The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: The Knife

You know, we've travelled all around Shadyside. From haunted houses to cursed lakes to the cemetery and beyond. So, clearly Shadyside's hospitals have to be pretty bad too, right? Well, that's what we're due to find out. Let's cut to the chase and talk about The Knife. 

This cover is decent. We get pretty much all we need to know about the premise up front. Our protagonist, Laurie being attracted to this handsome doctor. So attracted that she doesn't seem to notice he's got one hand behind his back, readying his scalpel. So really this book should have been called The Scalpel, but I guess that would sell less. Good use of blues and whites for the hospital setting. I will say Laurie's face is a bit off, kind of oddly stretched, but otherwise it does everything it needs to. 

We open with our protagonists, Laurie Masters, opening a forbidden door. Oh, so she's going to AEW then. She ends up being trapped as whoever is chasing after her is trying to explain themselves. Laurie is in a panic, mostly worried where a knife went. We cut (for lack of a more apropos term) back to one week before all of this. Laurie and her friend Skye Keely are working in the Shadyside hospital as student volunteers, both recently assigned to the children's ward. Laurie just being moved there recently as the orthopedic ward was more hectic. I won't even subject you to the horrors of the "Three Stooges Ward". 

Their chatter is interrupted by a woman named Nurse Wilton. She's got a reputation for always being serious and never smiling. Maybe she did see the Three Stooges Ward. As the girls return to work, they see a new wing of the hospital being constructed. The Franklin Fear Wing. Yes, because when I'm going in for surgery or just a quick procedure, I sure feel safe in the FEAR WING. And yes, this is another descendant of Simon Fear. Laurie hears a child crying in one of the rooms. A room 903. She sees a boy named Toby Deane who has pneumonia and is not saying anything. As she tries to cheer him up, Laurie gets thrown out by Nurse Wilton, but not before seeing a look on Toby's face that may be trying to warn her of something.

At lunch, while eating the bad hospital food, Laurie talks about Toby to Skye while they also note that there's a raffle fundraiser going on to fund the Fear Wing with the prize being a Mercedes-Benz and Laurie is hoping to win it. We also learn that Skye is dating two boys at once, Eric Porter and Jim Farrow, though she'd settle for taking Andy Price away from Laurie. But Laurie says that maybe it's not wise to mess with Andy, given his father, Dr. Raymond Price, is the administrator of the hospital. Turns out that Dr. Price is at least annoyed with Andy being a goof and seemingly not wanting to be a doctor as well. As they talk about that, they then see a handsome young man about their age come in and they're both easily smitten.

Rick Spencer is his name and he's a three-day veteran on the surgical floor. He's also a second year student at Southbank College, so he's here to get some more experience before going to med school. This is also Laurie's dream, despite her aunt thinking she'll get bored of it quickly. We learn that both of Laurie's parents died and her aunt Hillary, a financial auditor, is her guardian. As everyone just keeps being chummy, the loudspeaker mentions a a code blue in room 903, Toby's room. That's enough to snap Laurie out of it and run off to see what's happening.  When she runs to check, Nurse Wilton again stops her at the door and says that it was room 503, not 9. She has a cold so... so she would hear nines as fives? 

Undeterred, Laurie still wants to cheer Toby up, but Nurse Wilton will be a problem. She goes to ask the far nicer Nurse Jenny Gerard, but sees that she's currently talking with Toby's mom who wants to take him home, but can't. Nurse Wilton dips for a second, so it gives Jenny enough time to run in, give Toby some encouragement and run out. As she heads out she notices a door that reads DANGER! KEEP OUT! on the front. She surprisingly doesn't try to open it immediately since I guess she's already busy with one room of mystery, but as she heads off, she thinks she sees Rick poke his head out of the door for a second. 

Laurie heads home and gets a phone call. No answer on the other line, just heavy breathing and the sound of ambulance sirens. She hangs up, only for the phone to ring again, this time being Rick who claims to have gotten her number from Skye. She asks if he was on the ninth floor of the hospital around the same time she was, to which he says he wasn't. He asks her out, but she declines, since she both has a boyfriend and also doesn't know how legit he is. Laurie then calls Skye to find out that she didn't give Rick Laurie's number. So now Laurie's got a lot on her mind. Was Rick the first call? Was he really in the mystery room? How did he get her number? I mean, it's probably in the records of the hospital, so the latter question isn't that hard to decipher. 

