Goosebumps #14: The Werewolf of Fever Swamp

Blurb
There's something horrible happening in Fever Swamp. Something really horrible. It started with the strange howling at night. Then there was the rabbit, torn to shreds. Everyone thinks Grady's new dog is responsible. After all, he looks just like a wolf. And he seems a little on the wild side. But Grady knows his dog is just a regular old dog. And most dogs don't howl at the moon. Or disappear at midnight. Or change into terrifying creatures when the moon is full. Or do they?

Plot
Due to a few scheduling problems with book buying, I'm having to do the classic one first this week. You probably don't care, but I do, so you're just gonna have to listen to me!

We open with our protagonist, Grady Tucker, talking about his family moving to the Florida swamp. They're moving there for Dad's research on swamp deer (whatever those are) and certainly not as an excuse for Mum and Grady's sister, Emily, to go to Disneyworld more.

Emily, who's now in a bound-to-fail long-distance relationship and getting mocked about it by Grady (screw him), and Grady go for a walk in the swamp. Wee, intense humidity and plant-water! Anyway, after Emily starts explaining what a peat bog is to Grady, they realise that they're lost. Ah, this brings back memories of writing my review of Curse of the Mummy's Tomb. So, after a debate about moss and tree coverings, they find a part of the swamp where they'd already been. Still not knowing what they're doing, they go to a nearby cabin in the swamp which could be abandoned or housing a psychopath, and knock on the door. Clearly they aren't taking after their scientist father that much. Inside is a hobo trying and failing to look like a rockstar, with his long grey ponytail. He chases after Grady and Emily, who somehow never saw this coming, but they lose him after a while. Or maybe he just realised "It's only chapter 5, we can't have anything other than exposition happening yet!"

Grady and Emily find their way home, where they tell their parents about the rockstar hobo chasing them. Dad proceeds to say 3 times that the guy at the hardware store told him that the rockstar hobo guy is perfectly harmless, despite the fact he chased down Grady and Emily to regail them with his Ozzy Osbourne impersonation.

Later, Grady's outside, moping around, when he gets jumpscared by a boy called Will Blake. Will says that there's only one other person their age their, a girl, but she's nuts. Translation: she spends all her time on Tumblr telling everyone how Brooklyn 99 is written by the second coming of Christ or something. (Not that I don't like the show, but come on guys) Will then tells Grady the story of how thew swamp, Fever Swamp, got its name. About a hundred years ago, everyone came down with a weird fever. The weak ones who got it used to just keel over and die. Anyway, Will goes home, saying that later they could walk together in the swamp that contains the crazy Rockstar Hobo and potentially pathogens that caused the mysterious fever. Oh, by the way, said fever isn't really relevant at any point in the grand scheme of things.

Later, Grady gets a bit of a fever, and instantly assumes that it's the swamp fever, despite the fact I'm pretty sure that Emily would've contracted it too. One night, he wakes up and hears howling from the swamp. Emily, who was woken up too, assumes it's a wolf, but Grady points out that wolves don't live in swamps. Or Florida. Then again, this is coming from the guy who got a cold or something, and immediately assumed it was a life threatening illness from a hundred years ago.

The next morning, Grady's back at full strength, and is about to go out, when something pounces on top of him, leading to this line:

"Help! It-it's licking my face!"

Wow, haven't used that one in a while.

 Said beast is actually a very large dog. Sirius Black apparently was hiding out in Florida for a while. (Hey, the dates check out.) Will shows up, and Grady is somehow instantly more friendly to the dog that was darkening his pants a few minutes ago. Grady decides to keep the dog, and call it Wolf. Good thing that the weird girl Will mentioned didn't find him, or she'd be using him as a substitute for human warmth and company!

Later, Will and Grady go exploring in the swamp, when Wolf shows up. Suddenly, they notice the Rockstar Hobo perving on them, with blood on his shirt, and duck behind a log. After the Rockstar Hobo melts into the shadows to go play in PowerWolf (for those who don't know, PowerWolf is the most edgy band that I know of, with hits such as "We Drink Your Blood" and "Die, Die, Crucify"), Will, Grady, and Wolf then come across a heron's bloody corpse. Thankfully, this was not written by a 12 year old who listens to PowerWolf on the internet, so it's not displayed in intense graphic violence. Will realises that the Rockstar Hobo must've killed the heron, because he had blood all over his shirt. Yeah, but there's no real reason for him doing so!

