News RoboCop Nearly 15 Years Later, the Detroit RoboCop Statue Has Finally Found a Home What began as an online joke has finally become part of the city. By Matthew Byrd | Published on December 4, 2025 Photo: MGM Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Photo: MGM Studios The bizarre story of Detroit’s attempt to honor officer Alex James Murphy (aka RoboCop) seemingly ended recently, as a statue of the iconic sci-fi character was finally placed outside the Free Age Productions studio in the city’s Eastern Market area. If the idea of a RoboCop statue in Detroit sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because this project began nearly 15 years ago when a viral tweet directed at then-Detroit Mayor Dave Bing suggested that the city should erect a statue of RoboCop in the style of the Rocky Balboa statue in Philadelphia. The mayor’s Twitter account shot down the idea (which reportedly originated from someone who didn’t even live in Detroit at the time), but the concept of a RoboCop statue quickly took root. Shortly thereafter, a Kickstarter campaign intended to fund the creation of said statue was launched and ultimately garnered over $65,000 in donations. But like many successful Kickstarter campaigns born out of elaborate online jokes, things started to go wrong from there. After securing the necessary funds, the Kickstarter campaign’s organizers (led by filmmaker Brandon Walley and Loveland Technologies CEO Jerry Paffendorf) commissioned Venus Bronze Works to develop a model of the statue. Due to both the various logistical challenges (which included the Venus Bronze Works owner reportedly battling through a cancer scare) and the fact that this particular project required approval from RoboCop rights holder MGM Studios throughout the process, it took a few years for an early version of the statue to be crafted. However, a surprising amount of perseverance eventually paid off, and the campaign’s organizers planned to unveil the statue on “RoboCop Day,” June 3, 2014. That unveiling didn’t happen, though. Instead, it kicked off what proved to be a decade-plus battle to find a home for the statue. At various points, Roosevelt Park, the Michigan Science Center, and Wayne State University were all considered as potential sites for the finished project. However, each was rejected due to numerous complications and legal problems stemming from the character’s aforementioned association with MGM Studios. The statue was eventually moved to an undisclosed location in Eastern Market until the whole thing could be resolved. And though reasonable doubts strongly suggested that the RoboCop statue would forever remain a valiant attempt at a strange idea, it seems to have finally found its forever home. Well… maybe. See, the contract the statue’s organizers have with MGM stipulates that it needs to be in place by the end of 2025. If you haven’t checked your calendar recently, we are almost at that point. That tends to suggest that this location may have been partially chosen out of necessity, so I suppose you can’t rule out the possibility that this may not be the statue’s permanent home. Actually, its “formal” unveiling isn’t set to occur until next year. The statue’s long journey to this point has also been marked by a series of controversies that may never be entirely resolved. Putting aside debates about the money and time that went into this whole thing, the idea that RoboCop should represent Detroit has always struck some as a fundamentally odd idea. After all, the character is essentially capitalist Jesus and an instrument of the corporate-driven dystopia that some believe we are currently spiraling towards. While the RoboCop movie is a blistering and brilliant satire of all of that, the RoboCop character has almost transcended those themes en route to becoming a pop culture commodity. He’s been turned into toys, starred in a children’s cartoon, and now has a statue. Others have long criticized the idea of building a statue of a cop (even a fictional cop) in Detroit. Interestingly, the statue’s organizers were also seemingly aware of that issue, as they decided to not portray the character with his trademark gun in order to make him seem more “inviting and approachable.” Of course, that decision only strengthens the argument that this statue is more representative of RoboCop as pop culture figure rather than the original version of the character. And for those who like to split hairs (this is the internet after all), it should be noted that the original RoboCop was largely filmed in Dallas, Texas, with many of the movie’s only real depictions of Detroit largely coming via overhead shots. Of course, Detroit as it was in the ’80s is undoubtedly a vital piece of the original movie’s narrative and atmosphere. [end-mark] The post Nearly 15 Years Later, the Detroit <i>RoboCop</i> Statue Has Finally Found a Home appeared first on Reactor.

