Scavenger Hunt
Aug. 20th, 2019 07:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyI believe I promised a review of Christopher Pike's Scavenger Hunt once I re-read it? I'm pretty sure I did. Anyway, I picked it up yesterday as we begin our slow slide into Halloween themed everything in my life (I say like this isn't my natural state).
Scavenger Hunt used to be one of my favorite Pike books and upon re-reading it, I'm not entirely sure it holds up to my vague memories of it. It's likely, over time, been built up a bit more in my mind because it's one of the books I lost in high school when I lent pretty much half my Pike collection to Penny and she returned exactly 0 of them. It's also one that wasn't quite as easy to find whenever I'd hit the used bookstores over the years so it's one of the few I didn't re-read a billion times.
I should point out that it's over 30 years old at this point and some things are just unintentionally hilarious or don't hold up because pop culture had a pretty big shift between then and now.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We begin with an unnamed boy rushing into a church like the hounds of hell are hot on his heels. He worries the church won't be open, but it is, and we spend some time lighting a candle for prayer and then going to confession, even though we've also established that maybe the cops should be called. Then again, what are they going to do against some supernatural elements? Maybe now is the time to tell a story instead.
We open the book proper with our hero, Carl, dreaming of being a kid again and hanging out with his best friend, Joe. Joe and Carl are debating dams and as dreams do, this one slowly shifts into a nightmare as the rains come, a monster falls from the sky, and the dam breaks, unleashing a flood that ultimately carries Joe away to his death.
Carl wakes to a phone call from dream girl, Cessy. She's pretty much your standard Pike sexpot your hero will drool over for the entire book before it's revealed there's something sinister lying beneath that pretty face. I did warn you there'd be spoilers, right? But also, yeah. Pike has his tropes and Cessy is most definitely included in that. We're introduced to Tom, Carl's new best friend now that Joe has died, and we learn that Tom suffered a head injury the previous year and that now he's ...different. Tom and Cessy want Carl to join their team for the big scavenger hunt that's ending the school year. They're seniors, btw, so this is also ending their high school experience. Carl agrees because Cessy is hot and Tom is his friend. The fact that Cessy has invinted him over to her house where she's swimming naked probably doesn't hurt, either.
We stop by the answering machine to get a little exposition about how Carl's dad is a trucker and his mother is not in the picture except for some money sent at Christmas. We get a message from Tracie, the sweet girl you know before you officially meet her is in love with Carl. She invited him to be on her team the previous night, but Cessy got to him first. Also, while Carl probably would've been happy to be on a team with Tracie and Rick, Rick's sister Paula kinda hates Carl... because Paula is Joe's girlfriend and she might blame him for Joe's death.
We stop at Cessy's for a dip in the pool and to see Tom's oddness in person, then we hit school to pick up Davey, Cessy's brother, and officially begin the scavenger hunt. Everyone is excited even though our faculty advisor for this is most definitely a skeleton held together by mind tricks or something.
Look, this was never one of those Pike books that tried to hide who the bad guys were from the audience. You knew damn well there was something off about Cessy and Davey well before Tracie catches them kissing. The fun was always in the weird 'twist' at the end as well as the weirdness along the way. We get our partial scavenger hunt list and are told not to bother trying to figure out anything beyond the first clue right away as each stop will have the other half of the next clue as well as the item for the hunt. The grand prize is a trip to Hawaii for the winning team. Huzzah!
Just so you know, we never run into any other teams beyond Cessy's and Tracie's. And this is weird as hell when we hit our pop culture shift. The first clue is kinda obvious and Rick and Carl solve it at the same time. The second is also pretty obvious and Davey solves it, aloud, and when both teams are like dude, no sharing, he points out that Rick would've figured it out a second later, if he hadn't already. Point is, we eventually wind up at the video rental place, which also sells music and stuff.
And it takes them FOR FUCKING EVER to figure out "That boy is our last hope. // No, there is another."
Forever. Even more embarrassing is how long it takes them to figure out that the next clue is in the same store, even though the initial list of clues makes it sound really, really obvious. Because I can believe that in the late 80's, without Star Wars being the thing it is now, that it might take some time and this is our pop culture shift moment, btw.
Anyway, the adventure continues and we detour at some point for Rick to look up an article on a mine that Davey read about the previous week. Rick can't find the article but does find a much older one about the same mine and wonders at just how easy that was to find. Why is Davey messing with him?
Good question, Rick and company. Why is Davey messing with you?