Laurie heads to the hospital early but is stopped by Andy who wants her to skip work to play some tennis. She declines, so he says maybe a date after work at Patsy's Pizzeria. I mean, maybe it's good pizza, but is it's PETE'S Pizza? #PatsysPizzaIsTrash. She stops in room 903 to check on Toby, but he's no longer there. She panics, thinking the boy must be dead, but then finds him heading home with his mother. Toby's mother is talking with Rick, who is supposed to be in the surgery ward, not the pediatric. She gives him his teddy bear before he leaves. Laurie feels calmer now, knowing that Toby's going home with his mom and everything's going to be just fi-Toby then tells her that this isn't his mom. Well, so much for that. She tries to get an answer from Toby, but he just says that the woman will be mad at him before he leaves with "Mrs. Deane". 

So, now even more concerned, Laurie asks Rick why he's talking to Mrs. Deane in pediatrics. Rick tells her that the Deanes live on, where else, Fear Street, and they just recently moved to Shadyside, so he's just being a good Samaritan and helping them out by telling them where to get prescriptions. She asks if he was at the hospital the other night, but he says he wasn't, which now makes those flags a little redder. As a phone call interrupts this awkwardness, Rick answers the phone while Laurie stares at a rectangular box belonging to Rick. A box filled with scalpels and knives. Given that Rick's a surgeon it would make sense for him to be carrying them, but something just feels off about the whole thing to her. She calms down, until Rick then pockets the knives and leaves the hospital with them, meaning he just stole hospital property. So now the flags are getting a shade redder. 

Knowing that Toby must be in trouble, Laurie thinks that she'll go with Skye, Jim and Andy to sell a raffle ticket to Mrs. Deane. But she soon gets caught by Nurse Wilton and runs into the nearby elevator. She ends up at a restricted area in the hospital. Far darker and different from any other place in the hospital. She rushes through the halls and ends up in one of the rooms that just so happens to have corpses in it. She figures this is an anatomy room for doctors to practice surgery, which would be fine I guess, if not for the pieces of mangled corpses all over the place. As she goes to leave, the door locks behind her. And then Laurie notices that something is alive in the room with her. And that thing is... nothing. I mean, that is a thing.

Laurie unlocks the door then spots Nurse Wilton talking with some wiry haired doctor. And she looks rather upset about something. But that's enough adventures in malpractice for one day as Laurie sneaks into the elevator and escapes. Though she soon recognizes who the doctor was. It's Dr. Price. After relaying this to Andy, Skye and Jim, she gets them to go in on her plan to visit Toby. While Mrs. Deane is distracted, she manages to contact Toby, but he acts as if he doesn't recognize her before he's shouted at to go back to his room. So now Laurie's convinced something's up, though why Toby's suddenly scared of her isn't clicking either. 

The next day, Laurie learns that she's been moved from pediatrics to the X-Ray ward given her uptick in snooping as of late. So after a boring morning of X-Rays, Laurie tells Skye that maybe all she needs to do is just apologize to Nurse Wilton about everything and maybe this will all sort itself out. Despite, you know, everything about Nurse Wilton so far. However, Nurse Wilton is nowhere to be found. And more eyebrow raising, she sees Rick head into the Fear Wing. But one problem at a time and the talk with Nurse Wilton is more important than the forbidden wing of mystery and awe. But curiosity's a bitch so she heads into the wing anyway. It's almost totally pitch black inside. She also almost just falls down an open elevator shaft that's still under construction. Oh, and she also finds Nurse Wilton. Or, to be more precise, Nurse Wilton's CORPSE. A scalpel jabbed right through her throat.

