Sunday Shorts: Shell Shocker

We open with our not-hero,  Tara, at the beach with her brother. They are in a tough, serious argument... over who's getting possession of a bloody sea shell. It's a good job that I'm not really supposed to care about Tara, judging by the ending. Tara claims that this shell isn't just any shell; no, it's the most perfect shell in the world, and everyone is going to be jealous of it. No they're not. No 12 year old gives a damn, half a damn, or even a thousandth of a damn about sea shells. Even in 1995, when all the video games coming out were terrible and presumably when this book was released. And here's the cherry on top of the ridiculous cake: Tara claims that she's going to win the science fair with it. I repeat, she claims she is going to win the science fair with a bloody sea shell.

Tara says that her brother can't even look at the shell without her permission. Tara will presumably grow up to be come some kind of dictator, or at least a member of the conservative party. She then places her ear to the shell to hear the sea, only for seaweed to fall out. The uprising has begun!  Also coming from within the shell is a voice, calling for help. "Help! I am under the thrall of the terrible dictator, Tara- uh oh, she's here! Save yourselves, lads!" The voice tells Tara that it needs her to take it to a nearby cave, so it can escape. Tara being Tara thinks that she could take this on TV and become famous. I'd say no-one but watch that, but then I remembered the kind of trash that's normally on and thought "Eh, it's better than Keeping Up With the Kardashians." However, the voice is smart (because someone in this story needs to be) and says that it'll only talk to her when she's alone. The shell finally persuades Tara to go in when it reveals that the largest sea shell in the world is inside the cave, because Tara only cares about sea shells. Wow, this story is really down with the kids. 

Tara enters the cave, and the story (but sadly not Tara's character) gets much better. Within the cave, the voice tells Tara not to touch the walls... before she stumbles and immediately touches the walls, which are covered with spiders. This is written in a way that lets us feel Tara's fear, and it also keeps building from here. The voice reminds Tara of the giant bloody sea shell, so she keeps going. She feels something under her feet, but the shell just says, "Eh, just ignore it." Then she slips and falls onto a pile of sharp white rocks. Except they're not rocks at all; they're bones. This moment is another really creepy moment, that would've worked even better if the protagonist wasn't a prized jerk. The voice says they're just fish bones, though Tara points out that they're a bit big to be fish bones. "Errr... they're really big fish," says the voice.

They eventually make it to the giant shell, which Tara believes will make her rich and famous. Famous? Well, it'll probably get you into the Guinness Book of Records, but rich? How? Tara is busy admiring the shell (does she know Harold from The Thumbprint of Doom?), when the voice pipes up again; it forgot to tell her something. 

"This truly is the biggest shell in the world."

"And inside it lives - the biggest hermit crab in the world!"

With that, a gigantic crab emerges from the enormous shell and grabs Tara. Is this entire story just the opening to a b-movie or something? She drops the talking shell, and from it pops a small hermit crab. It says to the giant hermit crab that it caught another human. He also implies that it's his mother. Wow, puberty must do wonders for these things. Also, I really like this ending. It's wonderfully dark, but it doesn't go too far. Also, the giant crab's claws snap shut around Tara, presumably slicing her in 2 and killing her. Yikes.

Shell Shocker is fantastic. It's a lot better than most of the other short stories, which is kind of a given, but it's a lot darker than most goosebumps stories, which seems to work to it's advantage. Overall, I definitely recommend checking it out.