* Photo credit to The Closet *
On this cover: Jess and Heather Malone huddle around a fire as three moonlit zombies advance, and Liz dangles from a rocky precipice of doom. Response: I’m interested.
So what happens when you strand six annoying teenage personalities in the middle of the desert? Perilous antics unbound! I can’t believe how much happens in this book.
Where did we leave off? Oh, yes—three escaped convicts are prowling the desert Death Valley, where Jess, Liz, Heather, Todd Wilkins, Ken Matthews and Bruce Patman are lost. “Revolting, helpless Heather” is whining because she hurt her ankle. They’re convinced they’re jinxed because they found some gold; after all, they’re in the middle of a torrential downpour with about ten granola bars to survive off of, and they have to spend the night in a cave populated with skeletons and scorpions. I lie to you not. And Liz thinks, “Things can’t possibly get any worse than this.” Can’t they, though?
In true Scooby Doo fashion, the gang decides to split up because Heather’s injury is slowing them down. Jess, to keep her boyfriend Ken from staying behind with her arch-rival Heather, volunteers to hang back with the wounded, while the other four attempt to walk twenty-five miles to get help. But they come to a fork in the road, and Liz wants to take the high road through Funeral Mountains to avoid flash floods, and Todd wants to take the low road because who knows why! That doesn’t matter anyway, when the things Todd says to his beloved Liz are so deliciously cruel! A sample: “You know that I’ve always admired the sensible way you present your side of an argument…but you’ve made your point. So right now I wish you’d stuff a sock in it… Do you think you could manage for one second to get that tone of superiority out of your voice?” I love it.
Anyway, they decide to go their separate ways a la Steve Perry, and Ken and Liz start pondering their previous romance and it gets all awkward and horrible. Get over it! Jesus, Liz, you thought you wanted Bruce just last fucking book. All these SVH douches are walking hormones.
Speaking of Bruce, he’s being an even bigger bastard than usual and taunts Todd about Ken and Liz screwing in an oasis. Then he TOTALLY LOSES HIS SHIT by pummeling a rattlesnake to blood and guts with nothing but a rock. Memo to self: Do not fuck with Bruce Patman. Todd gets so irked by Bruce’s Ken-and-Liz comments (but not the snake murdering…?) that he leaves the low road in order to find the other two, leaving Bruce alone and clutching his gold like the Four of Pentacles.
This split proves beneficial, because Liz slips and almost dies on the mountains, but somehow Bruce is around to pull her back up. Unfortunately, a giant-ass eagle flies away with his sack of gold in its talons. (FOR REAL.) Todd’s so relieved that Liz is alive and still in love with him that he apologizes for having an opinion that differed from hers, and they vow never to fight again. Yeah, okay.
As for Jess and Heather, they’re at each other’s throats but manage to shut up long enough to go to bed. When they wake up, they see the convicts rifling through their sacks for gold. The convicts resemble The Three Stooges, so Jess calls them Moe (“who probably gunned down an entire fast-food restaurant for kicks”), Larry, and…Jack, who’s actually nice. And hot. Natch!
Anyway, the convicts set off the flare for funsies, which is beyond stupid, considering they’re wanted and all. The gang comes running to see why J&H are flaring, and then everyone gets tied up and left for lightning rods. (FOR REAL AGAIN.) They untie themselves and rescue Jack from a flash flood, and he joins their crusade to find help and escape Moe and Larry.
Well, they try to escape Moe and Larry—the two bad convicts (are there any other kind?) trap them in a cave, where Moe shoots Jack in cold blood and Jack dies! I knew something bad was going to happen to him—he showed everyone a picture of his sweetheart a few hours before when sharing his brownies with them. This book is unbelievable.
Jess sweet-talks their way out of getting out-and-out murdered, so Larry shoots six rounds into the cave’s ceiling before running away, causing a cave-in. In the pitch black, the teenagers fucking bury Jack’s body in the dirt. This shit’s hard-core, man!
They work their way further into the cave and nearly drown in ANOTHER flash flood. Did I mention how I can’t believe all this? Ken gets so pissed off at the premise of dying inside a cave that he punches straight through the wall. KEN SMASH! It turns out it’s all shale, so they dig their way out and wind up in the parking lot of a 7-11. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS!
Other Notes:
- Bruce tells Todd, “I have, in fact, kissed both [twins] myself…and between you and me, Todd, neither one is really that hot.” BWA.
- It turns out that all that gold they got was just fool’s gold, put there by a theater group. A THEATER GROUP. This story was downright incredible.
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