News Get Over It Getting Rid of Rosie: Lynda Simmons’ Supernatural Comedy to Get Film Adaptation The film will go under the title, Get Over It By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 4, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Lynda Simmons’ 2009 novel, Getting Rid of Rosie, is getting a movie adaptation, with Shelly Hong on board to direct in her feature debut. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the two wanted to team up again after they worked together on the short Ed & Alfie. When they looked for a potential next project, they decided to adapt Simmons’ Getting Rid of Rosie, with the two co-writing the script. “I was expecting a fluffy romantic comedy, but it turned out to be a story about female relationships that was honest and had gravity,” Hong said in a statement. “I suggested making the main character Korean so I could contribute to the story, and when she agreed, I was on board.” The film adaptation is titled Get Over It and has the following synopsis: Karma breaks all the rules to give Samantha Choi until midnight to choose the life she truly wants. That’s assuming Samantha gets rid of the ghost of Rosie Fisk, a best friend who ruined that life and has no intention of walking into any damn light. The blurb for the book sheds a bit more light on the premise, though it’s not confirmed that these plot points carry over to the film. In the novel, Rosie runs off with Samantha’s fiancé and marries him instead. Flash forward seven years, and Sam’s former fiancé is back in her life as a widower, with Rosie’s ghost hovering over them both, though only Sam can see her. The movie version will presumably star Tina Jung, Donald MacLean Jr., and Mimi Kuzyk, as they starred in a proof of concept short for the story. No news on when the film will make its way to a screen near you, though production is expected to start in Canada sometime in mid-2026. [end-mark] The post <i>Getting Rid of Rosie</i>: Lynda Simmons’ Supernatural Comedy to Get Film Adaptation appeared first on Reactor.

News Horror Leslie Odom Jr. to Adapt the Strange Story of Sammy Davis Jr.’s Church of Satan Connection The project is based on a 2024 Rolling Stone article by Alex Bhattacharji By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on December 4, 2025 Odom (Left): Library of Congress Life, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; Davis (Right): Jay Bernstein Public Relations, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Comment 0 Share New Share Odom (Left): Library of Congress Life, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; Davis (Right): Jay Bernstein Public Relations, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons Leslie Odom Jr. (One Night in Miami, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery), who just wrapped up a Broadway run revisiting his role as Aaron Burr in Hamilton, has bought the rights to a 2024 Rolling Stone article by Alex Bhattacharji, which delves into how Sammy Davis Jr. was drawn to the Church of Satan and its founder, Anton LaVey. According to Deadline, the project will be a horror feature, and Odom will write the script and also star, presumably as Davis. The project will be produced in partnership with Rolling Stone Films. Bhattacharji is quoted in Deadline describing the article as “a sensitive story about a profoundly alienated Davis and his search for acceptance. It’s a rollicking ride that touches on complex, timely issues: racial and sexual identity, politics, religion, pop culture, and the counter-culture.” We also have the official logline for the film (which is also the subtitle on the article), which sheds additional light: “How a TV pilot called Poor Devil begat a friendship between the performer, Sammy Davis Jr., and Anton Szandor LaVey, founder and high priest of the Church of Satan.” I don’t want to give too much of the story away, but will say that the article starts with Davis’ work on that pilot, which had the following logline of its own: “Sammy Davis Jr. stars as a bumbling disciple from hell. After 1,400 years of failure to secure a single soul for Satan, the inept recruiter is given one last chance.” The project is still in its early days, so no news yet on who will direct or additional casting. [end-mark] The post Leslie Odom Jr. to Adapt the Strange Story of Sammy Davis Jr.’s Church of Satan Connection appeared first on Reactor.

