Welcome to Dead House

Mr. Dawes is the final falsehood that Amanda and Josh face. His arrival in Chapter 15 initially provides a welcome familiarity in a moment of crisis. However, throughout the novel, their fear and reliance on appearances keep Amanda and Josh from thinking critically about Mr. Dawes. Mr. Dawes also provides the understanding that Amanda needs to realize how she and Josh can save their parents. When Josh defeated Ray, he used his flashlight, and this combined with how Mr. Dawes doesn’t give chase through the sunlight lets Amanda make the connection between how both types of light will harm the townspeople. As a result, she comes up with the plan to knock over the tree, which ultimately leads to her family’s escape.

Mr. Dawes’s explanation of the industrial accident in Chapter 17 offers a backstory for Dark Falls and the transformation of the townspeople. In keeping with the ideas of Reality and the Supernatural, however, this backstory offers just as many questions as it does answers. The strange gas explains how the people were transformed into the living dead, but no explanation is given as to how the gas was released or what type of gas it was. The gas itself seemingly has supernatural properties, and like in earlier chapters, this lack of information helps build suspense by leaving the characters and readers wondering how this incident occurred. Taken in conjunction with how the town feeds, the gas suggests that there is some greater force at work that keeps the town functioning in its supernatural capacity. Those who have been killed by this force also become the living dead, suggesting that this force and the strange gas are linked.

In this section, Amanda and Josh work together as they have not before, symbolizing the power of danger to bring people together. The siblings have played tricks on each other and generally not acted like a team throughout most of the book, but here, they realize that they need each other and need to cooperate if they want to escape Dark Falls alive. Together, they knock over the tree to destroy the living dead and free their parents. Throughout the book, the family has struggled with elements of The Benefits of Teamwork and Trust, which has caused them to argue and be unkind to one another. Faced with the sacrifice and the force of the living dead, Amanda and Josh’s parents can no longer ignore the truth of the town’s supernatural state. Having the truth thrust upon them makes them realize that Amanda and Josh were correct, and the renewal of trust allows the family to work together to get free of Dark Falls as quickly as possible.

The book’s final scene calls to reality and the supernatural and Survival Instincts in Dire Circumstances. Though Amanda and Josh saw the result of knocking over the tree (the living dead turning to dust), this does not mean that whatever entity powers the town has been destroyed. Rather, the town resets itself, bringing in a new family so that it can feed and begin the process anew, suggesting that the people themselves are inconsequential in the town’s grander scheme. This also shows that even the dead have the drive to “survive.” The town’s entity doesn’t give up because its people are destroyed. Instead, it finds a way to rebuild so that it can keep existing and drawing power to itself through the sacrifice of fresh blood each year.