A Revisit to Fear Street: “Runaway”

Book: “Runaway” (Fear Street #41) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, 1997

Where Did I Get This Book: An eBook from the library!

Book Description: Hoping to start her life over at Shadyside, where nobody knows about her secret dark powers, runaway Felicia becomes terrified that she will lose control of herself again when someone discovers the truth about her.

Had I Read This Before: No.

The Plot: Meet Felicia Fletcher. She’s a hitchhiker just getting towards Shadyside, hoping to start a new life and leave her past in Ridgely behind. And since this time around Stine doesn’t feel like drawing out what that past may be, we get a flashback to see that Felicia has telekinetic powers, and was being used as a test subject at a college by a guy named Dr. Shanks. She thinks about the time he was giving her a test to see what her powers could do, but instead of being vaguely scummy but mostly harmless a la Dr. Venkman in “Ghostbusters”, Dr. Shanks is yelling at her to show off her powers, so much so that she gets upset and shoots a pencil at his eye. She misses, and he is so stoked that she was able to do that he doesn’t even care that she almost gouged his eye out. Felicia, however, is not stoked, and she thinks that her power is evil (and thinks fleetingly about how her father was ‘proof’ of that). Back in the present, she is so lost in thought she is almost run over by a car! The driver pulls over, and from his description all I’m getting is serial killer. He says that she clearly needs a ride and to get in. For whatever reason, Felicia does. He tells her his name is Lloyd, but his friends call him “Homicide”. Seems legit. He tells her it’s because he’s a killer, and when she looks appropriately terrified he says he was just joking. Felicia isn’t into his humor, and asks that he let her out. He then gets SUPER mad at her for being probably far more reasonable than she should have been. He pulls out a switch blade and speeds the car up, so she can’t jump out to safety, and tells her that he’ll let her out if she gives him her wallet. When she tells him he has no money, he continues to threaten her, and Felicia feels ‘the power’ building up in her. This power makes Lloyd’s car crash into a tree! Felicia is okay, but Lloyd is in a daze (but not dead. Pity), and she’s relieved because she already killed someone at that lab. I imagine we’ll learn more later. Felicia gets herself out of the car as he’s coming to, and she flags down another car. Lloyd keeps saying he’s going to kill her, and the other car driver lets her in and they drive away. The driver is a boy named Nick who proceeds to scold Felicia for hitchhiking because look what almost happened to her, and NO SHIT, NICK. He suggests that they go to the cops but Felicia is adamant that they not, but lo and behold, suddenly a cop car is zooming up behind them! Felicia freaks because she’s CERTAIN they’ve come for her to take her away for the deaths she’s responsible for (OH REALLY NOW), but they just keep going. She insists that Nick pull over, and says that she’s fine getting out at the Donut Hole. He’s skeptical, but she kisses him for his troubles, and leaves him behind.

After changing in the bathroom, Felicia orders some food and eaves drops on two college boys, one of whom is bitching about the house and cat sitting gig the other is doing for his professor, Dr. Jones. Seeing an opportunity, Felicia approaches them saying that her father is friends with Dr. Jones, so SHE can do the house and cat sitting job. The college guys, not at all interested in confirming that she is a family friend, take her up on the offer (though she also demands half of the hundred bucks, and good for her I say). The house is, of course, on Fear Street. She gets there and finds that cat, whose name is Miss Quiz, and thinks that she has it made.

The next day, in a move that I find COMPLETELY inexplicable, Felicia goes to Shadyside High and ENROLLS IN CLASSES. My first question is WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DO THIS? If the police are looking for a teenage runaway, don’t you think they’d be asking other teenagers, who would be localized at a school? And my second question is why on EARTH the school enrolled her without a parent present or any kind of record of her existence (and no, her transcripts being ‘in the mail’ SURE doesn’t count)? I call malarkey, but on we go. At the end of her first day of school, Felicia tapes a photo of her Dad up in her locker (this seems odd, as my locker was covered head to toe in pictures of James Marsters, but whatever), and then runs into Nick. He’s happy to see that she’s staying in Shadyside, and they walk out of the school together. She tells him she’s off to Fear Street, and he says that Fear Street is bad new, but Felicia has seen things and isn’t too concerned about a haunted street. He invites her to go to the Burger Basket with him, as he’s a line cook there, and she agrees. They arrive at the restaurant and meet Barry, the manager. Felicia asks him if there are any job openings, as she knows she can’t squat in Dr. Jones’s house forever. Barry pretty much hires her on the spot, and Nick is happy to hear that she’ll be working with him now. But do you know who isn’t happy? Some girl named Zan, who also works there (and apparently “Zen” is short for “Alexandria”, because of course it is). When Nick and Barry go off on their way on shift, Zan pulls out a knife and presses it against Felicia’s chest!!! She tells her that she’s going with Nick and Felicia better not forget that! Felicia’s power is about to go off, but then Nick comes in and Zan tries to play it off like a joke. The power still goes off, making a fry vat overflow and the lights flicker. Zan apologizes, assuring her she was just joking. Felicia leaves, more concerned about her power than the crazed girl with a knife.

