Welcome back to Forever Fear Street, a revisit to the most wicked neighborhood in young-adult literature. This installment looks at the ninth and tenth books in the classic Fear Street series: The Stepsister and Ski Weekend.
In The Stepsister, one family’s new additions come with terror, and snow isn’t the only danger awaiting the characters in Ski Weekend.
Fear Street #9, 1990
Cover Artwork: Bill Schmidt
Did Jessie really murder someone? Does she plan to murder again?
After The Wrong Number, The Stepsister is the second book in the original line to receive a sequel. That continuation is still a ways off, so for now, we’re looking at just the first half of this duology. And what a beginning it is; Fear Street dips into openly tawdry thrills again with this book, although, unlike last time, the outcome isn’t so straightforward.
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THE STORY
Emily Casey is initially excited about the changes happening at home; she and her biological sister, Nancy, are welcoming a stepfather, a stepbrother, and a stepsister after their mother recently remarried. However, Jessie makes it clear to Emily that’s she’s not completely happy about the arrangement.
Emily shares her room with Jessie, so the problems begin immediately. From her destroying Emily’s toy bear, to her stealing Emily’s clothes, to her deletion of Emily’s school report on the computer, Jessie’s arrival is nothing short of challenging. It doesn’t help that Emily and Nancy’s mother is in total denial about everything happening in the house. Mrs. Casey (now Mrs. Wallner) craves peace, especially after losing her first husband in a boating accident some years ago. The very same accident that almost claimed Emily’s life, in fact.
Emily is always fearful of what Jessie will do next, whereas older sister Nancy is too preoccupied with pre-college issues and her social life. Or really the lack thereof, in regards to that second part. Nancy hasn’t had a proper date since she and her ex Josh, who is now dating Emily, broke up. Nevertheless, Nancy is the only one who believes Emily and even tries to help prove her case. Josh and Emily’s best friend Kathy are both skeptical as well as unhelpful.
More fingers are pointed at Jessie as the freaky incidents continue. Emily’s shampoo is tainted with peroxide, Emily is pushed into harm’s way at a concert, Emily nearly dies in a fire in the school restroom, and worst of all, someone kills Emily’s dog Tiger. Even Jessie’s own father has his suspicions. There are also the matters of Jessie seeing a therapist twice a week, and how she was suspected of killing Jolie, her friend from back home. Adding to that already giant ball of mistrust is Jessie sneaking out at odd hours, and Jessie making out with Josh in his car.
In hopes of healing this family, Mr. Wallner takes everyone camping in South Carolina. It’s then there that Emily’s assailant reveals herself; Nancy, who blames Emily for their father’s death, attempts to kill Emily after she falls into an open grave at a nearby cemetery. Nancy had framed her stepsister for everything, including trying to steal Josh — Emily mistook Nancy for Jessie that day — and stabbing Tiger. Finally, Jessie rescues Emily and Nancy later gets the help she needs.
As for Jessie’s disappearing acts, she was slipping away to see her long-distance boyfriend, and Jolie’s death was a mere tragedy, not the work of murder.
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A common sight in media from the early to mid-nineties was domestic disturbia. That’s something for which we can partly thank former president Ronald Reagan. A notable aspect of Reagan’s platform was, of course, an appeal for “traditional” family values, and anything that went against the grain was criticized and targeted by his party. And don’t think any of that ended with Reagan’s term, either; the so-called constant threats against the family unit continued, only now in more “plausible” ways than Satanists and D&D. Case in point: The Stepsister.
There being external forces always trying to dismantle American families — mind you, the heteronormative and two-parent ones — was a major concern for hardcore Reaganites, and the next President didn’t shrink from the concept. Anyone old enough to remember Fear Street might also remember the first Bush administration’s ongoing battle with The Simpsons. As for these books, they, like other ’90s stories, zeroed in on families whose peril came from within. The calls were coming from inside the house, so to speak.
Horror heads would believe The Stepsister was inspired by The Stepfather, maybe the most Reagan-era horror movie to exist. In that ’80s story, though, Terry O’Quinn’s character’s obsession with white picket-fence dreams is his own downfall, as he married into yet another “broken” family, and then planned their death once they couldn’t live up to his high expectations. The Stepsister isn’t the same, only because it’s not even the namesake who’s upheaving the family here. No, it’s the biological sister pulling at the seams of the Casey-Wallner clan. And why does she do it? Because her father is dead, and with him went her ideals. To Nancy, there was no family once the original patriarch was gone.
On the face of it, The Stepsister is a comparatively tame thriller that predated the short yet loud wave of stories that dealt in naughty nannies (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle), philandering spouses (The Temp), and general family crises due to some intrusive character (Poison Ivy, The Good Son). This book is nowhere as wild as what came after in the film sector, but speaking for my younger self, it was still something of a shock to read back then.
I hesitate to say I realized Nancy was behind everything all those years ago; my memory is fuzzy. As an adult, however, it was obvious that Jessie was innocent all along; the story accused her, over and over, but she’s never actually caught in the act. And who else could it have been, other than Nancy? Jessie’s brother Rich was a poor red herring, and Mr. Wallner was an oaf, not a madman. Mrs. Wallner was too busy burying her head in the sand. That all said, the choice of Nancy helps elevate The Stepsister as a whole. Simply sticking with Jessie would have made this a far less memorable book.
