House of Justice: A Horror Short Story

by Vincent Bivona

Halloween only comes around once a year, and the Justices do it right. They turn their house into a museum of torture, sectioning off each room with a velvet rope. The exhibits are so terrifying that the local amusement park asks them for their secret. It's quite simple, actually. And four lucky--or unlucky--fans get to find out what it is first hand.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Halloween

14 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

Reviews

[Paula · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too much torture and gore for me.

[Petra X]

How did this appear on my book list? It's very far from the sort of book I read. I don't read fiction and I don't use the TBR list ever? This is not the first time a weird book has appeared, although it is rare, it is more often books and/or reviews disappear.

I could hardly have clicked on it by accident so how did it appear in my shelves?

[Peter Topside · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. This was really too short and underdeveloped to accomplish anything. A very generic sort of horror plot, without much context for anything. Usually when horror authors take the surface-level, bare bones type of premise like this, they try to cover up the plot holes and weak characters with some very intense gore, which this did not. Sure, there was some body horror, but nowhere near enough to cover the gaps in the story. I did like the writing itself, but the content did not match that same quality. A very, very lukewarm horror experience for me.

[Maxine (Booklover Catlady) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This short story was written reasonably well and gets quickly into a rather graphic and gory set of scenes. Once a year this special house is opened up to visitors coming to see the haunted house and it's displays.

But all is not as it seems and WHY do those exhibits look so real? That blood is very realistic right? Yeah, it's gory and bloody but it's such a short read that you don't get a lot of it.

I like short stories but felt this one was a little TOO short, even another 20 pages might have added some more depth. Very hard to get a strong story going over a few pages.

It was okay, it was a Kindle freebie so I shall not complain. Read better and read much worse.

[CG. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit disturbing, gory and a bit mean(?).
Four very unfortunate souls end up "winning" a chance to be featured in the neighborhoods most popular and terrifying haunted house this year..
The "Justice" family would be perfectly at home with the likes of the Firefly family in The House of a Thousand Corpses... They're demented, cruel, sadistic and grimy.
This story is loosely an allegory for the deadly sins, and even as an (admittedly) slack take on this concept, it still falls apart for me in a sense, specifically within the Dentist's victim... the rest I understand, Butcher has gluttony, the daughter has Lust, and the mothers victim represents pride, but what does the (second to) last victim, represent? Wrath? Greed? surely not Envy... Anyways, that guys representation seemed a little bit random.

[Ashley · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was beyond unimpressed with this story. The concept was interesting even if it was not high in originality, but choppy writing and poor execution dragged this short down to the point of "please un-waste my time".
I was on board for the whole " How do they make such a great haunted house?" even though I knew the answer before I ever started.
As a fan of haunted houses on Halloween ( or anytime of the year), I find this idea hard to swallow as I've never seen anything so realistic that I questioned whether or not it real and I've visited Horror Houses that were $50 apiece to enter. (Don't look at me like that, I didn't shell out that kind of cash, a friend did!) So I have trouble with the idea of these people not getting it and thinking everything is fake and for show.
The writer would have us believe that the Justices have been at this for a few years, yet never once has a disappearance been linked to them? No one that received a "prescreening" invite ever tells anyone where they are going? I would buy into the tale a bit more if they used hobos or hookers, not THEIR own customers.
I'm all for suspending disbelief when needed in stories, but not when there is no outlandish supernatural occurrence or anything resembling magic but just basic "hey, it could happen" fiction.
There are far too many plot holes and loose ends that are never addressed.
The guy picked out of line for next year? How does that fit into the prescreening ruse that we are handed at the beginning of the story?
I seriously believe that if I listed half the questions I had pertaining to this tale... the list would be longer than the story itself.

[megHan · Rating 4 out of 5]

(short story)

I found this one day on Amazon for free and had to check it out. It's about a family that turns their house into a haunted one for one day only each year - on Halloween. They do have preview the haunted house to a couple of people a few days before - and this is what happens when they do. Definitely not what I expected to happen, but I enjoyed it.

