Gretchen and Clark Allen
Portrayed By: Courtney Hawkrigg and Ricky Mabe (TV)
Two stepsiblings and the main protagonists. They are brought to their grandparents' house because their parents have business in Atlanta.
- Abled in the Adaptation: The actors who portray Gretchen and Clark in the episode match the physical descriptions of them in the book very much. The only difference is while Clark had spectacles in the book, in the episode, he doesn't. However, he DOES have allergies.
- All There in the Manual: The tear-out trading card for the book reveals that Gretchen and Clark's surname is Allen. Except, it's unknown which side of their family has this surname, being that they're stepsiblings. They could have just coincidentally had the same surname their whole lives, but that's extremelly unlikely.
- Audience Surrogate: Gretchen is highly relatable, with her being highly furious and exasperated at how her grandparents have put her and Clark in this predicament reflecting what the reader is likely feeling.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: They may get on each other's nerves, but when they have to go against a monster, they work together. In the TV episode, after they defeat the monster, they agree that they make a great team.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Gretchen wishes that SOMETHING exciting would happen at her grandparents' place to entertain her. That "something" would turn out to be a monster.
- Butt-Monkey: Gretchen suffers a lot throughout the book. She has to deal with her stepbrothers' snottiness, her clothes get dirty constantly, she gets covered in cockroaches while trying to find something to do at the house, and she accidentally trips over a stool while fleeing from the monster and almost gets a concussion in the process.
- Cassandra Truth: Briefly. When Gretchen sees the monster for the first time, she runs down the hall and tells Clark that a swamp monster is in the room. Clark doesn't buy it, and goes along with the "joke" and walks down the hall to the room, telling the monster that he's there and to come get him. But then he immediately sees it with his own eyes and screams.
- Cool Big Sis: Gretchen becomes this towards Clark at the end of the book and the TV episode where they put aside their differences to capture the monster. Clark even outright admits in the TV episode that they make a good team which Gretchen agrees to.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Clark reads a magazine about a mud monster in a swamp. He says that there might be one in the swamp they are headed for at their grandparents'. Little does he know that this will come true in the worst way.
- Covered in Gunge: In the TV episode, After the monster dies, his body EXPLODES, washing slime and guts all over Gretchen and Clark. The two are quite disgusted by this.
- Disappeared Dad: Clark's mother gets married to Gretchen's father. His real father is never seen or alluded to.
- Doomed New Clothes: Poor Gretchen just gets her clothes ruined all throughout the first half of the book. When the family gets out to change a tire in their car during their journey through the swamp, her new white shoes are ruined instantly by the deep mud. When Charley, their dog, knocks her to the ground in the swamp, her clothes get covered in slime from head to toe. And the next morning, when Grandma Rose gives a big hug to her while cooking, her pink shirt is now smeared with pancake batter.
- Dumb Blonde: Averted with Gretchen. She has blonde hair and she's shown to be quite intelligent. She is able to think of quick and clever methods that are plausible ways to kill someone and tries them on the monster. She is also shown to be quite savvy.
- Enraged by Idiocy: Gretchen is quite livid when she finds out how moronic her grandparents were by leaving her and Clark locked in a house with a monster that could kill them, leaving only two notes explaining all of this to her, and attempting to find help when she knows full well that they're unlikely to find any.
- Foil: Gretchen is one with Jodie in "The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight." Both are blonde female protagonists whom are sent to their grandparents' place because of their parents. Also, they both have younger, brunette brothers. However, Jodie's brother is her actual brother, while Gretchen's brother is her stepbrother. The two girls also seem to have more common sense than them. But while Jodie doesn't get in on much action, Gretchen is shown to be a Little Miss Badass. Additionally, at the end of each book, both are confronted with a sinister danger and an unknown fate.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Well, STEP-siblings for that matter, but Clark is the Foolish one while Gretchen is the Responsible one.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Gretchen is blonde, and she tries to get along with Clark and cares very much for Charley. However, she is understandably furious when her grandparents leave her and her stepbrother in a bad predicament.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Clark is shown to be rude and insensitive at times, and Gretchen even mentions that she thinks he is a bit of a jerk, with her friends agreeing so. However, he really does care for her and Charley.
