Fear Street Seniors #10: Wicked

Prologue:

Melanie Anderson could be a shampoo model, or so everyone tells her. She thinks it's because she never uses any chemicals and spends a lot of time taking care of her hair. As she stares at her reflection in pleasure, she sees two faces appear. Repeatedly saying that they can't be there because she already gave them what they wanted, she turns to run. A silver cord comes out from the mirror and decapitates her. Yup, these books are a little darker than the Fear Street books from my youth!

We then cut to Marla Newman getting ready for a debate in history class. Sitting down in the cafeteria next to her debate opponent Kenny, she Jessica Wakefield-like mentions that she dresses better than him. Another girl, Clarissa, shows up and makes some snide comments before "accidentally" spilling iced tea all over her new shirt. They shout at each other, Marla silently hopes she falls on her face, and she trips and does fall on her face. Clarissa claims she pushed her and stomps off.

Roxanne and Elena, two juniors she sneers, make the mistake of sitting down next to her. They tell her that they only want one thing from her: friendship and that friendship is power. Someone's been watching My Little Pony! Well, someone other than me and my roommate. When she goes to her class, she sees them standing by the door and staring at her. As she tries to talk, she lets out a loud burp and feels something pushing on her throat and stopping her from breathing.

It turns out that she needs to win at everything because her mom is a real hard ass. Kenny keeps outdoing her in everything, and after beating her in the debate, he gets a higher grade on their French test. Just then, someone comes over the speaker with an announcement, which is actually a recording of the debate. She runs to the office and finds Clarissa, this girl Josie, and some other girls.

She and Josie hate each other for no real reason, so they're basically real teen girls. When Marla's dad hired Josie to work for his hardware store the previous summer, Marla decided that she wanted the job and he fired the other girl. Josie proudly says that she got her back, but Marla tells them that they'll all pay. When they ask if she's threatening them, she tells them that it's a promise. Ooh, a teenage girl is coming for ya! Actually, this kind of scares me.

Upset over the day, Marla creates a list of people that she hates. Her mom then sits her down to talk with her about her day. We learn that her mom is a super go getter who never seems to have anything bad happen to her. When she asks to see her French test, her grade somehow goes from an 85 to a 98. The next day, her teacher congratulates her for doing so well on the test. She then finds out that someone posted her hate list in the school and everyone saw it.

To get back at Josie, who she blames for posting the list, she steals her clothes and dumps them in a dumpster. While leaning in to push the clothes down, something shoves her from behind and then locks the dumpster on her. Luckily, two random guys show up and save her. Clarissa and her friends laugh at her, but she runs to hop in the school shower.

When she gets out, she finds Roxanne and Elena waiting for her. They claim that they summoned a higher power to change her test grade and can get her anything else that she wants. While they aren't witches, they call themselves students of the Dark Arts. Marla agrees to join them later that night, and they call upon a higher power. Something happens and Marla starts to fall down into a deep and dark pit. The other girls save her, start chanting, and they all chant in unison to summon some random power.

This time, a yellow piece of parchment paper comes out of the pit with her name on it. She can't understand the writing, which the others describe as a lost language. They tell her that if she signs it, she'll get access to all her powers and form a deep connection with a Dark Force. Elena comes at her with a knife, but it's actually just the way she needs to sign the paper, with her blood. Since she's a teen girl, she thinks about this for approximately five seconds before slicing open her hand and bleeding on the paper.

A massive storm rises, lightning strikes her, and she passes out. She wakes up in bed at home and thinks it was all a dream until she finds the parchment in her bed. After donning some new black duds, she heads to school and meets up with her coven. They decide that she should go after all the people on her hate list, but she actually goes after her French teacher too. Kenny is apparently the only one who can translate French quickly, so the teacher speaks to him all the time. When she wishes he would shut up, the teacher starts losing all his teeth and runs from the room.

When she hears that one of Josie's friends Trisha got into Brown University ahead of her, she flips out. Trisha is super rich and her dad agreed to buy a new building for the school, so she must pay. Eh, as someone who watched rich people think they can do whatever they want in real life, I'll allow it. She really just makes her designer skirt split in half in the middle of the hallway, and oh noes, Trisha was wearing embarrassing underwear!

The other girls want her to use the power to push Josie through a plate glass window but she resists. They have no problem with killing her because she looked at them wrong or something. After a short argument, they agree to leave. Josie then makes a snide comment that leads to Marla running to the bathroom. She notices that her eyes look darker and feels the power go through her, even though she didn't use it. A bunch of people start screaming, and when she runs outside, she finds Josie's lifeless body covered in blood after crashing through a glass door.

Elena and Roxanne think it's funny and point out that since she felt the power move through her, she probably did it herself. They even ask how she feels having blood on her hands, which is pretty disgusting even for teenagers. Marla runs out to check on Josie and finds her alive and talking to herself. She keeps saying that someone pushed her through the door and whispers something about the Doom Spell.

They then tell her that she signed a pact that will last forever, which sends her off the deep end. She runs home and lies to her mom about having a stomachache. She keeps thinking that it can't possibly last forever, which causes the Dark Forces to recreate the pact she signed all over her walls and ceiling. Feeling a sharp pain in her hand, she sees her cut come open and start bleeding again.