I've gotta say that by the time we hit the clue to the twin peaks (heh), you wonder why Carl is still playing along. Sure, he's a mechanic and can fix his own car that he's fucking up, but he's probably one of the only people in school with that option. A trip to Hawaii would be nice but is it worth fucking up your car? Why would a legitimate hunt take you so far out of the way? Questions that can be handwaved away by the fact that Davey and Cessy are both shown to be capable of mind control, but still, those questions are even stronger when applied to Tracie because she's not in Davey's direct line of sight and we've established that her car is already kinda fucked. Curiousity is a helluva drug, I suppose.
Eventually we wind up in the desert, where Joe died, and I still can't believe it's taking Carl so long to fully piece together what the hunt has been having them pick up, even as Tom puts on each item as they uncover them. Socks and jeans and a bloody shirt and dude. Tom is Joe. TOM IS JOE. Mind control, though.
Anyway, we wind up underground at the altar to... whatever it is Davey and Cessy come from and this is where I should probably point out that I've always felt that Scavenger Hunt would've made a better movie than a book, possibly. It always felt more cinematic to me, as certain things are far more obvious in book form than they'd be on screen, and other things that don't really get a full explanation again, would work better on screen.
Since this is an earlier Pike book, we don't get his special brand of mysticism/woo, as he hasn't quite worked himself up to that. Instead we get some dinosaurs evolved/Cessy and Davey are lizard people. It's at this moment you either roll with it all or you throw up your hands and scream what the actual fuck, book? I rolled with it but I don't fault a soul who did the latter.
We find out that in the flood, Joe was somehow brought down to Davey's special attention and since their kind specialize in revenge (why? Something about tension, I guess) Davey brings Joe back to life. As Tom. And for a year Tom and Carl are friends and then on the anniversary of Joe's death (one of the things I cannot forgive or overlook is Paula not remembering until it's brought to her attention that today is Joe's death day. Get the fuck out of here with that shit, Paula would know.), Joe will get his revenge. DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNN.
Only no, because the other thing we've learned about Davey today is that he is a liar. Davey sacrifices Rick after sending Tom away (say it with me, kids: mind control!) but because Cessy likes Rick, and is pissed at Davey for killing her dog, she tricks Davey (Jedi mind tricks!), removes whatever incantation Davey cast, and snaps Rick's neck before pushing him beyond the Veil of Secrets into a pool of acid. Don't feel too bad for Rick, though. He was dying anyway and this way he's ~free~ and also he managed to be awfully heroic about his death.
I'd like to take a moment to appreciate the choice Davey offers Tracie:
When she volunteers (as tribute) to take Rick's place, Davey says nah... but I like your moxie, so tell you what. I'll let everyone go after all, if you choose between Carl and Paula as your sacrifice. Tracie dithers because she's in love with Carl but Paula is her best friend and also, she can't just kill someone. It's pointed out that playing Davey's game is pointless because he's a LIAR but I've always believed that had Tracie picked a name, Davey would've gone full on Sophie's Choice and killed the other to a) increase the tension he keeps blathering on about and b) because he's that kind of monster.
Luckily for everyone but Rick, Tracie can't decide and time runs out. Probably for the best, as I don't think Tom/Joe would appreciate finding out that he missed out on the revenge or that Paula was dead.
So Rick's gone, but his sacrifice did not do what it was supposed to do for Davey and that means that at the church, when the hounds of hell (Davey and Cessy) show up to collect Carl... oh. I skipped something.
Davey explains to Carl that Joe felt that his efforts to save Joe were too little too late, considering Joe died and all. But Davey says that it was more a case of too much, too late. He says that the reason Carl's felt weird, especially all day, is because, y'know, he died, too. He then stabs Carl and Carl is physically fine. And this is a trick that I think works better if you're younger when you first read this and don't know about trick knives. Because of course the liar has a trick knife!
Seriously, Davey's entire shtick is wasted on a book. He needs screen time so he can go full on diva.
So. The church. Tom lays into Carl and Carl is like, dude. You're my best friend. I love you. I failed you, but it wasn't intentional. I didn't lead you to your death intentionally. I just wasn't quick enough to save you from a freak accident. Davey, on the other hand, has been murdering people left, right, and center, and if you don't believe me, ask Rick. Oh, wait, you can't, because he killed him while you weren't looking. The girls have the duct tape removed from their mouths and confirm that Rick's dead and Paula is, btw, having a fairly believably hard time with this boyfriend back from the dead thing.
Ultimately Davey gets taken out by a bottle of tequila, Cessy's mind control, and a knife from the scavenger hunt. Joe and Paula have a sweet moment where he has to say goodbye and Paula, who is having the absolute worst day of her already shitty life, doesn't want to let him go. He admits that part of her problem the last year was the knowledge, on some level, that he wasn't gone. He hadn't let her go and now he'd have to because the cost for him to stay is far too high.