- Little Miss Badass: Gretchen is quite a badass for a preteen girl. She tries to kill the monster by tricking him into falling down a 15 foot drop, poisoning him with spiked pie (gumbo in the TV episode), and at one point when cornered, she takes a shovel that was near the wall and begins hitting the creature. Wow!
- Missing Mom: Gretchen's father marries Clark's mother. Her real mother is never seen or alluded to.
- Nice Girl: Gretchen. Clark bugging her can lead to her getting the Jerk Ass Ball every now and then but aside from that, she's shown to be a nice and decent girl for the most part.
- Not So Above It All: As much as Gretchen gets annoyed by her stepbrother's antics, she often can't help but take advantage of Clark's insecurity.
- Oh, Crap!: When they finally kill the monster and escape the house, the two run out into the swamp. After several minutes of running, they stop to catch a breath. Gretchen then remembers that they have not read the second letter, and Clark reads it aloud. It says that if they escape the house, stay on the road, and not in the swamp. That is because the swamp contains brothers and sisters of the monster they just killed, and are looking for revenge. They then hear the sound of ominous whistling coming near them and shifting shadows...
- Only Sane Man: Gretchen is shown to be the only person in the grandparents' place to have much common sense. See Dumb Blonde above.
- Pink Means Feminine: When getting dressed the next morning at her grandparents', Gretchen puts on her new pink shirt because pink is her favorite color.
- Stopped Reading Too Soon: This is the mistake they make that may have led to their doom.
- Super Gullible: Clark tends to be this. Gretchen likes to have fun with this and tell him tall tales that makes him believe her.
- Too Dumb to Live: Clark is pretty much this. He is a Deer in the Headlights when the monster is coming towards him, requiring Gretchen to snap him out of it and drag him away. Also, he assumes that his stepgrandparents' claim to get help will happen, until Gretchen points how it probably won't, and that almost no one will believe their claim about a monster living in their house.
- In addition, in the TV episode, he is cornered by the monster and he decides to defend himself by sticking his hand down its throat. If the monster wasn't allergic to humans, he would have been a goner.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: When the monster finally catches up to the two, he gets a whiff of them. But he realizes, too late, that they are humans, which he is allergic to. In the book, he tasted Gretchen, but in the TV episode, he tasted Clark.
- Uncertain Doom: At the end of the story, the two, as well as Charley in the book, are trapped in the swamp with what sounds like the brothers and sisters of the original monster closing in on them, and they have no idea what to do next. However, because that monster was allergic to humans, perhaps his siblings are, too. If that's the case, then Gretchen and Clark can just simply spit on them to escape. They could also simply turn around and try to run away to get out of the swamp. Since the book is narrated in past tense first-person perspective by Gretchen and the story never implies Posthumous Narration, there is a good chance at least she made it out alive.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Gretchen is terrified of cockroaches, given how she freaked out when a large wave of them came out and crawled all over her body.
Bog Monster
In the episode.
A creature that one day wandered into the home of Gretchen and Clark's grandparents, so they trapped it inside to stop it from wreaking havoc. Unfortunately, when the two kids are left alone they accidentally set the monster free, and must figure out How To Kill A Monster.
- Adaptational Nonsapience: In the episode, It doesn't speak and isn't sapient.
- Ambiguous Gender: Whether the monster is male or female is uncertain. Although, Gretchen and Clark refer to it by male pronouns.
- Big Eater: Grandma Rose is, at the very least, smart enough to keep the monster well fed to make sure it doesn't wreck the place. It is such a big eater, that it is still able to eat the poisoned pie made to try and kill it after already eating two other pies, and it still has room for desert in the form of the kids afterwards.