Excerpts Young Adult Read an Excerpt From A War of Wyverns by S.F. Williamson Language is the greatest weapon in a war between humans and dragons—and one translator has the power to change the world. By S.F. Williamson | Published on December 4, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from A War of Wyverns, the sequel to by S.F. Williamson’s YA fantasy A Language of Dragons—publishing with HarperCollins on January 6, 2026. As a sculptress, Ravenna Maffei has always shaped beauty from stone but she has a terrible secret. Desperate to save her brother, she enters a competition hosted by Florence’s most feared immortal family, revealing a dark power in a city where magic is forbidden.Now a captive in the cutthroat city of Florence, Ravenna is forced into a dangerous task where failure meets certain death at the hands of Saturnino dei Luni, the immortal family’s mesmerizing but merciless heir. But as he draws her closer, Ravenna realizes the true threat lies beyond Florence’s walls.The Pope’s war against magic is closing in, and Ravenna is no longer just a prisoner but a prize to be claimed. As trusting the wrong person becomes lethal, Ravenna must survive the treacherous line between a pope’s obsession and the seductive immortal who might be the end of her—or surrender her power to a city on the brink of war. The sky is dark and full of dragons. I hurry through the streets of London, my umbrella tilted at an angle not to shield my face from the rain but to hide it. There are almost as many Guardians of Peace on the ground as there are Bulgarian Bolgoriths in the sky. A small mound of rubble blocks my path, left over from one of last week’s attacks. It could have been caused by rebel bombs or by the army of Queen Ignacia, Britannia’s dragon queen. Both groups are locked in their own individual battles with the Prime Minister. But judging by the stone pillar knocked clean off its base by what could only be the swipe of a tail, I’d guess the latter. As I reach the Tube station, the first rays of sunlight stretch up over the gray buildings, bringing the capital’s night curfew to an end. Rebellion happens in the shadows, after all. I climb onto the Underground train, my fake class pass hanging around my neck. PENELOPE HOLLINGSWORTH AGE 17FIRST CLASS I sit opposite an elderly man in a singed coat. He peers at me from beneath bright posters plastered above the carriage seats. Two women in military dress link arms in front of two buildings—I recognize the white stone of 10 Downing Street and the red brick of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics. They are encircled by a string of words in a looping, feminine font. WYVERNMIRE AND HOLLINGSWORTH UNITED IN THE FIGHT AGAINST REBELS I bury my face in yesterday’s copy of The Pimlico Bulletin—a non-partisan newspaper—and am met with another slogan. “The Truth for Every Class,” I mutter under my breath as I scan the headlines. PM ALLIES BRITANNIA TO BULGARIANSWHERE IS QUEEN IGNACIA? POSSIBLE SIGHTINGS ON PAGE 3 WESTERN DRAKE GUTTED ON KENT FARM: HUMAN REMAINS RETRIEVED FROM ITS SECOND STOMACH I open to the first page and see a black-and-white photo of a familiar manor house. BLETCHLEY PARK: A NATION’S SECRET? A lump rises in my throat as I toss the paper to the ground. Memories surge: a gunshot, blood beneath my fingernails, a face crowned with dead leaves. My hand reaches for the wooden swallow around my neck. If Atlas were here now, he’d mock the Prime Minister for thinking she can manipulate Europe’s fiercest dragons to extend her empire. For thinking that Britannia would bow to dragons who had massacred their own human population. If Atlas were here, he’d be slipping into the public houses and coming out with new recruits to the rebel cause, using nothing but his courage and his crooked smile. But he’s not here. Because he’s dead. Buy the Book A War of Wyverns S.F. Williamson Buy Book A War of Wyverns S.F. Williamson Buy this book from: AmazonBarnes and NobleiBooksIndieBoundTarget All I can do now is continue what he started at Bletchley Park and help win the war for the Human-Dragon Coalition. Only a skilled linguist can obtain the secret weapon the rebels need. And if languages can honor Atlas’s memory, then I’ll learn a hundred tongues and more. The sun has risen as I reach Claridge House, the home of Rita Hollingsworth. She lives in Mayfair, only a few streets away from the Academy for Draconic Linguistics, which she founded at the age of thirty-five. I insert my key in the lock of the servants’ door. A thick, spiked tail trails down the wall above me. It belongs to Clementius, the Western Drake on the roof, one of the few British dragons who hasn’t fled the encroaching Bulgarian presence in London and who is secretly Hollingsworth’s rebel guard. I head straight for the stairs, counting the yellow diamonds on the patterned carpet as I climb several floors. Hollingsworth insists I travel between my home and hers before the morning rush hour. If anyone were to recognize me, my cover as her visiting niece could be blown. The walls feature portraits of her extended family—pretty cousins and ancient uncles stare out into the quiet house. I hear a scullery maid lighting the fires and a creak from the top floor. I imagine the Chancellor