We've finally made it to the finish line when it comes to the original Fear Street run. Every mainline and Super Chiller pre-New Fear Street/Seniors. And it's kind of oddly fitting that the final book is the one I've been most intrigued by. Because this one sounds like it's going to be dumb. And it's a book with Stine's most favorite trope of them all with teen horror, and that's killing animals. Especially pets. So many animal corpses in these books you'd swear Stine's deranged. I mean we know he's deranged, but more deranged than anyone would imagine. This also feels very much like a story we've seen him redo for Goosebumps around the same time, so it'll be interesting to see which one does the job better. But let's nip this in the bud and see if this book's the cat's meow. Let's talk about Cat.
And this is why I wanted to talk about this one for so long because the cover is just so wonderfully goofy. Like it's trying to be scary, especially with our main villain cat here, but I don't know. It just falls into that "too cute to be taken as scary" situations. Feeling less like a threatening scene and just some lady wanting to show you one of her lil' fluffy babies. Her cat eyes are neat though that's kind of creepy. Every bit as corny as you'd want from a Fear Street cover. Love it.
Gayle wants to interview Marty, Dwayne and Barry for the school paper when a gray cat with a diamond pattern on its head darts out from the bleachers and onto the court. The boys chase off the cat who goes back to under the bleachers. As Marty returns to the court however, the cat darts out again and he trips over it, spraining his knee in the process. This means he can't play, which means his scholarship concerns just got worse. He also reveals to Riki and the others that he doesn't have the scholarship locked in since there's another player being considered. As they leave, Marty notices the gray cat staring at him as menacingly as a cat who just got punted in the ribcage could look at someone. The trio chase after the cat up to the bleachers where Marty grabs it and squeezes it hard, almost killing it. The cat then attacks him, causing him to almost fall, but as Dwayne saves him he accidentally throws the cat sending it falling down the bleacher steps to the floor below, actually killing it.
Gayle and Riki are horrified that the boys killed the cat, but the three aren't that bothered by it. Barry even saying that a stray cat is no different than a rat, which Gayle says that Rats are bad and cats are good. Oh so she has bias then. Gayle and Riki storm off with Gayle saying that Marty will pay for this. And by pay for this, she meant telling the entire school who now hate Marty's guts for playing cat shotput. As he yells at Gayle for ruining everything, Riki takes him aside and tells him to calm down, especially if he still wants to play basketball and get that scholarship. Suddenly she notices that Marty's cheek is bleeding, which he says is just where the cat scratched him and it mustn't be healing up just right, which you know, is always something to just brush off. He heads to the basketball court as his coach tells him that while he believes that Marty didn't intentionally kill the cat, this has the possibility of getting outside of the school and into the newspapers. If it comes out that three of Shadyside High's players intentionally went out and murdered a cat for fun, that would look really bad. And given that Gayle runs the Animal Rights Club at school (which given her comment about rats is kind of a fucked up position to have), Marty has to face student court to prove his innocence.
The student court goes fine enough with Marty being found not guilty of killing the cat, but guilty of animal cruelty regardless. As everything adjourns, Marty sees the cat again under the bleachers. He tells everyone what he saw, but they don't believe him. He talks with the lawyer of the court, Jessica Wells, and it goes well, that is until he sees Riki who leaves in a huff. And even though he's innocent, everyone is still mocking him for it. He returns home and does his homework. And while we've had one of Stine's favorite tropes, here's another. The phone rings and the person on the other line just heavy breathes. It's Riki who is jealous that Marty is into all of the girls at school, and also that he cheated on her when they were in a relationship. He plays the next day as things finally start to cool down on the whole "killing a cat" thing, though everyone's still mocking him for the freakout.
Marty does homework when he hears clawing at his window. It's not cats being after him, but rather Dwayne and Barry wanting to go to The Corner with him. Also Dwayne's wearing a Hawaiian shirt that I'm sure Stine is just pointing out with no other notable reasoning towards it. The Corner is a hangout restaurant which I'm sure is fine, but every time Stine doesn't use Pete's Pizza we stray further away from god's light. He tells them about seeing the cat but they don't believe him because, well, I mean not just because they have no proof of this, but they kind of suck in general. As they head home, Marty sees what looks like the same cat leap from a tree and knock a large branch onto Dwayne. He's fine but Marty doesn't know what to believe. He then goes to the animal shelter which his community service is his punishment from court. But when he's left alone with the animals, they all hiss and bark at him, slamming their cages in anger. The next day he talks with Kit Morrisey and really hits it off with the two heading to her place, which coincidentally is filled with cats. Cats who seem to also be very angry at him. He makes his leave due to allergies and the possible feeling that he's about to be torn to shreds.
With Gayle not letting this whole thing go, Marty, Dwayne and Barry decide to make things worse by filling the Animal Rights Group room with rats. Gayle realizes it was Marty's doing and promises to get him back which, I get maybe being too harsh on the cat death, but she did sort of have some comeuppance due for keeping the heat on Marty long after this should have been moot. He manages to get a date with Kit which is a good thing. The bad thing happens as soon as he leaves as cats seem to be chasing after him. He makes it home and they suddenly disappear. He then gets a phone call with someone making meowing noises on the other line. I'll be damned an actually funny use of the phone call trope because I just imagine someone holding their phone to a cat so he can get his two cents in. After another basketball game, Dwayne heads to the court where he sees Gayle leaving. But he also finds Dwayne, or should I say DWAYNE'S HAWAIIAN SHIRT-WEARING CORPSE! All while he hears a meow in the bleachers.
