The View Master

by Rebecca Rowland

After rummaging through the attic of his mother’s home, Jack is excited to be reunited with his favorite toy from childhood. He soon learns, however, that sometimes memories can't be trusted, things aren’t always how they appear, and some lost items won't be found without the owner paying a very steep price.

Genres: Horror

36 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2021

About the author

Rebecca Rowland is a Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award finalist. She grew up in Western Massachusetts but spent her early adult life in the Boston area, and most of her fiction is set in those locations. She is the author of three fiction collections and a handful of novels and novellas, one of which, OPTIC NERVE, earned her a Godless 666 Award. Her speculative fiction and essays regularly appear in a variety of publications by progressive, independent presses.

An Active/voting member of the Horror Writers Association, Rebecca is the curator of seven anthologies and a horror cocktail book. UNBURIED: A COLLECTION OF QUEER DARK FICTION became an Amazon best-seller on its first day of release and features short stories by sixteen established voices in genre fiction, including queer fiction icons Felice Picano, Greg Herren, and Daniel M. Jaffe. 100% proceeds of DANCING IN THE SHADOWS: A TRIBUTE TO ANNE RICE, benefit ARNO, the Animal Rescue New Orleans. Her most recent anthology, AMERICAN CANNIBAL, hit #1 in Historical Fiction on Amazon in its first week of release.

Having accrued graduate degrees in English, Education, and Information Science, she happily works in the education field (and marvels at her accomplishment of having paid off her student loans before death) but vacations as a dark fiction author and editor. Despite her infatuation with the ocean and unwavering distaste for icy weather, she has made a home in a chilly, land-locked city of New England. She is represented by Becky LeJeune of Bond Literary Agency.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short creepy and scary little story...but it ended far to abruptly which made it rather disappointing...a better conclusion would have made it a perfect read for me!!

[Kate Victoria RescueandReading · Rating 3 out of 5]

“There was something dead in the attic. It had died long, long ago.”

Very creepy, but very short. I was completely captivated in the store, but found it ended rather abruptly. Getting some closure on what really happened (and is still happening) would’ve been better.

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun and creepy story, with a really creative and clever use of that classic toy, the View Master.

[L. Stephenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An unnerving little story. And an unsettling reminder that still images can be just as frightening as any moving, living danger that lurks nearby.

[Elin Olausson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully creepy short read that I really enjoyed. Lots of disturbing imagery, and I especially liked the vagueness of the story, which forced me to draw my own conclusions about what had happened. I might have to read it again just to piece some more parts of the puzzle together - and I'm looking forward to that reread already.

[Douglas Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early in Rowland and Aloisi's unsettling narrative, the protagonist speculates about how a kid of the 21-Century might react if an adult handed them a View Master and how it just wouldn't measure up with today's digital technology. However, to Gen X'ers living in a world where cable television was the big new thing and VHS was still a dream on the horizon, the View Master provided plenty of fun. As a reader, I approached this short work with happy memories of the View Master, and at one point in my life, I'd amassed a worthwhile collection, including some Hannah Barbara reels, like the ones Rowland and Aloisi mention, but also some originals created specifically for View Master, including some spectacular adaptations of horror classics like Frankenstein and Dracula, as well as an unofficial version of Universal's The Wolf Man, all of which used colorful dioramas and meticulously crafted dolls, posed in scenes that still haunt the imagination. Held in 3-D stasis, these View Master images became artifacts unto themselves, and to those lucky enough to enjoy them at an impressionable age, they managed to seer themselves into our memories.

Thus, the title of this work alone would have attracted my attention, but add to that the pedigree of a writer like Rebecca Rowland, the author of the outstanding collection, The Horrors Hiding in Plain Sight (read it, if you haven't already), as well as her writing partner, Michael Aloisi. I'm less familiar with Aloisi's work, but he and Rowland obviously work well together. Written as a kind of Exquisite Corpse, with the authors trading off sections with one another, The View Master has the consistency in style as well as the intensity of focus that one might not expect from a collaboration. The story Rowland and Aloisi tell is chilling and unnerving, and it only becomes more so as it progresses. To those of us who enjoyed View Masters as kids, it presents the kind of nightmare we wouldn't have wanted to imagine, and while Rowland and Aloisi allow us moments of nostalgia for this toy, they also use it create nightmarish images that may well live on well after the text is finished. In short, this is a splendid story and well worth your time.

[Holly Garcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this unique take on a found footage story. The combination of the creepy imagery and the fact that it was a kid's toy, really took it to another level. This story will have you thinking about it long after you close the book.

