Panic Press
ISBN: 978-446768457
Review posted 04/13/2011
Pantomime contains 4 stories by known author Robert Essig. Each story has its own creative flow and its own horror.
Pantomime tells the story of a man who has rented a house for years. A Science major in college, Clyde, wants to rent the house by himself. Thomas the owner is not sure just someone by themselves should rent the house, but goes along with it anyways after telling Clyde about the secrets within.
The story is one full of old time horror, things creeping in the night and a twist at the end that makes you think twice about renting any place that you don't research first.
A Step towards Redemption has a man trying to seek redemption for something his brother Hank and he did when they were children, killing a woman. Then a situation brings the character back to memories of his childhood with Hank and a realization that some things don't stay in the past.
This particular story shows the inner core of what a person can go through, knowing what they have done and knowing what could be ahead for them. It takes you down the road of this main character as he struggles through what life has to offer him now and how the past creeps up on you when you least expect it.
In the The Old Man, Benny does his gardening everyday because his wife just loves roses, or did. She's dead. In the meantime, an old man keeps coming up and bothering him. Getting annoyed, he tries to ignore the old man's constant bothering. Then Benny realizes there is something really familiar about this old man, something that may make him take a second look.
Benny is a character we can all relate to. Someone who feels sorrow, pain, from loosing a loved one and just trying to cope everyday with those feelings. He is a strong character that shows just what we would do in our everyday lives once a person that was always there to us is gone and what we would do to try and get them back.
A Crack in the Silver Lining is the last of the tales in this collection. A man who had a lost childhood and very disruptive one, used to look at a crack on his ceiling when his parents would fight. Both parents now dead, he lives with his wife and kids in a new house, but the crack reappears in his own bedroom.
This story was an intense look at hiding things from our past so that we can move on with our lives. It shows a deep look into someone's mind when the realization of what they were hiding comes back to the surface.
Pantomime is a compelling collection of stories that leave you with a thought of what you might be doing in your own life, or what is lurking in your past you maybe trying to forget. It is a collection of tales that make you think, make you fear what you may not know about yourself.