of the Academy for Draconic Linguistics rising from her bed, her hair still in rollers. The image is so ridiculous it makes me snort with laughter. I open and close the office door softly. The room is vast, with high windows that overlook the street below. A large desk stands beneath a painting of a pair of Sand Dragons basking on a beach, the pearly moonlight captured in delicate brushstrokes. Beside it is an ornate mirror and for a moment I stare at my reflection. My thick hair is cut so short that it only just grazes my collarbone, and dark shadows lurk beneath my eyes, making my skin even paler than usual. I tread across the maroon rugs toward the door in the corner, past the desk littered with empty cigarette boxes and books about Bulgarian dragons, one opened to an index page with the words— blood, blue diamond, Bolgorith. Something catches my eye. A sketch in black pen, half hidden beneath the Remington typewriter. It’s me. And beneath it, a title. Vivien Featherswallow, Draconic Translator My fingers linger over the paper, but I don’t touch it, my mind not quite believing it’s real. The depiction is different than the government’s wanted posters of me, the ones Hollingsworth has collected and burned every day before they can be seen. My face is prettier, my eyes large and doe-like, whereas the wanted posters depict me with a long, lank braid and a frown. Neither sketch is quite right, each telling a story that is not quite true. “For the Coalition newspapers,” says a voice. I spin around. Hollingsworth is standing in the doorway, wearing a blue silk dress and a belt embroidered with silver dragons. She looks me up and down like she has done every morning for the last three months, taking in my man’s mackintosh and donated leather brogues, as if she expected me to arrive with a limb missing or my hair aflame. My decision to find my own accommodation rather than live here with her is not one Hollingsworth understands. “Morning,” I say, my face growing hot as I realize she probably thinks I was snooping around her desk. “I’m supposed to be undercover. What do you want rebel newspapers printing a sketch of me for?” She gives me a thin-lipped smile. “A rebellion must have a face, must it not? People need to know they’re in good hands.” I raise my eyebrows in surprise. Me, the face of the rebellion? Has Hollingsworth forgotten that a mere few months ago, I was trying to translate a secret, ultrasonic dragon language called the Koinamens to win the war for Prime Minister Wyvernmire? “We won’t publish it until you’re safely out of London,” she says, her voice as deep as treacle. Safely out of London. Does that mean she finally thinks I’m ready? I stare at the words beneath the sketch again and let out a small sigh. Draconic Translator. The title is one I’ve waited for my entire life. It’s oddly satisfying to see who I am printed in black and white, to be given a distinct definition of myself, a neat box to fit into amid the chaos my life has become. The door in the corner leads to my own workspace, an office within Hollingsworth’s that used to be a cupboard. I set my satchel down on my small, pokey desk. The four walls that box me in like a dracovol in a cage are plastered with research papers—maps of various islands, handwritten pronunciation guides, and lists of dietary habits. And tacked on top of them is a rudimentary drawing that Hollingsworth sketched in front of me. Three Bulgarian Bolgoriths, two black and one red. General Goranov and his siblings. Britannia has been in a three-way civil war between the human government, the rebels, and Queen Ignacia since last year. And now that the Prime Minister has allied with the Bulgarian Bolgoriths— betraying her promise of peace to Queen Ignacia—barely a day goes by without a rebel attack on London. I know a Bolgorith, but she was born in Britannia. Chumana, the pink dragon who set fire to 10 Downing Street before following me to Bletchley Park. “If we eliminate Goranov and his siblings,” Hollingsworth told me a few weeks ago, “the Bulgarian presence in Britannia will crumble.” The servants and Hollingsworth’s secretary think I’m here after having jumped at the chance to spend the war working for Britannia’s beloved Chancellor instead of sewing shirts for the soldiers like other First Class girls. And it’s not exactly a lie. I am working for Hollingsworth. But my true reason for being here, my mission, isn’t to help Britannia fight the rebels. It’s to help the rebels fight Prime Minister Wyvernmire and her army of Bolgoriths. It’s to learn the language of the Hebridean Wyverns. I’ve met wyverns before, thanks to my parents’ work in dragon anthropology. But the Hebridean species is different. They’re small, two-legged dragons with a cultural heritage that rivals that of any human community. They can supposedly be found on the Isle of Canna in Scotland, although they haven’t been sighted in years. It’s my job to learn everything about them, from their traditions to their tongue, so that when the rebels find them—and Hollingsworth seems adamant that they will—then I will somehow be able to communicate with them. And convince them to help the rebels win the war. Of course, the minor detail of how these wyverns can make the Human-Dragon Coalition the