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I picked this up in a Little Free Library in Minneapolis. An excellent find! (I thought.) 80s YA horror with a supremely creepy cover. But, alas. (See icon.)
On the other hand, I read most of it while trapped on the tarmac on my way back to LA, so I was able to amuse myself by liveblogging friends.
The back cover says it was "developed in part from Coontz's concern for environmental protection."
While the teenage heroine, Nora, waits for her brother Tony to finish his football game, gulls fall out of the sky!
Nora is worried because she has pimples and has only lost four pounds despite "starving herself for weeks" when a Halloween party is coming up.
In the beginning, the teenagers all call each other by their surnames though this is 1980s US suburbia. Later, they forget all about it.
The town dump keeper vanishes, leaving behind a verdant garden and a bunch of leaky chemical drums full of pesticide. Mike, a teenage boy, eats some of the carrots he was growing, then gets a stomachache and goes home. A cat who ate some of the gulls goes and crouches on his chest like the wheezy troll in Catseye. They breathe in synch and a stream of luminous dust flows in and out between their mouths!
This is not what I expected from the cover.
Mike, the carrot eating boy, now gets a rash if exposed to any light. His eyelids swell up and his pupils expand. He is going around infecting his dad, the housekeeper (failed attempt, she fled) and Tony, the heroine's brother. He does this by pressing his mouth to theirs and breathing into them. This is described in a way that really emphasizes what this would actually look like, so... creepy.
Meanwhile, Nora has not been invited to the Halloween party so her BFF Maxine isn't going either.
Chapter 8: In the Month of Worms. Nora finally noticed something was up when her parents ran over the cat while rushing her mutated brother to the hospital, and the dead cat vanished in a puff of luminous dust. Unfortunately, no one believes her. (The worms are just there to justify the ominous chapter title. Nora notes that earthworms are common at this time of year, and that's it for the worms.)
Nora calls the cops because she spots the missing dump dude spying on her house. Nobody believes her.
The Halloween party goes ahead as planned without her and Maxine. Now all the boys are molemen.
Nora and Maxine go to visit the housekeeper who escaped moleman infection. The housekeeper confirms that something is up, but says it's hopeless to try to do anything about this, because no one believed her and no one will believe them. She reads the Bible.
Nora figures out that exposing the molemen to prolonged light might destroy the zombie fungus. She fails to convince anyone but Maxine of this. She and Maxine attempt to trap Mike in a well-lit room, but fail.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists independently figure out that prolonged light exposure might burn out the fungus, but apparently don't try it. They're basically there for a scientific explanation of how pesticides mutate fungus. I guess that's the environmental concern: leaky pesticide drums might create molemen!
Two days pass. Molemen rampage. The town is now on national news. Nora's BFF Max gets infected, and Nora saves her with lights. It's explicitly unclear, both to scientists and to Nora, whether this will work on anyone who's been infected for longer.
The housekeeper returns to make ominous pronouncements. Nora hears her moleman brother thrashing in the creek, and prepares to try to trap him in a lit room. The end!
On the other hand, I read most of it while trapped on the tarmac on my way back to LA, so I was able to amuse myself by liveblogging friends.
The back cover says it was "developed in part from Coontz's concern for environmental protection."
While the teenage heroine, Nora, waits for her brother Tony to finish his football game, gulls fall out of the sky!
Nora is worried because she has pimples and has only lost four pounds despite "starving herself for weeks" when a Halloween party is coming up.
In the beginning, the teenagers all call each other by their surnames though this is 1980s US suburbia. Later, they forget all about it.
The town dump keeper vanishes, leaving behind a verdant garden and a bunch of leaky chemical drums full of pesticide. Mike, a teenage boy, eats some of the carrots he was growing, then gets a stomachache and goes home. A cat who ate some of the gulls goes and crouches on his chest like the wheezy troll in Catseye. They breathe in synch and a stream of luminous dust flows in and out between their mouths!
This is not what I expected from the cover.
Mike, the carrot eating boy, now gets a rash if exposed to any light. His eyelids swell up and his pupils expand. He is going around infecting his dad, the housekeeper (failed attempt, she fled) and Tony, the heroine's brother. He does this by pressing his mouth to theirs and breathing into them. This is described in a way that really emphasizes what this would actually look like, so... creepy.
Meanwhile, Nora has not been invited to the Halloween party so her BFF Maxine isn't going either.
Chapter 8: In the Month of Worms. Nora finally noticed something was up when her parents ran over the cat while rushing her mutated brother to the hospital, and the dead cat vanished in a puff of luminous dust. Unfortunately, no one believes her. (The worms are just there to justify the ominous chapter title. Nora notes that earthworms are common at this time of year, and that's it for the worms.)
Nora calls the cops because she spots the missing dump dude spying on her house. Nobody believes her.
The Halloween party goes ahead as planned without her and Maxine. Now all the boys are molemen.
Nora and Maxine go to visit the housekeeper who escaped moleman infection. The housekeeper confirms that something is up, but says it's hopeless to try to do anything about this, because no one believed her and no one will believe them. She reads the Bible.
Nora figures out that exposing the molemen to prolonged light might destroy the zombie fungus. She fails to convince anyone but Maxine of this. She and Maxine attempt to trap Mike in a well-lit room, but fail.
Meanwhile, a bunch of scientists independently figure out that prolonged light exposure might burn out the fungus, but apparently don't try it. They're basically there for a scientific explanation of how pesticides mutate fungus. I guess that's the environmental concern: leaky pesticide drums might create molemen!
Two days pass. Molemen rampage. The town is now on national news. Nora's BFF Max gets infected, and Nora saves her with lights. It's explicitly unclear, both to scientists and to Nora, whether this will work on anyone who's been infected for longer.
The housekeeper returns to make ominous pronouncements. Nora hears her moleman brother thrashing in the creek, and prepares to try to trap him in a lit room. The end!
