Dates
- Cover date
- February-March 1954
- Pages
- 36
Editions and covers
- Original editionSource ↗
Creators
Stories
- Food for Thought · The Crypt of Terror · 8 pages
A woman plots to run away with the circus animal trainer because her husband, even though he can project his thoughts to her which they use as their act, does not love her. The husband tumbles to the plot and forces the animal trainer at gunpoint into the lion's cage where he is torn apart. The wife suspects him but has no proof and so when the husband is accidentally paralyzed when a beam lands upon him while the circus packs up, she ignores his thoughts for help and coldly advises them not to embalm him so that he is buried alive.
- Pearly to Dead · The Vault of Horror! · 7 pages
Two navy divers discover a pearl bed while placing demo charges and make plans to go back for them after the war ends. One gets greedy and murders the other one whose corpse then surprises him while he is attempting to acquire the pearls.
- Choice! · 1 pages
A convict escapes a jungle prison and hides from the guards by burying himself in the jungle. One of the reasons he couldn't stand the prison anymore is because it was infested by mosquitoes, spiders and other vermin. However by hiding in this hole, he is being eaten alive by vicious maggots. Does he wait it out in this hole and endure these bugs or surrender and go back to the prison to endure those bugs?
- Prairie Schooner · 6 pages
Old seaman Ezra is abruptly retired from his duties at sea and shows up at the home of his old time friend, Milly. Stranded in this Kansas home, away from all he ever knew at sea, the sailor goes mad and converts Milly's house into a ship in the middle of a prairie and she is made the one-man crew of the ship, until she drops dead.
- Half-Baked! · The Witch's Cauldron! · 7 pages
A man who enjoys tormenting lobster ends up in a car crash where the steering column disembowels him and the flames that erupt broil him alive.
Reprinted in
Tales from the Crypt (1979), Tales from the Crypt (1994), The Fantagraphics EC Artists' Library (2012), The EC Archives: Tales from the Crypt (2021), EC Classics (1985)