Gaslighted: Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy vs. Aloysius Pendergast

By Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child and R.L. Stine

In this entry from the thrilling short story anthology FaceOff, bestselling authors Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child along with R.L. Stine team up for the first time ever, pitting FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast against the most unusual villain he’s ever faced—Stine’s classic creation: Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy.

First introduced in R.L. Stine’s 400 million-copy bestselling Goosebumps series, Slappy is a dummy carved from coffin wood who boasts enormous strength and a sarcastic, sadistic personality. In contrast, Agent Pendergast is an elegant, intelligent man who never lets himself be ruffled by the particulars of an investigation. Yet when these two meet for the first time—at Stony Mountain Sanatorium—Pendergast is quite clearly out of his element, and nothing is as it seems…

For more exciting pairs, check out all eleven stories in FaceOff!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Release date: Sep 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781476788715

Douglas Preston

Douglas Preston writes about archaeology for the New Yorker and National Geographic magazines, as well as novels and nonfiction works (such as The Lost City of the Monkey God). With Lincoln Child, he writes international #1 bestselling thrillers, including the Agent Pendergast adventures.

Book preview

Gaslighted

R. L. Stine, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

From the anthology FaceOff

Simon & Schuster

New York   London   Toronto   Sydney   New Delhi

R. L. STINE

VS. DOUGLAS PRESTON AND LINCOLN CHILD

Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child created their character, FBI agent A. X. L. Pendergast, almost by accident. Lincoln was an editor at St. Martin’s Press and had just edited Doug’s first nonfiction book, Dinosaurs in the Attic, a history of the American Museum of Natural History. After that experience, the two decided to write a thriller set in a museum. Doug wrote the first few chapters—involving the investigation of a double murder—and sent them to Lincoln for his opinion. Lincoln read the pages and had one objection. He felt the two cops on the investigation were essentially identical. So he suggested they fold both into the same character (who became Lieutenant Vincent D’Agosta). But then he added, We need a new kind of detective for the second investigator. A person who’s unusual—and who’ll be like a fish out of water in New York City.

Doug, already irritated at this criticism of his prose, responded sarcastically, Yeah, right. You mean, like an albino FBI agent from New Orleans?

Silence passed for a few moments between them.

Then Lincoln said, I think that could work.

Over the next fifteen minutes Special Agent Pendergast was formed, like Athena from the forehead of Zeus.

And the rest, they say, is history.

Over the course of many books Agent Pendergast has faced some unusual adversaries, including cannibalistic serial killers, arsonists, a murderous surgeon, a mutant assassin, and even his own mad-genius brother. But never has he confronted an adversary like Slappy the Ventriloquist Dummy.

Slappy is one of R. L. Stine’s creepiest creations. Bob is one of the best-selling authors of all time, with over 400 million books sold around the world. He is the creator of the amazing Goosebumps series of novels.

Reviews for Gaslighted

[James · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's a good Agent Pendergast story, but Slappy doesn't do anything and only appears twice. Under a different name.