Felicia Fletcher (Alliteration Stine in the hiz-ouse!) has just arrived in Shadyside. She never heard of it before. Oh wait until she learns about the monkey skull cult and the possessed cheerleaders. She'll feel right at home then. But any place would be better than where she was before. Being the patient of a Dr. Shanks and being covered in electrodes, being told to move a pencil from across the table. Yeah, it appears Felicia has telekinesis. And she pulls a pencil trick that would make the Joker proud. She uses her power to launch the pencil right into Dr. Shanks' left eyeball. But she missed by like an inch and despite, you know, near-partial blindness, Dr. Shanks is thrilled by this. It also turns out that the telekinesis runs in her family, and that her father was much worse, but we're just on page 9 so you gotta wait a bit.
While Felicia is reminiscing about her bad times at Ridgely College and the testing, she almost gets run over by a red GTO. The man inside has red hair (because there's always one) and a goatee. He offers her a drive. He reveals his name is Lloyd, but everyone calls him Homicide because he's a killer. Like, a legit killer. Either he's a really good killer or he's a really bad poker face. Well, it's definitely the former with the large knife he has. Also he drives fast and erratically, pretty much ready to kill her and himself because he's such an evil guy, you see. Lloyd threatens her with the knife, telling her to leave her wallet. But, being a runaway, she didn't bring any money. She manages to use the telekinesis to send the knife out of his hand. That's the good news. Bad news is the car ends up crashing. But both Felicia and Lloyd survive. She wanted to kill him, but didn't do it since I guess she's not THAT evil. Though, killing this guy wouldn't be THAT evil.
Felicia tries to escape the car, but the door is stuck. She bangs on the windows and panics, only to remember there's a window roller. The real shocker here is that's surprisingly not a chapter cliffhanger. She escapes and heads to the road, but Lloyd recovers and tries to escape the car. Another car shows up in time and the boy inside lets Felicia in. He chastises her for hitchhiking even though that's also what she's doing now, but necessary evil. He also introduces himself as just Nick, which Felicia says must be his Nick-Name. My god, how long was Stine holding that corny line in? As they talk, police sirens blare behind them. This freaks Felicia out since given she ran away from Ridgely College she must be a wanted girl. But, it was all just a false alarm. Reader beware, there's a chance of a scare.
Nick is curious as to what Felicia's running from, but she kisses him and tells him to just forget about her. Which, you know, that's going to make him forget. She makes her leave and enters the Donut Hole whe-Wait, the DONUT HOLE? Wait, does this mean that The Babysitter series is connected to Fear Street? Shame it's the shittier Babysitter books but whatever. As she cleans up and orders a bagel (she had some money, of course she wasn't giving Lloyd any), she overhears two boys talking about someone named Dr. Jones who lives on, where else, Fear Street. The two boys were roped into watching his cat while he was gone on safari and they want out. Felicia mentions that she knows Dr. Jones through her father and would gladly take over the job for them. One of the boys, Bobby, is a bit pensive on this, but ultimately gives her the keys. I mean, it's just a job feeding a cat, how hard could that be?
Felicia heads to Dr. Jones' house and watches over his giant fifteen pound tabby named Miss Quiz. She then begins to head to Shadyside High under the alias of Felicia Smith. It all goes well until she runs into Nick again. I mean what, she didn't think a high school boy who lives in Shadyside would go to Shadyside High? Eh, I guess she has enough on her mind. He takes her to his job at the Burger Basket (where the hell is Pete's Pizza?) and manages to get her a job thanks to his boss Barry. And to no surprise, Nick bragged about saving Felicia the previous night. It all seems to be going well, except that Nick has a girlfriend named Alexandria McConnell, or Zan for short, who also works at the Burger Basket. Oh, and she brandishes a butcher knife at Felicia threatening her if she tries to take Nick away from her. You know, in retrospect, the college is starting to sound like a better place.
