The Haunt of Fear

A man finds his wife's love for her cat Snooky unbearable, and finally decides to take care of the problem once and for all, but soon finds he's slowly slipping into insanity when his imagination gets the best of him...

A fraternity initiation goes eerily wrong, when the initiates are told to walk through a supposed haunted house... but never come out.....

Boris Petaja, a skilled magician, begins to kidnap innocent townspeople to use in his experiments with a real "saw a man in two" trick, but finally meets his match after he kidnaps a young couple.

A swamp hermit relates a tale of a group of scientists that fed an amoeba that ate everything in its path to two boaters, but that's just a myth...right?

A doctor insists that the body he examined was killed by a vampire, but no one in town will believe him, so he goes to the mansion, where the body came from and finds that there really is a vampire, but who's really the vampire...?

A shopkeeper relates a story to a customer about his quest with his business assistant to Africa to collect some real shrunken heads from a native tribe, but when they are caught stealing, they learn the true punishment...

Ernest Parker grows tired of his nagging wife Nan, and meets a young dame named Faye, together they plan going off and getting married, but they have to get Nan out of the picture, so Ernest coughs up a plan to pretend to die, but not everything goes as planned...

Over a thousand years ago, a jealous pharaoh had one of his servants mummified after the girl he loved, fell in love with the servant, but the girl found out and tried to revive him with a scribe, only to be offed by the king. In the present, three friends stumble upon the crypt, and find that history has a nasty way of repeating itself!

You as the reader take the role of a man afflicted with recurring nightmares about being buried alive. Your psychiatrist assures you it's all in the mind but can you tell when your nightmares will begin to spill over into the day?

An arrogant reporter does a story on a famous haunted house... and learns the hard way that some things should just be left alone.

Dr Ravenscar, a disgraced surgeon, retreats to his family castle to plan his comeback. He wants to prove he can bring a man back from the dead, but things take a turn for the worse when he damages the corpse's brain and has to make a last-minute substitution.

The story of how Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein met the Crypt Keeper, Vault Keeper and Old Witch in a sewer, and were "persuaded" into giving them a publishing deal.

Roger Compton goes to a small town to visit his old college friend, Peter, but finds that his old pal is now the most feared recluse with a peculiar hump on his back, and an even more peculiar taste for human flesh...

A young woman takes her alcoholic, partying brother to Mexico for a relaxing vacation, but when he disappears into an underground club named The Tunnel, and numerous bodies are found partially eaten, she decides to find him on her own.

A group of scientists working on an experiment to raise a mummy back to life, actually revive it, only to learn the true horror of the pharaoh's curse!

Jon Wayland, a painter, returns from the grave to keep on painting, for all of eternity after committing a crime against his friend.

A jealous man murders a young man over a girl, and buries him in an old graveyard. But soon his little secret comes out, and he's forced to hide in an old Civil War tunnel, a tunnel that leads him straight to a "biting finish"...

A crude, malicious circus owner mistreats and sabotages his circus freaks and employees, all until he blinds one of his famed employees, then the tables are turned...

You're the main character in this story in which you seek shelter in a giant inn owned by an old, ugly man, and find out he has a little secret that's just DYING to come out!

A hobo finds a hand in the garbage at a city dump, a hand that belonged to a ruthless abusive man who murdered his wife's hired farmhand...

Ezra, a vengeful caretaker decides to get back at his enemies when they die and are brought to his cemetery, by desecrating their bodies and refusing to bury them till spring, but not if the dead have anything to say about it!

A man meets a beautiful girl after he arrives to a new town and moves in with her, but after being "drugged" by her, and having severe blackouts, he sets out to get revenge, problem is whenever he blackouts, a woman ends up dead...

Jonah Westlake, the black sheep of the Westlake family, gets his kicks by playing practical jokes on his own kin, especially at funerals, but his latest joke may be his last...

Bradbury Prince assists Henrick Villhem, the head owner of a cheese company, but when he won't tell Bradbury the secret ingredient, he decides to do away with Henrick, but something smells rotten...

Rodney Whitman was just a young boy when his parents died and he was sent to live with his uncaring aunt and uncle, and their two mean sons. The only thing that kept him going was the thought of being buried with his family in the Whitman mausoleum, a mausoleum with just one more coffin, which Rodney is saving for himself at any cost...

A town is full of curiosity at a strange man who always carries a basket on his shoulder, and its townspeople get the answers they've been searching for when they break into his house.

A young boy's teacher doesn't believe the stories the kid comes up with about traveling with an imaginary monster named Magog, even when the boy tells him Magog will gobble him up for whipping him. The teacher should have heeded the warning...