Marty confronts Gayle who is now more apologetic for tarnishing his reputation. She admits to being at the court on the night that Dwayne was killed. But she totally didn't do any murdering, she just lost track of time and was really late for her baby-sitting job. Tighter alibi than Marty killing a cat I guess. The next game, Marty almost quits because of Dwayne's death, but Barry convinces him to say. After the game, Marty returns to the court to find Barry, or should I say BARRY'S COR-WAIT, HIS BACKPACK!? JUST HIS BACKPACK? Oh this might be up there for Stine's dumbest chapter stingers. I get the darkness of the court and all, and his paranoia after Dwayne's death, but he mistook a backpack for a corpse? He returns to his job at the shelter and when he's left alone, suddenly all the cats leave their cages and attack him before his boss shows up. Marty then heads home when he see Barry's place and goes to visit him. He then HE TRIPS OVER BARRY'S COR-Wait it was a rolled up carpet and Barry's still fine, but now with Riki. He heads home where the next day he's met by the cops as this time Barry was ACTUALLY killed. Clawed and torn to pieces. Guess he's not The Flash after all. They suspect him as he did sort of barge into Barry's place uninvited and Riki claims the door was locked beforehand.
After the next game meeting, Marty runs into Ricky who notes that it's not looking too coincidental that both Barry and Dwayne died given they were connected to the cat death, so it might mean that Marty's next. He heads to the shelter and again the cats freak out when he's left alone. Kit then shows up and reveals that Marty was the one who killed her, now she wants revenge. Yeah, Kit was our cat all along. Kit? Cat? Get it? Oh Stine you clever wordsmith. She's a shapeshifter who was the cat under the bleachers. The cats in her house are her siblings. She was always infatuated with Marty and that's why she was there in cat form, so she could watch him without him knowing. But he then killed her and now she wants revenge. She transforms into the cat and starts to attack him, tearing at him. But Marty manages to get a dog from the shelter named Brutus to attack Kit, killing her yet again.
Some time passes and Marty heals up somewhat. As he's playing in a basketball game, he notices something under the bleachers. A cat with bloody paws. So yeah, he has to kill her like seven more times and this should solve it.
This book is okay. Yes, the trend of the amazing cover leading to an underwhelming book meets us again. I do like the plot overall, and it's a rare case where things don't feel like they're spinning their wheels to much. A little, we do have some repetition to the story, but not enough to make this feel like a slog. In fact, it was one of the quicker feeling reads in the series which really helps out. I like the concept of the story, how Marty completely screws up by killing the cat. Which given he was squeezing the life out of Kit before yeeting her off the bleachers, I don't fully buy that he wouldn't have preferred the endgame being Kit being dead. The only problem is the horror really doesn't ever build to anything super interesting. A few moments of the cats being creepy and him being attacked by them, but not much else. Both Dwayne and Barry's offscreen deaths don't really help matters either. And I get that's sort of a limitation with a story about evil cats, but it doesn't make the issue any less noticeable.
This book came out in May of 1997. And in January of 1998, Stine would release Cry of the Cat, the first book in Goosebumps Series 2000. And I think this is a case where this concept is far more interesting as a Goosebumps book where the books are allowed to have more fun with the supernatural elements presented within them. Because ultimately this feels like the kind of story that would work better for kids than teens. I also think Cry of the Cat is more meatier in how it presents the plot, with Allison becoming cat-like and the reveal of what was going on with Rip. Also, you know, dead cat tornado. Here there's really nothing outside of "oh the hot girl was a shapeshifter who had a weird crush on Marty." It feels like a very rushed reasoning for why this is all happening. Kit was the obvious villain. Too obvious. Her name, her house being filled with cats, her being mostly lost in the background until she really matters, it all made the reveal too obvious. Riki and Gayle were obvious herrings, building the idea that both could never really be the killer cats of this plot. So you're left waiting for the most obvious shoe to drop.
Marty is an okay protagonist. Far from the creep a few of the male protags have been in these books. Still someone who involves himself in too many relationships, but we've had far worse cases of this. You do feel for his plight from not being believed and his fears as Kit and the other cats constantly try to kill him for revenge. Dwayne and Barry exist to be killed while Gayle is our secondary villain who ultimately does a face turn before the book ends. I could see a scenario where she could have been revealed as the cat the entire time. Her admiration of cats and hatred of rats adds some credence to that idea. Riki is frustrating, I don't fully get what the book wants me to feel about her. She's kind of a good friend to Marty even when he doesn't deserve it, but I feel zero chemistry between them to really care about a relationship. Kit's a decent villain but I wish we got more to her as it does feel like lazy reasoning. Jessica is the Superfluous Clay of the book. Her relationship with Marty drops super fast for her to really feel like a character.
So overall, this book was just okay. Not the deepest horror story and sadly nowhere as bonkers as I'd hoped it would be. It's way more a case of playing it safe than I would have expected. And because it really never goes too wild it also never gets out of second gear and never gets to be this super memorable book that you'd hope a premise like this would give you. Still, it's a quick read and I've ready WAY worse, especially for Fear Street, so it's a light recommend. Far from the cat's meow, but also far from being a big pile of used kitty litter. Cat gets a B-.
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