Strange Suspense Stories #57

Two astronauts on what they believe is the first crewed moon flight discover evidence that someone reached the lunar surface a decade earlier—and the name on the debris, Lance Tate, triggers a troubling memory. Through his recovered diary, they uncover a bitter rivalry spanning decades: two men driven by childhood hatred, family tragedy, and an obsession with power that propelled them both to build industrial empires in secret, each determined to outdo the other. Now their competition has reached for the stars, and the astronauts must piece together what really happened to these two competitors on the moon.

When a labor shortage forces the Consolidated Mine at Three Crossings to hire anyone willing to work, Bill Thompson accepts—but only on one condition: his inseparable companion, a dog named Randy, must come down into the shaft with him. When disaster strikes in 1873 and over eighty miners become trapped underground, it falls to the loyal dog to lead the way to an unexpected rescue. A tale of partnership and instinct tested against impossible odds in the depths of the earth.

Veteran space explorer Nikolai Karsikov lands on the Moon with a sinister mission: to destroy an American base—accompanied by trained dogs bred to survive in airless conditions. When he discovers the base abandoned and begins to feel the creeping isolation of the lunar surface, Karsikov realizes his animal companions have vanished, and what emerges from the radiation-soaked terrain is far more than he bargained for.

A fraudulent fortune-teller named Kandor suddenly gains the ability to see genuine visions of the future, predicting terrible fates for those who consult him—but a ruthless industrialist named Cyrus Agnew has his own sinister plans for the mystic's newfound powers. As Kandor's predictions begin to come horrifyingly true, he discovers the terrible secret behind his gift, and the real cost of being used as a tool for someone else's revenge.