Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel is the twenty-seventh book in the Give Yourself Goosebumps gamebook series. It was published in 1998.
The cover artwork features a yellow-green skeletal bellhop with a menacing look, standing at a reception desk handing a key to a customer.
Blurb
You Can Check In, but You Can't Check Out!
You and three classmates are on a school trip when your car breaks down. Too bad. Because now you have to check into Hotel Morte — otherwise known as the Dead Hotel!
Guess what! The guests in this hotel are all ghosts. And they're out to make you see-through too! You can either try to escape through the doggie door — or search for somebody named Drew Mortegarth, who claims to hold the key to your escape. But whatever you do — don't fall asleep. Or you WON'T live to regret it!
The choice is yours in this scary GOOSEBUMPS adventure that's packed with over 20 super-spooky endings!
Plot
You and friends B.J. Matson, Moira O'Neil, and Jamie Kaplan are on the first day of a school trip to Washington D.C., until your car breaks down. You and your friends check in a hotel called Hotel Morte on the side of an abandoned highway. The hotel turns out to be inhabited by ghosts and the only way out is to locate the only other human resident named Drew Mortegarth, who claims to hold the key to your exit.
List of endings
There are fifteen bad endings, three ambiguous endings, and three good endings.
Bad endings
- You open an ice bin and B.J.'s mother, who is now a ghost, comes out. She says the ghosts got to her, and now it's your turn - then she kills you.
- You drink some clam juice, but this somehow makes the letters disappear from the pages of the book you're reading, so you can't go on any further.
- You and Jamie decide to escape through the dog door but are covered in dog drool. You go into the woods, but the scent of drool draws wolves, who attack and eat you.
- You think that a ghost truck drove through you. However, it turned out to be a real truck and you and Jamie have ended up as ghosts.
- Ghosts trick you into moving a pile of bones to access a door. You and Moira are buried underneath the bones and presumably killed, while the ghosts leave through the door. You will now take their place haunting the hotel.
- You move a pile of bones, but block your only exit from the room. You fall asleep and awaken as a ghost.
- A ghostly waiter brings you room service. You, B.J., Jamie, and Moira eat a lot of food, but are then told that this will turn you all into ghosts by morning. B.J. complains that he doesn't want to be a ghost, and the waiter scolds him to quit his whining; saying, "Just be glad no one ordered the Seizure Salad!"
- You and Jamie are killed falling down an elevator shaft, and become ghosts in the hotel. Jamie calls all your friends and classmates in Washington D.C. and tells them to come to the hotel, so they'll become ghosts and keep you company.
- You and Jamie sleep through checkout time and awaken as ghosts.
- You're enslaved by dwarves who force you to do all their house chores and toil in their mine.
- You and Jamie decide to trust Moira to go into the meat locker to find Drew Mortegarth. However, Moira turns out to be a ghost and locks you and Jamie in.
- Whilst driving a bus you smash into a truck and are killed. You're told that the ghost of the bus's previous driver caused you to crash.
- You're killed when the ghosts throw you off a high diving board into an empty pool with no water.
- You and Moira press the button for the elevator to get you out of the basement, but the elevator is thirteen floors above you and going up. By the time the elevator reaches you, it will be long past check out time so you are done for.
- Non-ending: You catch up with B.J. and Moira, who have turned into ghosts after eating the Sweet Dreams mints. Jamie dares you to eat one of the mints, and you accept. The book ends the story there and tells you to come back when you're ready to get a good ending and not do something so obviously stupid.
Ambiguous endings
- You open the soda can that contains Jenna from Scream of the Evil Genie. When Jenna mentions the book that she's originally from, your friend wishes to be in that book, and Jenna obliges by transporting you all there.
- Eating a Sweet Dreams mint causes you to fall into a deep slumber. When you awaken, you have become a ghost. You get revenge by playing pranks on the other ghosts, who get so fed up with you they leave and go to haunt somewhere else. Your antics make the Hotel Morte a tourist attraction, and your friends all get part time jobs there so they can still hang out with you.
- You spend the rest of your life driving a tour bus for a circus troupe who are all ghosts (the book suggests you don't mind this because the ghosts are so interesting to be with.)
Good endings.
- The ghost of a talent agent named Sandy Brecker takes you and Jamie to New York City and introduces you to a record producer. You become famous based on your hit country song called "You Thought You Gave Me Goosebumps, But It Was Only Fleas!".
- You escape the hotel, convince B.J.'s mother to keep driving despite the problems with the car engine, and all reach Washington D.C. safely.
- You and Jamie escape the hotel with the help of Drew Mortegarth. Moira, B.J., and his mother are all waiting for you in the car but Drew doesn't follow you, and says "sweet dreams." You fall asleep and wake up in Washington D.C., but B.J.'s mother says you never went to a hotel and you must have been dreaming. You're not sure whether anything that happened was real.
International releases
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Artwork
Trivia
- There is only one storyline in this book.
- A solution to Into the Jaws of Doom is included in the back of this book, but some copies do not possess this.
- Some of the plot elements in this book reference The Shining.