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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/NoCardiologist1353 on 2026-08-01 00:03:13+00:00.

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Folks always said my dad was strange, and they say he got stranger after my mom died. I don’t remember her; I was only four when she passed. But people say my father, who was already quiet and a bit of a loner, became obsessive and odd. It was after my mother's funeral that my dad made his hobby into a business. He loved animals, or at least he loved the bodies of animals. The chirping of birds and the scampering of squirrels never interested him. A deer moving through the woods was nothing special. But a dead deer? That was beautiful.

He loved taxidermy, and he built his business and life off that love. My father was very, very good at making dead things look alive. He built a workshop and showroom attached to the modest house my mother loved, turning it into a factory of the macabre.

We lived in a small isolated town nestled deep in the Rocky Mountains, and in that setting, Dad’s obsession became quite lucrative. He began with preserving local hunters' prize hunts, but soon his attention to detail earned the attention of museums and resorts throughout the state. Eventually, my dad’s work could be found throughout the West, putting his little shop on the map.

I had no choice in the matter; taxidermy was in my blood. Growing up, I was more like my dad’s assistant than his son. I could perfectly preserve an entire elk carcass before I could drive, and my dad was always quick to point out when my work wasn’t up to his standards. It was always just me and Dad; I didn’t know anything else other than the trade. Which is probably why, when Dad died and left me the business, I stayed. What else could I do?

His death was just as strange as his life. Dad was seventy-two when he died. He was in excellent health, never smoked, rarely drank, and could work twelve-hour days without complaining. Then one morning, I found him sitting at his workbench with his hands folded neatly in front of him. A slight smile was frozen in the dead muscles of his face. He was as still as the animals surrounding him. They told me his heart simply stopped. No warning, no illness, nothing anyone could explain. He just froze in the middle of his work, like the battery had suddenly died inside him.

The funeral was small, mostly just longtime customers and relatives I had never met. Instead of flowers, long-dead squirrels, rabbits, and birds surrounded his coffin. They put him in the ground, and I returned home.

The shop was all I had now, all my dad left me. I hadn’t been home since the day I found Dad, and now it felt so empty. I walked through the rooms: the kitchen, his bedroom, the living room. I ended up in the showroom, its walls filled with deer heads, birds, and dozens of other small animals. Full-body displays of mountain lions crouching on rocks and elk peeping through fake trees. I knew every animal in that showroom. I'd helped Dad mount most of them. But now that it was just me, I felt watched by countless fake beady eyes. I felt like a curator of a museum of stolen goods, judged by every dead eye in the room. I hadn’t killed any of these animals, but I preserved their death, and that made me complicit in the crime.

I left the showroom and moved into the workshop, the room where my Dad had died. It was uncomfortable to be back there; I realized then that I missed him. He had never been a great dad, or even a good one, but he was still my dad; he raised me, and I loved him. Hot tears began to roll down my face as reality without my dad began to set in. Good memories and moments from my childhood began to flood into my mind. Most of them revolved around this shop and the work, little inside jokes or important conversations; it all happened while we were removing fur, preparing formaldehyde, and positioning displays.

Perhaps the shop wasn’t a trap after all; maybe it was a way to honor the man who raised me, and who taught me everything I knew. As I wiped tears from my eyes, I noticed a folded piece of paper beneath the workbench; it was unusual because Dad always insisted on keeping the workshop as clean as possible. I picked it up and unfolded it; it was a note. It read:

“Son, no matter what, the lights of the showroom must stay on at night. The faces know your face.”

I didn’t think too much about the note as I shoved it into my pocket. Dad had always told me the light needed to stay on; he said it helped keep the displays looking their best. I didn’t question it; the last phrase of the note was strange, but my dad said strange things from time to time, so I wasn’t bothered by it.

