Marvel Tales (1949 series) #94

Duncan and Laura are driving through rural New England on a stormy night when they lose their way on a desolate road. Spotting a light in a gloomy farmhouse, they knock and are admitted by a crotchety old caretaker, who shows them inside and warms them by a fire in the library. He tells them the history of the house: it was built in 1860 by Peter Van Kleek, the town hangman, who hanged everyone he could get his hands on — including his last victim, Will Wagenford, whom Van Kleek executed just before a gubernatorial pardon arrived. Wagenford's brother vowed that Van Kleek would feel his own rope around his neck, and Van Kleek subsequently vanished without a trace. Duncan notices a rope hanging in the chimney; the caretaker nervously waves him off. The couple is given adjoining rooms for the night.

Unable to sleep, Duncan hears strange dragging noises outside his door, then a blood-curdling scream. Racing into the hallway, he finds the rope slithering like a living thing across the floor. Following it to the end of the hall, he discovers the caretaker strangled in his bed. Duncan sends Laura downstairs and hacks the rope apart with an axe, but exhaustion overtakes him. He dozes off in the library, and the rope attacks again, coiling around him in a hangman's noose before he can fight it off. Determined to end it, Duncan smashes open the fireplace — and a bricked-up skeleton tumbles out, the apparent remains of Peter Van Kleek. Duncan and Laura flee into the storm, leaving Hangman's House behind forever.

Spectacles of Doom!

Synopsis

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

In 18th-century London, miserly landlord Andrew Ashendrew makes his rounds through the slums of Lambeth, evicting tenants who cannot meet his rent increases. His cruelest act is turning out Dame Crane, a dying old woman who begs only to be left in peace. When Andrew shoves past her, he stumbles and shatters his spectacles, leaving him helpless and nearly blind in the street. The crowd refuses to aid him, but a mysterious stranger steps from the crowd and offers Andrew a replacement pair, far better than his own. Andrew puts them on and is overcome by the sight of a beautiful young woman, Miriam, passing in a carriage. For the first time in his life he feels love, abandons his gold-obsessed ways, and pursues her relentlessly through London until she agrees to be his bride.

Andrew arranges an exclusive church wedding, oblivious to his tenants' scheming. On the wedding day, the congregation erupts into uncontrollable laughter the moment they see the couple. Andrew, bewildered, cannot understand why. Outside, the stranger reappears in the crowd and exchanges Andrew's spectacles for his own originals. Andrew turns to look at Miriam with his own eyes — and recoils in horror: she is a hideous old crone, nothing like the beauty the magic lenses had shown him. The crowd roars at his humiliation. Miriam clutches his arm and declares she is his forever, invoking the memory of Dame Crane's dying curse.

Hands of Horror!

Synopsis

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

At a July 1941 carnival, a shriek brings barker Morty Saunders running into the sideshow tent, where he finds the carnival's strongman, Samson, crushing a would-be thief's hand — helplessly, with no control over his own grip. The shaken thief confesses he had planned to rob Samson's savings, and Samson is equally stunned: his hands had acted entirely on their own. Morty learns that Samson has long been secretly in love with Zonina, the carnival's exotic dancer, and schemes with her to fleece the strongman — Zonina will keep Samson occupied at the movies while Morty breaks into his tent and steals his savings chest. Despite his terror of Samson's autonomous hands, Morty goes through with the robbery. Alone in the dark tent with the open chest, he senses a presence and pleads desperately not to be touched. When Samson and Zonina return, police find Morty dead — strangled by his own hands, with Samson nowhere near him.

The Haunted Love!

Synopsis

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

Young patrolman Tim O'Leary notices a light burning every night in a city apartment and investigates, finding the building registered to Mr. and Mrs. John Penner. At the door he meets Nancy Penner, a haunted-eyed woman with a vivid white streak in her black hair, terrified of the dark. Inside, her husband John explains that both of them live in fear — a condition that began months earlier when Nancy inherited a Vermont farm from an old man named Silas Mears, a stranger she had never met. The couple drove up to inspect the property, a decrepit ruin. That evening, alone on the grounds, John heard a wraithlike voice declare that he and Nancy were doomed. The figure of Silas Mears' ghost materialized and revealed that he had once loved Nancy's mother, Mary, who had been taken from him by another man. Now, unable to claim Mary, he intends to take Nancy instead.

The ghost lured John deep into the woods to keep him away from the farmhouse, then turned on Nancy, chasing her from room to room until the stroke of midnight. As the church bell tolled twelve, the ghost burst through the door and lunged for Nancy's throat — but stopped when he spotted the locket she wore bearing her mother Mary's picture. Mistaking the image for Mary herself, he clutched the locket and whispered words of love to it, weeping, before vanishing. John found Nancy in a swoon when he finally stumbled back. The couple finished their story to O'Leary, explaining why they dare not turn off their light, and O'Leary walks away murmuring a prayer that they may someday know peace.