At school the next week Felicia is settling in. She’s friendly with Nick and Zan and enjoying her job at Burger Basket. As they all eat lunch together she’s feeling pretty good. But then when she goes to her locker at the end of the day she finds and envelope taped inside. Within the envelope is a note that says I KNOW ALL ABOUT YOU!, along with a photocopy of her driver’s license with her real name and her Ridgely address! Also, her face has been burned away on it. Her fear makes her power start to go off, and she is able to keep it in check. She rushes out of the school and retreats to the Donut Hole. She calls Nick while at work, though worries that Zan may be jealous of she found out she was calling him. But Nick is a good friend and takes his break so he can meet her and they can talk. She balks at telling him everything, and says that he and Zan are the first friends she’s had in a long time, and that she’s afraid she’s going to have to run away again. He says that he and Zan don’t want her to leave (I believe half of that sentiment), but she thinks to herself he’d feel differently if he knew what she did. She tells him she feels better now, and he goes back to work. She vows that she won’t let anything happen to him and Zan, unlike Andy and Kristy….

And now it’s a flashback!! Back in Ridgely, Felicia and her friend/fellow subject Debbie are walking along the beach. Felicia is complaining about the tests that Dr. Shanks made them do, while Debbie is complaining about how she didn’t have any powers (and Felicia doesn’t really know why Debbie signed up if she wasn’t telekinetic in the first place). Felicia says that it’s not all that great, and they stumble upon an old ugly beach house Felicia says that it’s so ugly, and Debbie says that she should tear it down with her powers. Felicia hesitates, but then Debbie goads her on, saying she bets that Felicia’s power couldn’t do it. So Felicia, properly goaded, uses all of her concentration, and the house comes apart and falls down. Unfortunately, once the house is down they see two cars parked behind the rubble, cars that belong to their friends Andy and Kristy! They run into the house’s skeleton/rubble, Felicia praying that their friends weren’t inside, but alas and alack, they were! They are DEAD, and Kristy’s arm has been cut off by a beam, and Andy’s face has been torn off by bricks!

Back in the present, Felicia is angsting about her involvement in this awful thing, and gets back to Dr. Jones’s house. But wait, the door is unlocked! Since she’s sure that she locked it, she wanders inside, carefully. I, myself, would cut my losses, as this isn’t even her house and she could just run off, but oh well. Once she determines that she’s alone, she exhales…. but then… THEN… she sees someone has written in red paint RUNAWAY! GET OUT NOW! I KNOW EVERYTHING! Felicia is convinced this mystery person must know about Andy and Kristy! Not ready to give up, she just cleans it up.

The next night, Felicia and Nick are eating dinner on their break, sitting behind the restaurant. Felicia is so on edge, and Nick asks her what’s wrong. She decides to tell him part of it, and tells him that she used to live in Ridgely with her Aunt Margaret. Her parents are dead, and while there she was part of an experiment. She doesn’t tell him the natures of the experiments, but does tell him that she got sick of it, and that’s why she ran away. Nick then kisses her, and she is surprised, and relieved that Zan didn’t see. At closing, Zan picks up Nick, and Felicia and he share a look. After she gets her things, she leaves, but overhears Zan and Nick arguing about her. She starts to panic, her power starting to rise up, but she calms down and gets it under control. She wonders if it’s Zan who has been leaving her notes, but how could it be? She couldn’t know about Andy and Kristy; only the police know about that.

The next day at school Felicia confronts Nick at his locker about the argument. He says that Zan has a jealous streak, and that he doesn’t blame her because she’s had a very hard time as of late. When Felicia asks if he can tell her what that means, he says no, and she’d have to ask Zan herself. But he does ask her to be nice to Zan. And Felicia agrees. Are we still just ignoring the fact she threatened you with a knife, Felicia?!

