Strange Suspense Stories #55

A scientist journeys into remote African territory seeking a mysterious growth-promoting root, but his experimental serum transforms him into something far darker than he imagined in "The Night Is Dark." When his old friend Colin ventures into the dangerous Kavubu country to find him, he discovers a horrifying truth about what Jan has become—and what must be done to stop the monster he's created.

In the year 2290, a man named Carr Mentor is exiled to a barren planet as punishment for speaking against injustice—a sentence that means absolute solitary confinement, with rescue possible only three times in a human lifetime. When a ship returns eight years later with news that his sentence has been commuted and he's free to return to Earth, Carr faces an impossible choice that forces him to decide what freedom truly means to him.

In 1280, the Duke of Charleux rules from an impregnable castle, imposing cruel taxes and crushing the peasantry beneath his iron fist—until the ingenious Count of Allons devises an audacious plan to breach the fortress. Drawing inspiration from the flight of birds, the Count constructs the first parachutes and catapults soldiers into the sky, launching them over the castle walls in an assault no medieval defender could have anticipated. Panic and surrender follow as the "Flying Knights" rain down from above, proving that even the mightiest stronghold can fall to invention and daring.

Young archaeologist Stuart Baintree races to the Andes after receiving a cryptic final letter from his uncle—a fellow scientist who claimed to have found the legendary Star of Venus deep within a mountain cave. What Baintree discovers beneath the highest peak is far stranger than a mere artifact: an underground realm where an Inca priestess guards an impossible treasure, and an ancient winged creature stands ready to destroy anyone who dares trespass. In this 1961 tale from Strange Suspense Stories, Baintree must navigate molten heat, ancient traps, and a guardian born of myth itself to uncover the truth about his uncle's fate.