Freaked out, Laurie runs out of the Fear Wing and gets caught by Nurse Girard and Skye. When she mentions finding Nurse Wilton's body, they check, only to find that, much like David Lee Roth, they ain't got no body. Laurie tries to convince Skye, but she doesn't believe her because... I mean, given Skye's POV she hasn't seen any wrongdoings, nor when Laurie accuses Rick, she again has no reason to think otherwise. So yeah, I can see why the mess is on Laurie here. A doctor by the name of Dr. Sherman claims that it was all just a big prank and misunderstanding. Pay no attention to the corpse likely thrown down an elevator shaft. 

So now Laurie is sure that all of this is connected. The Toby stuff, Nurse Wilton, Rick Spencer. We're through the looking glass here, people. She then tries to find Toby's records, but can't find anything. It's almost like the boy never existed at all. She heads to Fear Street and sneaks around the Deane residence. She spots Toby talking with a young woman before Mrs. Deane grabs him and gets ready to take him somewhere. Either way the boy is in a panic. She puts Toby in the car and drives off. Which would seem cut and dry for Laurie, until she hears the sound of a boy crying in the house. She thinks that maybe Dr. Price will give her the answers she needs. As she drives off, she sees someone leaving a car. Rick. And he definitely saw her as well.

Laurie talks with Andy who mentions seeing a movie about humans with human heads and reptile bodies. My god, he was evergreen on the lizard people theory. After talking with Skye, Laurie thinks that her aunt Hillary came home, but then realizes that it's somebody else. Because, again. Nobody in an R.L. Stine book knows what a lock is. But the stalker disappears when Hillary actually does arrive home. Laurie tells her about everything, but Hillary doesn't believe her because Fear Street relative. Though she chalks it up to fear and stress instead of the normal mocking tone or acting like they're crazy. So progress. 

Rick calls her later, confused about why Laurie was on Fear Street. He also explains the scalpels weren't stolen, he gave them to another doctor. Laurie tries to get answers about the Fear Wing and what happened to Nurse Wilton, but Rick's tone changes, warning her to not go back to Fear Street. She talks with Dr. Price about Nurse Wilton, but after calling about it, he says that Nurse Wilton's not dead, just on a vacation. A long, long, long, long, long, long, long, looooooooooooooong vacation. She asks about Toby, but he says he'll check on it at least. He'll also try to get her back in the pediatric ward again, so long as she starts to slow down on all of this. Meeting with Andy later, he gets jealous and thinks she's going with someone else. After that blow up, she then sees Mrs. Deane and Toby entering their house. But when the boy responds he gets yanked into the house. 

The next day, Laurie tries calling Mrs. Deane to get answers, which honestly may be a dumber thing to do than the sneaking around. She hears Toby screaming for her, then hears the kid get straight up slapped. So yeah. Child abuse in this book by the way. Reader beware indeed. That's all Laurie needs to hear as she rushes back to Fear Street as a convenient storm starts. But as she heads towards the house, someone strikes her in the back of her head, knocking her out. Mrs. Deane grabs Laurie and ties her up in the basement. She then calls someone to take care of Laurie's aunt first before finishing the job with her. As Mrs. Deane leaves, Laurie tries to get herself untied, but someone else arrives. Toby. Laurie is relieved to see Toby is okay, and he seems happy to see her. When she asks about him being scared and not knowing her, he seems confused about that. It wasn't him. It was his twin brother Terry.

Laurie manages to take Toby to a payphone and tries to contact her aunt Hillary, but gets a message that Hillary's at the hospital. She then hears over the radio that there was a car found in Fear Lake with Nurse Wilton's body inside. As if she needed more proof, that confirms that Laurie wasn't seeing things. Then she sees as Rick is tailing her in his car. Laurie rushes into the hospital, still holding Toby. She leaves Toby with another nurse as she gets into the elevator to the nurse's station where she learns that her aunt was never there. No surprise. But with Rick now chasing her, Laurie has to hide somewhere. So she chooses the restricted Fear Wing again. 

