Amazing Ghost Stories #16

A retired executioner named Edouard Moulin discovers that his meager pension has left him destitute, spurring him to return to the only work he ever loved—beheading those he deems worthy of death. As a series of skilled, surgical murders plague a provincial French town, Inspector Destin closes in on the killer, leading to a final reckoning between Moulin and the guillotine he called his beloved "Widow."

Dr. Mark Savant arrives on the planet Genero in the year 2230 to investigate reports of human sacrifice, only to discover that the kingdom's Grand Vizier Mago Sartorus has manipulated King Gaarlo into feeding victims to the Octeel, a terrifying creature lurking in the water caverns. When Mago's men kidnap Mona, Savant must descend into the caverns to confront the monster and rescue her—but his weapons prove useless against a creature that's part octopus and part electric eel. With quick thinking and help from his crewman Ventro, Savant devises an ingenious plan to stop both the monster and Mago's reign of terror once and for all.

Robert MacCloran returns to his ancestral castle on the Scottish moors for his twenty-first birthday, bringing his fiancée Tandy Morgan—but a sinister atmosphere greets them instead of celebration. As mysterious accidents begin to plague the young heir, Duncan the servant warns that Robert's Uncle Bruce, who has ruled the castle for twelve years, will stop at nothing to keep his power. When Robert ventures into the family tomb to pay respects to his father Andrew MacCloran, he discovers that some secrets run far deeper than mere ambition.

In 1920 London, wealthy curio collector Gregory Harborough is shaken to discover a portrait titled "Portrait of Death" in an antique shop—a painting that bears his own face, created by an obscure artist named Anton De Salvo. When Harborough tracks down De Salvo at his studio, the enigmatic painter reveals a disturbing knowledge of Harborough's past and makes a chilling accusation that forces a desperate confrontation. What unfolds is a tale of secrets, blackmail, and the inescapable weight of one's own destiny.

When Dr. Gladys Cross, a medical missionary in Tibet, saves an elderly holy man from a bandit chief's wrath, the grateful Rishi makes her an extraordinary promise: his eye and finger will protect her for life. Months later, as Dr. Cross leads a caravan through dangerous territory, a mysterious severed finger appears to warn her away from certain death—and it continues to do so, again and again, across continents and years. "The Finger of Fate" is a tale of mystical gratitude that defies easy explanation, presented as a true account in 1955.

Surgeon-Commander G. Murray Levick accompanied Captain Robert Scott on an Antarctic expedition when he and a companion became separated from the main party near Hell's Gate and stumbled upon a haunting discovery: thousands of mummified seal bodies scattered across the ice, with dying seals still crawling toward the same mysterious spot. What inexplicable force draws these creatures across hundreds of yards to this isolated graveyard has remained an unsolved enigma since Levick's 1910 sighting, baffling scientific explanation to this day.