- Don't Look At Me: When the monster first sees Gretchen when she opens the door to the room he's contained in, he opts to ignore her and continue eating his pancakes instead of trying to attack her or escape. After Gretchen continues to stare at him in horror and shock however, he becomes irritated with her looking at him and drops the pancakes to the floor before charging to attack her. After Clark comes into the room and provokes him, he loses whatever hesitation to harm the kids he may have still had and attempts to eat them.
- Extreme Omnivore: It's able to eat pie (gumbo in the episode) loaded with household cleaner and rat poison and live. There's just one thing it can't stand the taste of... humans.
- Green and Mean: The book cover gives it green skin and fur, and it is the evil force menacing the protagonists. In fact, when seeing it up close, Gretchen believes that moss is actually growing on his skin.
- Green Is Gross: The numerous descriptions of the monster draw focus to how disgusting he is. His body is covered in moss, he has beetles crawling through his fur (which he eats), his mouth is filled with bugs, he has worms swimming through his eyes, and he smells horrible.
- Hulk Speak: When the monster finally speaks near the end, it initially talks like this. He asks Gretchen, "You human?"
- Immune to Drugs: Even after ingesting a pie that is loaded with rat poison, dry cleaner, turpentine, ammonia, paint, and mothballs, the creature still is persistent. It was temporarily knocked out, but apparently not killed by all of those substances.
- Marathon Boss: It takes an absurd amount of time and effort for Gretchen and Clark to kill this beast. And when they finally do, Gretchen goes outside and is surprised to see that it's dark out, and she wonders if she and Clark fought the monster all day.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: In the books, it looks like a gorilla with green fur and an alligator head, while in the TV show it looks like some kind of mutant dinosaur/chicken hybrid.
- Not Quite Dead: The ploys to kill it by making it fall off the staircase to its death and later feeding it a poisoned pie (gumbo in the episode) only manage to stun the monster for a little while.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: The monster has the body of a gorilla and the head of an alligator, it seems to have moss growing on its skin, it has black beetles in its fur, bugs in its mouth, and worms swimming through its eyes, it can survive consuming rat poison and house cleaning products, and it can speak English and is deathly allergic to humans, though the latter may not be a species shared trait.
- Plot Allergy: To humans. Just tasting one is enough to make it explode in the episode.
- Poor Communication Kills: If it had revealed its ability to speak to the humans it came across, they could have possibly reasoned with it, especially if it learned they were humans. All the conflict could have been avoided and the other swamp monsters wouldn't be without their brother by the end.
- Revenge Myopia: Gretchen notes that after they made it fall down a hole and tried to poison it, it would want to kill them even more. Never mind that they were just defending themselves from it. The ending implies that his family will try to kill the children for his death, even though it was an accident brought on by him attempting to eat them.
- Suddenly Voiced: In the book, it only speaks near the end when it asks if Gretchen's a human, because it can't eat humans or it'll die. Interestingly, since the grandparents gave no indication in their notes that they were aware it could speak, it seems that it never spoke up once even to demand its release or try to negotiate with the grandparents.
- There Is Another: Gretchen and Clark really should've read that letter before leaving the house and assuming the swamp monster they just killed was the last of its kind.
- Too Dumb to Live: Despite being deathly allergic to humans and knowing it, it fails to realize the kids are humans until it's too late. This is like having a fatal peanut allergy, knowing you are deathly allergic to peanuts, seeing giant walking talking peanuts, and not being able to identify them as peanuts.
- Would Hurt a Child: He does not hesitate to attack children, even if he hasn't even finished eating other available foods like pancakes. Even when Gretchen begs him to let her go. If he hadn't been allergic to humans, he would have gobbled her up on the spot.
Grandma Rose and Grandpa Eddie
Portrayed By: Helen Hughes and Peter Boretski (TV)
The owners of the house which Gretchen and Clark stay in temporarily.
- Abled in the Adaptation: Grandpa Eddie is not hard of hearing in the episode.
