Ray Gordon (Slappy New Year!)


 * Not to be confused with Ray Gordon from A Nightmare on Clown Street.

Ray Gordon is the main protagonist of the eighteenth Goosebumps HorrorLand book, Slappy New Year!, as well as the narrator for the nineteenth book, The Horror at Chiller House. He is the older brother of Brandon Gordon.

Slappy New Year!
Ray and Brandon were spending their first trip at HorrorLand, but Brandon was ruining the trip with his fear of everything. They visited Jonathan Chiller's shop where Ray got Slappy the Dummy, even after Brandon's protests. The Gordons soon had cut their trip two days early, due to Brandon being too scared to handle what the theme park had in store. Ray was very annoyed that the trip to HorrorLand had ended early and so he scared Brandon with the dummy.

Strange incidents stated happening, which turned out to be the work of Brandon. He was trying to get back at Ray for how mean he is to him. Angered, Ray fully read all the magic words that bring Slappy to life and soon the incidents started back up. Slappy started wreaking havoc, such as ruining a Christmas party and making it seem like Ray is at fault. Slappy came to life and started threatening the kids, but they managed to get rid of him by throwing him into a garbage truck.

After a lot of pleading, Ray was able to go on with the new year's party that he wanted to throw. The party was going swimmingly at first, until Slappy appeared, damaged and furious from his adventure in the garbage truck and started wreaking havoc in the party by chucking paint cans around. he two brothers managed to get hold of the paper with the ancient words. Ray was able to read them aloud, putting Slappy back to sleep.

The next day, Ray's mom told him that she put Slappy back in his room, to which Ray replied that he doesn't want him anymore. She then tells him she found a paper with words that were hard to pronounce. Ray asked if she read them out loud.

The Horror at Chiller House
Later, the little horror Ray brought along with Slappy glowed and teleported him back to Chiller House. There, Ray met Andy Meadows, Sam Waters, Jessica Bowen, Meg Oliver and Marco Gonzalez, who also had horrifying adventures with some souvenirs that they bought at the shop. They looked around for Jonathan Chiller when they noticed some photos of each one of them with arrows drawn through their heads. And then Chiller himself appeared and Ray and the others bombarded him with questions. Chiller told them that they have not paid for their souvenirs and now payback time has arrived. After giving a hideous riddle of a spider and a fly, Chiller explained that they are going to play a scavenger hunt game to find some little Horrors in red chests hidden throughout HorrorLand to take them home. To make the game easier, Chiller gave each kid a Helper card with their Helper's picture on it and the Helper will guide them to their chest's location. And to add excitement to the game Chiller and some friends of his will be hunting the kids with crossbows, much to Ray and the others' horror. Chiller fired one and Ray saw a suction cup at the end, much to his relief. And then he and the others left the shop to look for the chests. But not before Ray noticed Chiller talking to his father with a foggy look on his face.

Outside, Meg told Ray and the others that this game may not be so bad as Chiller brought her back prior to this and he played fair with her, but Ray declined, saying that they can't trust Chiller, as they all have stories because of him. He then suggested that they can just walk away through the front ask if they can borrow a phone to call for help. But when Ray tried to go through the gate, he got a really powerful shock. He then realized that Chiller put a sensor in each card to keep them from escaping, so Marco collected all the cards and put them all in a drawer of a food cart. But the gate closed before they could get out, so they took the cards back from the food cart. Since none of them wanted to go by themselves and that going together would make it easy for the Hunters, Ray suggested that they should go in pairs and meet back at Chiller House if any of them is in trouble. So Ray was paired up with Sam and they went to the Spear-It Cafe to see Chef Belcher, who is Ray's Helper. Belcher told them that he can't get the chest for them, but he can lead them to it. The Chef lead the two boys to Wolfsbane Forest, with Ray and Sam feeling very uneasy as they might run into werewolves. They lost Chef Belcher along the way, but they managed to find a chest that was heavily guarded by wasps. Ray managed to get the chest from the wasps and opened it, only to find that it is a Jack-in-the-Box with a note tied to it saying You Lose. Ray and Sam hadn't gone very far when they were ambushed by werewolves. But an arrow shot out before the werewolves could attack and Chef Belcher yelled out to Ray and Sam that there is a Hunter nearby and he means business. After narrowly escaping, Ray and Sam began to think that Chiller may not be playing fair and went to warn the others.

