With copies of Fear Street flying off shelves, it only made sense for other publishers to put out their own young-adult horror series in the 1990s. And Berkley Books’ venture was Terror Academy, a fifteen-volume collection of high-school horror and thrills. C. A. Stokes, writing under the pen name of Nicholas Pine, kicked things off with the 1993 entry Light Outs. The Berkley artwork shows a teen girl walking down the halls of the titular institution, oblivious to the knife-wielding stranger closing in on her. However, the actual story and cover art don’t exactly match up.
Lights Out starts out cheery and unaware, much like its protagonist. Mandy Roberts is about to be a senior at Port City’s Central Academy, the main setting of these books, and her biggest worry now is telling her father she wants to step down as the school newspaper’s editor. She fears Vernon Roberts will be disappointed after he went to so much trouble to get her the position in the first place; he bribed the faculty sponsor with ice cream bars every day. So it’s clear Mandy has a close relationship with her father, but things are more strained with her overly critical mother Barbara. There’s also her mother’s vices of cigarettes and booze that only worsen as the story goes on.
Despite Mandy’s fear of telling him the truth, Mr. Roberts is fully supportive of her decision. He, an already overworked guidance counselor and English teacher at Central Academy, then rushes off to oversee the senior graduation along with family friend Coach Ralph Chadwick. Mandy shows up at the ceremony with best pal Tara Evans, only to then be accosted by one of the school’s biggest outliers, Jimmy “Deuce” Boatman. As everyone loves to call him, he’s a “charity case” who Mr. Roberts took pity on as part of an outreach program for wayward students. Luckily, Mandy’s hunky boyfriend Brett Holloway shows up to take the trash out.
The darkness was so strong in Mandy’s heart that she wondered if she would ever know the light again.
All is not well for Mandy, though. During the graduation ceremony, her father is electrocuted to death before the bleachers collapse on top of him. It appears to be nothing more than a freak accident, but once the police chief shows up with questions for her and her loved ones, Mandy suspects foul play. And Vernon Roberts’ shady dealings at work — apparently he was embezzling school funds to pay for his family’s lavish new home in Prescott Estates — could be the motivation. According to Mandy, her father was nothing short of perfect, so the cop’s theories are lies.
Or are they?
Lights Out‘s cover art suggests the danger is at school, but the real threat lurks at home. It’s not long before the new assistant principal, Harlan Kinsley, swoops in and romances the Roberts widow. So now not only is Mandy going through this unfortunate situation virtually alone, after having pushed her mother, boyfriend and friends away, she also has to deal with this stranger in her house. The story starts to mirror the 1987 movie The Stepfather. And much like Terry O’Quinn’s character in that celluloid slice of domestic disturbance, Mandy thinks Mr. Kinsley is crooked. Maybe even the person responsible for her dear father’s murder.
The situations in these kinds of books are often dire and urgent, taking place over a matter of days or weeks. As for Lights Out, its story spans an entire year. Summer ends, school resumes, and Mandy continues to brood. She’s not mourning her late father in a healthy way, and she’s certainly not turning to her friends and family for support. In fact, Mandy is alienating herself at both home and school. Having since broken up with Brett, and refusing to see Tara or her other best friend Steve, Mandy falls into a rather dark hole of despair and anger. Not to mention, she refuses to give up the investigation like the cops did — she even starts to play nice with Harlan, as a way to lower his guard as she digs into his past.
Her wounds made her want to wound others.
Things at Mandy’s home only worsen as winter rolls around. Barbara, who married Harlan the day after Christmas, turns to alcohol and pills as her coping mechanisms. Rather than dealing with that, though, Mandy becomes consumed with taking down Harlan. She reconciles with her friends and enlists the occasional help from the closest thing she has to a father now, Coach Chadwick. A visit to Harlan’s alma mater turns up nothing but town gossip; he supposedly killed his first wife and then sued her family for the inheritance. Nevertheless, Mandy relays this info to her mother, but Barbara is unconvinced Harlan is out to get her or her money.
So far Lights Out is not living up to its cover. Deuce seems like the obvious culprit, but he was cleared of any wrongdoing, even after he swore he’d get back at Mandy for their run-in during graduation. No one other than Harlan has a visible motive for killing Mr. Roberts, either. At some point readers would have assumed the missus was behind his death; she wanted her husband’s life insurance payout. Yet based on her nearly constant drunken stupor or her habit of slipping into sedative-induced hazes, Barbara is in no place to be making schemes. Who else could it be other than Harlan?
The stepfather isn’t an idiot — he’s been on to Mandy’s sleuthing since day one. And when it appears Harlan is going to kill both his wife and stepdaughter at the very same place his first wife perished, a ski resort in the mountains, the author throws in a last-minute wild card. Deuce, who Mandy guessed was working with Harlan all this time, shows up to help not the assistant principal but Coach Chadwick! Mandy’s confidante since her father’s passing has been biding his time, waiting for her to pin Vernon’s murder on Harlan. With Deuce’s help, Chadwick covertly killed his friend at the graduation ceremony and then framed him for embezzlement. The “career bachelor” coveted Vernon’s whole life and had hoped to marry his wife.
Who would believe her? They were all against her now. And the only one who would listen could not reply. He was six feet underground in Old Cemetery.
Apart from two over-the-top deaths, including Chadwick being ground to death inside the ski lift mechanism, there’s no stalking or preying in this book. It’s all a cat-and-mouse game where you’re never sure who the cat is. Harlan of course was a red herring to throw both readers and Mandy off the scent, and he ends up being a standup guy whose whole life has been haunted by hearsay and accusations. He was actually trying to help Barbara overcome her addictions and quietly make good on what he thought was Vernon’s misappropriations.
This may not sound like the most exciting way to start things off in Terror Academy, but a lot happens in Lights Out. A grieving teenager obsessed to the point where she forgot to mourn. In addition, she lost sight of her mother’s wellbeing, cut off her support system, and came close to getting an innocent man locked up. So yes, Lights Out truly misleads with its cover art and maybe its title as well. What readers actually get here is an old-school mystery instead of a murder-mystery set at school.
There was a time when the young-adult section of bookstores was overflowing with horror and suspense. These books were easily identified by their flashy fonts and garish cover art. This notable subgenre of YA fiction thrived in the ’80s, peaked in the ’90s, and then finally came to an end in the early ’00s. YA horror of this kind is indeed a thing of the past, but the stories live on at Buried in a Book. This recurring column reflects on the nostalgic novels still haunting readers decades later.
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