Nightmare“The Closet Game” by Robert Levy
“What the Dead Birds Taught Me” by Laura Blackwell
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
There are two original stories in the 118th issue of Nightmare. Overall, it was an entertaining collection.
“The Closet Game” by Robert Levy
When he attends high school, Jesse plays the closet game in this short horror story. You know the one, you stand in a dark closet until you imagine every sound is a monster. Except Jesse feels the monster pass through him. He stumbles back out of the closet door in Craig’s bedroom.
Afterward, he isn’t his usual self and gets a girl pregnant. It means an end to his dreams of love with his friend Craig, so he settles for the heterosexual life instead. A decade passes, and when Craig kills himself, Jesse revisits that closet and its monster during his friend’s wake.
The story and the ending failed to engage the reader as it all seemed too predictable.
“What the Dead Birds Taught Me” by Laura Blackwell
In this short horror tale, Mary is a recent orphan after both parents die in an accident. She is also a necromancer, though she can only reanimate birds or other small animals.
Looking young for her years, Mary meets a smooth-talking man who takes her to his house. While the man’s attention is elsewhere, she discovers he’s a serial killer when she stumbles upon his six dead trophies in a locked room. He’ll be back soon, and she’s never successfully reanimated something as big as a human. Still, what else can she do?
The story was engaging, though it was also predictable.
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