victor in a three-way civil war has not yet been disclosed to me. I sit down as London’s traffic screeches outside and reach for a scrap of paper on my desk. It’s a note from Hyacinth, Hollingsworth’s secretary—and another debutante working for the war effort to escape the dutiful drudgery of First Class girlhood. Dearest Pen,Party? Tuesday at 8 o’clock, 36 Churton Street in Pimlico. Pretty please.H She’s invited me several times already, ignoring my protests (“It’s after curfew”) and my excuses (“I can’t leave my roommate, she gets lonely”). Her insistence is mildly annoying and the invitation goes against every rule in the how-to-be-an-undercover-rebel book, but part of me is glad that Hyacinth wants me around. She’s been a good friend to me these past three months. Of course I can’t attend the party. What if somebody recognizes me? The journal of Patrick Clawtail, Oxford Fellow of Celtic Languages and dragon enthusiast, lies open on the desk where I left it yesterday. Hollingsworth gave it to me when I started working for her, right after Marquis landed our plane on Eigg. I only spent a few days on the island that houses the Coalition Headquarters before Hollingsworth sent for me. Leaving my cousin and my sister, Ursa, behind was almost as hard as losing Atlas. The journal details Clawtail’s interactions with the Hebridean Wyverns over the course of four years, ending abruptly in June 1866 when he was executed by the government for “inciting unrest between humans and dragons.” It’s made of black leather and written in faded ink. Random clippings—a feather, a tuft of fur, and a green leaf that is still green but has long since lost any odor—are dispersed between daily entries, descriptions of the island, and recordings of the Hebridean Wyverns’ complex language, which Clawtail named Cànan-Channaigh—Scottish Gaelic for “language of Canna.” He coined an English word for their language, too: Cannair. I have managed to grasp its basic grammatical rules, but Clawtail fills several pages with his attempts to convey the meaning of many complicated words, so many that I lose myself in them. It seems he eventually gave up on the task. The later pages of the journal are entirely dedicated to the wyverns’ culture and customs, with not a single reference to language. It doesn’t give me much to work with. Clawtail and his family were supposedly the last people to lay eyes on the wyverns before they retreated farther inland when the government came for the Clawtails, and while his journal begins with enthusiasm at being able to study the wyverns’ tongue, it ends with a hurried, unfinished entry. A voice behind me says, “Tensions between humans and dragons in Britannia were on the verge of explosion when that was written.” Hollingsworth has appeared silently in the doorway, her eyes on the journal. “Clawtail had a history of campaigning for the recognition of Celtic languages such as Scots, Scottish Gaelic, and Norn, and he began doing the same for dragon tongues,” she continues. “He sent his written recordings of Cannair to several universities by dracovol, thinking the wyvern protection would keep him and his family safe, but the government decided that his highlighting of individual heritages was intended to create division and therefore a threat to British unity. They executed him for treason on Canna just as the corrupt Peace Agreement was signed.” I nod, trying to ignore the creeping feeling of annoyance. She’s already told me all this. Clawtail was the first person ever to study dragon tongues. He was an anomaly. “You, with your uncanny ability to learn languages at an impressive speed, can learn Cannair. That’s why you are the face of the rebellion, Vivien. Because you will be the one to go to the wyverns and request an alliance. They are our only hope of winning this war.” You’ve already told me that, too, I glower silently. And yet here I am, still in London, still ignorant as to why these wyverns are so important. I cannot send you to the wyverns until the wyverns have been found, Hollingsworth tells me every time I ask why I can’t go to Canna now. I can’t wait to be there, to rally the wyverns to the cause and to see Wyvernmire’s face as the rebels bring her and her Bulgarian Bolgoriths down. She’s the reason for the suffering of the Third Class, for the segregation of humans and dragons, for this war that has already killed hundreds. She’s the reason Atlas is dead. Hollingsworth hands me a sheet of paper. It’s my latest translation for the Academy—I do a few each day just in case a wartime inspector ever asks to see Penelope Hollingsworth’s work. It’s a statement in Drageoir sent over from France, condemning Wyvernmire’s alliance with the Bulgarian dragons. Hollingsworth has taken a red pen to it, scratching out and underlining words. “What’s wrong with it?” I say. “Your translation is too literal, Vivien.” She pats her silver, corkscrew coils. “You can hardly expect it to be approved.” “Too literal?” I stare at her corrections. The Dragons of the French Third Republic are incensed disappointed by the British alliance with the immoral controversial dragons of Bulgaria. “But… you’ve changed the meaning,” I say. “You’ve mistranslated the statement.” “I have interpreted it differently than you, which