- Adaptational Badass: In the book, Eddie, along with Rose, captured the monster after it wandered into their house and couldn't figure out how to kill the monster afterward, living in terror of it and keeping it fed while they waited for their car to be fixed so they could go for help. In the episode, Eddie is an experienced alligator hunter and shot the monster while he was hunting, taking the creature back home afterward to presumably either cook it for food or use it as a trophy. This indicates that he is much more capable than his book counterpart and could have finished the monster off himself if he knew it was still alive.
- Adaptational Intelligence: In the episode, instead of keeping the living monster inside their house and feeding it, Grandpa Eddie had shot the monster in the swamp and thought it was dead, which is why he brought it into the house, and din't think it would harm Gretchan and Clark. Rose and Eddie leave them locked in the house because they were out to get groceries, and didn't want them going outside to the swamp where more monsters are living in.
- Collector of the Strange: Their large house is filled with many toys and magazines that they've collected over the years. Gretchen and Clark are at first excited to peruse them, because they're dying for entertainment while staying there. But they're instead spooked and disgusted when they actually look through them, because the magazines are filled with dust and little bugs, and the toys are old and broken up (probably by the monster their grandparents are hiding in another room). The episode even has alligator heads and taxidermy animal rugs around the house.
- Dumb, but Diligent: As misguided and unfortunate as they were to keep the children locked inside their house, they were actually very responsible for making sure this was carried out. They locked all the doors out of the place from the outside and nailed all the windows shut. And keep in mind, their house is enormous.
- Hates Being Alone: Probably one of their main flaws. They state in one of the letters that they wrote down, which they leave behind to Gretchen and Clark, that they didn't get many visitors, and they wanted to see their grandchildren so much. When offered an opportunity to let them stay at their place, Rose and Eddie decide not to tell the parents about the monster because if they did, they were afraid they wouldn't have dropped them off there. They finish the letter off by presuming that they should have just let their mother and father bring them to Atlanta instead.
- Hidden Depths: Grandpa Eddie has shown to be a mechanic and builder, which he uses to repair a shed in the backyard, saw an opening on the bottom of the door to the room the monster's hiding in, and repair his broken down car to drive him and Rose off. In the episode, he's a hunter, and he was the one who shot the monster and brought it inside.
- I Can't Hear You: Grandpa Eddie is very hard of hearing, and a Running Gag in the book is that he mixes up what people say.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Clark sees his new grandparents (or rather, his stepsister's grandparents, as he insists on calling them) as this. He is very bummed and resentful of the fact that he has to stay here for a while with little to do, and is quite taken aback by their eccentric personalities and actions. And this is before he finds out that they have a monster in their house and left him and Gretchen in the house alone to fight it.
- The Pig-Pen: Clark complains that both of them have a very musty smell to them, similar to the swamp outside. Gretchen is forced to agree with him.
- Poor Communication Kills: The main problem with the situation they put their grandchildren through. They decide to go outside and get help for their monster problem, but instead of telling the children themselves or even taking them with them, they just drive out of the place with the house almost inescapable and leaving only two written letters behind explaining to Gretchen and Clark everything.
- Scatterbrained Senior: They are an extreme example of this. Being holed up in a large house in the middle of a swamp might have had something to do this. Not only do they leave the children alone in a house with a monster inside, but Grandpa Eddie unwittingly starts the whole problem in the first place by leaving the key to the bedroom that the monster's hiding in right on the unlocked door for Gretchen to find. Not only that, but they're absolutely sure that someone out there will get rid of the monster, but Gretchen points out to Clark that almost no one will believe such a crazy story.
- Skewed Priorities: Yet another problem with them. When they have the monster locked inside a room, they were terrified of it and kept feeding it because they were worried that it would kill them if they released it, instead of having the common knowledge of simply let it die of starvation.
- Supreme Chef: Grandma Rose is shown to be quite a masterful chef. Not only does she make plenty of very delicious blueberry pancakes (even though she makes a giant mess in the kitchen because of it), she also uses this as an advantage to feeding the monster. In the episode, she makes a special gumbo that she's apparently famous for, considering that she has a sign right outside the house promoting it.
