Shocking Mystery Cases #58

Sam and Vanny have planned a scare for their meek friend Alvin at the supposedly haunted Markley House—just a harmless prank, or so they think. But when Alvin responds to a desperate cry for help in the dead of night, he stumbles upon something that shatters his fragile nerves and triggers a terrifying transformation that turns the tables on his tormentors in ways neither of them could have imagined.

A red-bearded giant named Barbary Bill once terrorized San Francisco's waterfront with his ruthless scheme of shanghaiing unsuspecting men onto outbound ships—but his luck finally runs out when his victims turn the tables on him. Knocked unconscious and dragged aboard a Pacific-bound vessel, Bill awakens in the very same hold where he'd imprisoned countless others, forced to confront the consequences of his own twisted trade. It's a fitting reversal of fortune for a man whose crimes went unrecorded and unpunished—until karma caught up with him in the crowded belly of a ship.

Mathew Durkin, a Chicago trigger man with more mouth than nerve, scrambles to prove himself after a botched warehouse hijack leaves his crew dead and him cast out. Fleeing the Midwest with his new wife Irma, Durkin turns to armed robbery to rebuild his reputation—only to discover that a gun and smooth talk won't keep the law at bay forever. This hard-boiled crime tale follows a yellow-bellied hustler as his past catches up with him across state lines.