[Lee Richmond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm becoming a fan of Rebecca Rowland's writing. Having read 'The Horrors Hiding in Plain Sight' and having had the pleasure of collaborating with her on a book of short stories that we have just put out, I knew I needed to read more. So, I snapped this book up at a bargain price on Amazon and read it in one hit. It isn't an especially long read, totally around 25 pages, but it sure is an effective one. Being so short, I don't want to go into too many details because to do so would be to spoil it.
I haven't read anything else by Michael Aloisi, (co-author) of this tale, but based on my enjoyment of The View Master, I intend on righting that wrong. I'm not sure how co-writing a story works as I've never tried it. The closest of come is collaborating with other writers on anthologies. But, Rowland and Aloisi make it work.
This is a great read and doesn't require too much of your time, so it's definitely worth picking up.

[Kimyona Dietter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Creeps up on you...

This was a wonderfully disturbing short story offering a quick slice of overwhelming, creeping dread while showcasing the talents of the author. I wasn't sure what I was getting into with this tale until I reached the end. The author did a great job of sucking me in and leading me through the story providing sprinkles of horrific breadcrumbs until the final shocking realization. The best part, she leaves the answer to the reader. The suspense was killer: building and weighing heavily on me as I got closer to the end. There were no pacing issues. This story moved smoothly making it hard to set this one down. This is definitely one I will be revisiting.

[S.E. Martens · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was really creepy - loved the atmosphere and tone this story set. Jack and Jill are middle-aged twins, trying to find the source of a rotting smell in their mother's attic. They can't find the dead mouse, or whatever it is, but they do come across an old viewmaster toy that apparently they had loved as kids. Feeling nostalgic, Jack takes the viewmaster with him when they part company. However, when he begins flipping through the reels he finds sinister, creepy images. Very "creepypasta"-esque. I thought it was a bit too short, though and ended too abruptly - I would have liked a bit of an answer. I do remember these toys, though!

[Ashley Wiker · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like a good creepy short story but the ending left more questions than answers.

Where did the pictures come from? Why were the twins children in the pictures but the brother was grown? The sister killed the brother but when she was a child? What did the mom watching tv have to do with anything? Why would he have drove to his sisters house when he couldn’t get a hold of her by phone? Why didn’t she answer the phone?

Left me confused.

[Joseph Barber · Rating 3 out of 5]

short and creepy

This is a short creepy story, of death and a iconic children’s toy, the Viewmaster.

Twins, Jack and Jill find their childhood veiwmaster in their mothers attic after going up there to figure out the rotting smell, that was coming from within.

After Jack takes the toy home does he realize, the sinister pictures that lie within.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well...that's a hell of a thing to read at 3am when you wake up in the middle of the night and cant fall back asleep. This is super short and also super creepy. I loved it. Not sure if someone who never used a viewmaster would feel as creeped out...but this really came alive in my mind.

[DA · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic!

Fantastic story with dread that builds and builds. My heart was pounding the whole time I was reading. It's amazing how such an atmospheric creepy story can effect you so much.

[Jazmeow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and the imagery left me feeling unsettled. A quick and creepy read that I’d recommend to anyone.

[Aimee Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, creepy, entertaining read.

[mkfs · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decently creepy tale, not as poorly strung-together as a lot of the recent ones seem to be.

The vague or unsettled ending works against it, here. I was just starting to piece together that hey, maybe there's a dead family member in the attic causing that smell, and its ghost is using the view master to get the word out, when the narrative shifts a bit and the main character is either losing his mind, or reality is changing to match the world depicted in the view master. Neither of which is all that interesting, really, though the latter could make for an good premise: you find a bunch of slides from the past, depicting events that never actually happened, but if you view the slides those events *will* have happened, and the present will adjust to accomodate all the consquences thereof, and so what do you do, do you keep viewing slides or do you decide no good can come of this?

As for using a view master as a vehicle, eh. We had one when I were a lad, back when all we had to play with were sticks and dirt and merely space-age technology. Remember that View Masters are stereoscopic, with one photo per eye so that the scene has depth. Some discs took advantage of this, but most were just simple collections of slides with two identical images. I get that having the images be in this clearly manufactured format makes it more inexplicable, but wouldn't it be more disturbing if it were actually a collection of family slides? Though I think that's been done already.

[Kathryn Grace Loves Horror · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to love view masters when I was a kid, but I have to wonder if they'd still be entertaining for kids of today, raised with smart phones and tablet and the world's media at their fingertips. This story might not be as affecting for them, but I enjoyed this quick read, although the ending felt a little rushed and I was left a little confused.