Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds #33

A census taker arrives in the town of Paulston to conduct his count, but finds the streets strangely empty—people vanish before he can reach them, his car disappears, and when he finally escapes and seeks help, no one outside town has ever heard of Paulston. As Henry L. Tolliver struggles to convince authorities of what he's witnessed, the truth behind the mysterious town remains far stranger than anyone is willing to admit. This 1962 suspense tale will keep you guessing about what really exists in the space between the maps.

Humberto Logan, a wealthy entrepreneur, discovers an uncharted Caribbean island and is approached by a mysterious being who offers it to him on one peculiar condition: he must develop it as a paradise for exactly 2,000 wealthy residents—no more, no less. As Logan builds Eden Isle into a luxurious haven and the chosen elite arrive to claim their new home, he begins to uncover the terrifying truth about the island's true owners and their hidden agenda. When the volcano that dominates the landscape suddenly erupts, Logan realizes he's been manipulated into something far more sinister than a real estate venture.

Jonathan Jones obsesses over his radical theory that parallel Earths exist across different time phases, and constructs a machine at the National Labs to prove it. When he activates the device to glimpse Earth's future, his colleague Lucia urges him to stop—and what he witnesses transforms him, aging him visibly and shaking him to his core. Confronted with visions of profound suffering, Jones makes a startling discovery about what he's actually seen, leaving him forever changed about his quest to know what lies ahead.

Gregory seemed like an awkward misfit aboard Explorer VII, forever clumsy and out of step with the crew—until a head injury during launch somehow shifts something fundamental inside him. As the ship sets course for the Purple Galaxy, Gregory's newfound clarity transforms him into the expedition's sharpest navigator, and Fanchia begins to suspect he's far stranger than she ever imagined. When Explorer VII reaches an alien world, Gregory's true nature finally becomes impossible to hide.

A self-exiled prospector named Buxton accidentally wanders into a nuclear test site at the exact moment of detonation in "Fission-Ized," and the blast transforms him in ways the scientists never anticipated. Now invisible to the world and accompanied only by his burro, Za Za, Buxton discovers his newfound state offers unexpected opportunities—and temptations—when he returns to the desert town that once mocked him. What will he do with the power to move unseen through a world that wronged him?