New Fear Street #2: Camp Out

Maria knows next to nothing about camping and she’s terrified of the woods, but she still agrees to go camping with her friends. Ellen is an outdoors nut who loves rock climbing, while Beth loves rock climbing but is more fond of boys. While shopping for supplies at the sporting goods store, she runs across football star Brett. He nearly cuts her head off with an axe, and he follows them on their trip, nearly forcing their car off the road.

When they stop to grab some snacks at the mini mart, Beth meets a group of hot guys. Will seems to like Maria, Daniel is all about Beth, and Andrew likes Ellen. They want to team up for the weekend, but Maria is still reeling over her boyfriend dumping her and she just wants to spend time with the girls so they begrudgingly agree. The guys walk with them into the parking lot, and Maria freaks out when she sees a gun. It turns out that it’s just a flare gun, but it still makes her feel uncomfortable.

After hiking through the woods, they hear a gunshot and freak out. It’s just two hunters in the wood shooting at animals. They go a little further, following the map to a small creek that they need to cross to reach their campsite. It’s rained so much though that the rain made the creek a rushing river. While trying to figure out what to do, they hear a ferocious growling in the woods. Just as they get ready to wet themselves, the guys rush out of the woods laughing.

They decide to work together, mainly because the guys have a raft. Maria and Will go across the river , while the others hold a rope attached to the raft. The rope gets dropped and they barely manage to get to the shore before the raft takes off down the water. Everyone gets across safely and they start hiking, but Maria trips and severely sprains her wrist. Will makes a tourniquet and they start hiking again, but Daniel keeps getting pissed that she needs to stop and take breaks because of her wrist.

Maria finally gets to the point where she wants to turn around and head back to get to a doctor. Her friends are fairly annoyed because they like the hot guys, and Daniel claims that they are really close to a great campsite he knows. It turns out that the spot is on top of a sheer rock face. The guys climb to the top and lower a rope down for Maria. She’s a little nervous but agrees, and just as she gets to the top, they drop the rope and she starts dropping.

No worries though, the guys were just adjusting the rope. She finally gets to the ledge where they want to camp and they get their stuff ready. The guys offer them some beer, but Maria just wants to sleep and the other girls agree. She wakes up to hear someone crying out, and decides that it must be the guys picking on them again. The next morning, they discover that Will is missing.

Daniel says that they had too much to drink and he wandered off. Ellen gets too close to the edge of the ledge and sees Will’s body on a lower ledge. She goes down to check on him and realizes that it wasn’t an accident. He has large bruises all over and Daniel’s walking stick is broken under his body. Daniel admits that they argued and Will hit him, so he hit him back and maybe hit him a little too much.

Ellen wants to go for help, which leads to a new argument. Daniel eventually tells her that if she goes for help, he will throw Maria off the ledge. When Ellen gets back to the top, Andrew starts flipping out. Daniel wants to kill all three girls and leave them there, but Maria convinces him that someone will find them and go after the guys. She offers to rent a raft for them using her mom’s credit card. He threatens to kill Ellen and Beth before they leave.

He finally agrees to take the three girls and rent a raft, but he will leave them tied up in the raft when it goes over the massive waterfall. They hike to the rental place and he lets her go in alone. She signs the credit card receipt with a message asking the clerk for help. Daniel walks in and kind of forces her out, and the clerk puts the receipt in the register without looking at it.

They get into the boat and tie up the other two girls. Maria kicks Andrew in the head and knocks his glasses off, but he still grabs her. Before he can tie her up, they hit some rough rapids and get tossed around the boat. Maria realizes that her friends cannot survive being tied up in the rough water and she grabs Beth when they hit a rock. Ellen flies out of the raft, but Maria grabs her leg and pulls her back into the boat.

She jumps out of the raft and starts swimming for shore, and Daniel takes off after her. She gets out of the water first, hears a car, and takes off running. The person driving the car is Brett, and she begs him for help. Daniel is right behind her, and it turns out that the two know each other. He tells Brett about killing Will who he also knew, and asks Brett to help him. Brett shoves Maria in the car and drives them both down to the water.

Brett pulls a backpack out of the back, telling him that he has something for her. They get to the river and Andrew has the raft tied to the shore. They toss the paddles into the water and prepare to tie her up. When he pins her down, she kicks him again, but the guys get her under control. Brett says he knows what she needs and pulls the axe out of his bag. He goes to cut the rope on the raft, but turns and hits Andrew instead.

Daniel and Brett start fighting, and she manages to get away. She unties her friends and sends them out into the woods. The other two guys keep fighting and Daniel knocks Brett out. He jumps into the raft to grab her, but she gets out and manages to cut the rope, sending him down the falls. A ranger suddenly appears, telling her that the clerk finally saw her note. Brett tells her that he went along with Daniel to help her and she thanks him. At the end of the book, Maria goes home to find her parents getting ready to take the family on a two-week camping trip!

*Maria claims that the guys were going to “get trashed” because they had three 6-packs of beer. Yeah, I took more than that just for me the last time we went camping.

*I’m not sure what’s up with Brett. In the beginning, she says that he got into trouble in another town for having knives and stuff and hanging out with a bad group of guys. I assume that group included Daniel and Andrew, but I have no idea why he would turn on him later.

*I wonder why the New Fear Street series didn’t last very long. This book was a lot better than some of the books in the original series.