant chance of choosing the Doom Slide. I don’t want to slide forever! I’m not even particularly fond of sliding for five minutes.

In the end, I choose slide 4, because it feels lucky!

And it is. As it so happens, I did not end up on the Doom Slide. Instead, I land headfirst in the grass. Ouch. Should have chosen the Doom Slide.

Finally, I’m reunited with Brad and Patty. Patty advises that we should squeeze through a barbed-wire fence guarded by security to escape. And after following strange dwarves and being threatened by excessive slides, this sounds par for the course. After fleeing from a giant snake and subduing an alligator by showing it affection, we bump into Big Al.

That prick! His silly carnival could have caused us grievous harm! I’ll sue, dammit! But first, I’ll obediently follow him to ‘The Final Challenge’. Because I’m really bloody tired.

We enter a tent. The people come in droves, chanting ‘FI-NAL, F-INAL’, ‘SUD-DEN DEATH, SUD-DEN DEATH’ and ‘WE LIKE ROY, WE LIKE ROY’.

I’m fitted with some snazzy studded sneakers and a metallic helmet, and then pulled over by the force of a giant magnetic wheel. It spins and spins, and puts me onto a page of my choosing. I select page 124, because like slide 4, it feels lucky!

And it isn’t. I pass out, and wake up between Brad and Patty, forevermore attached as the Amazing Siamese Triplets. Well, shit. That was unfortunate. I could have been killed by an alligator, or been fairly bored on a slide until the end of time, but instead, I’m now stuck to two really annoying people.

I told you, man… those freaks will get you every time!

Final result: 28 pages.