Monster Blood
| File:Goosebumps -3 monster blood.jpg | |
| Author | R. L. Stine |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Tim Jacobus |
| Language | English |
| Series | Goosebumps |
| Genre | Horror fiction Children's literature |
| Publisher | Scholastic, Inc. |
Publication date | September 1992 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 128 |
| ISBN | 0-590-45367-X |
| OCLC | 26597229 |
| LC Class | CPB Box no. 2023 vol. 5 |
| Preceded by | Stay Out Of The Basement |
| Followed by | Say Cheese and Die! |
Monster Blood is the third book in R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series.
Plot
The book opens with 12 year old Evan Ross being dropped off with his creepy old aunt Kathryn for a few days while his parents go house-hunting in Atlanta. Kathryn is an eighty-year old deaf woman who never learned to read lips or use sign language. When we first meet Kathryn, she's busy cutting up meat in the kitchen and greets her guests with a bloody knife. Evan has brought his cocker spaniel Trigger with him for company. His aunt wants him to tie up the dog in the backyard so it won't chase around Kathryn's black cat, Sarabeth. Evan decides instead to take Trigger for a walk around the neighborhood, and he meets a girl his age named Andy (short for Andrea).
Evan gets excited and he readily accepts her invitation to accompany her into town. She rides her new bike quickly to town, forcing Evan and Trigger to run alongside the entire way. Once in town, Evan quickly takes inventory of the shops. There's a video store, but he figures his aunt probably doesn't even have a VCR. Andy reveals that she has to buy a gift for her cousin's birthday, so they stop in one of the two toy stores downtown. Inside Wagner's Novelties & Sundries, the kids find a metal can with the label "MONSTER BLOOD: SURPRISING MIRACLE SUBSTANCE." The shopkeeper tries to stop the purchase and warns them not to return the tin if they take it home and discover it doesn't work.
Evan takes Andy back to Kathryn's house so they can investigate the tin of Monster Blood. Andy thinks Kathryn's house is super cool and dreams about being able to read all the leather-bound books on magic that line the shelves. Upstairs the kids uncap the tin and discover a Gak-like glowing green substance. It bounces, glows in the dark, and is cool to the touch. Because the Monster Blood leaves stains on the floor and wall, they decide to take it outside. They roll the blood up into a ball and bounce it back and forth amongst themselves. Finally, Trigger grows weary and decides to eat a gob of Monster Blood.
The next morning, Trigger isn't feeling well so Evan treks out into the neighborhood by himself. He runs into two fourteen year old twins dressed in black. Rick and Tony Beymer harass the wimpy Evan, who tries to joke with the two bullies. Luckily for Evan, Andy comes to his rescue. Andy tries to scare away the twins but they just turn their attention to pestering her. Thankfully, the twins just swipe her bike and don't hit her, but she does get knocked down in the scuffle. Evan doesn't get involved. She runs home to clean her scraped leg. Back home, Evan finds Trigger choking in the backyard. It seems either the dog's grown larger or the leash has grown smaller.
They discover the tin of Monster Blood is now overflowing with the green goop. Also, the gelatinous substance is no longer cool to the touch, but instead feels disturbingly warm. This is not enough however to discourage the kids from having a Monster Blood fight. The two fling Monster Blood at each other inside Evan's room. After their fight, the two start to clean up their mess when they hear a horrifying howl from down below. Evan rushes to the window with Andy right behind him. Andy points out that Evan's dog has doubled in size and indeed he has. The dog, who is now the size of a pony, rushes out of the backyard. Evan and Andy try to run after it, but they don't get very far before Trigger turns into a horrible monster. And then Evan wakes up.
Evan wakes up from the dream and realizes that the bed he's in is too small because he has grown to the size of a giant monster. This is also a dream, and he wakes up again. Evan and Andy take Trigger to the vet. The doc tells them the dog is just having a rare growth spurt and sends them on their way. Andy rushes off to her piano lesson. Left alone, Evan decides to buy himself an ice cream treat at the local market. He leaves Trigger tied up outside. When he returns with his ice cream sandwich, Ricky and Tony are stealing his dog. Trigger gets angry and once let loose, chases after the twins. Evan becomes terrified as he remembers how this happened in his dream. Evan worries that he might turn into a monster.