Given she was just threatened yet again, Felicia is about to use her powers on Zan but manages to calm herself down. Zan also apologizes once she remembers that, you know, Felicia had a knife pulled on her previously. This was all just a joke. A big, really not funny at all joke. But, after that it seems like everyone gets along well with Felicia and on her first day feels like she fits into the Burger Basket crew. A mega happy ending... if there wasn't about a hundred pages left. At school the next day she opens her locker and finds a letter. Inside a note says "I KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU!" and has her driver's license inside with her face burned off. Once again, she tries to calm down, but her powers unleash causing the locker doors to slam loudly. She talks with Nick, yet still not mentioning the whole "powers" thing. She also likes Nick, but also doesn't hate Zan so she doesn't want to hurt them. Both in the emotional sense and the, you know, kill them with her telekinesis sense. Like she did Andy and Kristy.
And with that, we flash back to her time at Ridgely College. Felicia is talking with her friend Debbie Wilson. Debbie's jealous that Felicia has these powers, but Felicia hates everything. So Debbie suggests just up and running away. Given that Felicia's Aunt Margaret doesn't get along with her, it might be time to make her leave, but Felicia isn't so sure. The two girls pass by an old abandoned beach house, which Debbie suggests that Felicia just uses her powers to knock down. She's at first against it, but ultimately is talked into doing it. She uses her telekinesis and literally brings the house down. That's good. But the girls then find the cars belonging to Andy Murray and Kristy List in the parking lot. And sure enough, they find the corpses of the two lovers in the wreckage. And not in like a basic "oh they just died from the house falling" way either. Kristy's arms are cut off and Andy's skull was caved in by falling bricks. Too bad they didn't find the time warp closet in time.
Back to the present as Felicia heads back to Dr. Jones' house only to find everything strewn about. Someone must have snuck inside. Made more evident by a message left in either blood or red paint, again saying that they know who she is. And they know everything. Meaning they probably know what happened to Andy and Kristy. But it's enough to finally tell Nick some of the truth. At least not the entire powers part, but he is annoyed that her consent wasn't taken into account with the testing, especially since it was Aunt Margaret who forced her into it. He then kisses her as payback for the previous encounter. So yeah, this is escalating. That night, as she leaves the restaurant, Felicia then overhears Zan warning Nick that she knows everything about Felicia. But does that mean she knows about Felicia's powers, or is it just jealousy? I mean, lest we forget the introduction with the knife and all.
The next day, Nick tells that to Felicia. That Zan's just really overprotective of this relationship since she too has had a hard time lately. About what, Felicia isn't being told at the moment, but it was bad enough. She runs into Zan who invites her over to her place and yet again, the two get along great. Felicia soon finds one of Zan's yearbooks and spots a photo of Zan with someone she seems to recognize but can't make out. She then starts to rub off the ink in the page, then notices her hand is bleeding, so she ends up both smudging the photo and covering it in blood. She asks Zan how long she's been with Nick, to which Zan says freshman year. But when Felicia looks again at the yearbook, it says that Alexandria McConnell was dating a Doug Gaynor. But that's not right. How could she be dating a Doug Gaynor and not Nick. She then sees that Doug Gaynor died, so that explains things quicker than we thought.
Felicia talks with Nick some more, including the threats she's gotten recently. Nick says that he didn't tell anyone about their conversation. He also seems concerned about Zan. Almost in a fearful way. And that's because of Doug Gaynor, who Nick says was killed by Zan. See, Zan and Doug were a great couple... for a really brief period. Turns out that Doug got bored of Zan and started dating another girl named Kathleen Clarke behind her back. When Zan found out, the two had an argument conveniently on the balcony of Zan's house. He pushed her first and she pushed him back. Way back. Way over the balcony and impaled into the iron fence below back. It was an accident, kind of, so Zan never got in trouble for it, but it's also why Nick is worried about breaking up with her. But, it's at least now a motive for Zan to be the one sending threats to Felicia.
