Amazing Stories of Suspense #22

In "The Jack-in-the-Box," Carter scoffs at the local warnings to stay clear of the elephants' graveyard, dismissing the legend of the Elephant God as superstition. But when he ventures too close, the ground shakes and the sky darkens—revealing a towering, 300-foot-tall deity made of ancient bone and shadow, its presence both awe-inspiring and terrifying.

In "I Must Enter The Tomb of Tut-Am-Tut!", a determined scientist uses his time machine to journey to ancient Egypt, posing as a magician in a bid to uncover a legendary treasure. But when his machine is buried beneath the sands with the Pharaoh, he finds himself trapped in the past—far from the future he once knew.

In the eerie stillness of a forgotten wax museum, a fugitive seeks shelter—only to be unnerved by a voice that seems to come from nowhere. When a phonograph record begins playing on its own, the curator discovers the truth: no one but the silent statues could have turned it on.

In "His Name Was...Merlin!", a struggling stage magician who's never quite made it takes on the legendary name of Merlin in hopes of fame. When the spirit of the real Merlin appears as a ragged wanderer offering secret tricks, the young man eagerly learns the final illusion—complete disappearance—only to cheat the spirit out of his payment. As the theater empties and the magician vanishes mid-performance, the last to leave wonders if he’s truly gone, or if the price of magic was far greater than he ever imagined.

In "Behold--the Monster!", a frustrated publicity agent scrambles to manage the fallout from a massive paper mache monster built to hype a new film—only to find his efforts misunderstood when the public grows uneasy. Unbeknownst to him, the creature’s image is picked up by an alien fleet approaching Earth, causing their commander to recoil in panic and order a full retreat, mistaking it for a sign of Earth’s terrifying might.

In "Kraggoom! The Creature Who Caught an Astronaut!", a gaseous alien criminal named Kraggoom plots to seize control of Earth by possessing the first human astronaut. But when the chosen astronaut—revealed to be a fraud who cheated his way into the mission—succumbs to the pressures of space and loses his memory, Kraggoom finds himself trapped in a mind as unstable as the orbiting ship itself.

In "The Toy Soldiers," a young boy’s fascination with his Civil War toy soldiers takes a strange turn when he adds a new figure to his prisoner of war stockade. That night, he and his father are suddenly attacked by a mysterious invader from beyond our dimension—only to wake the next morning with no memory of the event, dismissing it as a shared dream. But when the boy checks his model stockade the next day, he finds the invader trapped inside, guarded by the very toy soldier he placed there.

In "I Found the Impossible World!", a scientist’s time machine appears to malfunction, aging him ten years in an instant—only to reveal he’s actually journeyed to a dazzling, impossible future. There, he discovers a world beyond comprehension, its secrets guarded by forces that erased his memory to prevent him from disrupting their fragile peace.

In "The Search for Pan!", a man arrives in a quiet village chasing rumors of the mythical Pan, hoping to profit from the legend. Though the villagers insist Pan is real, their evasiveness only fuels his frustration—until a threatening encounter with a bartender leads him to a grove under the full moon. There, he meets Pan, an experience so unsettling he flees the town without a second glance. The bartender, it turns out, has cloven hooves.

In "Secret of the Statues!", a skeptical art critic visits a reclusive sculptor, only to be stunned when one of the man’s statues speaks—calling him a fool before collapsing. The critic’s shock gives way to horror as he realizes the so-called sculptures are something far more alien than he imagined. When the statues vanish, leaving only the critic trembling in the cold, it becomes clear that Earth has been infiltrated by beings who’ve taken human form with terrifying precision.

In "The Hands of Time!", a desperate fugitive steals a mysterious clock that rewinds time, granting him a second chance at youth and a new life. With the power to undo his mistakes, he sets out to commit the perfect crime—escaping his past by erasing it entirely. But when the clock fails, the past catches up in ways he never expected.

In "The Secret of the Universe!", a daring astronaut volunteers for a mission aboard a rocket capable of faster-than-light travel, aiming to reach the edge of the visible universe. As the craft pushes beyond known limits, the pilot begins to de-age, his body regressing to infancy—miraculously curing his terminal illness in the process.