Ray and Sam went to the Haunted Theater to find Jessica and Marco, as they were looking for Marco's Helper, Murder the Clown. After being directed by a sad-looking clown and being grabbed at by what felt like ghostly hands, Ray and Sam managed to find their two friends and Murder himself. Ray and Sam told Jessica and Marco about the Jack-in-the-Box and that Chiller may not be playing fair and the four asked Murder to lead them to a treasure chest. So Murder led them to one on Quicksand Beach and after a struggle through the quicksand, the friends managed to recover. Marco opened the chest and found what appeared to be a little Horror and squeezed it, only to discover that it is actually chocolate. Murder called out that this is the trouble with playing games with Chiller and that he cheats. Then more arrows started flying at the kids and they barely managed to escape. They caught with Murder and found a crossbow at his feet and the Clown explained that the Hunter dropped it and ran away. And to his horror, Ray saw that there was a pointed end and that the arrows were real! So the four went off to warn Andy and Meg, who were trying to find Meg's Helper, Madame Doom.

Ray and the others managed to find Andy and Meg and told them what had happened. After Meg had a struggle to pull a fortune card saying the real Madame Doom could help them, the friends went to her house. When they got there, Andy suggested that he should go in case of a trap and went inside. After a while, Ray and the others heard him scream and rushed inside and found him with an arrow in his back and Madame Doom standing beside him with a crossbow in her hands. Then Andy sat up, revealing the arrow to be fake and told them that Madame Doom made him do it so that he can go home. Then Madame Doom revealed that Chiller gave them Hunter cards and that she, Belcher, Murder and all the other HorrorLand characters are the Hunters, much to Ray and his friends horror.

After carefully escaping Madame Doom, Ray and his friends were deciding what to do when three of the Monster Police appeared and demanded to know what the kids were doing wandering around HorrorLand at night. Ray and the others apologized and that they would leave the park if they let them go. This idea was working perfectly until one of them, a Gold Badge asked where their parents were. The kids tried desperately to cover it up, but to no avail. So the Monster Police decided to take them to the security office to locate their parents. On the way, as Ray and his friends were debating about whether to tell them about Chiller and his game, they looked in a window of Chiller House, they saw Madame Doom sitting in a dressing room taking her wig and make-up off, revealing Jonathan Chiller underneath! It turned out that Chiller had played every one of the HorrorLand characters and he kept the real little Horrors in the shop. When Jessica distracted the guarsd by throwing her voice, Ray and the other ran into Chiller House to confront Chiller.

After Chiller told the guards that he will take care of the kids, Ray ordered him to give them the little Horrors and told him that they won the game by finding out he is all alone. Chiller was very upset at this as he never got to have any friends in childhood as he had been forced to stay in his room and study. While he was in his own thoughts, Ray and the others tried to get past him to the red chests, but Chiller stopped them just in time, saying that he doesn't like to lose at his games. Meg, Marco and Jessica tried to distract Chiller by being interested in his toys, while Ray, Sam and Andy raced into the back room to get the chests, only to find them empty. As Chiller told them that they will be playing new games that they will not like, Ray took out the Murder the Clown costume and dressed up in it. Sam, Jessica and Meg joined in by dressing up as Chef Belcher, Madame Doom and Mondo the Magical respectively and they started chanting "Good-bye Jonathan Chiller" in unison. This drove Chiller crazy as he couldn't bear to have anyone turning his friends against him. This meant that Ray and his friends won the game and Chiller gave them little horrors to go home. After a strong pull from a yellow-green light and being part of a fireball flying through space, Ray was teleported back to his bedroom, where he was greeted by Brandon. Ray asks Brandon of he missed him. Then to Ray's surprise, Brandon replies by asking if he went somewhere.

Personality
Ray is said to be the tough one in the Gordon family. He was often annoyed that he couldn't do scary things in front of Brandon as he was afraid of everything and always played tricks on his brother to scare him and sometimes tried to toughen him up by showing him that scary things can be fun and that there is nothing to be afraid of. But Ray can be very sensitive at times and he often worried about what people thought of him and can be real hurt when people think negatively of him.

Physical appearance
Ray is twelve years old, Caucasian, short and thin with curly blond hair, blue eyes and freckles across his cheeks. Since Brandon is twice his size, everyone they meet thinks that Ray is the younger brother.

Appearances

 * Goosebumps HorrorLand
 * Slappy New Year!
 * The Horror at Chiller House

Trivia

 * It is unknown if Ray was going to appear in the Goosebumps Gold version of Slappy New Year, as the plots do not match in spite of the same title.
 * Ray shares both his name and surname with the protagonist of A Nightmare on Clown Street.
 * He is the first male protagonist in the Living Dummy saga.