A retired mob member marries a superstitious Irish family who are convinced that a banshee wails when one of their kin will die soon, but that's just an old legend...right?

A jealous husband keeps his wife locked up in their mansion like one of the numerous hounds he uses to hunt foxes with, but when she falls for another man, the husband decides to take care of the problem, only to find he's barking up the wrong tree..

Three expeditors travel to an acursed crypt rumored to hold an evil being, but when they venture inside they find a perfectly preserved mummy, and soon find that he's not the only monster lurking about...

Vincent Beardsley, a greedy New Yorker, seeking the fourth tribal diamond for his collection, takes his friend to Ecuador to claim the gem, but when they're caught by the tribe themselves, he gives up his "friend" to the vengeful tribalmen, only to find he must face the ultimate consequence!

Jeff Slag, a conniving young man working at an iron mill, marries his boss's daughter, in order to become the head owner and boss of the mill, and murders his boss, only to find that there really is irony in death!

Two men attempt to rob their wealthy uncle's grave as revenge for his not leaving them any of his money. They are witnessed by a pair of young boys who have gone to a graveyard to test out an old wives' remedy for removing warts – but is it just magic or can the boys really believe their eyes?

A man and his secretary are marooned on a deserted island following a plane crash. They ignore a warning not to eat any fruit from the trees growing on the island; with consequences neither of them could have foreseen.

Gold-digging Harriet plans to ditch her elderly husband to move in with a younger lover, but her husband has one final surprise for her before she goes.

A man acquires a gorilla's mummified paw and discovers it can grant him anything he wishes for. Unfortunately, he does not always think before he wishes aloud.

A greedy undertaker extorts money from the families of the dead by charging them for the most overpriced funerals possible. He finds the tables turned when he uncovers a previously hidden talent of his own for "playing dead."

While on holiday, a man begins a flirtation with a beautiful yet mysterious woman; but notices that she tends to appear whenever there is a murder in the local area.

An abandoned child is taken in by the police. He tells them about his "Uncle Ekar" who has three eyes, a forked tongue and commits murders. The cops do not believe the boy's story ... until they find a body exactly where he described it ...

A washed-up bullfighter wants to get rid of a newcomer who has taken over both his spotlight and his sweetheart. The rival bullfighter dies and so does the bull, but now they are both set on revenge.

An elderly miser hoards treasures in his cellar and refuses to give anything to anybody. He insists that his wife save canned food rather than give it away and when she is poisoned by a jar of rotted fruit, it and her body create a living ooze that soon swallows up the cellar and everything else in the house.

Sylvia becomes so fed up with her fawning, over-devoted husband that she blinds him with sulphuric acid. He is so infatuated with her that at her trial he pleads for her to be released, but she had not considered that he might want justice outside of the law.

A sadistic pest exterminator finds himself on the receiving end when he is surrounded by the creatures he once loved to torture.

Two fertilizer salesmen face problems when no one will sell them the goods to fill a massive order for bone meal. They decide to use bones from the local cemetery despite stories about the cemetery being haunted, but meet their comeuppance when their car breaks down near a field of corn.

A lonely old man is tormented mercilessly by a wealthy father and son who want him evicted from his house so they can build over the land. He is driven to suicide but returns from the grave exactly a year on the day he died – Valentine's Day.

Unaware that his wife is having an affair with his younger brother, an old sailor decides to have a picture of the three of them together tattooed on his chest. He is murdered by his wife and brother, who try to cover up their crime, only to find there's one piece of "evidence" they cannot hide ...

Tommy and Ernie commit an armed robbery. Ernie is shot while escaping from the police and tries to send for help, but why does no one seem to listen to him?

Two failing restaurant owners manage to turn their business around with the help of a mysterious stranger. They become a roaring success, but when he demands half the profits, they decide to get him out of the way. Little do they know he has one more dish left to serve.

A lonely man decides to take the place of the corpse at a funeral so he can enjoy the eulogies and ceremony for the deceased. Assuming, of course, that he can get out of the coffin again ...

A carnival sword-swallower pulls a unique trick on her husband when he spends all the money she was saving for a new sword on junk food for himself.

A gang of neighborhood kids become friendly with a new boy in town. They believe his uncle is the vampire responsible for a string of strange killings nearby but how much do they really know about vampires?

In early 20th century Russia, some hunters are being pursued by a pack of ravenous wolves and their sleigh is too heavy for them to escape. They soon run out of bullets, and decide there's only one way out of the situation.

The Old Witch recounts the story of how her dead werewolf father and dead vampiress mother fell in love and brought her into the world.

Stuart Braden has always boasted about having a "heart of ice." When his brutal cruelty results in the deaths of his dog, his mother-in-law and his former business partner, his wife decides to make his words come ironically true.

