Tales from the Crypt #3

Locked in the closet by his cruel step-father, Artie Bricker finds an unlikely ally in Hozier, a sinister presence who claims to know how to teach Samuel Bricker a lesson—though the boy isn’t sure he wants to go that far. As the tension mounts in the confined space, Hozier’s dark suggestions grow more tempting, and Artie must decide how far justice should go.

In "A Rottin' Trick!" from Tales from the Crypt #3 (1979), the Vault-Keeper spins a tale of guilt and twisted fate: a man who discards a young woman, only to find himself at the mercy of a boat pilot with a painful past—one who leads him to an island where the forgotten are left to rot.

In "Board to Death!", the Crypt-Keeper spins a chilling tale of terror and psychological unraveling, where a woman’s lifelong fear of confined spaces is weaponized by her husband’s cruel games. When his threats finally turn to violence, she’s airlifted to safety in a pine box—only to confront a darkness far deeper than any tomb.

In "A Sucker for a Spider!", a greedy banker with a secret fondness for spiders finds himself in a deadly game of blackmail and survival. When his chief teller threatens to expose his embezzlement, the banker tries to eliminate the threat—only to find himself trapped in a web of his own making. The Old Witch hosts this chilling tale of greed, paranoia, and the deadly consequences of underestimating nature’s quiet predators.

In "Gas-tly Prospects!", a desperate California gold miner meets his end at the hands of a rival claim jumper, only to find himself trapped in a haunting afterlife where death doesn’t mean peace. As the killer tries to bury him, the dead man’s presence becomes an inescapable torment—each failed attempt a step closer to his own reckoning. The Crypt-Keeper, ever the grim guide, sets the scene with a tale where the grave isn’t the end, but the beginning of a far darker reckoning.

In "Auntie, It's Coal Inside!", young Toby is haunted by a voice in his head that drives him to mischief—until a desperate cry from the coal chute claims to be his aunt, trapped beneath a mountain of coal. But when the voice sounds eerily like his mother, Toby hesitates, leaving the chilling truth buried beneath the weight of his disbelief.

In "Survival... or Death!" from Tales from the Crypt #3 (1979), boredom aboard the Port-au-Prince turns deadly when crewmen Gregory Macy and Charles Warner devise a cruel game using rats, betting on which will survive a brutal fight for a floating platform. When the ship sinks, the captain, Heston, and the others face a grim truth: in the chaos of survival, humans are no better than the creatures they once mocked.

In the isolated Glades, a grieving father retreats into solitude after his wife’s death in childbirth, raising their deformed son in secret. When a series of brutal killings shakes the town, Sheriff Black and Deputy Clem investigate, leading them to the man’s remote cabin—where the truth about his son’s monstrous nature begins to unravel.

In "Kamen's Kalamity!", Jack Kamen grapples with the pressure of crafting truly chilling horror art for the anthology, spurred on by the blunt critiques of Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein. Pushed to match the darker visions of colleagues like Jack Davis, Graham Ingels, and Johnny Craig—each depicted in their own macabre fantasies—Kamen retreats into a fevered dream where he envisions himself transformed under the full moon, returning home with a sinister intent to his wife and two young children. The moment his wife shrieks at the sight of a mouse, the dream dissolves, leaving him shaken and questioning where imagination ends and reality begins.

In a wartime town where rationing rules the table, a butcher known for his sharp knife and sharper conscience begins cutting corners—selling cash-only steaks to the rich while passing off horsemeat, then stale, then tainted meat to the rest. When his young son dies after eating the tainted meat, his wife, Sarah Gristle, takes a different kind of cut—her husband, Zack Gristle, becomes the ultimate display piece in his own shop, preserved in the glass case where he once sold his lies.

In "Roped In!", three construction company co-owners—Donald Morgan, Ellis, and Buckley—find themselves trapped in a terrifying web after a desperate flight through a mountain pass goes horribly wrong. With the dawn revealing their plane ensnared in a vast, unnatural web, they face a nightmare far worse than the consequences of their past crime. The Vault-Keeper warns: some debts are paid in ways no one sees coming.

In "Cutting Cards!", two bitter gamblers, Gus Forney and Lou Crebis, settle their feud with a game of chop poker—where stakes are limbs, not clothes, and a meat cleaver is the only dealer. With their personal doctors on hand to tend to the wounds, the duel spirals into a gruesome standoff neither can walk away from.

In "Squash...Anyone?", the Old Witch sets the stage for a chilling tale of betrayal and retribution in a traveling circus. When a jealous elephant trainer orchestrates his wife’s death to marry his lover, the pair’s dark secret comes back to haunt them—years later, the murdered woman and the slain elephant rise from the grave, seeking justice in a performance that’s anything but routine.

In "This Trick'll Kill You!", a traveling magician and his wife encounter a mysterious girl in India whose enchanted rope defies gravity when played with a pipe. Drawn to the supernatural trick, they scheme to steal it—only to find the rope claims its own price. The Vault-Keeper warns: some secrets are best left unplayed.

In this chilling tale from Tales from the Crypt #3, the Crypt-Keeper spins a grim fable of loss and deception, where a grieving prince confronts a chilling truth at his nanny’s funeral. When the boy catches her moving beneath the shroud, he’s told she’s merely in a cataleptic sleep—yet his thoughts turn not to sorrow, but to the pleasures he’ll miss now that the ceremony is canceled.

In "Oil's Well That Ends Well!", a pair of con artists scheme their way into a small town by selling fake oil rights, only for one to fake his death and bury the stolen money—unaware that the cemetery’s soil is secretly rich with oil. When his partner digs up the grave to retrieve the cash, a single dropped cigarette ignites the trapped oil, turning a desperate cover-up into a fiery disaster. The Vault-Keeper reminds us that even the best-laid plans can go up in smoke.

In this chilling tale from Tales from the Crypt #3, the Crypt-Keeper spins a grim fable of tyranny and retribution, where King Moneymad’s endless greed leads to a grotesque tax on the very fingers of his subjects—until the peasants rise in bloody revolt. A dark, twisted fairy tale of excess and consequence, it’s a story that lingers long after the final page.