Point By Numbers: The Hitchhiker

It's time to take a hike with R.L. Stine. Hitchhike that is! Point and Stine are very interesting to say the least. We've had more rocky experiences than usual, but sometimes he's decent. And, I can't imagine this being worse than Halloween Night II. I seriously hope I didn't jinx it. It's The Hitchhiker.

This cover is probably among my favorite covers for Point. Mainly in that it actually does give off a horror vibe. The colors pop so well with the orange and purples of the setting sun and the dark, moody blues of the hitchhiker's hand. Giving it a sinister, almost unhuman vibe. The right kind of macabre to sell the reader on this thriller and easily among the upper echelon of the Stine section of Point's library. 

We open with a seventeen year old boy named James Dark running to the road, wanting to get as far away from Key West as possible. At this rate, getting anywhere away from Florida sounds like heaven for many. All while James keeps remembering some girl screaming to not hurt her. He eventually manages to get a drive from an old man named George Murphy, going as far as Fort Lauderdale. Meanwhile, our protagonists, Christina Jenkins and Terri Martin, are driving in Christina's Honda Accord. Hope nobody steals the H. Christina's kind of wild and is driving erratically while Terri worries. The two have been in Florida for a week and are on their way home to Cleveland. Christina is described as having a "boyish figure" while Terri is described as "kinda chubby". And I literally banged my head on the book. You know how this book features cars, Bob? Well STAY IN YOUR LANE!

As they talk, Christina almost crashes into a truck, but swerves. The truck crashes into an embankment and the guy's okay, but Christina doesn't care. So what if she was in his lane? Who cares? Look, I'll make this my wrestling reference for the book, but this coming after the death of Jay Briscoe makes me hate this setup. Like, it's a book from thirty years prior, I get it. Just already setting up Christina as not likable in the least. Described as being more wild and flirty than Terri and more selfish. We get some exposition on Terri, how she was with a boy named Matthew their first night in Florida, and something happened, but that gets interrupted when Christina sees a hitchhiker on the road and decides to pick him up, despite Terri worrying. 

The hitchhiker is James Dark and he hits it off with Terri immediately. He says that he needs a ride to Tampa as he has a cousin named Paul there. He is into both girls and hopes that they'll drive him all the way to Cleveland. But he also charms them by telling Terri that she reminds him of a girl named Lizzy who was an excellent swimmer, which coincidentally so is Terri. James then has the girls stop at a nearby diner called the Everglades Diner, despite being nowhere near the Everglades. After being ignored by the young man running the place, James snaps and starts shoving him hard, eventually smashing the man into the counter. The three leave with Terri freaked out and Christina, to no surprise, not that concerned about the temper of the hot boy that they picked up. 

The group continue driving with James sleeping in the back. Terri isn't for him sticking around, saying he looks like "Freddie Kreuger's Little Boy". I can't believe you got BOTH parts of the name wrong, Bob. And you call yourself a horror fan. But Christina's still all in on James, thinking he's hot for being so wild and violent. James wakes up and takes the wheel. They spot a cop car, but it drives off. James isn't happy with Terri since she's been the one assuming the worst about him while Christina continues her flirting. The girls rest up as the radio mentions a man being attacked with a blunt object and his car being stolen. Way too early for two and two to go together on that one I'm afraid. 

Everyone arrives at Paul's place where we learn that Paul has a wife named Paula, and a son named Ethan. Surprised they didn't caul him Pauly. They stay the night and we learn that Paul's doing well, having about a thousand dollars in fifty dollar bills in his wallet. The next day, the trio begin to drive out when Paul confronts them about his missing wallet. James claims to have never touched it, but Paul won't back down, so James pulls an uppercut out of nowhere that knocks Paul out long enough for them to drive off. Terri hates that James is still with them while Christina is still in "Duhhh hot dangerous boy is hot" mode, though even she wonders what happened with the wallet. They listen to the radio with another report about a man being attacked by a hitchhiker, which is enough for Terri to tell them to pull over and talk for a minute.

After the girls argue and James tricks them into thinking he's gonna drive off without them, Terri takes the wheel. After some time passes, she notices a blue Taurus following them. She alerts the other two and they start to panic as the car continues to ram them. Their car rolls off the road and crashes. A man in a truck shows up and helps them out, but there's no sign of the mysterious Taurus. The trio stop at a hotel where James can hear Terri and Christina arguing in the other room. That's interrupted by Terri scaring him by pretending to be a cop. She goes for a walk with him and eventually kisses him as an apology, trying to calm everything down. James then immediately ruins that by asking intensely if Terri thinks he's a bad guy. Not a really good poker face we got here.

The next morning, Terri's missing. As is the car. However Terri couldn't have taken it as Christina has the keys. She begins to Panic as James tries to calm things down. When he mentions the walk the previous night, Christina says that she never saw Terri come back and that maybe James did something to her. After a scene involving almost being shot by two hunters, the duo end up picked up by a man in a white car named Art. However, instead of taking them further north, he heads back south since Art is our Mr. Blue Taurus. He also has a gun, so they can't attack him in the car. Art drives them back to his cabin in the swamp. James tries to fight him, but gets a knee to the head instead, knocking him out. He wakes up and sees that he and Christina are tied up. 