Back home, Evan calls Andy and asks if he can see her. He says it's an emergency. Once he arrives at her house, he shows her his bucket full of Monster Blood. He begs her to take some of the Monster Blood. She agrees to take a coffee can's worth. However, when she scoops the can into the bucket, the Blood scoops back. Andy freaks out as the Blood sucks the can right into the middle of the bucket. When Evan fishes his hands in to retrieve the can, he tells her he can feel the suction, like it's alive. As Evan is leaving Andy's house, the twins surprise him by beating him up. Andy helps Evan scoop the Monster Blood back into the overturned bucket, then comes up with a foolproof plan: they'll just return the Monster Blood to the toy store. Evan sneaks back home and realizes he needs to find a new container for the ever-growing Monster Blood. He empties the bucket into an old bathtub in the garage. Suddenly Sarabeth, the cat, pounces on him and he falls into the tub of Monster Blood. Evan narrowly escapes getting sucked into the muck.
The next morning at breakfast, Evan decides he has to tell someone else about the Monster Blood. He writes Kathryn a brief note on a legal pad and she just laughs at him and his imagination. Evan calls Andy to see if she's ready. She suggests he use a plastic lawn sack to carry the Monster Blood. The two drag several lawn bags worth of breathing Monster Blood down several blocks to the toy store, which turns out to be closed forever. The two lug the sacks all the way back to Kathryn's house. The two empty the lawn sacks into a metal garbage can. As soon as they clamp shut the lid, Kathryn runs out of the house waving a yellow sheet of paper. Evan's mother just sent a telegram that she'll be coming to pick him up that day.
Evan is so excited that he runs to tell his dog the good news. When Evan opens the gate, he sees that Trigger has actually doubled in size. The beast leaps out of the backyard and into the streets. Evan runs after him but trips and knocks the trash can over. The large mass of Monster Blood spills out and tries to swallow him. Evan moves out just in time and he and Andy run down the street as the large rolling ball of Monster Blood moves quickly after them. They run into the twins, and they are shortly swallowed up by the Monster Blood. The kids stop to stare at the still outlines of the twins' bodies inside the giant heap of Monster Blood. The kids split up so that at least one of them have a chance, but Kathryn chooses this time to stick her head out of the house. The Monster Blood rolls into the house after Kathryn.
The kids run into the house to save Kathryn. They spy her trapped in a corner, the huge round blob of Monster Blood about to engulf her. She cries out that she's responsible for the Monster Blood and she'll have to pay with her life. Evan accuses his great-aunt of trying to kill him by casting a spell on the Monster Blood. Kathryn insists it wasn't her who cast the spell. She points towards the other side of the room and cries out, "It was her." She points to Sarabeth the cat. The cat turns into a beautiful young woman wearing a black cape. Kathryn explains that twenty years ago, Sarabeth cast a spell on her that made her a slave. She also made her deaf and refused to let her learn sign language or lip-read so she could control her better. Sarabeth didn't allow Kathryn to have visitors, and so when Evan showed up, Sarabeth insisted she cast a spell on the Monster Blood to get rid of him. Kathryn tells Sarabeth that she's going to end the spell by letting the Monster Blood swallow her, thus ending Sarabeth's hold on her. Sarabeth tells her that she's still going to kill the kids. Trigger knocks Sarabeth into the Blood, which engulfs her. Trigger shrinks back to normal. The twins escape. Andy and Evan say their goodbyes but not before trying to collect a sample. Unfortunately, it has vanished.
Properties of Monster Blood
This book marks the introduction of the substance, Monster Blood. It is green in color and slowly expands to a great size when released from its airtight container for the first time. The explanation in the book is of SaraBeth, the cat that transforms into a young girl, forces Kathryn to cast a spell on the can to make the Monster Blood grow, although magic has been implied to be the reason (at least in the TV adaptation). The Monster Blood is also portrayed as a living evil entity, capable of attacking people if they are close enough, similar to the Blob (Evan is almost drowned in the bathtub containing Monster Blood). In addition to its growth properties, any biological creature that consumes Monster Blood will slowly grow to a monstrous size, the main plot point for the following books Monster Blood II and III. Monster Blood is also known to be sold and kept in a plastic egg, just like silly putty. This is known from the third book in the Goosebumps Horrorland series, Monster Blood for Breakfast!. There are three kinds of Monster Blood: One that is only a twenty-four-hour SAMPLE of Monster Blood, blue monster blood, and the other is LONG-LASTING Monster Blood. Monster Blood is also used and mentioned in the Give Yourself Goosebumps series in the book Escape from the Carnival of Horrors. In the beginning of the Goosebumps 2000 Series book Return to Horrorland, the protagonist watching a paranormal TV show featuring Evan talking about the events of Monster Blood II.
Monster Blood The Collector's Edition
Since the release of Monster Blood For Breakfast, Scholastic made a remake of the original Monster Blood novel. The book has a slightly different cover where it is raised into a bumpy texture. The book also has "Behind The Screams" in the back, bonus features (called bonus "Creatures"), and an interview with R.L. Stine.
The Monster Blood cover was used for the DVD cover of Chillogy.