is a translator’s right.” I scan her face for a trace of humor, any indication that she might be testing me. “It’s a translator’s duty to translate in context, to give the words the meaning intended by the source language, or at least get as close to it as we can,” I tell her. “The Academy is obligated to translate and publish any communications that come in from foreign dragons—” “You forget the Academy is currently being run by Wyvernmire’s government,” Hollingsworth says sharply. “Her definition of duty is not the same as yours.” I throw the paper down. “So you’re going to let this pass?” “If I want to maintain my persona, I must,” Hollingsworth replies. She walks back to her desk and sits down, her eyes lingering on the sketch of me. “Language is a weapon, Vivien. Wyvernmire is using it and you will, too, soon. In fact, it may be the last weapon the rebels have.” “When are you going to send me to Canna?” I ask. “I’ve learned the wyvern tongue as best I can. Have the rebels found them yet?” Hollingsworth takes a sip of her tea and grimaces. “Cold,” she mutters. She rifles through a stack of papers, ignoring my question. I feel my neck flush with anger. Has she forgotten what she told me when she brought me here? Your linguistic capabilities are the best chance the Coalition has. I turn back to the journal. My years of studying, my languages, my translations have all been building up to this. To making contact with the Hebridean Wyverns and saving Britannia. Atlas believed that my languages are a way I’m called to love and Dad once told me that they would save me. So what is Hollingsworth waiting for? She expects me to work for the Coalition yet treats me like a child. My eyes fall on Hyacinth’s note and I wonder if my black skirt and jumper would pass as party clothes. If it’s a rebel Hollingsworth wants, a rebel she shall get. Excerpted from A War of Wyverns, copyright © 2025 by S.F. Williamson. The post Read an Excerpt From <i>A War of Wyverns</i> by S.F. Williamson appeared first on Reactor.

Column Teen Horror Time Machine The Gift That Keeps on Taking: Fatal Secrets  Stop giving the traumatized girl late night shifts at the haunted toy shop! By Alissa Burger | Published on December 4, 2025 Comment 0 Share New Share Holidays are stressful: family drama, trying to find just the right gift for that special someone, a jam-packed social calendar. But in Richie Tankersley Cusick’s Fatal Secrets (1992), Ryan McCauley’s holiday season is next-level terrible. Ryan’s sister Marissa came home from college to spend Thanksgiving with her family and while the sisters were walking together in the woods and gathering pinecones for a garland, Marissa told Ryan that she was afraid she might be in some trouble: she stumbled upon someone’s dark secret, and while she has to get a roll of film developed to know for sure, she thinks she has incriminating evidence. Marissa didn’t want to say more, not until she could be sure, but she never got the chance to find out. When the girls argued and set out in different directions, Marissa fell through the ice on a river and though Ryan did all she could to save her, Marissa drowned and her body was never recovered. Now Christmas is just around the corner–but between Ryan’s guilt and her mother’s grief, no one in the McCauley house is feeling very jolly.  Ryan blames herself for Marissa’s death, telling her best friend Phoebe “If only we hadn’t gone up there … if only she hadn’t gone with me” (11). She projects this self-abasement onto her mother as well, convinced that “when Mom looks at me, she’s seeing Marissa and wishing things were all switched around” (11). Ryan’s mother is incapacitated by her own grief, spending hours sitting in Marissa’s room, barely hearing a word Ryan says to her. Ryan and her mom love one another, but right now, Marissa’s absence is all either of them can see or feel.  Though her mother is incapable of offering comfort, Ryan has a pretty good larger support system: her mom’s boyfriend Steve is understanding and does what he can to comfort both Ryan and her mother, even acting as an intermediary between them when needed. Her best friend Phoebe works to cajole Ryan out of her depression, trying to distract her with caroling and thoughts about who Ryan should invite to the New Year’s dance (though Phoebe is prone to flights of boy-crazy distraction that occasionally keep her from seeing when Ryan is really struggling). Phoebe’s little brother Jinx can be pretty annoying, but is always there for Ryan when she needs him, whether it’s to give her a ride home or chase down a would-be intruder he spotted near the kitchen door. A mysterious and handsome boy named Winchester seems to finally be taking an interest in Ryan, and her boss at the toy shop where she works, a little old man named Mr. Partini, looks out for her and dotes on her.  