Four survivors of a plane crash are out at sea when they find an abandoned ship. They climb on board but the frightening oozy substance that covers the ship doesn't want them to leave.

During the rule of the British Raj in India, the grandson of an English governor is banned from hunting wild boar because the local tribesmen consider them sacred. He is determined to bring home the head of a boar as a trophy, but is unaware of just how far the tribesmen will go to stop him.

An elderly man begins to suffer from catalepsy, which makes him appear to be dead when he is not. He leaves instructions to be buried with a telephone if he "dies", just in case he's not really dead. There's no way this plan could go wrong, or so he thinks.

Harry kills his wealthy love rival and decides to steal the corpse's ring so he can sell it and use the money to marry his sweetheart. But when trying to dispose of the body in a well, he drops the ring too, and now he's going to have to go down and get it ...

A king agrees to marry off his daughter to the ruler of a neighbouring kingdom so they can obtain a loan and refill the royal treasury. The princess is unhappy and wants to marry Prince Dashing instead, but then remembers that she only agreed to give her "hand" in marriage.

A door-to-door salesman gets more than he bargained for when he goes to the home of a couple who like to test out the product in advance.

A prominent surgeon has spent his life repeatedly forcing a younger subordinate to perform a horrific operation that keeps the old man looking young, but what will happen when his subordinate refuses to take orders any more?

Philip is devastated after his wife disappears during a fishing trip to their cabin, but when he tries to sell the cabin, no one will buy it because of the strange murders that have started happening around the lake.

A royal chef is driven insane by the king, who is so gluttonous that he leaves no food for the people of the kingdom. And there's only one thing to do with a nice big fat pig ...

Richard Braling's terminally ill brother is an inventor who seems determined to build a coffin for himself before he dies. Richard can't see anything special about the mechanical coffin, but when he tries to examine it so he can patent his late brother's invention, he discovers that all is not as it seems.

In a swamp, a man waits to lure victims for his insane serial-killer brother. He likes to get rid of the bodies by throwing them into the marsh, but what he doesn't know is that this might not be the end of them.

You are the protagonist in this story about a man who is abducted by a mad scientist and whose brain is transplanted into the body of an escaped gorilla!

A cantankerous queen terrorizes the staff who work in the royal household. Nobody's work can ever please her, until a painter comes up with a clever way to ensure the queen's official portrait will turn out just right.

Geoffrey drives his wife Louella crazy by trampling all over her beloved garden. He discovers just how crazy Louella can be when he and his friends hold a raucous barbecue that destroys the lawn.

A woman and her lover come up with a plan to dispatch her elderly, crippled husband. They succeed in making the murder look like an accidental death, but a new pet in the house is a little more suspicious.

On the eve of her corrupt, blackmailing husband's promotion to company president, an abused wife gives him a little surprise in the form of a new bed.

A spoiled young nobleman who loves to drive at high speed devises an ingenious way to get an increase in his allowance from his wealthy father. It turns out to be his undoing in a more literal way than he could have imagined.

Written by Ray Bradbury. Two young boys discover a sinister secret about the man who runs the ferris wheel down at the local carnival.

A brilliant young chemist on leave from university comes up with a plan to lure and kill the vampire that is terrorising the town, but finds that the vampire is a little too close to home.

A couple on their honeymoon encounter a storm on the road and are forced to stop in an abandoned house, where the groom discovers a shocking skeleton in his new family's closet.

In a fictional European kingdom, three jealous ladies of the royal court conspire to usurp the new queen by exposing her as an adulteress. The king, however, doesn't hold the witnesses blameless ...

Baseball players take deadly revenge on a corrupt rival found to have fatally poisoned a player from the opposing team.

A jealous man kills his brother for money and is suddenly tormented by the sound of a heartbeat. He thinks back to The Telltale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and believes the thumping sound is all in his mind. But when the local police show up to his house, he soon finds out just how wrong he was.

Reprinted from the first issue of The Vault of Horror. Gloria is convinced her husband Ralph is trying to kill her, so she runs off and boards a train. Problem is Ralph keeps popping up everywhere she looks, even in a lonely cabin that contains a single open coffin.

A man laughs off the townspeople who are convinced his new bride is a vampiress, but just how can he be so sure?

Myron and his girlfriend hatch a scheme to fleece her eccentric employer by pretending to create a potion to turn him into his hero: the villainous Edward Hyde. But the old story turns out to be more true than they thought.

Newly married Laura has learned to handle her suspicions about her husband's long business trips and the mysterious locked room in his house. However, there is something she cannot put her finger on about the portrait of Baron Gilles de Rais that hangs in the hallway ...

