Fear Street: Into the Dark (R.L. Stine)

Paulette is totally blind and totally has a stalker, but she doesn’t realize it yet. She’s just riding along with her buddy Jonathon, who drives like a psycho and is taking her the Shadyside Music Academy where she practices her piano. As soon as she gets out of the car, another car comes flying out of nowhere and she’s almost hit. Luckily this hot guy Brad Jones saves her life. Brad’s a recent transfer student that works at the Academy and thinks she’s a great musician and pretty cute.

She’s pretty smitten, especially when he comes over and asks for her phone number. Jonathon warns her that Brad has a bad reputation and was a criminal in his old hometown. She kind of blows it off, thinking that he seems nice enough. Brad calls that night and acts kind of weird. He keeps talking about how she’s perfect for him and it sounds like his voice has changed. Once again, she kind of blows the whole thing off.

Paulette talks to her friend Cindy about the whole thing, but Brad interrupts. Cindy rushes off and the two talk. Brad lets her feel his face and then tells her how he got a scar on his face. He also mentions playing piano in an old, abandoned house on Fear Street. Cindy comes over that night and freaks out when she sees her room. It turns out that someone broke into her room and painted a threatening note on the wall.

Cut to the next day, where she hears someone walking behind her, right before she’s pushed in front of a car. No one saw anyone near her, but Brad pops up to help her back. He makes some threatening comments and then runs off. She sees him later in the day and asks him what was up, but he swears he hasn’t seen her all day. Brad also wants her to go with him to the abandoned house and listen to him play.

Once they get to the house, Brad tells her that someone murdered the whole family that once lived there, but somehow the gas got left on and someone left behind a piano. They kiss, but then he walks off because he hears a noise upstairs. Paulette gets worried when he doesn’t come back and goes off looking for him. Jonathon shows up and says he followed them because he was worried about her. He searches the house, but Brad is long gone.

Brad apologizes for leaving her and makes up a lame excuse, before telling her they can’t date anymore and taking off. She pines over him, acting like they had some great love. Not long after, someone tries to break into her room and she grabs their arm. The guy leaves behind a class ring that has Brad’s initials, but instead of telling her parents the truth, she lies for him.

Cut to her little gang chilling at the pizza place, when a guy walks in and robs the place. As he’s leaving, his face is revealed and it’s Brad. Paulette swears it isn’t him because she knows his voice and it wasn’t his voice talking. Everyone else, including her best friends, saw his face for themselves. Jonathon accidentally gets shot, which means Brad’s ass really is grass. After making sure he’ll be okay, Paulette makes Cindy drive her to Brad’s job, but he abruptly quit that same day. She also discovers that he robbed a bunch of people in another town and he then calls her and claims he’s innocent.

Paulette’s parents conveniently leave for the night and she falls asleep outside. She wakes up to hear someone walking around, discovers that the person took out her guardrails and freaks out. She manages to get inside and Cindy shows up. Cindy wants her to call the police, which she won’t do and then they hear on the news that Brad robbed a store close to her house. Brad calls and reveals that his twin brother Ed is the one doing all the stupid crap. He’s also obsessed with Paulette, which is why Brad backed off. Brad also needs her help because Ed tied him up in the Fear Street house.

Paulette and Brad come up with a plan to trap Ed. She calls him upstairs, Brad hits him over the head and ties him up. The tied up guy claims he’s really Brad and when she touches the other guy’s face, she realizes that Brad really is tied up. He ties her up, but she pretends to be in love with him, so he lets her go. She breaks his flashlight so he can’t see, they fight and he winds up falling over the banister. She saves Brad and in the end, manages to get him out of the house. Ugh.

It feels weird to read a Fear Street book that came out so long after I stopped reading the books! I’m not sure if this was the last one, but it had to be one of the last ones. The back has an ad for the “new” Fear Street Nights saga.