Later, after Wolf tries to get out of the house, to either do his business or sneak out to a PowerWolf concert Mum and Dad wouldn't let him go to, Grady hears howling and spies a large four-legged creature running around outside. Could it be Chubacabra, perchance? Grady goes out to investigate... as you do... and discovers the mangled corpse of a rabbit, who PowerWolf probably just drove over in their van on their way to their secret swamp gig.

The next, morning, Emily blames not PowerWolf, but rather RegularWolf for killing the rabbit, and acts like this means that Wolf is pure evil (and probably the subject of a PowerWolf song). Grady points out that there's no proof that Wolf did it, especially since he'd already failed to get outside, but Emily is still adamant that, I don't know, Wolf is going to rip her head off and PowerWolf will write a song about it.

The next day, Will comes by, and tells Grady that some bloke we've never heard of called Ed Warner went out into the swamp to hunt turkeys, which I guess is a legitimate recreational activity in Florida, and never came back. Suddenly, a voice from behind says that maybe the Powerwerewolf got him. This is Cassie O' Rourke, the weird Tumblr girl Will mentioned earlier who you probably forgot about. She claims that there's a werewolf in the swamp, and that it's true identity is the Rockstar Hobo, who is there now, carrying a turkey and the memories of finding himself in the bed of a girl he met at the PowerWolf concert in the swamp.

Rockstar Hobo then proceeds to chase the gang, proclaiming that he's the werewolf. Because if you're a werewolf, of course you'd want everyone to know so they can hunt you down in an angry mob and kill you! Grady gets seperated from the others, when the Rockstar Hobo shows up and says that he's not really the werewolf, though he was a model for the cover of a PowerWolf album. He does, however, tell Grady to beware of Wolf, but for whatever reason doesn't say why.

Suddenly, a snake appears and bites Grady's leg. Luckily, Wolf gets rid of the snake, but somehow his "fierce licking" isn't enough to cure Grady. Cassie and Will find Grady quickly, and take him back to his house. Despite the fact that snake bites and werewolf bites look very different (Well, theoretically), Cassie is adamant that Grady was bitten by a werewolf. I mean, it's more likely that he was bitten by PowerWolf, and they're halfway across the state by now!

The next day, Grady and his Dad come across one of the swamp deer (oh yeah, they're in this story), dead. There are paw prints on the ground, so that is apparently enough evidence to prove that Wolf killed the deer. As such, Dad's taking him to the pound to make Wolf Die, Die, Crucify. Luckily, Wolf runs away, and Dad just stands there. He could just go after Wolf or something.

That night, Grady spies Wolf in the back garden, so he sneaks out to follow him (because sneaking out is the only thing Grady's good at in this story. I imagine he can get out of any prison; nothing can hold him! Sorry, got a bit carried away there) and somehow prove that Wolf is innocent. While following Wolf, Grady bumps into Will, who's out too, for some reason. Maybe he got the date wrong for the midnight PowerWolf concert in the swamp. (Maybe I should just rename this blog to "The PowerWolf's New House")

Grady and Will get seperated, when suddenly, there's an awful yelling and crying, and a large wolf pounces on top of Grady. No, it's not something from the cover of a PowerWolf album - it's a werewolf. Or, more specifically, Will. Yeah, the penultimate chapter, and the werewolf finally shows up. And he's there for like, a page. Wolf shows up just as Will gets a bite in on Grady, and the dog takes out Will once and for all. And everything's lovely once again. Wonderful. And the Rockstar Hobo takes Grady's unconscious body home.

A month later, the full moon rises. Grady sneaks out of his window, but not to go see PowerWolf's latest midnight swamp concert. No, he's off hunting with Wolf. Yep, when Will bit him, Grady became a werewolf himself. OK, I actually think that's a pretty cool ending.

Extra Toppings
This isn't really relevant to the overall story, but here's a picture of PowerWolf to give you an idea of their edgyness.

And here we see the Poundland equivalent of KISS.

Conclusion
The Werewolf of Fever Swamp is pretty average. I mean, when I can talk about obscure edgy metal bands more than werewolves in a book about werewolves, you must be doing something wrong. The plot's boring, none of the characters are that interesting, almost the entire book is just buildup that results in a 2 page long climax. That being said, though, at least the ending's pretty good. Overall, skippable, but not terrible.

Next Time: We continue our journey into the swamp, with generic swamp monsters with names like Scooby-Doo characters!