Vault of Horror #12 Values

Title: The Werewolf Legend

Characters: Pobb's (a butler); Tom Faversham (death); Walter Mallory; Sir Gregory Mallory (villain, a werewolf); Edmund Mallory (villain, a werewolf, flashback); Dennis Mallory (villain, a werewolf, Baron of Munscrief, flashback); Arthur Mallory (villain, a werewolf, flashback)

Synopsis: Walter Mallory believes that he is a werewolf, committing murder after murder, and is convinced when he uncovers the Mallory family's werewolf legend. He tells Scotland Yard about this and they agree to help capture the creature, but Walter is determined to end the string of killings, and is about to shoot himself when Scotland Yard enters and tells him that it was actually Sir Gregory (an accomplished hypnotist) who killed the people because they were blackmailing him. He had hypnotized Walter and put werewolf makeup on him to make Walter think he had committed the crimes... as a werewolf!

Pages: 7.000

Script: Gardner Fox; Harry Harrison ?

Pencils: Harry Harrison [as Harrison] (signed)

Inks: Wally Wood [as Wood] (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Notes: "Came the Dawn" forward by Bill Mason credits Fox as the writer, so Fox is added and Harrison is given a ?. Letterer credit by Craig Delich.

Title: Fingers of Death

Synopsis: At last he had done it: he had killed Montrose to get a valuable gold chain, but someone was coming and he had to get away....he could return for the chain later. Later, after the burial, the killer broke into Montrose's mausoleum, into his coffin, and there was the gold chain in the corpse's hands. Much as he try to pry the chain from those stiff fingers, he couldn't budge it.....until finally, the fingers moved ever so slightly to release that chain. As the man bent forward to examine the chain in the light, the fingers of the corpse began to close again.....this time around the man's throat.....tighter and tighter and tighter until...........

Pages: 1.000

Script: William M. Gaines

Pencils: ? (1 panel art)

Inks: ? (1 panel art)

Letters: typeset

Title: Horror in the Night

Characters: Tom Hawkins

Synopsis: At the Hawkin's Tourist Colony, Tom is hitting the bottle as his friend Jim walks in, and explains that he is doing so because of a terrible dream he had the night before. In it, a couple come in to take a room for the night....but the woman appeared to be very strange. As it turns out, the woman believes that death is stalking her at every turn, and kills a cat, believing it was death coming for her. Her husband locks her in the room, but that night she attempts to escape, they get into a fight and he kills her, then shoots himself to death! After hearing the story, Jim tells Tom it was just a nightmare and not to pay any attention to it, and leaves. A few moments later, a car pulls up and the same couple Tom had seen in his dream were standing before him wanting a room!

Pages: 6.000

Script: Ivan Klapper ?

Pencils: Harvey Kurtzman

Inks: Harvey Kurtzman

Letters: Jim Wroten

Notes: Script credit from Tales of Terror: The EC Companion. Previous indexer had Al Feldstein?

Characters: The Vault-Keeper (head shot)

Synopsis: Contains letters from readers Grace Calmesi, Cleo Gruner and Shirley Johnson.

Pages: 1.000

Pencils: Al Feldstein (spot illo)

Inks: Al Feldstein (spot illo)

Letters: typeset

Title: Tooth and Fang!

Synopsis: A knife flashes down and the owner of a circus falls to the floor dead. The killer then saw the shadows of the roustabouts just outside the tent, so he shoved money he had just stolen into his pockets, then looked for another way out. He spied a barred door at the back of the tent, opened it and hid there. Suddenly, there was a snarl behind him and he could see the eyes of a large panther. He tried to escape, but the barred door wouldn't open. He thought of screaming to alert the roustabouts who were leaving the area, but he couldn't be heard over the roars of the cat as it killed him!

Pages: 1.000

Script: William M. Gaines

Pencils: ? (2 panels art)

Inks: ? (2 panels art)

Letters: typeset

Title: Terror Train

Characters: Gloria; Ralph

Synopsis: Gloria was in a cab, running away from her husband Ralph...heading toward the train station and the train that would take her away from this man whom she thought was trying to poison her. Seated on the train, she kept imagining him at every turn and remembering the $25,000 insurance policies Ralph had taken out on them both...then she remembered that poison bottle he had brought home. Asleep in her berth, Gloria suddenly awakens at what she thinks is a scream, and goes to wake the conductor...but he is dead in his berth. In fact, everyone is dead in their berths! She jumps off the train and locates a farmhouse that has a freshly-dug grave outside. She enters the house and spies a coffin in it....then sees Ralph behind her, who grabs Gloria, puts her in the coffin, nails it shut, drags it to the grave and buries it. Suddenly, she awakens in her berth on the train.....sees Ralph with an attendant in a white coat, who takes her off to a nice house with bars on it so that Ralph can never get to her again!

Pages: 7.000

Script: Al Feldstein

Pencils: Al Feldstein [as Feldstein] (signed)

Inks: Al Feldstein [as Feldstein] (signed)

Letters: Jim Wroten

Reprints: Haunt of Fear (EC, 1950 series) #20 (July-August 1953)