The McCauleys are struggling heading into the Christmas season and things get even more complicated when a young man named Charles Eastman shows up on their doorstep with a pile of Christmas gifts. He tells Ryan and her mother that he knew Marissa: they had a few classes together, were good friends, and had been dating for awhile. They’d done some Christmas shopping together before Thanksgiving break, and when he found some of the gifts Marissa had bought for her family at his place, he decided to bring them by. Ryan’s mom welcomes Charles warmly into their home, desperate for anyone who can get her a bit closer to her daughter’s final days and offer insight to the life she was living on campus, but Ryan is a bit more uncertain, convinced that when she introduced herself to Charles at the door, he said “You’re the one who let her drown” (38), though this could just be a projection of the guilt she feels. When it turns out that Charles has no family and will be spending the holidays alone, Ryan’s mom invites him to stay with them, giving Charles Ryan’s bedroom and decamping Ryan to stay in Marissa’s room. This feels like a callous and insensitive thing to do, but if he’s staying for a while, he can’t very well sleep on the couch and when Ryan suggests that Charles stay in Marissa’s room, her mother becomes nearly hysterical, telling Ryan “I don’t want some stranger sleeping in there, do you hear me?” (59). Between her all-consuming grief and her desperation to hold onto this small connection with Marissa’s life, it doesn’t seem to occur to Ryan’s mom that it might be traumatic for her living daughter to move into the bedroom of her dead one (however temporarily).  Ryan struggles with whether or not she can trust Charles and what his ulterior motives might be and in the meantime, she encounters increasing horrors. One night when she’s home alone, she hears a car horn from the garage where Marissa’s car is parked and when she goes to investigate, she sees her sister’s corpse behind the wheel: “the human figure slumped forward … the head propped on the steering wheel, its face hidden … The long blond hair streaming over its back” (73). This is terrifying enough, but then the corpse begins to move, the lights in the garage go out, and the door jams, leaving Ryan trapped and pursued by the corpse of her dead sister as Ryan “put her hand out and felt heavy, wet fabric … damp human skin … icy cold …” (75). Ryan passes out from fear and when she comes to, Charles has her pulled outside the garage and is asking her what happened. Later, Ryan and Charles go caroling and to a Christmas party with some of Ryan’s friends. When Ryan gets separated from Charles on the way home, stranded in the snowy wilderness, she sees her sister again, this time as a shadowy shape nearly lost in the snow as Marissa calls out to Ryan, asking “why did you let me drown?” and telling her “I can’t come home for Christmas, Ryan … I’m dead” (98). Ryan almost dies again, passing out in the snow in the middle of nowhere, but Winchester comes to her rescue, finding her and taking her to his family’s cabin, getting her warm and fed, and ferrying her home when the storm is over. When she tells people what she has seen, they refuse to believe her, explaining these potentially supernatural horrors away as Ryan’s grief-stricken and overactive imagination, which is once again underscored with Ryan’s overwhelming feeling of guilt and responsibility.  As if being haunted by her dead sister weren’t terrifying enough, Ryan also sees a guy in a ski mask staring in the window of the toy store at her and late one night when Ryan and Phoebe are stranded downtown after someone has slashed the tires on Jinx’s car (which Phoebe borrowed without asking), a nefarious Santa Claus chases Ryan down the street. Someone tries to break into her house when Ryan is home alone and she finds a box in Marissa’s bedroom, a gift addressed to her, which she opens to discover the necklace that Marissa was wearing when she died. One night, when Ryan is at the toy shop late and alone, waiting for a ride home, the man in the ski mask enters the store and when Ryan tries to get away, the toys seem to come to life around her: “the trains started up … slowly at first … then faster … faster … little engines chugging … tiny whistles blowing … around and around … From some forgotten corner a baby doll cried in a tinny, mournful wail—‘Ma … ma … ma … ma …’ … The mechanical Santa Claus burst into insane laughter” (166). Ryan can’t get the door open and in her panic and desperation, shoves her arms through the plate glass. Ryan is traumatized, badly injured, and now, has to deal with everyone—including her mom—believing she tried to take her own life. When the truth of Marissa’s secret finally comes out, Ryan’s entire worldview and the web of relationships that have supported and sustained her are shattered. The film that Marissa had meant to get developed on that fateful afternoon contains evidence of a drug ring, though no one ever sees the pictures. Ryan gets a mysterious call while she’s home alone, from a man telling her that the police think they have found Marissa’s body near an old barn nearby but need someone to come identify her. Instead of calling her mom or asking why they want her to come to a barn instead of the morgue, Ryan goes running pell mell out into the snowy middle of nowhere. It is (of course) a trap and the people behind the drug ring plan to kill Ryan to keep her quiet (despite the fact that she doesn’t actually know what’s going on), orchestrating the murder so that Ryan’s death will look like suicide.  