NNtG: Ghosts of Fear Street #22: Field of Screams

You know, when you think about it, Field of Dreams might be one of the best titles for a movie ever. If only because it inspired a lot of people to just reuse the name and call something a field of SCREAMS. Stine did it with the tagline for The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight, Screammates used it for a title, and would you look at that, it also got used as a title for a book from kid-friendly Shadyside. Well, with baseball season underway, why not talk about another book about time travel? Will this book make the major leagues, or will I feel like I need Tommy John surgery? Let's once again enter the Field of Screams.

This cover is fine. Its perspective feels kinda wonky overall, but I do like the magic tornado rising from home plate on the baseball field. We also have a decent shocked kid reaction, but I don't know, maybe it's the cartoonishly long eyelashes or his eyes seeming to be really sunken in, but the end result looks sillier than I think was intended. But for a story involving baseball and magic, I guess you can't go too wrong. 

It's also worth noting that, given I've covered the three books ahead of this one previously, this is our last time on the blog with the classic spiky borders for Ghosts of Fear Street. We get two books later with the newer border similar to what Fear Street did, then a whole different look with a heavier focus on CGI to less than stellar results compared to what the original covers did. I've never cared too much for the borders to Ghosts. They were going for that Goosebumps aesthetic but don't have the cool factor that made those covers stand out. Jagged spikes don't land like dripping ooze. But I will say they feel better than what we ultimately get by the end of this series, so I'll definitely miss them.

Buddy Sanders starts the book lamenting about how he's the best player on the Shadyside Middle School baseball team. You'd think he's saying that because he's a narcissist prick, but no. Turns out Shadyside's team really stinks. Case in point his friend Eve who isn't turning out to be a very good catcher. Just once Buddy would love to be part of a good team. As they play ball on the field just behind, where else, Fear Street, Buddy ends up sending the ball flying into the backyard of one of the creepy houses that reside on Fear Street. As he jumps the fence, he notices a bunch of junk in the yard before spotting the ball under a porch. But before he can nab it, he gets caught by the owner of the house, Ernie Ames, who fishes the ball out for him before scolding him over going under a porch like a goon.

Ernie then talks with Buddy about baseball and Buddy says that he's the best third baseman to ever live in Shadyside, or at least his coach Coach Sanders thinks so. Ernie says that's impossible because the best player in Shadyside was a boy named Buddy Gibson which Buddy finds to be a very odd coincidence. But now Gibson and the other players are all dead, residing in Fear Street Cemetery. Ernie then shows Buddy a picture of an old baseball team. See, Buddy Gibson was part of a team called the Doom Squad, named both because they were so great that any team that played against them were doomed, and also because the entire team of twelve died in an accident. The team consisted of the likes of Buddy Gibson, Boog Johnson, Wade Newsom, Johnny Beans, Chad Weens and Billy Fien. I'm just waiting for Honus Wagner, Cap Ansen and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown. However, as if bad luck suddenly came their way, they ended up losing a game for the first time in 1948. Feeling like they let Shadyside down, the team left on their bus which ended up stalling on the train tracks and being run over, killing all twelve instantly.

After the exposition/lore of the Doom Squad, Ernie asks what Buddy's dream is, which we already established is to play on the greatest Shadyside baseball team ever. After Ernie leaves, Eve shows up with a police officer who says that the house has been abandoned and nobody's lived there since 1948. I mean, there could be squatters in the basement making an evil future predicting camera, but no, NOBODY could squat in an abandoned house. A few days later, while playing a baseball game and trying to convince Eve that Ernie exists or was at least a ghost, Buddy ends up being hit by an arrant baseball to the head and passing out. Shit maybe there is someone with an evil camera who just took Buddy's picture. Hey, it has happened before. 

Buddy wakes up in a different ball field with kids in pinstripe uniforms similar to that of the old Shadyside team that Ernie showed him in the picture. In fact, everything looks old timey. Not only that, but everyone is calling him Gibson. Buddy rushes to a nearby car and checks the mirror and sure enough, he sees a different reflection. That of Buddy Gibson. So I guess the ball to the head lead to some sort of Quantum Leap thing? He finishes the game and realizes that if he doesn't get back to his normal time he might be part of the big game that leads to, you know, a big finale... literally! After the game, the team heads on the bus where Buddy spots Ernie Ames as the driver, only much younger. He tries to convince everyone he's Buddy Sanders from the future, but they don't believe him because... I mean he got knocked out and this is 1948 so no fuckin' way there's concussion protocol, and also because Buddy Gibson loves his science fiction, including Tom Swift and the Amazing Time Machine, in case this book needed to stack on any more irony.

Realizing nobody's gonna talk to him if he keeps bringing up time travel and 1997, Buddy claims he has amnesia so he can relearn everything. Sure enough, it's the whole Doom Squad. Wade, Boog, Chad, Billy and Johnny. Also, there's only one game left in the season and then the Doom Squad will play the championship game. Which means that there's ample time left for Buddy before he ends up catching a particular train. After leaving the bus, Buddy realizes he doesn't even know where Buddy Gibson's home even is, to which we learn he lives with Coach Johnson because the Gibson family just abandoned him. Well that's fucked up, but, again, 1948. There's also another problem. Boog Johnson, the largest player in the team, really wants to kill Buddy before the train can. But because the coach is also Boog's dad and Buddy is so pivotal to winning the championship, he can't quite do that yet. He drives to Gibson's home with Boog and Coach Johnson who mentions that he'll never use those newfangled death trap seat belts. Thankfully they arrive at the Johnson residence before Coach Johnson likely rants about the commies.

