Review: A Short Story, with Short People
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 12, 2013
"The Night Everything Changed" by Kristopher Rufty is quite an odd little story. My first hint was when it mentioned there was a carnival in town; any time a carnival is in a story, something odd will happen.In this case, the carnival was called 'The Haunchyville Carnival' and it was owned and operated entirely by little people smaller than dwarves. Some folks even whispered they might be elves... but of course, elves don't really exist. Do they?Well, this was the final tour of the "Haunchies" as everybody called them, and they had been denied their usual location for setting up at the fairgrounds. Not far out of town old Dr. Vincent Carlson had 300 acres of farmland he had inherited when both his parents were killed in a tractor mishap. His daughter, Leanne, talked him into letting the Haunchies set up on his property.Being a short story, I can't say much more without giving away too much. Suffice it to say, when Leanne finally came home from the carnival, she wasn't alone. That night everything changed. The Haunchies were done with traveling the world over, just to put on their show and put up with the insults hurled at them wherever they went.This story is odd, but it also has a rather large element of horror to it. If you're in the mood for something completely different, and more than a little frightening, this story just might do the trick for you.