[Bandit · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read Hell's Bells, which was a decent collaboration between Bivona and another author, but Bivona on his own doesn't make an impression with this Halloween short. The writing is incredibly amateurish. And the kindle download is mostly padded with promos. It was free and read like it too.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Im clearly desensitised, i found this neither gory nor unnerving. Glad it was only short, lord knows what nonsense would be included if this was stretched to a novel,

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The old large house sits on Bruno Lane.

The Justice family really gets into the festive spirit for Halloween. They have quite the decorations—especially in the bedrooms.

Michael Justice is a dentist. Wife Gabriella is a beautician. Son Samuel is a butcher; daughter Ariel helps out around the house.

They even offer a pre-screening of the Halloween attractions. Rooms are decorated like torture chambers.

Chris Gulia and the other pre-screeners…

A true house of horrors—but why do the exhibits look so real?

Brian Maverick. A surprise for next year.

More explanation and exposition would be effective, especially regarding Ariel and Brian.

Middling overall. Shocks and gore, but they are quite brief.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad for a creepy story.

This was a good read, it's a bit on the psycho side, so I'd use caution if young readers want to read, as it is certainly not four the faint of heart or squeamish. I will say this, I'm not much into the visit "haunted houses " during Halloween, but if that sort of thing did interest me, this book would make me think twice before going to visit and I certainly would never volunteer as an actor.

This is a great read for Halloween, sleepovers, and camp-outs.

[Natasha Banton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was an ok read. Everyone in the book were lured into a trap. I felt that it was wrong. Everyone was invited to something that would change their lives forever.

The book was detailed well, but I think for me, that it is a good short horror story to read on Halloween night or if you feel like reading this while camping or during a storm.

Overall, this was an ok book and would read this again when it's dark or when it's a stormy time.

[Zombie_Phreak · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a fan of haunted houses, I have to say I loved this story! It made me even more creeped out to know that these rooms had people in them who were really being tortured and help was within reach, but their would be rescuers were completely oblivious to what was happening.

I can't say enough good things about this story. Check it out!

[Tracy Krieger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice twist

This is not what I thought would happen. There is an interesting twist on how the get the different exhibits for their haunted house. I would definitely not like to be invited there!!! Crazy!!!

[Travis Mays · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the story, but knew the ending way too early in the book.

The story was very well written with a lot of detail. I liked the story itself, but it was too easy to figure out the end early in the story.

[Donna Bohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was kool.sounded realistic something that some psychos would do for fun

I liked everything about it made me want to fine out what happens next.scary.attention getter.realistic.to want more.the author wrote a great book

[Thelma Coots · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it

I love short spooky stories. It's not often I will read a full book of horror but I like reading short stories around October.

[Amanda Higgs Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected

Pretty good short story, loved the ending. Long enough for a distraction but short enough so as not to feel guilty.

[Barb VanderWel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this & I can't wait for more.
I will be also leaving a review on Goodreads @ Amazon.
And letting everyone know about it.
So i gave it a 5 Stars.

[The Endless Unread · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was fantastic and really sparked up my imagination. I could imagine walking through and observing every "exhibit". Really well written and I would love to read more from this author.

[Christina Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read

Loved how the author made this book with a twist. I recommended if you like a lil horror read this book!

[C. Adekoya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow great read

Spooky, bloody, creepy and intelligent. I makes you think of what folks can get away with if they try hard enough.

[Emma louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good concept for a story loved the horror just felt it could have been longer. Overall I enjoyed it though just a bit short

[Andre · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not my cuppa, sorry.

[Lennie Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome

Short and sweet and very creepy. More gross and slashery than scary. An excellent choice for fans of short horror stories.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

🤔

A gore filled short story that was a bit hollow. Would actually be good I think if it was a full length story with more depth to it.

