Adventures into the Unknown #13 (1950)

In a remote Louisiana bayou town shrouded in legend, Dr. Howard Thornton and his companion Sylvia arrive to investigate a mysterious illness plaguing the isolated village of Charville. As they uncover eerie silence among the villagers and a strange, ancient doctor who claims to have lived for over a century, unsettling whispers of green bats and a century-old curse begin to surface. With the night deepening and shadows moving in the swamp, the truth behind Charville’s suffering starts to reveal itself — but not before a terrifying encounter in Sylvia’s room leaves them both questioning what’s real and what’s not.

In the shadow of a looming global conflict, private detective Larry Garner is drawn into a bizarre investigation after being hired by a secret organization convinced that alien forces are manipulating Earth’s leaders into provoking a self-destructive war. As he infiltrates a radical speech by the fanatical Hamilton Browne, Larry discovers that the man’s followers—including his own fiancée—are being manipulated by shape-shifting Martians, the Zils, who disguise themselves as humans to further their hidden agenda. With time running out and the truth unfolding in terrifying form, Larry and Rita must find a way to expose the invaders before they complete their plan.

In the spring of 1950, a census taker ventures deep into the Cypress Swamp toward a nameless cluster of houses known only as Black Knoll, drawn by a duty to count every soul—even those the town supervisor insists don’t exist. As night falls and the swamp closes in, he finds shelter in a crumbling house where the residents speak in hushed, rhythmic tones, offering him a room with unsettling finality. The air thickens with dread as the name "Black Knoll" echoes through the dark, and the silence itself begins to whisper.

In a quiet moment of childhood wonder, two young twins, Bobby and Billy, recite Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” with an eerie precision that unsettles their father, a physicist haunted by a past radiation accident. When the boys vanish into a mirror, their father and his old friend Marty follow, stepping into a surreal world straight from Carroll’s poem—where creatures like the "slithy toves" and "frumious bandersnatch" move through a landscape of dream logic and danger. As the two men race through this strange realm, they realize the poem wasn’t just nonsense—it was a map, and the boys may be the only ones who truly understand it.

Tom Powers reunites with his old friend George Church, who returns from South America a broken man, haunted by the transformation of his wife Mary after a mysterious illness and an experimental drug meant to save her. As George confesses the terrifying truth—his wife’s body healed, but her mind and soul were lost—Tom is drawn into a nightmare of guilt, fear, and the chilling consequences of playing God with life and death.