Christina offers to do something nice for Art if he unties her. And yes, Art thinks she means blowjob, but she really means money. Because she took Paul's wallet the whole time. So now Art has an extra thousand, but that's not what he wants. He wants revenge. His name is Art Eckridge and his father was Art Eckridge, who he claims was killed by Christina and Terri. His father had picked both of them up when they were hitchhiking, Art was driving at that exact time when he saw the two throw him out of the car and drive off. First, Christina blames James, saying he confessed to the killing, but Art says that Terri confessed before she was taken care off, so Christina admits to killing his dad, but not on purpose. So the twist here is that James WASN'T our villain. Christina and Terri were? Stine, you magnificent son of a bitch, I didn't know you had it in you.

What had happened that night was that Christina and Terri were being hit on by boys in Fort Lauderdale and had their money stolen from them. So they hitchhiked with Mr. Eckridge, but what happened was TOTALLY an accident. Foolishly, the pair kept the Honda Civic on them instead of hiding the evidence. That was until they got to the motel where Christina had Terri take James for a walk while she hid it. However, Art got Terri before they could do anything about it. Art then takes James and Christina up a large hill to a freshwater pond that his friend Jack owns. A pond full of piranhas. He says that this was where he already finished Terri off and now it's their turn. He goes to shove Christina in, but she ducks, causing him to fall into the pond and be viciously torn apart by the hungry piranhas. May-maybe you should have just shot them. Not everything has to be an elaborate act of revenge.

James is about to leave this situation, but Christina stops him, saying that now that he knows everything, it's his turn to take a piranha dive. She grabs the gun that Art had and makes him choose between a bullet or piranhas, when a bloodied Terri shows up. She grabs a giant rock, but Christina sends her over the cliff. Before she can send James down with her, he kicks the gun away. She then slips and falls into the Piranha pond to her death. Terri managed to hold on to the side and survives. After the police show up and Terri is healed up, she tells James that the reason she was concerned about him was actually because he would have found out about them, and that it was Christina that was manipulating the both of them. Hoping to either get rid of James or pin him for the murder of Roger Eckridge. James says he's heading back to Key West to apologize to a girl he hurt named Melissa. He didn't actually hurt her physically, just broke up with her. So hopefully this hitchhiking trip won't be as deadly.

Yeah. Yeah this one's really good. Probably his best book on a structural level. Absolutely everything about it works with a twist that, while yeah a bit predictable, still is structured quite well. The book sets us up to believe that James is the villain of the story. His shady past, his anger, that whole mindset of him being bad. But never in a way that makes him feel out and out evil. Just a teenager with an anger problem. So when the boom drops and it is Christina and Terri at fault (mainly Christina), it does make all the sense in the world. We don't get little snippets of why they're driving off and in a rush to make it back to Cleveland. And even why Christina acts like she does around James. To mess with his head to make him an easy mark to take the fall. Robert Lawrence Stine ACTUALLY TRIED AND SUCCEEDED. Has the planet gone mad? Although, I guess when you call your protagonist James DARK, I think it's obvious that the fix will be in sooner or later. So Stine mostly tried. 

James is an interesting character. Running away mostly out of his own frustration with Florida, and feeling the shame of hurting Melissa on account of him breaking up with her. A guy with legit rage issues, but never to the point of being too much of a threat. A guy who's a better person than we initially think going in. Christina is a solid villain where the point is to not like her from the start. How she treats Terri and James, her being the killer hitchhiker makes sense. It's like if Stine made Reva Dalby the actual villain of the Silent Night books and didn't try (and fail) to make her sympathetic. Terri is a decent character. Not as cruel or evil as Christina, but also timid and worried about being caught if James found out. A victim of circumstance. So her surviving at the end is nice and I like that. Art exists mainly for exposition, a body count in this more restrained book, and to take us to the big ending set piece.

So what we get is a very good book. Like, probably in the running for best book I've read from Stine's portion of Point at this (for lack of a better term) point. The mystery is set up well, the characters built up just enough. The book is slower in terms of action and horror but I think that works in its favor, not needing a dozen set pieces or shock moments that matter little. And no animal death. I mean a mosquito getting killed is as far as we get. It's a book that I wish Stine did more of because when he puts in the effort and doesn't just copypasta his own works, he can make a compelling enough teen thriller. Shame that it's an exception and not the rule though. So, definite recommend. Easily in my favorite books for the blog. The Hitchhiker gets an A+. 

IT WAS ACCEPTABLE IN THE 90s: Buick Skylark, Honda Accord, The National Enquirer, Randy Travis, VHS Tapes (Possibly the cheap public domain ones?), Guns N Roses, Axl Rose, New Kids on the Block, The act of hitchhiking in general.