Strange Suspense Stories #65

A stylishly dressed blonde finds herself drawn back to a familiar department store on Fifth Avenue, where she's mistaken for someone from Pennsylvania—but insists otherwise. When she boards an elevator meant for the top floor, the peculiar truth begins to surface: the mannequins around her aren't silent at all, and Mary has some serious explaining to do about her nearly year-long absence. This tale of forgotten identities and unexpected returns makes for a delightfully twisted take on what it means to belong.

A treasure hunter partners with Larry Morse and his sister Willa to dive for legendary pearls hidden in the treacherous waters of Australia's Great Barrier Reef—a hunt that turns far more complicated when they discover they're not the only ones after the fortune. As the three divers venture into the vivid underwater world, danger lurks both from the killer sharks that patrol these waters and from an unexpected guardian with his own stake in keeping the pearls rare.

Dr. Thaddeus Blinn guards a sprawling estate behind steel fences and evergreens, hiding creatures so bizarre that ordinary people couldn't witness them and remain sane—including Venusian visitors and their inadvertently released alien pests. When two astronauts orbiting Earth in 1962 are caught in a temporal anomaly and thrust a century into the future, they discover themselves displayed as primitive curiosities in a museum, prompting a desperate plan to recapture their ship and attempt the impossible journey home. In this time-bending tale, survival means reliving the same cosmic accident that stranded them in a world that has moved on without them.

A young boy accidentally left behind in a busy department store after closing discovers an unexpected adventure among the merchandise—until morning arrives and brings an entirely different kind of discovery. This 1963 drama captures the strange mix of wonder and anxiety in a child's solitary night, surrounded by all the toys and comforts he's never been allowed to enjoy, while his frantic parents search elsewhere. When the store reopens and the real world intrudes, the story takes a turn that reminds us how quickly a child's magical circumstances can unravel.