Five unnerving tales of the weird and uncanny from award-winning author Victoria Williamson.
A room full of screaming butterflies.
An unsettling smile on the face of a carved sarcophagus.
A painting that draws its viewer into the disturbing past.
A stuffed bear that growls in the dead of night.
And a shell that whispers more sinister sounds than the sigh of the sea…
Dare you cross the threshold of the old Museum and view its eerie exhibits?
Eerie Exibits contains five spooky stories that are heavy on atmosphere without relying on gore.
Each story shares a museum theme, where either visitors or workers can fall victim to the exhibits.
In the first story, a man who is grieving the loss of his mother has a startling experience with a butterfly display.
Next up, much like an episode of Night Gallery, an unusual painting sparks a memory and takes a museum worker into his past.
The last three stories were my favorites. A little girl who wishes her cold and selfish father would be a more loving dad like all the other kids have, is fascinated by the smile on a sarcophagus. I felt awful for this child who would have been so appreciative of the least bit of attention from her self-absorbed father. Maybe things will get better for her once he meets The Grinning Man.
Thelma is a bitter, envious woman who believes she is owed a better lot in life. She sets out to achieve what she feels she deserves, in The Shape Of The Beast with some help from one of the museum exhibits where she works as a cleaner. Her life and the lives of those she feels have wronged her are about to change.
Children who have suffered a loss are targeted by The Whispering Shell while on a class trip to the museum. This was the most chilling of all the tales and succeeds in giving a ghostly scare without the need for gore.
If you like supernatural tales that don't have buckets of blood you will enjoy Eerie Exhibits.
My thanks to Silver Thistle Press for the gifted paperback.