There's a hint at a sequel with Cessy promising to return for Carl when he's old because she wants to know more about this thing called love.
Lizard people has never been my conspiracy theory of choice but it's also pretty much how I remember this book. Scavenger Hunt- the one with the titular hunt that ends with lizard people and the smell.
I still think it would make a fun movie, honestly.
Now, I need my headache to go away because I'm either going swimming or shopping in a bit. I hope.
Scavenger Hunt used to be one of my favorite Pike books and upon re-reading it, I'm not entirely sure it holds up to my vague memories of it. It's likely, over time, been built up a bit more in my mind because it's one of the books I lost in high school when I lent pretty much half my Pike collection to Penny and she returned exactly 0 of them. It's also one that wasn't quite as easy to find whenever I'd hit the used bookstores over the years so it's one of the few I didn't re-read a billion times.
I should point out that it's over 30 years old at this point and some things are just unintentionally hilarious or don't hold up because pop culture had a pretty big shift between then and now.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We begin with an unnamed boy rushing into a church like the hounds of hell are hot on his heels. He worries the church won't be open, but it is, and we spend some time lighting a candle for prayer and then going to confession, even though we've also established that maybe the cops should be called. Then again, what are they going to do against some supernatural elements? Maybe now is the time to tell a story instead.
We open the book proper with our hero, Carl, dreaming of being a kid again and hanging out with his best friend, Joe. Joe and Carl are debating dams and as dreams do, this one slowly shifts into a nightmare as the rains come, a monster falls from the sky, and the dam breaks, unleashing a flood that ultimately carries Joe away to his death.
Carl wakes to a phone call from dream girl, Cessy. She's pretty much your standard Pike sexpot your hero will drool over for the entire book before it's revealed there's something sinister lying beneath that pretty face. I did warn you there'd be spoilers, right? But also, yeah. Pike has his tropes and Cessy is most definitely included in that. We're introduced to Tom, Carl's new best friend now that Joe has died, and we learn that Tom suffered a head injury the previous year and that now he's ...different. Tom and Cessy want Carl to join their team for the big scavenger hunt that's ending the school year. They're seniors, btw, so this is also ending their high school experience. Carl agrees because Cessy is hot and Tom is his friend. The fact that Cessy has invinted him over to her house where she's swimming naked probably doesn't hurt, either.
We stop by the answering machine to get a little exposition about how Carl's dad is a trucker and his mother is not in the picture except for some money sent at Christmas. We get a message from Tracie, the sweet girl you know before you officially meet her is in love with Carl. She invited him to be on her team the previous night, but Cessy got to him first. Also, while Carl probably would've been happy to be on a team with Tracie and Rick, Rick's sister Paula kinda hates Carl... because Paula is Joe's girlfriend and she might blame him for Joe's death.
We stop at Cessy's for a dip in the pool and to see Tom's oddness in person, then we hit school to pick up Davey, Cessy's brother, and officially begin the scavenger hunt. Everyone is excited even though our faculty advisor for this is most definitely a skeleton held together by mind tricks or something.
Look, this was never one of those Pike books that tried to hide who the bad guys were from the audience. You knew damn well there was something off about Cessy and Davey well before Tracie catches them kissing. The fun was always in the weird 'twist' at the end as well as the weirdness along the way. We get our partial scavenger hunt list and are told not to bother trying to figure out anything beyond the first clue right away as each stop will have the other half of the next clue as well as the item for the hunt. The grand prize is a trip to Hawaii for the winning team. Huzzah!
Just so you know, we never run into any other teams beyond Cessy's and Tracie's. And this is weird as hell when we hit our pop culture shift. The first clue is kinda obvious and Rick and Carl solve it at the same time. The second is also pretty obvious and Davey solves it, aloud, and when both teams are like dude, no sharing, he points out that Rick would've figured it out a second later, if he hadn't already. Point is, we eventually wind up at the video rental place, which also sells music and stuff.
And it takes them FOR FUCKING EVER to figure out "That boy is our last hope. // No, there is another."
Forever. Even more embarrassing is how long it takes them to figure out that the next clue is in the same store, even though the initial list of clues makes it sound really, really obvious. Because I can believe that in the late 80's, without Star Wars being the thing it is now, that it might take some time and this is our pop culture shift moment, btw.
Anyway, the adventure continues and we detour at some point for Rick to look up an article on a mine that Davey read about the previous week. Rick can't find the article but does find a much older one about the same mine and wonders at just how easy that was to find. Why is Davey messing with him?
Good question, Rick and company. Why is Davey messing with you?