The beauty of having Nancy as Emily’s tormentor is it defies what would soon become the formula in similar movies. Other stories like this rarely have you doubt who the antagonist is, and you bear witness to their criminal acts like some kind of accomplice. It was just a matter of waiting for them to be exposed and taken down. Thankfully, The Stepsister is all about the surprise factor. ■
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BODY COUNT
1. Tiger
Stabbed to death by Nancy.
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QUOTAGE
She couldn’t answer. How could she explain to him that, watching Jessie stare at them from the bedroom window, a dark shadow against the pale yellow lamplight, she was suddenly overcome with fear—fear for her life!
Fear Street #10, 1991
Cover Artwork: Bill Schmidt
It was a perfect setting—for murder!
It was the start of a brand-new year when Ski Weekend was first published, so the super-snowy setting here is timely. And while it feels like a missed opportunity for some Christmas terror — that came later in the Super Chiller line — at least this book provides a substantial change in scenery. Indeed, this is the first time an entire Fear Street story had taken place out of Shadyside, unlike the last-minute vacation in The Stepsister.
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THE STORY
Ariel and her two friends, couple Doug and Shannon, are driving back to Shadyside after their weekend at the Pineview Lodge. Much to her disappointment, Ariel’s boyfriend, Randy, left earlier so he could make a basketball game of his. Nonetheless, the trip home still includes a fourth; Red, a guy Ariel befriended at the lodge, hitches a ride to Brockton.
Getting home proves impossible as bad weather forces the car and its passengers to find shelter in Vermont. Red points them to a house on the route, and the owners, Lou and Eva, take them all in.
The paranoid Ariel quickly notices odd things about the hosts; Lou’s jacket is undersized, Eva doesn’t know where she keeps the tea bags in her own kitchen, and Lou’s license plates are from out of state. The fact that Lou is a drunken, vexing brute of a man who hits his wife also adds to Ariel’s misgivings.
Just when the guests are about to leave the next day, they discover Doug’s car has mysteriously fallen into a ravine by the house. The phones aren’t working anymore, either. And when Lou tries to start up his Jeep, the vehicle malfunctions.
Red later tells Ariel, Doug and Shannon that he overheard Lou and Eva’s plans for them; they’re going to rob the four. So the group steals one of Lou’s gun and plans to drive off in the Jeep, the very one Red managed to fix without telling Lou. Yet when they think Lou has come after them in the dark barn, Doug accidentally fires the gun. The only thing is, it wasn’t Lou who had shown up; the victim turns out to be his brother-in-law Jake. He’s shot dead with no chance of resuscitation.
Upon closely examining Jake’s body, Ariel concludes that he died long before Doug shot him; this explains why he hardly bled at the time. Ariel also recognizes Jake from a framed photo that she found stashed away and removed from its original spot on the mantle. So it was becoming clear that this wasn’t Lou and Eva’s house.
As Ariel, Doug and Shannon looked to escape again, a pistol-wielding Red stops them. All this time, he’d been working with Lou and Eva; Jake was Red and Eva’s brother, who Lou murdered over an inheritance. Red then brought Ariel and her friends here so they would be pinned for the crime.
After using the snowmobile that Lou previously lied about being broken, Ariel ends up at the frozen pond by the house. It’s there that Red slips through the ice and dies, and Lou and Eva are apprehended by the police. The guilt-ridden Eva was the one to call the cops, by the way.
Surprisingly, Doug’s car is still drivable, so he and the girls can finally return to Shadyside.
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Ski Weekend, barring its unimaginative title, is a fairly tangled mystery that feels mature for a series like Fear Street. The villains’ somewhat convoluted masterplan is approaching Hitchcockian in how it unfolds, then falls apart. The characters aren’t so agreeable, sketched, and easy to grasp. And from my understanding, a good number of people remember this book above others. After reading it myself, it’s not hard to understand why. It doesn’t hurt that Bill Schmidt’s cover artwork is both plainly unnerving and unintentionally funny (“uh-oh, I’ve been noticed”).
It’s hard to deny the natural creepiness of Fear Street, but even still, the place had become familiar after nine stories. Perhaps homey in an eerie kind of way. Yet in Ski Weekend, you, along with the characters, are uprooted from the usual digs and dropped into the cold and bitter unknown. The new surroundings are then topped off with a pair of oddballs like Lou and Eva. The former is a crass boozer and lout who doesn’t try feigning normal because he’s sloppy. His faintly homoerotic fixation with Doug, not to mention their random rasslin’ match, could raise eyebrows as well. The abused Eva, on the other hand, is inherently tragic plus tragically underwritten. Whatever Stine said about not inserting upsetting home matters into his books is bogus. And for Red to be offed so harshly while Lou goes unscathed is unsatisfying. They both should have perished, frankly.
So even though Ski Weekend isn’t as complicated as Lou and Red’s plan, there is a narrative complexity here that reminds me of The Surprise Party. Admittedly, this instance is more calculable, but the adult adversaries and the choice of venue improve the story by a few degrees. ■
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BODY COUNT
1. Jake
Killed by Lou before Ariel and the others arrive.
2. Red
Fell through the ice at the pond and never came back up.
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QUOTAGE
“I mean, can you believe that crazy jackass?”
– Lou, recounting how his friend’s head was blown off by a hunter’s stray bullet.
“Hey, turkey, you’ve got a pretty good build.”
– Lou to Doug before they wrestled.
See you next time on Fear Street — it’s where your worst nightmares live.
Tales from the Paulside 
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