This Magazine Is Haunted #19

Sam and Stella Norton's loveless marriage crumbles when Stella falls for Tom Blatt and begs him to murder her disfigured husband—but when violence erupts that fateful night, spectral forces intervene in ways the living never anticipated. As a young doctor fights to save the wounded, he discovers that some debts can only be collected by those beyond the grave.

When Luke Yancy guns down the ruthless landlord Mr. Kreeg to settle his family's crushing debt, he thinks he's solved their problems—but disposing of the body in a macabre way sets off a chain of supernatural revenge that the Yancys never saw coming. This 1954 tale of rural desperation and dark justice shows that some debts can't be paid without a price far steeper than money.

A gallery owner's plans for a lucrative exhibition collide with the uncanny when a mysterious painting arrives signed by an artist dead for two years. When John Hades unwraps the disturbing work and encounters its creator—very much present—he finds himself caught in a confrontation that reaches far beyond the canvas. What binds these figures to the painting, and what other voices lurk within the gallery walls, will test the limits of his greed and reason.

Al Duquette was a brash slum kid who nearly drowned at the beach—but it was his habit of cutting corners and cheating that truly sealed his fate. After a deadly encounter with card players who didn't take kindly to his tricks, Al finds himself in the afterlife playing one last, desperate game of poker, unaware that the stakes are far higher than he imagines. When the truth about his assignment is revealed, Al discovers that his doom has been tailored perfectly to his greatest fear.

In "The Coffin Maker!", beautiful Carlotta Frawley marries wealthy undertaker Hiram Frawley, drawn by his fortune—until she uncovers the chilling truth: Hiram made a deal with the devil himself. As the weight of his dark bargain begins to twist their marriage, Carlotta finds herself trapped in a web of secrets that could cost her everything.

A fisherman named Buento sees chance for easy profit when a ship approaches the rocky coast of Palos on a stormy night—he removes the guiding light so the vessel will wreck, planning to plunder its cargo. The ship crashes and Buento begins to loot the wreckage, but the dying captain curses him to wander without rest until he atones for his murderous deed, and for over three hundred years the ghost of Buento is said to haunt the port.