EC Classics #5

In a chilling twist of cosmic justice, a pair of enforcers deliver a notorious prisoner to a remote world—Earth—where the condemned are exiled for a genetic predisposition to evil. The story unfolds with eerie precision, probing the dark idea that malevolence is inherited, and raises unsettling questions about punishment, fate, and the nature of evil itself.

In "Mad Journey!", a scientist named Rodney Simon, driven by ambition and a breakthrough in rocket fuel, launches a mission to Venus—though his crew believes the destination is the Moon. After a crash landing, he’s captured by Venusians who see him as a madman, not a visitor from Earth, and imprisoned in a mental asylum where his sanity is the real question.

In "He Who Waits!", a man named Percy receives a peculiar gift: a plant that yields a tiny, eight-inch-tall girl. Drawn to her, he takes a secret solution to shrink himself, hoping to share her world. When she passes away, he buries her beneath the soil, only to discover a new plant growing from her grave—hinting that she was never human, but a being of the earth itself. Now, Percy waits, knowing another girl will soon emerge from the bloom.

In "Ahead of the Game!", a series of baffling beheadings stumps the police, with no clear link between the victims—until a detective uncovers a chilling pattern tied to a brilliant but unhinged professor. When the trail leads to a man who claims his mechanical brain can predict the future, the line between genius and madness begins to blur, and the detective finds himself on the wrong side of a deadly calculation.

In "Revulsion!", a weary captain grumbles about his roach-infested spaceship, recalling a past dinner where a bug slipped into his salad. When the ship crashes on a strange alien world, the crew discovers the planet teems with giant, clothed insects—only to be captured and prepared as a meal for their king. The horror dawns when the king himself recoils in disgust upon discovering the true nature of his "salad."

In "By George!", two archaeologists unearth a mysterious, block-like artifact covered in ancient inscriptions—only to discover it’s the diary of a young alien boy from a distant world. The boy, a reptilian giant who fled his planet and crash-landed on Earth centuries ago, recounts his terrifying journey through medieval times, where he was hunted by a knight whose legend would become the tale of Saint George and the Dragon.

In the stark silence of a lifeless planetoid, a stranded man’s world shifts when a beautiful woman appears—only to vanish like a mirage. One after another, visions of women he knows flicker into existence, each more real than the last, until the face of his wife emerges from the dust. Is this salvation, madness, or something far stranger? "What He Saw!" unfolds in haunting stillness, where every glance holds a question and every presence feels like a lie.

In "There Will Come Soft Rains...", a lone house carries on its daily routines—cooking meals, reciting poetry, cleaning itself—long after its human inhabitants have been erased by a nuclear blast. The quiet, relentless automation of its systems contrasts with the haunting silence of a world abandoned, where the machines keep time for ghosts.