In the dark shadows of the barn, Ryan finally comes face to face with the secret Marissa was keeping—and there are a LOT of faces to face. First, there’s Charles, who taunts Ryan, telling her that she and Marissa will soon “be together again …” (196). But Charles wasn’t acting alone and he didn’t actually kill Marissa, saying “I have more class than to dirty my hands with something so unpleasant—especially when there are other people around who are so good at it!” (197). Those “other people,” it turns out, include Steve, Ryan’s mom’s boyfriend, who is the one who actually attacked Marissa. While Steve has played the part of a loving and supportive boyfriend and potential stepfather, this has all been a ruse, and he cruelly berates Ryan as well, telling her “you were so easy to scare … It takes time to drive someone right out of her mind … to make it believable. You felt so guilty about Marissa, it was almost too easy … The game’s not nearly as much fun when there’s no challenge” (199). While Charles seems to be the brains of the operation and Steve does the dirty work, there’s still the problem of how to transport the drugs without detection and it turns out their ingenious strategy has been to conceal them within Mr. Partini’s old-fashioned toys, which he then delivered to his customers. Of the three of them, Mr. Partini is the only one who seems to feel at all bad about what they have done to Ryan and about her impending murder, lamenting in his stilted English that “I never want to hurt you … I try to keep you out of it” (201), though that doesn’t stop him from seeing Ryan’s death as sad but unavoidable collateral damage. Last but not least, it is Ryan’s potential love interest and occasional rescuer Winchester who handles the local operations of the drug ring, though he does so under duress, with the others threatening to kill his younger siblings and burn down his dad’s service station if he doesn’t do what they tell him. Almost EVERYONE Ryan has turned to for love and support has been in on it all along.  Jinx shows up as Ryan’s would-be rescuer and the barn is getting pretty darn crowded, but while the others are distracted, Winchester helps Ryan and Jinx make their escape. The pursuit is intense and there’s a lot of gunfire. Winchester shoots Charles to save Ryan and Jinx, Jinx is grazed by a bullet, and Ryan is the victim of more flying glass, but they escape, the culprits are arrested, and Winchester agrees to testify against the others, with the truth revealed and the nightmare finally brought to a close.  Cusick keeps readers guessing about what might actually be happening in Fatal Secrets: are the terrifying things happening to Ryan somehow related to the secret Marissa never actually told her? Is this a ghost story, with Marissa exerting a supernatural influence from beyond the grave? Is Ryan a supremely unreliable narrator, with her guilt and post-traumatic stress manifesting in horrifying hallucinations, and if that is the case, can we trust any of her perceptions, including her assertion that she never meant to harm herself? Cusick offers readers a range of interpretations and even once the dark secret is revealed, definitive answers are few and far between. The stalker in the ski mask and Jinx’s slashed tires are pretty straightforward, part of the machinations designed to frighten Ryan into revealing what she knows. Steve gloats about how he and the others manipulated Ryan, telling her how they orchestrated “A few unfortunate accidents … a tape from Marissa’s answering machine at school … some great disguises” (199), though it’s hard to imagine any of these men believably disguising themselves as the corpse of a teenage girl or that Marissa’s answering machine would include anything like the mournful accusations Ryan hears on the snowy night when she gets stranded. It’s possible that Charles, Steve, and Mr. Partini set up the “hauntings” and the toys gone awry just to terrorize Ryan and drive her to irrational and self-destructive behavior, comfortable in the likelihood that no one would ever believe her. But there’s really no definitive confirmation either way—it seems likely that the truth lies in a combination of Ryan’s nightmares, both real and imagined, a volatile synthesis of external dangers and internal suffering.     In Fatal Secrets, Ryan faces down the ghosts of both past and present, as she works to come to terms with Marissa’s death, her own feelings of misplaced guilt, and the terrifying realization that a lot of the people she thought she could trust and rely on actually want her dead. As for the future, it’s pretty uncertain, in both good and bad ways: Ryan and her mother’s relationship seems to be on the mend, but finding out her boyfriend is a drug dealing murderer who killed one of her daughters and tried to kill the other is definitely going to leave a mark on Ryan’s mom. Phoebe’s friendship has been (and remains) steadfast, which hopefully won’t get complicated when she finds out that Ryan has noticed that annoying kid brother Jinx has turned into a pretty handsome and heroic young man, a guy with whom she wouldn’t mind dancing into the New Year. God bless us, everyone, and here’s hoping Ryan’s New Year is a lot less murder-y.[end-mark] The post The Gift That Keeps on Taking: <em>Fatal Secrets</em>  appeared first on Reactor.