Messages from Beyond (Night Fall)

By: Stephanie Watson
Publisher: Lerner Classroom
Publication Date: August 2010
ISBN: 978-0761361602
Reviewed by: Deb Fowler
Review Date: September 22, 2010

Cassie was a little disoriented when her phone rang. It was Jen, her best friend. She’d just been having a freaky nightmare. It was just like being inside that old movie, “The Fog.” She’d even seen a guy that looked like Robert Pattinson, the “sexy actor from the vampire movies.” Cassie’s biggest concern was what she was going to wear to the Bridgewater High Halloween Havoc party. Her second was who she was going to go with. Jen had warned her that dweeby Jonah was thinking of asking her out. The guy still wore braces and was a first class mama’s boy. At least anyone who looked like Pattinson was a heartthrob, even if he turned into a monster in the dream.

On one level, Cassie had no room to talk about Jonah because her mother had the “overprotective parent syndrome.” No doubt, she wasn’t going to the Halloween Havoc as Lady Gaga. She began to get a lot of odd text messages from this guy named Ethan. She had to be on her toes and answer her cell phone or if she didn’t her mother would be on her case. No harm in answering the guy, but how did he know her number? The whole thing was really intriguing, but her eyes widen when he sent a picture of himself. It was the guy from her dream. It was weird, but she agreed to meet him because she was going to “nip this wannabe stalker in the bud.”

Cassandra Lewis was no fool, but started to become a bit unsettled when Ethan was a no show. He even had the nerve to text her and claim he was where he was supposed to be. Duh, she was too, but obviously this was some kind of joke at her expense. She began to have those freaky nightmares again. She couldn’t shake this guy, even in her dreams. The text messages began to come one right after the other. This guy knew everything about her and she knew nothing about him, but that was going to stop.

Cassie did a little bit of investigating in the library, but there was no ‘Ethan’ in any of the yearbooks. Who the heck was this dude? The only thing she could do was enlist the help of Elsie Jenkins who worked in the library. It wasn’t long before Elsie had an answer for her. Yes, he had been a Bridgewater High student, but Cassie was shocked when Elsie showed her Ethan’s yearbook picture and said, “Ethan Davis died in a car accident twenty-five years ago.” What was going on? Who would possibly play such a trick on her? The only thing left for her to do was go to his house, talk to his mother and find some answers. Maybe that little “purple-shuttered house on Sable Road” was the answer to this mystery.

This is one of those totally freaky ‘back from the grave’ type stories you don’t want to read late at night. If you want to get a rise out of someone, you could read it over a campfire. It reminds me of the many ghastly ghoulish stories I heard when I was a youngster, the kind that scared me half to death. This tale has everything from the face in the window to the butcher knife. Once you start reading about Cassie and Ethan, you’ll be hard pressed to shut the book until you are done. Nicely crafted lines that will raise the hair on the back include ones like, “It’s okay, Ethan. Mommy’s coming.” What does a dead guy’s Mommy have to do with anything? You’re just going to have to read the book to find out

Quill says: If you enjoy a hair-raising horror story and want a sleepless night or two, you just might have to think about checking out just what happened when Ethan Davis came back from the dead!