In the weeks that followed, life started to get back into rhythm; there was still work to be done. Specifically, an order of three whitetail deer and a family of raccoons for a museum in Wyoming was due in two weeks. Without the added help of my dad, I found myself overwhelmed by the work. It was a big order for one person to finish in two weeks, so I worked late into the night. After several nights of long days and barely any sleep, I was exhausted. It was a little after 11 pm when I finished the last raccoon. Tired and running on autopilot, I instinctively flipped the switches, turning off the lights for the workshop and showroom, and headed up to my room.

I slept soundly until around 3 am when a loud crash downstairs woke me up. I lay there wide awake, holding my breath to see if more sound would follow. Before long, I heard a faint scratching sound coming from downstairs. I could feel my heart beating faster as panic set in. Someone was in my house. It sounded like the constant scratching noise was coming from the showroom. Grabbing an old pocket knife kept in the nightstand, I crept my way to the stairway. The noise grew louder as I worked my way down the stairs; at the bottom, the sound of shuffling was unmistakable.

I swallowed hard before shouting into the dark hallway

“Who’s there?”

The noise stopped

“Get the hell out of my house!” I screamed as I flipped on the light in the hall and followed it to the wide entry of the showroom.

I was met with nothing but silence

As I stood in the light of the hall, I stared into the dark showroom, and something stared back at me. In the blackness, two small spheres of reflective pale grey light looked back at me. My heart skipped a beat. I kept my eyes locked on them as I fumbled around the corner for the light switch. The warm yellowish lights filled the showroom, and the grey eyes vanished. I looked where they were and found nothing; only the large head of a buck mounted to the opposite wall was in line with where they were.

Staring at the mount, I flipped off the light; the reflective eyes returned. I turned the light back on and saw the deer.

I breathed a sigh of relief and muttered to myself

“Just the damn deer”

Feeling a little more confident, I walked into the showroom and looked around. The space was large, three times larger than the original house. I slowly walked through, weaving my way between exhibits. On the far side of the space, I found that a red fox display had fallen over. It was a newer display, a handsome fox standing proudly among a well-decorated platform of tall grass and small trees. The whole thing was toppled on its side, knocking the fox from its position; the poor thing lay off to the side.

“Crap,”

I mumbled as I lifted the scene to its proper position and gently laid the fox against it, making a mental note to repair it in the morning. Looking at the wall behind the display, I noticed a bunch of scratch marks on the wall surrounding the fox’s scene. Frowning, I convinced myself some squirrel or maybe a raccoon had gotten in here and caused a racket. I checked the doors and windows to ensure they were all locked, and they were. Satisfied, I returned to the hallway, and leaving the showroom light on, I returned to bed.

As sleep began to reclaim me, a final thought ran through my mind, one I wish I had acted on:

“A real deer’s eyes reflect light, but the mount's eyes are just beads.”

The next morning came sooner than I wanted. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I walked down the stairs. The strange events of the night before felt like an odd dream that was fading with every step I took. As I entered the showroom, I looked at the buck on the wall; it was still there, staring at the black bear on its left as it had always been. I yawned and walked over to the fox exhibit, and after examining it, I decided super glue was all that was necessary to reattach it.

I walked towards the workshop, but before reaching it, I froze. To my left was an incredible display of a mature mountain lion posed on a rock, ready to pounce. It was one of Dad’s favorites, a staple piece in the shop. But something was wrong; this display was supposed to have the cat with its mouth wide open in a vicious snarl. But the cat I saw had its mouth closed. I stared at it for a good while. Then I rubbed my eyes hard to be sure I was seeing right. The mouth was closed. I had seen poses fail before; it happens from time to time when brackets aren’t tight enough, or glue weakens. I had seen a closed jaw fall open before, but an open jaw close? Not possible. Slowly I reached my hand out and touched the jaw; it was firm, as if it had always been that way. Confusion filled my mind, and I ran a hand through my hair. It was then that I felt it. Hate. Anger. I looked around at the room full of dead animals; none of them had moved, but it felt like every eye in the place s...

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