The Blob That Ate Everyone

The Blob That Ate Everyone
Tagline	He's no picky eater!
Author(s)	R.L. Stine
Cover artist	Tim Jacobous
Publisher	Scholastic
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Release date	May 1997
Pages	114
Series	Goosebumps
Series number	55
Saga	none
Previous book	Don't Go To Sleep!
Next book	The Curse of Camp Cold Lake

Plot

The narrator is Zackie Beauchamp. His best friend is a girl named Alex Larocci. Then a blob attacks Zackie and Alex but it turns out it is really a story that Zackie wrote to entertain his friends during a boring Spring Break day. Alex likes the story a lot. Zackie's other friend, Adam Levin, mocks it. Zackie reveals his goal in life is to be a great horror writer. Adam makes a big deal about how he never gets scared, then gets scared by a cat.

Later that night, Zackie and Alex stumble upon an entire block of a small shopping center that has been destroyed by lightning. Zackie sees a sign on one of the dilapidated buildings that says "Danger-- Keep Out," and his first instinct is to keep in. He forces Alex to join him inside the abandoned and crumbling storefront. Alex sanely suggests that maybe a flooded and gutted building is not a good place for two twelve year old kids to go snooping, but before Zackie can nay-say her, he gets shocked by a loose wire. Alex tells him his whole body was encased in a blue flame. Zackie spots an old typewriter in the shop and decides he will take it.

A woman enters the abandoned store. The woman shines her light on the two kids, who huddle down to hide from her. Upon being hit with the light, Zackie pretends to be a statue and this fools the woman. But then she comes back physically accosts both Zackie and Alex, and angrily asks these two kids if they are "doing some late night shopping." She introduces herself as Mrs. Carter, and tells the kids that this was her store. Zackie sees this as the perfect time to ask if he can have the typewriter. She gives it to him and also gives him a free pen.

Zackie's parents naturally make fun of him upon his return home, though only about the whole wanting a typewriter thing. He sets the machine up in his room and it begins to bathe in a blue glow. This causes him to excitedly utter "My typewriter!"

At school the next day, Zackie tells Alex about the blue glow, and how he's going to retype the Blob story on the creepy typewriter, because then that will make the story even scarier. Zackie opens his locker and a mouse that Adam jokingly placed inside his locker jumps out at him. He gets scared and some people laugh at him. After everyone laughs at him, Alex helpfully picks off the mouse hair from his shoulder.

That night, Zackie is still obsessing over his embarrassment. He tells Alex that people were making "mouse faces" at him all day. Zackie starts writing the new draft of the Blob story on the typewriter. Zackie's new first line is "IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT" and this causes the sky outside to suddenly pour down rain all over his red dog house. The power goes out in the house, but Zackie tells Alex that he's going to keep writing, since all great horror writers should write by candle-light. "Cool" is her response. Zackie's next line is "THE WIND BEGAN TO HOWL."

Zackie's next line states that Alex and Zackie were all alone in the darkened house. Zackie forgot about Dad down in the basement, who has now disappeared. Alex tries to convince Zackie that everything he's typing is coming true, but Zackie is stubborn. Alex grabs Zackie's handwritten draft and types the next line of the story: "THEY HEARD A KNOCK ON THE DOOR." Then there's a knock on the door.

When Zackie goes to answer the door, there is no one there, so Zackie sits down at the typewriter and writes that Adam is at the front door. And so he is. Zackie types the storm ending to prove to Adam that his typewriter can control reality. Adam mocks Zackie and grabs hold of the typewriter. Adam writes that the blob monster is waiting in Zackie's basement for some fresh meat, then turns and runs out of the house. The kids suddenly hear a series of thuds leading from the basement... the door opens... and it's merely Zackie's dad. Alex drags Zackie down into the basement to see whether or not there is in fact a blob monster waiting for them. There’s not.

The following Saturday, Zackie's mom sends him out to pick up some food items. He goes into a local meat market run by friendly Italians. Zackie returns home to work on his book. Zackie's mom interrupts his story and asks him to return to the market for a loaf of bread. Zackie bikes back to the market and sees... a giant blob attacking the whole town. A random woman tells Zackie as she's running away that, "It's a horrible monster!"

The blob monster begins to eat various police officers and citizens in the manner which Zackie has already written. As the carnage is unfolding, Zackie tries to remember exactly what he had written so as to predict what occurs next. Naturally, Zackie had already typed that the blob monster followed him home. Zackie races home but then he remembers that he wrote himself falling off his bike. Alex and Adam see the blob monster chasing Zackie. Adam thinks the creature is some sort of balloon.The Blob Monster eats Adam. Alex and Zackie continue to run from the monster towards Zackie's house. Once inside, the two race towards the typewriter as the sound of the blob monster entering the house fills the living room where Zackie fails to get the typewriter to function. The blob monster bursts in and swallows the typewriter before Zackie can type a word. Zackie suddenly remembers the pen the woman gave him. Maybe it has the same powers as the typewriter! But the blob monster eats it too. Zackie and Alex are trapped. Zackie remembers how when Adam wrote something on the typewriter it didn't come true. Maybe Zackie doesn't need the typewriter at all, maybe the power to change things is within him? And so the finale of the book is a teenage boy thinking really hard. It works, everything goes back to normal.

A blob monster shows his story, which is the preceding novel, to his other blob monster friend. The blob monster friend liked it, but felt it was too sad at the end, when the blob monster got thought away by the human. The blob monster writer agrees and changes it so that the blob monster instead eats the kids.

The blob in Zackie's house

Television Adaptation

When the book was adapted, they committed the twist ending with the blobs.

TV-episode

TV episode Trivia

This is the 1st of 3 episodes on the Goosebumps DVD of the same name.

This episode was made during the season 3 production run but aired during season 2.

This episode was supposed to be the final book, #19, for the Goosebumps Presents series, however it was not.