Uncanny Tales #20
In "Somewhere Lurks a Thing!", a scholar haunted by dreams of the French Revolution’s guillotine finds himself caught between past and present when a rival attempts to steal his research. With only a mysterious talisman to shield him, he confronts a nightmare that blurs the line between memory and madness. Art by John Tartaglione, with a chilling cover by Robert Q. Sale, this 1954 tale delivers a creeping sense of dread in a story where the past isn’t just remembered—it’s alive.
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A scholar has a recurring dream of the executions which occurred during the French Revolution. He stops the guillotine by flashing a talisman at the executioner. When an acquaintance wants to take credit for the man's research he tries to accelerate the man's mental breakdown by substituting his talisman for a fake. The next time the scholar wakes from his dream he tells his daughter that the executioner just laughed at him when he flashed the talisman and went on with the executions. Outside his bedroom, the severed head of the schemer lies next to its body.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).