Ghosts of Fear Street #34: Horror Hotel 1: The Vampire Checks In (R.L. Stine)

 

Joe just moved to Shadyside with his parents and brother Neddy to open a hotel with their grandfather. Grandpa claims that they're related to the Fears and wants to open a hotel on Fear Street called Hotel Howie named after him. Joe quickly makes a new friend named Nick and invites him over for dinner. Grandpa delights them with family stories, but it's Nick who notices a portrait of a boy who died in the 1800s who looks exactly like Joe.

He then joins his friend's new club where they hunt monsters. They all claim that they believe in monsters and hunted them before. Robin, one of the girls, goes missing at the end of the meeting and seems a little strange when she comes back. The next day, she comes up to Joe in school and tries to bite him. No one really believes him since she seems normal, but they do notice that she has a drop of blood on her shirt.

Joe then heads home and finds his brother acting weird. Neddy's hair is sticking straight up, and he's super pale. When Joe asks if he's okay, his brother growls and lunges at him. By the time he finds their mom, Neddy is back to normal. To protect himself, Joe starts sprinkling himself with garlic powder and carrying it around with him. Nick says that it will repel vampires along with anyone else who catches a whiff.

While checking out the attic, Joe stumbles onto a coffin, which he remembers that vampires use. A bat comes out of nowhere and attacks him, causing him to hop in the coffin. He then gets stuck and can hear the bat outside. His dad saves him and laughs about how it's a prop coffin that opens on his own. He bought it to add to the spooky design of the hotel. Joe later sees a vampire in the hotel and runs, but it's once again his dad who claims it was all part of his opening night show for the hotel.

When Joe finds a note in his locker to meet the monster club in the boiler room, he goes there and finds Robin. She attacks him and shows him her fangs, pushing him against the wall and trying to bite him. Joe sprinkles her with garlic powder, which causes her to start laughing as the other members come out of the shadows. Nick explains that it was a trick to make sure that he believed in monsters.

Joe then heads home and finds the hotel empty. He sees a stuffed rabbit that he never saw before on his desk. The rabbit starts breathing and then attacks him. As Joe knows that vampires can take other forms, he starts freaking out. It becomes a suit or armor and then transforms into a bear skin rug. The bear takes form and attacks him again. He manages to scare it away with a vacuum cleaner. Yes, a vacuum.

The members of the monster hunting club come over with a tool made from a coffin. It supposedly detects monsters but doesn't go off anywhere in the hotel. When it finally does, they can't find any monsters, so they decide to spend the night and hold a séance. This causes Nick to transform into a hairy monster. The monster says his name is Martin and that Colin Fear killed him, the kid from the portrait who looks just like Joe.

Joe runs into the kitchen with the monster behind him. His grandpa sees it happens and mutters something that makes the monster become Nick again. The other kids tell him that they've never seen such a powerful being before and they don't know what to do. Things get even worse when Martin takes over Joe's body and tries to stab him with a knife.

His friends tell him to talk to his grandpa. He then learns that his grandpa knows some spells, one of which he used on the monster. That night, Joe hears Martin's voice in his head. Martin says that he isn't going anywhere until he gets his revenge and tries to force Joe to kill himself. He then forces the kid onto the roof and tells him to jump, but his dad shows up at the last minute to save him.

Martin then reveals that he has control over his body from midnight to 12:15 every night. The ghost tries to kill Joe's dad but runs out of time before he can do it. Joe's dad is pretty surprised by everything but realizes that grandpa's stories were true. Grandpa says that Martin will keep getting stronger every night until he gains complete control over Joe but that they can do a spell that night and get rid of him. It turns out that they need a key though, which they don't have.

Grandpa still does the spell. Martin pretends that it worked and then forces Joe to put his head in a guillotine. Grandpa saves the day and leads Martin on a chase through the house. When Martin tries to stab him, grandpa reaches for the portrait of Colin, which a key falls out of when Martin slashes it. Martin grabs it and the spellbook, which he throws in the fire. Since grandpa can't remember the spell, Martin thinks that he won.

At the last second, grandpa suddenly remembers the spell and banishes Martin forever. They both feel a little weird and head to bed in the hopes that things will be different in the morning. Things definitely are different as grandpa messed up the spell and caused them to switch bodies...

*Hotel Howie will use the Fear Street legacy to draw in visitors. They plan on having different theme nights like vampires and werewolves. I totally want to stay there.

*Joe's mom really hates the whole Fear Street thing. She rolls her eyes when her dad brings it up, which makes it weird that she would move to a town where she can't escape it.

*The monster club trick was pretty cruel. I get that they only want members who believe in monsters, but Joe literally couldn't sleep for days because of it.