Buddy enters the Johnson residence where Mrs. Johnson checks his head wound, but says it shouldn't be any issue. Because, again, 1948. Don't want them commie doctors with their "concussion" and "brain damage" mumbo jumbo. He should be fine after lighting up a Lucky Strike. checks out Gibson's room and sees that it's filled with science fiction books and stuff, but no TV because 1948 and barely anyone had them yet. As he looks around at Buddy Gibson's clothing, he gets punched by Boog who wants to scrap with him, AKA hoping to intentionally kill him. Buddy manages to shove Boog, causing the lummox to trip. So, great. Just made this worse. 

After dinner, Buddy rushes to Ernie's house to try to get him to undo all of this. Of course, this time period Ernie just thinks Buddy's talking crazy and has his wife call Coach Johnson to get him. Buddy runs off and finds himself in Fear Street Cemetery where he trips and gets knocked out again. He awakens in a hospital, still in 1948 and with the doctor who thinks he should be fine now. Surely a second concussion knocked the sense back into his head. That night, Buddy gets attacked by a shadowy figure, since this is Fear Street and that tends to happen. At least in the kid books. So now Boog wants to kill him, a ghost wants to kill him, and he might end up being killed in the bus crash. Buddy then suspects that the bus crash has to do with why he's here. That maybe he has to change history to keep the team from heading to the tracks. And to do so, it will require throwing the next game.

The next day, before the game, Buddy actually helps Boog with his game, which earns him some respect, so that's at least one possible death avoided. They then play ball and despite all of Buddy's attempts, he plays great. That's because the shadowy figure is possessing him, getting stronger the more time goes on. They end up winning, meaning the championship game is happening. After, Buddy and Boog get junk food for a quarter, because, again, 1948 and they seem to bond a bit. But Buddy also realizes that he can't run away or avoid the championship game, and shadowy ghost or no shadowy ghost, the Doom Squad are going to win the championship. That night, Buddy tries to sleep, but is visited again by the shadowy figure, who turns out to be the spirit of the REAL Buddy Gibson, who wants his body back. Buddy tries to claim that he didn't mean to steal Gibson's body, but Gibson doesn't believe him. He tries to enter his body, but he's still too weak. So now Buddy realizes that he has to win the game before Gibson will be strong enough to get the job done. 

The big game goes down and so far the Doom Squad is winning. Bottom of the ninth and Buddy is on third as catcher. He goes to get cigarettes for the coach because, AGAIN, NINETEEN FORTY-EIGHT, but gets caught by Gibson who reenters his body. He realizes that Buddy is telling the truth that if they lose, the team ends up in the bus crash, and goes quiet as Buddy heads back to the field. And, sure enough, the team wins. So history is changed. Buddy is confused. He didn't travel back, and Gibson is still inside him. The team head on the bus and, despite Buddy trying to change history, the bus still gets hit by the train and everything goes black once more. Buddy wakes up back on the ball field, back in 1997. He's taken out of the game and the only amount of time that passed was about 15 seconds.

Buddy and Eve head to a 7-Eleven where his dad gives him a few packs of baseball cards. Buddy opens one to find a hall of fame card for Buddy Gibson. Turns out that everyone survived the crash and Gibson went on to have a legendary career in baseball. Eve says that Buddy Gibson was the greatest player to ever live in Shadyside and would like to meet him, to which Buddy says that Gibson would have all the time in the world to do so.

It's our second visit to P. MacFearson and I come out liking this book. Though, honestly, its only major flaw is that it's a time travel story that feels a lot like so many of these similar concepts. A kid ends up back in time and has to find their way back, which includes changing the course of time to prevent something horrible. But what works to keep this fresher than most is the Quantum Leap concept. That Buddy Sanders somehow ends up in a timeslip that puts him in Buddy Gibson's body, which in turns yeets Gibson out of his own body. I will say it's all very confusing about how any of this works in a logical sense. But I'd guess that Ernie's ghost had magic powers and was waiting for someone like Buddy Sanders to be so great at baseball that he could change the course of history. So he managed to make that possible. It's definitely a concept that could have been better explained, but it's also something that doesn't kneecap the book that hard. Again, not all acts of supernatural chicanery need to be explained in excruciating detail.

Buddy is a decent protagonist. You get his desire to be part of a great team and you do want him to succeed in changing history in 1948. I also like what little we get of Boog, who I do wish the twist acknowledged a bit. Perhaps in that Boog also became a hall of a famer thanks to Gibson. The rest of the characters exist, which I do think sucks a little. Would have been neat to meet the Doom Squad beyond like Boog and Johnny, who serves as exposition. Build a rapport with these kids that plays more into the plot itself. But sadly we don't get that. Gibson is an interesting choice for main villain, though much of that feels tacked on to add more horror vibes in an otherwise basic plot. I was worried we were getting some sort of Shadow Danny thing here, but it's better executed than I feared. 

And that's really the best way to describe Field of Screams. Better executed than I feared. Because I was worried going into this one that it would be a very paint by numbers, very Back to the Future-esque story. But it does a few smart things to keep it from just being bog standard. I think the 1948 references and "seat belts? What's that?' stuff are fun to pepper in and keeps the book moving, and it doesn't spin its wheels too badly. It definitely suffers from plot holes and a lack of cohesion, but it's as solid a Ghosts package as you can ask for. Is it better than Screammates' Field of Screams? I like that one a bit more, but this is still a solid second place. Easy recommend. Field of Screams gets a B+.