Welcome to Dead House

Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1992

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-14

Chapters 15-18

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 11-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 11 Summary

Amanda and Josh settle into their new lives over the next few weeks, doing their best to make friends with the other kids. One day while playing ball, they realize that their dog got loose from his leash, and after hours of searching, they still can’t find him. That night, Amanda and Josh’s parents go to a party at the neighbor’s house. Exhausted and heartbroken, Amanda and Josh go to bed, and Amanda lies awake thinking until Josh comes to her room. He knows that their dog went back to the cemetery, and he’s going to look with or without Amanda. Excited for the adventure but also nervous about going out at night, Amanda agrees. Outside, it’s so still and quiet that it feels “as if [they] were all alone in the world” (82), at least until they hear footsteps following them.

Chapter 12 Summary

The person following them is Ray, who tells them not to go to the cemetery because “[they]’d be nuts to go there at night” (86). Despite the warning, Josh doesn’t stop, so Amanda and Ray go after him. At the cemetery, the kids discover an amphitheater with a giant tree leaning over it, its roots poking up from the dirt. They also find their dog, which smells like death and doesn’t seem to recognize them. As the kids chase the dog, Amanda finds a grave marker for her new friend Karen, who died when she was 12, and as she continues the search, she realizes that “all the kids [they] had played softball with. They all ha[ve] gravestones here” (93). Finally, she finds Ray’s tombstone. Ray admits that it’s him and apologizes.

Chapter 13 Summary

Amanda and Josh’s dog is dead, and it was killed because dogs always realize that the town’s citizens are the living dead before humans do. Ray is a watcher, tasked with keeping Amanda and her family clueless until the right time because the town and its people can’t survive without fresh blood. Now that she knows, Ray has to silence her. He levitates, and Amanda feels the life leaving her body, thinking, “[N]ow I’m dead, too” (98).

Chapter 14 Summary

Josh shines his flashlight at Ray, stopping the effect on Amanda. The light makes Ray’s skin melt away until he’s nothing but a skeleton that collapses. Amanda and Josh run home, where they discover that their parents aren’t home from the party yet. Before the kids can go look for them, the dead kids reveal themselves from hiding places around the house. They all used to live in this house, and before they close in on Amanda and Josh, one badly jokes, “Now we’re dead in your house!” (103).

Chapters 11-14 Analysis

These chapters contain the book’s rising action—the loss of the dog, the confirmation that the townspeople are dangerous, and the events that bring Amanda and Josh’s family to the cemetery for the climax of the story. The loss of the dog and the party are necessary steps for Amanda and Josh to have agency for the last portion of the book. Finding the dog gives them the motivation they need to put themselves in a dangerous situation. The party takes their parents out of the story and forces the kids to be heroes, rather than being rescued by adults. This is a common trope of children’s and middle grade fiction, and it suggests that kids have power and can solve problems as effectively as adults.

Additionally, the kids finding their dead dog thematically represents Reality and the Supernatural. Amanda has spent the novel thus far doubting herself and her experiences with the supernatural, always finding an excuse for the things she sees. The definitive death of the family dog, however, is unavoidable for Amanda, who can now see the extreme danger they are in. This moment also sets the tone both for this book and the rest of the series by showing that the characters will experience irreversible loss. Rather than a children’s story where everything works out in the end, Welcome to Dead House explores the more serious side of life through the changes that Amanda and Josh experience. The loss of their dog is one thing they cannot undo and solidifies that their lives are forever altered by their time in Dark Falls.

Ray’s insistence that Amanda and Josh stay away from the cemetery in Chapter 12 is both a warning and part of the town’s plot. Ray doesn’t want Amanda and Josh to go to the cemetery because the cemetery holds clues to unravelling the town’s secrets. Ray’s show of power in Chapter 13 and demise in Chapter 14 mirror how Amanda and Josh will save the day by catching the living dead in sunlight. In keeping with the suspense and uncertainty of paranormal and horror fiction, the mechanics of the living dead’s powers are never completely explained. By keeping this information shrouded in mystery, Stine builds even more suspense for the book’s final chapters because Amanda and Josh go into their rescue mission not knowing exactly how much danger they are in at any given moment.

The ambush in Chapter 14 calls to Survival Instincts in Dire Circumstances and shows the threat closing in. Up until this point, Amanda and Josh have believed that they are safe in their house because their parents are there. In addition, though the supernatural events they have experienced were scary, they didn’t cause any true harm. Chapter 14 shows that this sense of comfort was deceiving and that the family has been in real danger since the moment they moved into the house. There is still some time before the appointed sacrifice, but since Amanda and Josh know the town’s secret, there is no longer any reason for the townspeople to hide what they are. The kids taunt Amanda and Josh by saying that they all used to live in Dead House, which has a double meaning. The kids resided there and were alive when they did so, meaning they literally “lived” there. This also highlights the role of Dead House in the town’s purpose. Dead House is the place that brings death to the living and allows the town to feed. The house also allows all the living dead to influence what goes on inside it, which means the house gives power to the dead.