The Goosebumps book about a werewolf in a swamp.
Grady Tucker and his family have just moved to Florida so his father can do scientific work involving "swamp deer". Unfortunately, as Grady soon learns, the swamp isn't exactly normal.
It was adapted into the eighteenth and nineteenth episodes of the first season of the 1995 TV series. It was also adapted into an installment of the Goosebumps Graphix series, included in the Creepy Creatures and Slappy's Tales of Horror collections.
It was later reissued in the Classic Goosebumps line in 2009 as a companion to Escape From HorrorLand.
The setting was used in the Secrets of the Swamp story in the comic series.
The book provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: Upon hearing the scratching sounds at night, Grady and Emily wonder what they could belong to. They at first guess that one of the deer escaped and is scratching at the door, causing them to burst out laughing at this absurd question despite how scared they are, and Emily jokes that it might want a glass of water.
- Adoring the Pests: Subverted. Grady adopts a stray dog and names it Wolf, but, after some strange howls and disasters in the swamp, he wonders if Wolf is a werewolf. He isn't.
- Ambiguous Situation: Late at night, Grady and Emily hear scraping sounds coming from their back door, and wonder what it could be. It's never revealed if those belonged to the werewolf, or Wolf who came sneaking into the house the next day.
- And I'm the Queen of Sheba: When meeting Grady for the first time, Cassie tells him that there's a werewolf in the swamp. Will replied sarcastically that he was going to flap his wings and fly to Mars. It turns out that he was actually saying that to deflect suspicion off of him, considering that he is the werewolf.
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Grady gets bitten by the werewolf at the climax, and the ending reveals this has passed the curse onto him, although he and Wolf mutually don't mind each-other when he's in his wolf form.
- Big Friendly Dog: Wolf introduces himself by bounding into Grady and licking him, and later saves him from the werewolf.
- Change the Uncomfortable Subject: Grady invites Will and Cassie over to his house for the first time, and the two instantly started an argument about werewolves. Getting tired of this, Grady suggests that they change the subject, and brings up how both his parents are scientists. This doesn't actually do much good, as they start asking more questions about it and how it involves the werewolf.
- Dies Wide Open: Grady goes out of the house at night and finds a rabbit corpse that had been torn apart with its small, black eyes wide open in terror. It also had one of its ears pulled off.
- Dramatic Wind: Harsh wind comes through the night air as Grady goes out the house and finds that one of his family's deer was killed by the werewolf.
- Everybody Calls Him "Barkeep": We never learn the swamp hermit's real name.
- Finger Muzzle: When encountering a shack in the swamp, Grady starts babbling about how he believes it's a hideout. Emily responds by doing this trope to him.
- Fungus Humongous: Among the flora that Grady and Emily see on their first trip out in the swamp are mushrooms as big as footballs.
- Know Your Vines: Grady and Emily run into this problem, when they are unable to differentiate the different plants that brush against their legs whilst out on their first walk through the swamp. They come back to the swamp with red bumps on their knees and they start scratching.
- Lame Comeback: After tricking Grady into almost falling into a peat bog, Emily teasingly asks him to drink some and see how it tastes. He replied that he's not thirsty. Grady realizes that it wasn't too clever, but it was the best reply he could think of.
- Noisy Nature: Emily complains about how noisy the swamp is during the day, and Grady agrees with her.
- Red Herring: There's evidence pointing to Wolf the dog, the swamp hermit, and even Grady's father as the werewolf. It's actually Grady's friend, Will.
- Sinister Scraping Sound: Grady wakes up one night to hear scratching sounds coming from the other side of the back door of the house.
- Swamps Are Evil: Both in the usual method, and apparently literally; it's home to a werewolf and is apparently responsible for making visitors sick with a strange fever.
- Truth in Television: The factoids that Emily brings up about swamps throughout the book are pretty much true. For instance, she points out to Grady that the mud around them isn't quicksand, it's a peat bog, which is a pond that has peat moss growing in it.
- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Grady says this to Emily at the beginning of the book in response to her whining that she has a bad feeling about this swamp.
- Working-Class Werewolves: Grady suspects that the swamp hermit, a weird old guy who lives alone in a shack in the middle of the swamp, is the werewolf. Subverted, as it turns out that Grady's friend Will is actually the werewolf, although given that the house he says he lives in is revealed to have been empty for months, it's suggested he himself may live in the swamp.
