The Vault of Horror #5

In "Southern Hospitality!", a cunning man married into a wealthy Southern family only to find their fortune a lie. As he drains their estate, selling heirlooms to fuel his lavish lifestyle, the house begins to exact a terrible price—each betrayal marked by a sudden death. When Claudia hears a scream from the attic, she finds Abner dead, a sword through his chest, leaving her to wonder if the house itself has claimed its due.

In "The Jellyfish!", Charles Norton’s reckless decision to dilute insulin inserts to meet a massive order sets off a chain of tragic consequences, leaving his brother Howard imprisoned and vowing retribution. Years later, Howard’s return brings a chilling, unexpected form of justice that turns Charles’s own arrogance into his undoing.

In "Daddy Lost His Head!", a young girl named Kathy finds herself caught in a chilling web of suspicion and fear after her stepfather Martin grows increasingly hostile toward her. When a mysterious neighbor gives Kathy a strange man-shaped candy doll, her stepfather warns her it's cursed—until a horrifying accident leaves him with a missing hand, and the doll’s head seems to scream when she bites it.

"Reunion!" is a chilling tale of love and lingering regret, where a young woman’s promise to meet her lost lover by a lake every five years takes a horrifying turn. Years after she vowed to leave her aging husband for another man, Lillian returns to the lake only to be confronted by the decaying remains of the man she once loved. The story unfolds with quiet dread, blending romance and horror in a haunting exploration of time, loss, and the price of promises.

In "It Didn't Matter," a young assistant working for a reclusive scientist finds himself drawn to the man’s beautiful wife—though her affection seems as fleeting as the wealth she’s married for. When she devises a plan to kill her husband and frame the assistant, she intends to use his master’s matter-transporting machine to escape, counting on a clean alibi. But on the night of the murder, a thunderstorm disrupts the machine’s function, and her teleportation goes horribly wrong—leaving her altered in ways no one could have foreseen.

In 1839, a group of slave runners capture a group of Africans and set sail for America, their ship a floating cage of cruelty. When a coast guard vessel approaches, they cast their human cargo into the ocean, still chained, to hide their crimes—only to face a far more terrible fate when alien beings seize their ship and hurl them into the void, chained once more, as the cosmos itself enacts a grim justice.

In "The Enemies of the Colony," a group of colonists from the G.C.A. arrive on a distant world after years in transit, hoping to build a new life. They soon discover the planet is home to the enigmatic Mokos—creatures they themselves had bred—and the feared Hydro-Files, whose true nature proves far more complex than expected. As the newcomers confront what they thought they knew, their assumptions about the planet and its inhabitants begin to unravel.