Dates
- Cover date
- February-March 1953
- On sale
- October 21, 1952
- Pages
- 36
Editions and covers
- Original editionSource ↗
Creators
Stories
- When the Cat's Away... · Crime SuspenStories · 8 pages
Jay and his wife are always fighting, and Jay always finds solace at a friend's home. However, when he discovers that his friend and his wife are lovers, Jay decides on a scheme to rid himself of the problem. He tricks his wife (who has a strained heart) into having a heart attack, and then shoots his friend when he walks through the door. Now he can say his wife accidently killed his friend and died of a heart attack due to the shock.
- The Screaming Woman! · Crime SuspenStories · 7 pages
When Margaret was walking through a lot, she heard a woman's voice coming from underground, begging for someone to dig her up. When she tells her parents about it, they don't believe her, but they do discuss the Nesbitts. Once long ago, when her father was engaged to Helen Nesbitt, she wrote a song for him, but they broke off the engagement. Later, Margaret returns to the lot and hears a sad song being sung by the woman, the song Helen once wrote for her father! After she hums the song to her father, they realize the truth and dig her up.
- The EC Caper · 2 pages
While sitting in his office, Bill Gaines has a surprise visitor: the Obese Man, brandishing a gun at Gaines. He demanded, on the part of his client, Beaten Path Comics, to either sell out to his rival publisher or get a shower of molten lead. Refusing to sell, Gaines, artist-writer Feldstein and writer Dee are knocked unconscious and awaken tacked to the carpet, while torture shoes are applied to them. Suddenly, Marie Severin and secretary Ruby Kast burst into the room and attack the thugs with an address-o-graph and a wooden T-square, over-coming them.
- Water, Water, Everywhere... · Crime SuspenStories · 4 pages
A pair of prisoners escape from a South American island prison and are chased by prison guards with bloodhounds. The guards, however, trick the men, leaving them a boat without much gas.....and no water on board. Dying of thirst, one of the men goes mad and tries to drink the sea water. His friend ends his madness and kills him, before killing himself so he won't suffer dying of thirst. It later turns out their boat was in fresh water and not salt water.
- ...And Not a Drop to Drink! · Crime SuspenStories · 2 pages
Two prisoners, who have escaped from a small prison on the edge of the Sahara Desert, take off in a jeep that was left for them, and head for the sea. They soon run out of gas and find themselves far from their goal in the heat of the desert with no water. Going mad from thirst, one of the men runs off into the desert towards a mirage. The other decides to kill himself to be spared the agony of dying of thirst. He shoots himself, as the bullet goes through the jeep's radiator causing water to leak out.
- Hail and Heart-y! · The Haunt of Fear · 7 pages
Anna was sick and tired of her lazy husband refusing to do any chores around the house, and having to rely on a kind neighbor to help with her chores. When she discovers that her husband does not have a heart condition like he had claimed, Anna decides to find a way to make Ben useful around the place. She kills him and burns his body in the furnace, using his ashes to salt the icy sidewalk.
Reprinted in
Crime Suspenstories (1983), Tales from the Crypt (1991), Crime Suspenstories (1994), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (2012), The Autumn People (1965), Home to Stay! The Complete EC Ray Bradbury Stories (2022)