Adventures into the Unknown #49

Sheriff O'Rourke thought his biggest headache was facing an opposition candidate in the upcoming election—until bodies start turning up in Black Creek with their necks mysteriously broken. When the sheriff ventures into the backwoods to investigate, he stumbles upon a beautiful young woman living alone in a desolate place, but a supernatural encounter leaves him shaken and his credibility in tatters. Now discredited and desperate to prove what he's witnessed, O'Rourke races to uncover the truth before more deaths pile up—and before suspicion falls on him.

When a reporter grows suspicious of sculptor Mady George's disturbing creations—each one a portrait of terror so lifelike it's chilling—he begins to uncover a horrifying pattern: every model who posed for her has vanished without a trace. As Ray Kent's feelings for the beautiful and mysterious artist deepen, his investigation draws him closer to a terrible secret she's been guarding beneath her ever-present scarves and turbans. "Talent for Terror!" peels back the layers of a woman's dangerous gift in this 1953 shocker from Adventures into the Unknown.

Curator Bellamy plans a deep-sea expedition to Keeling Deep with the latest bathysphere technology, but a mysterious stranger named Naja Deva appears with impossible knowledge of their destination—and stows aboard when they launch into the abyss. As the sphere descends into never-before-seen depths, something massive stirs in the darkness: the legendary Kraken, a terror from Naja's tragic past, now lurking in the crushing black below. What unfolds is a battle of wills between a man seeking revenge and a monster of the deep, with Curator Bellamy and his daughter Mona watching helplessly from above.

In "The Eternal Fires!" from *Adventures into the Unknown* #49, gang leader Frankie Boll, facing a fatal illness, strikes a desperate bargain with Satan to avoid Hell’s torment—offering to slaughter his own gang members in exchange for eternal peace in the afterlife. But when his wife cremates him instead of burying him, the contract collapses, leaving Frankie trapped in Hell with no escape, doomed to burn for all eternity.