That Friday, Zan invites Felicia to a sleep over at her house. Felicia doesn’t really want to go, but remembers she said she’d be nice to Zan, and that doesn’t mean a slumber party, Felicia, that means letting her borrow a pencil every once in awhile or some shit! But Felicia misses Debbie, so thinks this could be good. She goes to Zan’s that night, noticing a sharp iron fence with very sharp points on it. Think this will come back later to haunt her? Zan leads her inside and they watch “The Birds” and eat popcorn and have a fun time. When Zan goes to make nachos, Felicia starts snooping. She pulls down a Shadyside year book, and starts paging through just for fun. She finds a cute picture of Nick, but when she turns the page she sees a picture of Zan, with the other half of the picture being crossed out with brown marker. The caption that is legible says THE COUPLE MOST. Felicia can’t tell who the other person is, and when she rubs at the ink she realizes that it isn’t ink…. IT’S DRIED BLOOD. She shoves the yearbook away when she hears Zan coming back up the steps, and tries to play it cool. She asks Zan how long she and Nick have been going out, and Zan says since they were freshmen. but Felicia knows that can’t be true, and wonders what she’s hiding.

At school that next week Felicia goes to the library to find the year book. She finds the picture, and with Zan is a handsome guy. The caption says ALEXANDRIA MCCONNELL AND DOUG GAYNOR, THE COUPLE MOST LIKELY TO LAST FOREVER. Felicia’s heard the name Doug Gaynor before, but where. She slams the yearbook shut, and then runs to a memorial bench. A MEMORIAL BENCH OF DOUG! HE’S DEAD!

On the way to work that night Felicia and Nick are talking in his car. Felicia is jumpy, and Nick asks why. She decides to hold her cars to her vest and only tells him about the fact she’s squatting in a professor’s house. Nick thinks that’s totally okay, a victimless crime, if you will. But Felicia also tells him that she thinks someone from Ridgely followed her, or someone in Shadyside found out about her. He parks the car at work, and she tells him about the notes. He tells her that she’s not going to let anything happen to her, and they kiss again. But then he pulls away, and tells her that he loves Zan. When she asks him if he really does, he kind of balks, but tells her that he can’t break up with her because she needs him and couldn’t take it. She asks him if this has to do with Doug, and he says it does, and that Zan ‘accidentally’ killed Doug.

Long story short, Zan and Doug had been going out since 7th grade, then junior year he took another girl on a date, Zan found out and they fought on Zan’s balcony at her house. He shoved her, she shoved him, he fell off the balcony and was impaled in FOUR. PLACES on the iron fence!! IT TOOK HIM A LONG TIME TO DIE, GUYS. YIKES! So that’s why Nick can’t break up with her. Oh, because she’s violent and her actions killed a guy? No, because she’s SO SAD ABOUT IT. Zan is more afraid about what Zan could do to her if she found out about their kisses, and then says that Zan must have written the notes to try and scare her away. Nick doesn’t believe it, and while they argue suddenly Zan shows up, as Barry called her in early. Nick and Felicia make up a cover story about Nick asking Felicia for advice about where he can take Zan on a date. She seems to buy it, and they all go inside.

While on shift Zan asks Felicia if she can go change a light bulb. She agrees, and sets up a metal stepladder underneath it, noticing that someone spilled water on the floor like a n00b. As she bumps the light, a spark shoots out from it. Felicia notices that the wire is frayed… and that she’s standing in a puddle on a metal step ladder! She runs for the circuit breaker, hoping to shut off the power, but then BARRY comes in and reaches for the light, electrocuting himself!! The jolt is so powerful is fries the wiring in the entire building, setting the place on fire!!! She yells for everyone to get out, as a chain reaction courses through the wiring, making things explode and the oil spreading and HOLY SHIT THIS IS KIND OF AWESOME. Nick helps her move Barry for a bit, but then says that he’s going to try and get people out at the front. She pulls Barry out the back, but realizes that Nick and other people are still inside! So what does this awesome bitch do?! SHE RUNS BACK AROUND THE FRONT AND RUNS INSIDE, DETERMINED TO USE HER POWERS TO PUSH THE FIRE BACK!!! And damn if she doesn’t succeed, getting the fire back as most of the people get out! Soon it’s just her and Nick, and she’s running out of strength, but she manages to use the last of it to make a chair crash through a window, and they both get to the window…. but then Felicia collapses….

But she wakes up outside!! Nick got her through the window. He tells her that Barry is okay and everyone got out. He asks her how she did it, and she asks him not to ask her that. Then the goddamn press show up and they want to see the hero girl, but she freaks out, afraid the police will see her. Nick gives her his car keys and she somehow sprints away in spite of the logical smoke inhalation that must be inside her lungs. She hears a guy telling the news about how she pushed the fire away with her mind, but before she can be too concerned about that, ZAN attacks her, asking her why she couldn’t have just changed the light bulb?!?! Zan tries to strangle her, since her electrocution plan LITERALLY backfired, but Nick pulls her off, telling her that Felicia means nothing to him! Felicia, convinced that no one cares about her and that Zan won’t stop trying to kill her (especially since Nick is just enabling her apparently), leaves his keys in his car, and decides to pack up and leave town. BUT WAIT! Her dad’s photo is in her locker at school! She can’t just leave it behind. So she decides to go get it the next morning.

