Review: Short, but not particularly scary (or entertaining)
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 01 17, 2014
Gary Cecil's "Buried Secrets" is a short story (a very short story, actually) about a young couple who buy an old Victorian house in Ohio.  As these things usually go, Max and Megan move in, hear "critters," smell something "old and rotten," and then find themselves facing an unknown menace.  There's nothing new here, and few surprises, but the story is only a handful of pages long, so you're only risking about ten minutes of your time to give it a go.Actually, the scariest parts of the story have nothing at all to do with whatever lives in the basement - there's a bit about a rat that would have made me move to the Holiday Inn right from the start!  There's also something oddly detached about Max and Megan, who speak to each other in choppy dialogue and react to the things that happen in the house as if they're reading from a script.  There's no character development here - we know their names, and that she's pregnant, and that they got a good deal on the house, but that's about it.  And there's also not much story.  I got a bit of an "American Horror Story" vibe in the final scene, but then Cecil just ends things, as if he got tired of writing and wanted to go out for a burger!This could actually have been a clever and interesting short story had Cecil spent more time developing his characters and fleshing out his plot.  Another ten or fifteen pages might have made all the difference.  As it is, it's a quick read that doesn't offer much beyond the expected.[Please note:  I was provided a copy of this story for review; the opinions expressed here are my own.]