Danger Zone: Annual Dares
Scary secret kids-only challenges. What could possibly go wrong??
I should be honest, though: That wasn’t the first time I truly saw the hotel.
I first saw the Carlisle in my dreams.
Three years ago, on the night of my tenth birthday.
Before my mom died. Before the move to Gold River.
—Vacancy, by K.R. Alexander
Vacancy, by K.R. Alexander
Decades ago, there was a disaster at the Carlisle Hotel, and everyone there—guests and staff alike—died.
Well, almost everyone? There was one survivor. But that person was so traumatized that she couldn’t explain what had happened, and she skipped town the next day. The authorities in Gold River never settled on an explanation—gas leak? food poisoning?—but the coroner said it looked like everyone had died… OF FRIGHT.
So the town just abandoned the building and it’s been sitting there, empty.
Now, the seventh graders of Gold River hold an annual up-all-night Dare: Who can last in the maybe-haunted-maybe-cursed hotel the longest? No one has ever been able to make it the whole night without tapping out. This year, three very motivated kids—class outcasts with nowhere to go but up, popularity-wise—are determined to make it through the night.
But this year—the thirty-third anniversary of the Carlisle Massacre—the Dare will be different. Because on this night, the kids of Gold River are going to hold a séance.
If you’re thinking that this sounds a lot like an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?, you’re exactly right: The basic premise requires some serious suspension of disbelief; the dialogue and narration are occasionally melodramatic and hokey, but in an oddly charming way; the scares are never HUGELY scary or explicitly gory, but reference gruesome stuff; and, most importantly, it’s a true horror story, in that the characters don’t get a happy ending.
The angle of the premise that I had the hardest time with was the idea that the town just… left the hotel as-is? Like… wouldn’t someone have inherited the property? If there wasn’t anyone to inherit, I assume the state would do… something? All that, and the neon sign on the cover just doesn’t track with the descriptions of the sumptuousness of this chandelier-filled ruin, and it all hurt my brain and I JUST HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
Once I cleared that hurdle, I met the school bully, who talks like he’s the love child of Shannen Doherty in Heathers and Rizzo from Grease:
“You haven’t been here long enough to know how things run in this town. So I’ll give you a pass, new girl.” He takes a step toward me, forcing me to step back. “I’m like this because I can be. Who’s going to stop me? You?”
He takes another step. I step to the side, because there’s a look in his eyes that tells me I don’t want to push him any further.
“That’s what I thought,” he says when I’m out of his way. “This is how things are in Gold River. Some kids are meant to rule this school. Some—like you and your friends—aren’t.”
So it was kind of a rough start, but for whatever reason, it all started to grow on me—very possibly because it felt a whole lot like a 2021 spin on 1980s YA horror, but geared a bit younger.
And THEN, when things got REALLY dark, I was fully—and entirely cheerfully—in:
Flames burst into life on the stoves and behind the glass oven doors. The pots sitting on the burners immediately begin to boil and steam.
But the pots aren’t just hissing. There are thuds within them. Thuds, and screams.
As if there are kids stuck in the pots, trying to get out.
Getting boiled alive.
Getting cooked for the hungry hotel.
If we aren’t fast, we’re going to be next.
At about the midpoint, I suddenly realized where the story was headed—and as much as I want to get into it, I’ll save it for the comments. Let me know if you want to know where it goes.
Because truly, when I got to the end and it turned out I was right, I just laughed and laughed with absolute DELIGHT, because it made me picture my 11-year-old self reading it and getting her mind absolutely BLOWN.
We don’t see true horror endings all that often in middle grade—there’s usually at least a nugget of hope in there somewhere—and so I really have to hand it to Alexander & the Scholastic crew for continuing in the grand tradition of telling stories that make kids say, “OMG THAT IS SO! MESSED! UP!”
FULL kudos if they...er, offed a bunch of kids in a horrifying fade-to-black kind of scene (oh, MAN, that sounds bad). We are taught at MFA School and pressured so much to make things more hopeful all the time, then if they actually managed to kill/trap-in-time-and-hauntedsville these kids, even off script where it's mostly supposition, AND get this book to publication?? I am standing, applauding, and wondering who their editor is.
And of course I want hints on the ending. This is the POINT of vicarious horror story experiences, no? To know how right our particular flavor of wrong might be...