As they talk about this, Zan shows up and is at first suspicious, then chummy. They go to work and before Felicia leaves for a break, Zan asks her to change the lightbulb in the storage room. As she puts the bulb in, it explodes. This is because the wire is frayed. Too bad for Barry who ends up accidentally grabbing the wire instead of the bulb chain and getting electrocuted. The whole Burger Basket goes up in flames. She manages to get Barry out and goes back for Nick. She manages to stop the fire somehow before passing out. She awakens learning that everyone is safe, even Barry. Now worried she'll be featured on the local news, she panics yet again. She runs for Nick's car but gets attacked by Zan, who shocker (both figuratively and literally in this case), was the one who tried to kill her. Zan tries to strangle her when Nick intervenes and the two argue some more. It gives Felicia enough time to escape. She's ready to run from Shadyside, but she forgot her dad's photo in the locker, so she can't leave just yet. Also because we got 30-some pages to pad before we're out the door!
Cut back to her time in Ridgely as Felicia is haunted in her nightmares by the corpses of Andy and Kristy. Debbie tells her that she has to run away immediately. The cops know everything. The house falling down. Her powers. Everything. Debbie lends her car to Felicia and she drives off. Felicia is frustrated, believing it was all an accident. Suddenly the same emotions and feelings enter her head and it causes her to crash the car. She manages to escape just as the car blows up. Back to the present and the next day at school, Felicia goes to get her photo, but gets stopped by Nick who kisses her. She asks if he broke up with Zan, but he says that he can't. Oh, and speaking of Zan, she's running down the hall with a knife ready to kill Felicia. You know, living in Shadyside you'd have to be at least a little desensitized to all of this by now.
Nick tries to block the blade but gets stabbed in the hands by Zan. Realizing she has no choice now, Felicia uses her powers to lift Zan in the air and send her crashing into the lockers. She then runs off to Dr. Jones' house to get her things and leave. Only she finds Debbie there. She saw the news about the Burger Basket and found Felicia there. And now it's time to kill her and this time to do it right. So, remember the car explosion? That was Debbie. As in it was Debbie's telekinesis that she also has. And it was also Debbie who knocked the house down. Why? Debbie loved Andy Murray, but hated him for being with Kristy. She knew they were in the beach house at the time and manipulated Felicia into thinking she was the one who tore it down when it was Debbie the whole time. She didn't talk to the cops, nobody knew about it. But she knew that sooner or later Felicia would tell all, so she tried to get rid of her before it was too late.
The two have a bit of a telekinetic fight for a bit which includes using light poles and other stuff. They brawl for a bit before Nick shows up. Before he gets hurt, Felicia uses her powers to finally knock out Debbie. But she doesn't kill her sine that would be something that Debbie would do. We end with Debbie put in a trance and Zan now in an institution for the whole knife thing. Felicia decides to head back to Ridgely and back with her aunt. But she and Nick seem to still be an item at least. So, I guess that's a win I guess. Unless he forgets to visit and she might just break out. Still a win I guess?
Felicia is a great protagonist. You do feel bad for her. Be it the treatments and testing on her telekinetic powers, how she was gaslit into thinking that the deaths of Andy and Kristy were her fault. Her fear of being caught again and her worries about escalating a relationship with Nick. Nick is also fine, but does feel like maybe there was more planned for him given the odd start in the book with him just being called Nick and nothing else. Like it was almost an alias. Like for a blink I thought maybe this was Doug Gaynor who somehow survived and took a new form. And the reason he couldn't break up with Zan was a fear of her and guilt for what he did. Farfetched, sure, but we literally had a body swapping ghost before so it's not out of the question.
On the villain side we have two villains, both girls, both presented as insane and ready to literally commit murder over a boy. And both do have blood on their hands. Zan with Doug and Debbie with Andy and Kristy. I do like that we get two villains for once and the book doesn't feel too bloated where it feels like overkill. But I also do roll my eyes that we don't get just one, but two villains motivated by jealousy over a boy. I get it's a staple with Fear Street and given its intended demo, I get that too. But I guess it's better than hypnosis again at least. And there's Lloyd. I didn't forget Lloyd. Seems like Stine did, but I sure didn't.
So we get a good book out of this one with some decent action and horror and a solid enough story, albeit suffering from the stale traits that Fear Street books were definitely going through. Especially in 1997 when this book was released. But if you love these books for those stale traits, you'll at least be more entertained than usual. So it's a definite recommend. I just wish it didn't feel like something big is missing to really make this one stand out better. Eh, at least the cat didn't die for once. That's the real shocker. Runaway gets an A-.
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