A homeless man receives a partial brain transplant from a cat. He capitalizes on his newly acquired "nine lives" by becoming a star performance artist whose specialty involves cheating death, but his time may be running out faster than he thinks.

Believing she is possessed by a demon, a woman seeks the advice of the fortune teller who first encouraged her interest in witchcraft. Her fiancé will have none of it – should he have listened to her?

In 19th-century France, Henri has twenty-four hours to raise the money to bury his dead wife due to an ordinance from the town council, otherwise the Commissioner of Health will hand the body over for dissection by medical students and pocket a financial bonus. Thankfully, Henri manages to reach an agreement with him...

A couple facing bankruptcy discover that the statue they bought from a mysterious old store can grant them three wishes. When the first wish goes tragically wrong, they are reminded of the old story of The Monkey's Paw and soon find life imitating art.

Townspeople try to convince an eccentric local genius to take part in a chess tournament that will put their town on the map, but he has a sinister secret that may foil their plans.

Gruesome re-imagining of the original fairytale.

Sidney was always eager to know how his wealthy, stingy old uncle had made his beloved model ship in a bottle. After murdering his uncle to claim an inheritance, Sidney realizes just how many secrets the model is hiding.

Stella's history professor has a special interest in ancient Rome. When she attempts to seduce him to get better grades in the class, she's soon in for more than she expected.

Lovers Ruth and Clark are caught in a plane crash and stranded on a small island with the remaining survivors. Possessions containing silver start to go missing, mutilated bodies turn up, and the group remembers that there's only one creature to whom silver is fatal...

A gory retelling of the original Hansel and Gretel story.

An escaped convict finds himself in a chase through a swamp with a club-wielding maniac, but is everything really as it seems?

Bethy has always called her abusive, alcoholic husband a "creep" – but when she and her lover attempt to kill him by drowning him in a whiskey still, it becomes true in a terrifying way.

A woman "sells" her beautiful looks to a sinister pawnbroker in order to raise the money to lure a wealthy husband, but finds her beauty fading faster than she thought.

An orphaned young boy is taken in by adoptive parents who are hiding a mysterious secret, only to find that their new son may be hiding a thing or two of his own.

A landlady suspects that her frightening-looking new tenant is the serial "Ripper" who is murdering local women.

During a storm, a man takes refuge in a derelict old house, but finds he is sharing residence with the devoted mother of a very unusual child.

A man takes the arrival of his new garbage disposal unit as the perfect way to murder his nagging wife and get away with it, but "disposing" of her body turns out to be no easy task.

A story with two endings! Ralph would have asked his beautiful new co-worker on a date, and discovered the horrifying reason for her dislike of cats, if only he hadn't gone "out cold" first...

Jake, stranded in his cabin by the long Alaskan winter, is joined by a new arrival sheltering from a snowstorm. To pass the time, Jake recounts his story of why it's never a good idea to be snowed in with one's wife.

Martin would like to leave his wife, but she always reminds him that they vowed to stay together "till death do us part." Unfortunately he has a very pressing reason to keep that promise.

When Eric murders his wife Mabel so that he can marry his rich girlfriend, he finds Mabel may be gone but her shadow is not.

A wealthy, bored housewife begins an affair with a stranger, but doesn't count on her surgeon husband deciding to make them part of an experiment with a new anaesthetic.

A group of prospectors in Alaska unearth a vampire frozen beneath the snow. One of them decides to keep the money from their uranium stake for himself, and frees the vampire in order to kill his companions. He knows that vampires crumble into dust once dawn comes – but when will that be?

Jeff is the father of twins Penny and Olga. He loves Penny very much but has never met Olga, who on her mother's instructions is shut away in a locked room of the house. When Jeff's wife dies suddenly, he decides it is time he got to know Olga better, and discovers too late that there was a very good reason to keep her hidden.

A Puritan man drowns his wife to prevent her from telling the village elders about his adultery, but he finds out that when she said she would "never let him go", she really meant it ...

The ruler of a mythical kingdom orders complete silence throughout the land, even forbidding his subjects to breathe. This leads them to take a very "timely" revenge on him.

A ghoulish creature who lives in a swamp builds a shack where he can hide the dead bodies he feasts upon.

A powerful 19th-century gentleman petitions the local authorities for increasingly stringent rules to protect public decency, but goes a little too far when he orders the graves of the dead to be moved so that men and women are not buried together.

A vicious jungle-dwelling hunter quite literally "becomes the hunted" when he accidentally falls into one of his own traps.

Ethel Stark is desperate to join Phil Vitale's all-girl orchestra, but will she really do anything to be in the band?

An elderly mortician who takes great pride in his work goes to extreme lengths to ensure his hated son-in-law will not be the one to embalm him after his death.