This is one of the good ones! The story centers on a kid that finds a weird egg during an egg hunt. The egg eventually hatches and a yellow goo-monster comes out.

The kid wants to figure out what the goo monster is so he takes him to a science lab where the scientist says these eggs have been popping up and he’s been keeping them in a cold room so they can stay alive because the heat would kill them.

Which… fine. Goo monsters. Got it.

But then the scientist says he won’t let the kid leave because he wants to study him.

The scientist kidnaps the kid!

The kid’s dad shows up looking for him but the scientist says no, he hasn’t seen any kids recently.

The scientist eventually says he hasn’t decided to kill the kid, the goo monsters attack the doctor, the kid escapes, yadda yadda yadda.

Then the obligatory twist ending that takes all the fear away and bing bang boom: the story.

I liked this one a lot. A whole lot. I hated the twist ending, but I thought Stine did a great job of leaning in on a genuinely scary idea (kidnapping, and not in a particularly fantastic way but just being kidnapped and held by a random adult) without making it TOO scary for the kids.

But I could have absolutely seen him throw caution to the wind and write a story that gave kids way more than just goosebumps with this. If he had taken just a couple things out of this story, extended the timeline, and gave in to a writer’s cruelty they usually have at their disposal (and then not released it in this series), this book could have been fucking terrifying to kiddos just by focusing on being kidnapped, alone, and uncertain about your future.

Even as it is, though, it was still nice to read something with such wild (and close) potential.

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