So we're now back where we started. Laurie trapped in the dark restricted wing with Rick coming towards her, possibly with the same knife he used on Nurse Wilton. He grabs her, but says that he was actually trying to stop her from falling down the elevator shaft again. Laurie panics and runs off again with Rick chasing. However someone ends up knocking down Rick. It's Dr. Price. So, Laurie thought that Rick was holding a knife, but it turns out he was wearing a shirt with a knife on it. O-okay then, Bob. Rick recovers and then tells Laurie to stay away from Dr. Price and reveals the truth about everything. Dr. Price and Mrs. Deane have been stealing babies and children and selling them off to the highest bidders. When Nurse Wilton found out, it was Dr. Price who killed her. 

Dr. Price, now caught, grabs Laurie and pulls a gun on her. He then positions Laurie to throw her into the elevator shaft. Rick manages to save Laurie in time just as Dr. Price plunges down the pit to his death. The two calm down for a bit and Rick reveals everything. His little sister was also a victim of Dr. Price, about to be stolen from her family and put up for adoption. So he took on this ruse of being a student and followed Dr. Price until he could find a way to stop him. It's also why he couldn't be forward with Laurie about it since he didn't want to put his sister in more jeopardy. Hillary arrives and says that she was working on the audit at the hospital and noticed an added expense for something out of hospital, which was Dr. Price's smuggling scam. So the book ends with everyone happy and Laurie saying that Rick should get rid of that knife shirt. But he thinks it's so cutting edge! 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA there was a child trafficking scandal in this book and we end on a pun...

Okay, I honestly did not know where we were going with this one for once. I mean, I probably should have. The clues were there. So Stine actually crafted enough of a mystery to keep me intrigued. A broken clock is right twice a day I guess. Some pieces made sense though. It became more and more clear that Rick wasn't our villain. He's too much of a red herring. And while Dr. Price is only featured slightly, he makes the most sense for our main villain. And easily one of the most evil. Literally stealing babies and selling them off. I handled a similar concept to this when I read Funhouse last year, so while this concept doesn't feel all too different, I'll at least give Stine credit for being as compelling as possible. Every shoe fits, every little diversion is important, and the horror feels real enough that it all works. Color me shocked. 

Laurie is an okay protagonist, nothing out of the ordinary. But I do respect how hard she fought for Toby, risking her own life to save his as well as Terry's. Rick is also a solid misdirect who ultimately ends up being a great character in the end with his reasonings for being suspicious making perfect sense. The safety of his sister is top priority and he couldn't let slip what he was trying to do. The other characters all just exist. Skye as the doubting friend, Andy as the boyfriend to dump. Though the horrific irony of Andy now losing his father and finding out his dad was stealing babies at least makes him sympathetic enough as well. Just a big ol' book of really unfortunate situations, huh?

So, like I said before with Funhouse, this story was likely taken from that of Dr. Hicks, a man who coaxed women to give birth, stole the babies and sold them to desperate high bidders. I'm willing to guess that Stine also took much of that story to work into a plot like this. Which, while it works for horror, I will say it also feels really exploitive. I don't know, I get much of horror bases itself from real events, but this one doesn't sit right with me. Though thankfully it left me with a book I liked. Aside from some wheel spinning, this one got back on track and drove to the finish line with ease afterwards. So a definite recommend. It's not the best Fear Street, but it's still a cut above most. The Knife gets an A.

Though, there's just one more thing I still need to know. 

WHO WON THE RAFFLE? 

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Also. Giving a quick addendum. This is a book that Stine has stated he doesn't like. And while he's never elaborated on why, I can at least see it. For Stine, he is usually at his best when he writes about silly escapism. Horror that can frighten, but never in a more mentally scarring way. And so to have a book based not only on an actual crime that was committed but feature multiple scenes of child abuse may be one he doesn't look back fondly on. And I know that can be funny to think of given some of the stuff he HAS written and never shown remorse for, but I get it. 

It can be really hard to separate those and just look at this book as simple fiction. I can, and I judged the book on the merits on the story itself, and I enjoyed it, while not underplaying or straight up divorcing the real horror that happened and what the twist is basing itself off of. But if Stine feels regret for exploiting a tragedy and child endangerment and felt he went too far, then hey, good for him. He's as human and fallible as the rest of us. Though if it's just he didn't think he wrote it well enough then disregard I guess.

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