Marvel Tales (1949 series) #93

On the morning of October 10th, 1945, Varno Kadarik, innkeeper of a roadside inn in the village of Cznarnak, Hungary, phones the local police to report the death of his American guest, Norman Raine. The officer, unable to reach the inn due to washed-out roads, instructs Kadarik to read aloud from Raine's notebook, in which the writer had recorded the night's events hour by hour. The entries reveal that Raine had insisted on sleeping in a room locked for two years — every previous occupant having died in the night — in order to research a book on European ghost legends. Kadarik's wife Sonya had laughed at his objections and helped Raine persuade him to unlock the room.

The notebook entries describe a massive wolf that appeared at Raine's barred window, then transformed into a woman before disappearing into the storm; at midnight a man sought shelter and, when let inside, turned into a wolf man at the door. At four o'clock, Raine spotted someone tapping pebbles at his window — it was Sonya, who had slipped outside, claiming she had locked herself out. She entered the room and told Raine the night's terrors were over, but the final entry records his dawning horror as he noticed her gleaming eyes and long, fanged teeth. 

Back in the present, the officer warns Kadarik by phone to flee — Sonya has entered the inn and is standing before him. Kadarik begs her to say Raine's account was a nightmare, but she answers plainly: "Yes, Varno… it is true! I am a werewolf!"

The Gool Strikes!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

On a peaceful Pacific island, a Captain and a scientist wrap up a research mission and prepare to head home. Their calm is shattered when what appears to be a strange raft rising from the sea stands upright and reveals itself to be a massive, grotesque creature — the Gool — which charges the island's military garrison. Heavy cannon fire has no effect, and the Gool melts the weapons with its touch as it blazes a path of destruction across the island. Meanwhile, back in San Francisco, Professor Clark Dane and his colleague Doctor Kirby have been monitoring bizarre seismic tremors originating from deep within the earth's core, far beyond the reach of their instruments. Dane deduces the disturbance is converging on Bikini Atoll and fights to secure passage there, but Major Sardon of Washington blocks him, citing a military restriction on the area.

Defying orders, Dane boards an Army plane headed to the South Pacific. The story then flashes back to reveal the Gool's origin: a blind, instinct-driven creature hidden since the earth's formation, it stirred after centuries of dormancy, boarded a great screw-shaped burrowing vessel, and drove upward toward the surface. It emerged precisely as the United States military detonated an atom bomb test at Bikini Atoll, and the blast supercharged the creature with radioactive energy, making it invulnerable and lethally destructive. When Dane arrives on the devastated island, the Gool suddenly halts its attack — it has sensed Dane as the only remaining living presence, and telepathically projects four words to him: "I am the Gool." The creature then turns and walks into the sea and vanishes, leaving Dane and the Captain to wonder where it will surface next. The final panel warns that at that very moment the Gool is already rising from the ocean again, driven by hate and destruction.

Step Into the Mirror of Madness!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

In a garret room in Milan, Pietro D'Amico lies dying, writing a confession of the events that destroyed his wife and are now killing him. Two months earlier, Pietro and his wife Camille wandered into the antique shop of Bergo, where Camille became fixated on a large, shrouded mirror. The shopkeeper refused to sell it at any price, warning that its history was too sinister for human eyes. Camille stormed out calling him a fool, but that night Pietro hired two men with a truck, broke into the shop, knocked the shopkeeper unconscious, and stole the mirror. Once home, the mirror immediately changed their lives: Pietro glimpsed something evil in its reflection and dared not look at it, but Camille fell under its spell, sitting before it for hours as though paralyzed.