Then it's back to school. Kenny offers to help her in French class and pokes fun at her before taking off. She calls him back, tells him that she's super stressed and could actually use his help. After accidentally running into Clarissa, she apologizes and asks about Josie. This might seem like a new and improved Marla, but then she sees the gruesome twosome again. This time, she learns that since she signed the pact in blood, the Dark Forces want blood back. She must kill someone before the next full moon or die herself, and the Dark Forces want her to kill Kenny. Either they're big South Park fans or they have a big problem with valedictorians.

The next time she sees them, they refuse to be around her. Elena tells her that they don't want to be there when the Dark Forces come after her. They also explain that Melanie, the former third member of their group, died a horrible death when she refused to kill. There was blood everywhere and they never located her head.

While most of us would lock ourselves in a room after that, Marla heads to gym class. She starts having intense stomach cramps that knock her off her feet. Her gym teacher, who probably transferred from Stoneybrook Middle School, tells her to walk it off and climb the rope. While near the top, the rope turns into a wiggling snake. Marla screams, lets go, and drops straight to the ground.

She wakes up in the nurse's office with the nurse talking about her fall. The nurse starts to mention another student falling from the rope but trails off when she sees two large scratches on Marla's neck. The nurse does let her know that she doesn't have a concussion or internal injuries, which makes me wonder about her medical training. She gets ready to cut a bandage for her neck, something takes her over, and she starts to stab her with a pair of scissors before the gym teacher pops up to check on the student she almost killed.

Knowing that she needs to kill Kenny and kill Kenny now, Cartman, err Marla, heads over to Kenny's house. While working on their French together, she realizes how cute and nice he is and wishes she paid attention before. Trying to channel the powers to kill him doesn't work so well for her until he tries to get a good look at her neck. The power rushes through her and she starts strangling him with her mind.

Just before he dies but while he's still purple, she stops. Kenny asks why she tried to kill him, and she explodes. While he doesn't believe in witches, he changes his mind after she tells him the whole story and shows him the parchment. Since his dad just so happens to have an interest in the occult, he has a ton of witchcraft books on hand. They go through everything and find nothing about a blood pact. Kenny convinces her that the girls made it all up and that they were the ones causing all the crazy stuff to happen. Since she believes him, she rushes off to the Fear Woods to find the other girls.

When she confronts them with what she learned, they admit that they needed her to gain more power. Now that she knows the truth, they have no use for her. They make the trees come at her and throw boulders at her, and what little magic she has is practically worthless. They finally decide to set her on fire, but when she says that she'd rather freeze to death, they do that instead. Once her body temperature drops as low as possible, they laugh and say it will be over soon.

They leave her there to die, but she hears someone calling her name. It turns out that Kenny followed her to the woods and he brings her back to his house. After bringing her body temperature back up, he tells her that he couldn't stand the thought of losing her and they kiss. Aw, I think I'm starting to like this guy. Marla tells him that she doesn't want him to get involved, but he says he already is and that he has a plan that will use her "death" to their advantage.

Kenny saunters up to them the next day and tells them that he has the power and wants to join their group. They ask him to prove it, and Marla, who is hiding in a nearby closet, makes Roxanne's bag fly across the fall. They tell him to meet them in the woods at midnight, and Kenny wanders over to the closet and whispers that they're dead. Am I the only one hoping someone was walking by right then and stopped in fear?

Of course the girls aren't stupid. They knew Marla was hiding and tricked Kenny to coming to meet them. They plan on throwing him in the pit as a sacrifice to the Dark Forces and hold a knife on him. Marla runs out of the woods and fights with Roxanne, but the other girls make the tree roots come alive and pin them both. Remembering the chant from her first night, she calls upon the Dark Forces to open a chasm in the ground. Elena falls in and presumably dies. They assume Roxanne died, but she comes back with a green flame in her eyes and screams about how they need to pay for killing her best friend. Eh, you're like 16, you probably won't even know that girl in a few years.

Roxanne comes at them with fire, but Kenny grabs a flaming branch and sets her on fire. Her robe goes up in flames. Just as they start to rejoice, she throws off her robe and comes at them again only this time, she's covered in gross red scars and bubbling skin. Roxanne then pins them both with tree roots/branches and says she'll kill Marla and torture Kenny.

Suddenly, Elena's voice comes from the massive hole in the ground. Roxanne runs to help her get out, but it's actually Marla using her power to mimic the other girl's voice. This gives her the chance to run out and push Roxanne over the edge. She and Kenny embrace and think that they're finally free.

The next day in school, it's a brand new Marla. She apologizes for being a bitch to some of her classmates and makes up with Clarissa who invites her to join her and her friends for pizza. She also talks to Josie, who is recently back from the hospital and thanks her for sending her flowers. While she has a French final, she can't wait to see Kenny again.

Kenny runs up with fear in his eyes. He explains that he found something about her pact in his dad's old books after he got home the night before. Anyone who

signs the pact and uses their powers against another of their kind will die exactly 12 hours later. They stare at each other for a few seconds before they hear a rumbling sound and see the ground open up. Marla tries to grab him, but it's too late. The roots come out of the ground and drag her below. Woo-hoo, that means Kenny is single!