Vault of Evil #12

In "Locked In!", a woman driven by decades of obsession finally tracks down her husband, only to find herself trapped in a decaying hovel—just like the hermits she once questioned in her relentless search. The spirits of the past close in, turning her revenge into a prison of her own making.

In "Close Shave!" from Vault of Evil #12, a man’s routine morning ritual spirals into something far more sinister when his wife’s insistence on a perfectly smooth shave drives him to extremes. Each attempt to kiss her before work ends with another trip back to the bathroom, the tension mounting with every pass of the blade. The story’s quiet dread builds as the line between devotion and obsession blurs, leaving one to wonder just how far the price of perfection can go.

In "The Hangman's Noose," a desperate rope seller, haunted by his own deceit, strikes his partner with a crowbar and panics when he thinks he’s dead. Desperate to cover his tracks, he ties a noose from his shoddy rope and stages the scene to look like a suicide—only to find that the dead man’s eyes remain open, watching.

In "Only One to a Customer," a greedy pitchman’s exploitation of tiny alien visitors backfires when they take him to their home world—where he becomes the oddity they’ve been selling all along. The story plays with scale and irony, turning a con man’s greed into a surreal, unsettling reversal of fortune.