[Noe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad, mostly just gore, very predictable but I enjoyed the writing style (more 2.5 than 2)

[Dwayne Fry · Rating 1 out of 5]

"House of Justice" reads like a rough draft of a junior high creative writing assignment. I wish the author had reread it and cleaned it up before publishing it. It has some promise, but the author just didn't seem to care enough to nurture the story beyond an idea.
The writing is poor. In the first paragraph the house in which the story takes place is described and then we're told that it looks "scary", even though there was nothing in the description that would necessarily be scary. We know that the house needs painting and some of the wood is splintered. It's a bit of a fixer-upper, then, but not frightening. Further we're told that scary looking houses are usually haunted. I'm not sure why this was mentioned, since the house in the story doesn't seem to be haunted. If it is, the author didn't mention anything about ghosts.
The third paragraph is completely pointless. We know that there is an amusement park that is in competition against the House of Justice but they fail to draw the crowds, but we're not really told why.
At any rate, we meet the Justice family, most of whom seem to be named for angels. We're told that they are "odd" and then told that one is a butcher, one is a dentist, one is a beautician and one helps around the house. I'm not sure what is odd about any of that.
So, the story goes on and the Justice family starts torturing people in fairly predictable ways (fat guy likes to eat - make him eat his own flesh - mwah-ha-ha-ha). It's one of those stories in which we're supposed to feel that the victims deserve their punishments due to them being overweight or vein or neglectful of their teeth.
And this is the haunted house. People come in and see real people being tortured. And no one calls the police. It's bad enough to watch that the haunted house passes out barf bags, but not bad enough to call in the law, I guess. Wonder what the dumb bumpkins in this town have to witness before they see it as a serious crime.
Then a character gets bored with watching people get tortured and - guess who is the next victim?
I might think about giving the thing two or three stars, but I won't. The story goes on a bit more and then abruptly stops. The story itself takes less than half the file downloaded (about 35%). The rest is a tiny message from the author, and lots of excerpts from other stories by the author. I don't mind when writers give us a tease of other stories. I do it myself. But, don't pad out your super short story with page after page of other stories. I was terribly disappointed to find that all this stuff about the haunted house was the whole story. I thought it was a set up for a bigger story.
I really wish it had been longer and developed into a real story, rather than just a lot of meaningless blood and guts with no real payoff. Who is this Justice family? Why do they do the things they do? Why do they feel they have the right to torture people for being unpleasant (or whatever the reason was)? Why doesn't anyone seem to mind that these people torture and kill as amusement for the town on Halloween? Don't the families of the victims mind at least? None of this is addressed.

[Elizabeth Vasilaki · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not bad as an idea, yet lacking in execution.
Unfortunately, I guessed what the story would be about as soon as I read the beginning of the third paragraph. And I was right.
All in all, it's not bad. The language is quite fluid. The descriptions are decent. But. The reader does not sympathize with any of the characters. Victims and killers are seen under the same light. Bam, boom, chop, chop. And they get trapped and killed. Question is, so what?
There is an attempt to justify the actions of the killers towards the end of the story, where it appears that the victims are chosen due to their lack of ethics. However, this is not how we're introduced to the characters as they appear in the course of the story, and lack of any justification accounts for two dimensional characters. As a reader, since I didn't feel any connection, I couldn't care less why these people die or why their killers chose them. If I am not given any clues as to what the killers had in mind when they chose their victims, or what the victims had done (or not done) to deserve or not deserve what was happening to them, I couldn't care less. Therefore, I found the story flat. There's a lot of vivid, graphic violence. Unfortunately, that alone does not account for a good horror story.
Generally speaking, I think the specific writer is on his way to mastering his toolbox of horrors. He has a decent level, all he has to do is master the tricks in plot setting and character making. I would like to read more of his work; I think he's going to improve.

[John · Rating 1 out of 5]

Why is it that authors think it is okay to write a short story, then pad their books out with excerpts from their other books? Newsflash: It doesn't make me want to buy your other books, it makes me mad that 40% is story, 60% is advertising.

The House of Justice itself wasn't all that brilliant. I liked the way the family set up their haunted house, and gathered the exhibits for their next one, but the why isn't really explained at all.