I've gotta say that by the time we hit the clue to the twin peaks (heh), you wonder why Carl is still playing along. Sure, he's a mechanic and can fix his own car that he's fucking up, but he's probably one of the only people in school with that option. A trip to Hawaii would be nice but is it worth fucking up your car? Why would a legitimate hunt take you so far out of the way? Questions that can be handwaved away by the fact that Davey and Cessy are both shown to be capable of mind control, but still, those questions are even stronger when applied to Tracie because she's not in Davey's direct line of sight and we've established that her car is already kinda fucked. Curiousity is a helluva drug, I suppose.
Eventually we wind up in the desert, where Joe died, and I still can't believe it's taking Carl so long to fully piece together what the hunt has been having them pick up, even as Tom puts on each item as they uncover them. Socks and jeans and a bloody shirt and dude. Tom is Joe. TOM IS JOE. Mind control, though.
Anyway, we wind up underground at the altar to... whatever it is Davey and Cessy come from and this is where I should probably point out that I've always felt that Scavenger Hunt would've made a better movie than a book, possibly. It always felt more cinematic to me, as certain things are far more obvious in book form than they'd be on screen, and other things that don't really get a full explanation again, would work better on screen.
Since this is an earlier Pike book, we don't get his special brand of mysticism/woo, as he hasn't quite worked himself up to that. Instead we get some dinosaurs evolved/Cessy and Davey are lizard people. It's at this moment you either roll with it all or you throw up your hands and scream what the actual fuck, book? I rolled with it but I don't fault a soul who did the latter.
We find out that in the flood, Joe was somehow brought down to Davey's special attention and since their kind specialize in revenge (why? Something about tension, I guess) Davey brings Joe back to life. As Tom. And for a year Tom and Carl are friends and then on the anniversary of Joe's death (one of the things I cannot forgive or overlook is Paula not remembering until it's brought to her attention that today is Joe's death day. Get the fuck out of here with that shit, Paula would know.), Joe will get his revenge. DUN DUN DUUUUNNNNNN.
Only no, because the other thing we've learned about Davey today is that he is a liar. Davey sacrifices Rick after sending Tom away (say it with me, kids: mind control!) but because Cessy likes Rick, and is pissed at Davey for killing her dog, she tricks Davey (Jedi mind tricks!), removes whatever incantation Davey cast, and snaps Rick's neck before pushing him beyond the Veil of Secrets into a pool of acid. Don't feel too bad for Rick, though. He was dying anyway and this way he's ~free~ and also he managed to be awfully heroic about his death.
I'd like to take a moment to appreciate the choice Davey offers Tracie:
When she volunteers (
Luckily for everyone but Rick, Tracie can't decide and time runs out. Probably for the best, as I don't think Tom/Joe would appreciate finding out that he missed out on the revenge or that Paula was dead.
So Rick's gone, but his sacrifice did not do what it was supposed to do for Davey and that means that at the church, when the hounds of hell (Davey and Cessy) show up to collect Carl... oh. I skipped something.
Davey explains to Carl that Joe felt that his efforts to save Joe were too little too late, considering Joe died and all. But Davey says that it was more a case of too much, too late. He says that the reason Carl's felt weird, especially all day, is because, y'know, he died, too. He then stabs Carl and Carl is physically fine. And this is a trick that I think works better if you're younger when you first read this and don't know about trick knives. Because of course the liar has a trick knife!
Seriously, Davey's entire shtick is wasted on a book. He needs screen time so he can go full on diva.
So. The church. Tom lays into Carl and Carl is like, dude. You're my best friend. I love you. I failed you, but it wasn't intentional. I didn't lead you to your death intentionally. I just wasn't quick enough to save you from a freak accident. Davey, on the other hand, has been murdering people left, right, and center, and if you don't believe me, ask Rick. Oh, wait, you can't, because he killed him while you weren't looking. The girls have the duct tape removed from their mouths and confirm that Rick's dead and Paula is, btw, having a fairly believably hard time with this boyfriend back from the dead thing.
Ultimately Davey gets taken out by a bottle of tequila, Cessy's mind control, and a knife from the scavenger hunt. Joe and Paula have a sweet moment where he has to say goodbye and Paula, who is having the absolute worst day of her already shitty life, doesn't want to let him go. He admits that part of her problem the last year was the knowledge, on some level, that he wasn't gone. He hadn't let her go and now he'd have to because the cost for him to stay is far too high.
There's a hint at a sequel with Cessy promising to return for Carl when he's old because she wants to know more about this thing called love.
Lizard people has never been my conspiracy theory of choice but it's also pretty much how I remember this book. Scavenger Hunt- the one with the titular hunt that ends with lizard people and the smell.
I still think it would make a fun movie, honestly.
Now, I need my headache to go away because I'm either going swimming or shopping in a bit. I hope.