Stine's covered a lot of monsters throughout Goosebumps. But weirdly enough, we haven't had too many vampires in these books. We've had weird zombie/vampire hybrids like the citizens of Dark Falls from Welcome To Dead House, but nothing that's simply flat out vampires. Well, it's time for a breath of not-so-fresh-air. It's Vampire Breath or Dude, Eat a Mint!
COVER STORY
I like this cover. It's not the most overly detailed of Tim's works, but it gets the message across. We have a vampire (Count Nightwing), sticking out of his coffin with wilted flowers in hand (that look like they came right off the table of Say Cheese and Die - Again!'s cover) slowly inhaling the fumes of the open bottle of Vampire Breath. It gives you just enough info to get you moving into the plot. Solid work as usual, Tim.
STORY
Freddy Martinez and his best friend Cara Simonetti are our protagonists for this tome. Freddy likes to tell scary stories, particularly to kids he babysits. We get an opening bit where he's traumatizing a 6 year old boy named Tyler with werewolf stories, despite Cara constantly telling him to cut it out. The next day, the two kids are in the basement of Tyler's house playing air hockey. They roughhouse a bit too much and Tyler ends up sending a puck slamming hard into an old wooden cabinet. The cabinet falls over, revealing a strange door. They open it to find a tunnel that eventually leads them to a room, and inside it is a coffin.
While the kids wondering why Freddy's parents would be hiding a corpse, they debate on if they should open the coffin. They open the coffin, but there's nothing inside by a strange old bottle labeled "The Title Of This Book", I mean Vampire Breath. The kids, being annoying, fight over the bottle, causing it to fall to the ground and open, emitting some sort of strange fog. After the kids argue some more about why this has happened, they turn to the coffin and see an old man laying in it. The old man then blinks and sits up. Well kids, you woke the dead, but the car's okay, so it all balances out.
The old man introduces himself as Count Nightwing, and he is really thirsty. The kids panic and start to run back through the tunnel to Freddy's house, but before they can make it, the door shuts. And unfortunately for Freddy and Cara, there's no doorknob on their side! Count Nightwing then confronts them and goes to bite Cara's neck. However, there's a bit of a snag... he's got no fangs. He needs his vampire breath to help with that. The vampire breath will somehow help him not only regain his powers, but will also help him travel back a century and leave Freddy and Cara alone. The kids return to where they left the bottle, but they end up transported to a room filled with coffins. Somehow Count Nightwing took the kids back to his castle and his timeframe with him.
The coffins open and more thirsty vampires emerge. They turn into bats and attack the kids, until they're rescued by Count Nightwing, who is confused as to how Freddy and Cara got here. He says he doesn't know how to send them home, but he can just turn them to vampires and make it easy on them. He explains that the vampire breath is something vampires need to take every day to keep them from needing to feed on blood. And the reason he needed to return to his time of 1890 is that in this time period the bottle is always full. So to keep themselves from feasting on humans, vampires keep themselves in a sort of time loop so they don't run out of their drug? That's actually rather inspired Jovial Bob.
Conveniently the bottle of vampire breath is missing again, meaning that now it's a race between Count Nightwing and the kids to get the bottle first. If Count Nightwing gets it, the kids are sure to be turned into vampires. But instead of that, Cara thinks that maybe they can find some help. Sadly, there's no Belmonts to aid them, nor is there an easy way out. They manage to get through a window, but unfortunately that leaves the kids climbing down a castle that's conveniently over a steep cliff. Freddy falls, but ends up saved by Count Nightwing. The kids continue to search, and find another room containing a coffin, and a bottle of vampire breath. However, when the kids get the bottle, they soon see that they're not alone.
A young girl named Gwendolyn introduces herself to Freddy and Cara. She says that she's only 12 and has been trapped here as Count Nightwing's slave to clean and maintain the place. She tells the two kids that there may be a way to escape before the count catches them. But, shocker of shockers, it's a trap! She's a vampire too, and led them to a secluded area where she can feast on them. The kids try to use the vampire breath, but nothing emerges. It's just an empty bottle among many empties in the castle. Before Gwendolyn can strike, Count Nightwing emerges. The kids run off before the count seemingly murders Gwendolyn. They find the room of empty bottles, but get cornered again by Count Nightwing. He remembers that he actually did hide the vampire breath in this room and the kids find it. We get a bit of a fight over the bottle, and after the whole scuffle, Count Nightwing manages to finally get the real bottle of vampire breath.
TWIST ENDING
After Count Nightwing opens the bottle, a fog fills the room. When it subsides, the kids are back in Freddy's basement. Back in their own time. But they also brought the weary Count Nightwing with them. Freddy's parents arrive in time, and we learn that Count Nightwing is actually Freddy's grandfather. Yep, we got a Girl Who Cried Monster ending where the family are really vampires. The parents give Count Nightwing his fangs back and they go out for a "bite to eat." The kids, confused by all this go about their business when they find a bottle of Werewolf Sweat. Cara opens it and... turns into a werewolf I guess.
CONCLUSION
Vampire Breath is decent. Not one I'd say wowed me, but still managed to work as an adventure story with some decent vampire lore. I like the idea of vampire breath as being this drug to keep vampires from harming others, and even the interesting idea of a time travel loop to always keep a full bottle. I liked the details Stine put out about the castle and how spooky and gothic everything looks. Freddy and Cara were okay protags, but kind of bland to be honest. I do feel the twist being a bit too similar to The Girl Who Cried Monster does kind of weaken it, as does the whole "here we go again" nature of the final twist. But those nitpicks aside, it was a quality book. It's interesting. We started the forties with some of the roughest books in the original sixty two, but Stine tail ended it with ones I really liked (even Lost Legend I enjoyed somewhat). Has R.L. got his groove back? We'll see. There's still thirteen books left to go! Vampire Breath gets a B.
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