Flashback time! Back in Ridgely, Felicia has a bad dream about Andy and Kristy. She wakes up to a tapping on her window. Debbie is outside, and she climbs in with bad news. The police picked her up, asking her about the beach house and the experiments they’re part of! And apparently Dr. Shakes narced on her, saying her power is indeed strong enough to knock a house down! Debbie tells her she has to leave town, that she can take her car and go. Debbie helps her pack, and drives her to the city limits. Felicia doesn’t leave a note for her aunt. They part ways, and Debbie tells her that she police think she’s dangerous, and that she should use her fear to keep herself safe. As Felicia starts to drive away with Debbie, the usual panic makes her power start to go out of control. Felicia smells gas, and panics even more, but is able to get out of the car just in time. The car then explodes, sending Felicia through the air. Convinced that her powers are truly out of control, she ran into the night.

And now she’s about to run again. The next day she wakes up and sees that no one has come for her yet. She gets to school, determined to get the photo and then be off, but Nick takes her aside. She tells him to buzz off, but he tells her that he didn’t mean what he said the night before, that she actually means EVERYTHING to him. But he still hasn’t dumped Zan, and Felicia is pissed about this for about three seconds, because then Zan comes running down the hallway AT THE SCHOOL with a knife in her hands! When Nick tries to intervene she slices his hands, and then tackles Felicia to the floor! They struggle, and Zan admits that she did send the notes to Felicia, and that now she’s going to kill her. But Felicia is able to use her powers to fight her off! Once Zan is subdued, Felicia realizes that she CAN control her powers (so what, the fact you saved all those people at the Burger Basket wasn’t enough for you to realize that?!). With the police on the way, she opens her locker, gets her Dad’s photo, and heads back to Fear Street.

When she gets to the house, she packs up her shit and says goodbye to Miss. Quiz. She locks up and is about to leave, when someone puts their hand on her arm. She thinks it’s Zan, but no, it’s Debbie! She’s happy to see Debbie at first, but then it’s VERY clear that Debbie is NOT happy to see her. Apparently Debbie saw the news where that blabbermouth guy was talking about her moment of heroics at the Burger Basket. And Debbie ALSO wants to kill Felicia!!

So Debbie has powers too, and she is mad that Felicia never noticed it? I guess? She tried to kill her in the car explosion but Felicia’s powers probably saved her from that. And after the Beach House Felicia would be too much of a liability, because it was DEBBIE that made the house collapse because she was in love with Andy but was mad that he wanted to be with Kristy instead! She let Felicia think that it was HER powers that tore down the house, but it was actually Debbie’s powers because she is FAR more powerful than Felicia ever was! Then Felicia slaps her for being such a bitch. They fight with their telekinesis, and honestly, it’s kind of badass. Like, they’re throwing branches and light posts and stuff at each other. Eventually, Nick drives up and jumps out to help Felicia, and Debbie flings a mailbox at him. But before it can connect, Felicia uses her power to target Debbie’s power (somehow?), and it knocks Debbie completely out.

A few days later Nick is driving Felicia back to Ridgely. She’s made up with Aunt Margaret, and that she’s going back to testing but she won’t let the doctors bully her anymore. Debbie and Zan have been institutionalized, and Debbie is in a weird catatonic state. Felicia reminds Nick that he should visit her every weekend, and that if he doesn’t she will break out again and come find him. But he tells her that she’ll ‘never, ever have to run away again’. The End.

Body Count: 3. And pretty gnarly deaths too.

Romance Rating: 6. I think that it’s kinda bullshit that Nick was stringing Zan along (homicidal or not), but admittedly he and Felicia have pretty good chemistry.

Bonkers Rating: 7. If only because of the psychic fight and the fact that Shadyside school has NO rules and regulations re: enrollment and knife play.

Fear Street Relevance: 5. Felicia’s squatting in a house of Fear Street and the final confrontation happens there, but nothing about Fear Street itself drove the plot.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“Felicia took a deep breath. Now or never. She turned around and leaned into their booth.”

…. And I’m not really invested into whether or not she cons two dumb college boys into letting her squat in a college professor’s house, so why is this a cliffhanger.

That’s So Dated! Moments: Not much that’s too fun, but I did like the reference to the ‘tape’ version of “The Birds”.

Best Quote:

“She lashed out at Debbie – and Felicia heard a loud smack. Debbie fell back, holding her cheek.

‘What was that?’ Debbie demanded.

‘The slap in the face you deserve!’ Felicia cried.”

AWESOOOOOOOME.

Conclusion: “Runaway” was bland, but it did have some pretty awesome action moments and a pretty likable protagonist. Next up is “Killer’s Kiss”!