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MackSonne
06-18-2007, 10:55 AM
Hey guys, recently a short story which I've read in my teenage years sprung back to my mind again. Thing is, I've forgotten the title of the story and the author! If anyone finds the following plot familiar then please do enlighten me.

A mansion with some distinguished guests, much like the setting in Agatha Christie's And there were none, with the guests realising that there is an exact moving replica just like them, and to their amusement these marionettes are killed off one by one in ways and methods depicted in other horror stories inluding Edgar Allan Poe's Pit and the Pendulum. The irony though, is that a swap has been made, and those being murdered and slaughtered mercilessly are the real, living guests, and it is their dummy counterparts sitting at the dining table, much to the utter ignorance of the remaining living guests who have yet to realise the danger of the situation.

I can't remember how it ends; this is as much as my mind can recall. The desire to clarify this mystery is haunting me! Thank you all.

Enchanted
06-18-2007, 05:59 PM
The Dead by James Joyce?

The guests and the irony between the living-dead sort of relates...but there was no murder or slaughter

nps_marina
06-19-2007, 03:07 AM
No, that's definitely not The Dead!
I don't know what book it could be, though it sounds more like a movie to me!

It does seem vaguely familiar in some ways, but I believe that's because of the movie imagery that pops to mind.

MackSonne
06-19-2007, 09:50 AM
It's a collection of stories really... I suspect Ray Bradbury cos he was in my syllabus but the thing is I have not seen such a story in his short story compilations.