A week later, Pietro awoke to hear Camille's voice and a man's voice in the next room; he rushed in to find her sleepwalking toward the mirror as an unseen voice beckoned. He pulled her back and she fainted. Pietro covered the mirror with a sheet, but another week passed and the voice called again — this time Pietro was paralyzed and helpless as Camille said goodbye and stepped through the mirror's surface. On the other side, a demonic figure welcomed her as queen of his realm, but the assembled creatures laughed wildly at her beauty and a pool revealed her true reflected face, shattering her vanity. Camille cried out to Pietro for help. On his side, Pietro could see only the demon in the mirror; in desperation he smashed it, but Camille's voice screamed as the mirror shattered, and shards slashed Pietro fatally. His final written words acknowledge that Camille is locked forever in the broken mirror, and that he is doomed as well.

Beware of the Cat!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

In the peasant village of Kanghao, China, young Kai-San discovers a picture of a cat in an American picture book and shows it to his Grandfather, who reacts with horror and forbids the sight. He then explains why cats have been banned from the village for fifty years: the handsomest youth of the village, Chi-Mi, chose Lotus Flower as his bride from among all the girls who loved him. One girl, Sano, vowed revenge and climbed the forbidden Lagahao Mountain to seek help from her mother, the banished witch Mongo-Lo-Kai, who kept a great cat at her side. The witch agreed to help, sending a mysterious dancer to the betrothal feast — a beautiful woman with glowing green eyes who hypnotized Chi-Mi and drew him away from Lotus Flower. The dancer vanished in the rain, leaving Chi-Mi enchanted and indifferent to Lotus Flower's grief.

Lotus Flower followed the dancer home and brought her as a houseguest, suspecting the truth but knowing Chi-Mi would not believe her. The dancer refused all food except milk, sunned herself away from the chained dog, and was seen chasing a mouse into the woods, returning with a satisfied smile and blood-red nails. That night the dancer slashed the dog nearly to ribbons. On the morning of the wedding, Lotus Flower confronted the dancer directly, accusing her of being a cat in a woman's form sent to doom Chi-Mi. The dancer only smiled. At the ceremony, the Lotus Flower's dog — freed by her last hope — leaped at the dancer, who instantly transformed into a black cat and fled into the arms of Mongo-Lo-Kai, who had come down from the mountain to witness her triumph. The villagers condemned both witch and cat to death. The spell broken, Chi-Mi came back to himself and married Lotus Flower, and the grandfather concludes his tale by telling Kai-San that this is why cats are forbidden in the village to this day.

The Man Who Fled from the Future!

Synopsis

By J.A.R.V.I.S. 2008
Rating:

On a deserted Bulgarian road shortly after World War I, the battered figure of Arnold Borgasia lies groaning in the dust. He begs a passing doctor to listen to his story before he loses consciousness. Borgasia explains that he is a medical student who had written to the celebrated recluse Dr. Hagg, renowned for his research into blood and experimentation, asking to assist him. Hagg replied immediately, summoning him at once. That morning Borgasia arrived by train, where the cadaverous, bullet-eyed Hagg met him and drove him in tense silence to Hagg Manor — a gloomy old house set deep in the woods where Hagg lived entirely alone. After showing Borgasia to a room and dismissing his attempts at conversation, Hagg woke him in the middle of the night and led him down to a hidden cellar laboratory: a gleaming, metal-walled room utterly unlike the rest of the house.

Inside, Hagg revealed two extraordinary claims: first, that the laboratory existed four hours in the future — that the moment Borgasia stepped inside, he was now at six o'clock rather than two — and second, that he intended to bring the dead back to life. When Hagg unveiled a body on the laboratory table and demanded Borgasia identify it, Borgasia was struck with cold horror at what he saw. Convinced Hagg had gone mad, he panicked, demanded to leave, and when Hagg refused and attacked him with the strength of five men, Borgasia fought free, burst through the bolted door, and fled into the dark woods with Hagg crashing through the brambles behind him. He finally lost his pursuer and crawled to the road, where he collapsed. Now, finishing his story to the doctor, Borgasia realizes the full truth: Hagg needed him dead by six o'clock so he could use Borgasia's own corpse as the subject for his reanimation experiment — for the body on the table had been his own. The doctor removes his hat, revealing himself to be Hagg, and smiles: "Yes, Borgasia… I will take care of you."