Cover dated August/September 1952
Cover by Johnny Craig
"Two of a Kind!" - Art by Johnny Craig/Story by Johnny Craig
"Graft in Concrete!" - Art by Jack Davis/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Half-Way Horrible!" - Art by Sid Check/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Hook, Line and Stinker!" - Art by Graham Ingels/Story by Al Feldstein & Bill Gaines
"Two of a Kind!" - A well known stage actress named Willow will only work at night and any attempts to take a photograph of her ends in failure. Willow starts going out with her latest costar, Brad Phillips and they plan to go on a weekend trip to a ski lodge together. Each holds a secret from another; Willow is a vampire and Brad is a ghoul. They plan to make the other their victim during the trip, but realize that they've fallen in love with each other and can't do it. The two are trapped in a cabin due to the severe snowstorm for several days. Rather than attack each other, Willow drinks her own blood and Brad eats his own flesh until the cabin collapses, killing them. A rare example of a romance horror story featuring different types of horror monsters falling in love. Another horror romance story, this time featuring a vampire and werewolf instead of vampire and ghoul appeared in "A Little Stranger" from The Haunt of Fear #14.
"Graft in Concrete!" - Four crooked politicians including the mayor and three members of the town council conspire to build a new road through the property of and using the construction company of one of the council members. Each of the council members appear to have information on at least one of the others, resulting in a lot of blackmail and kickbacks. One of the council members forces the others to run the new road through the cemetary that he owns. Rather than move the bodies, he simply has the headstones moved to save money. The four of them drive on the road the night before it is to be opened by the public, but numerous corpses burst out of the road and come after them, causing their car to crash. The next morning the construction company has a steamroller go over the road to fix it, but ends up crushing all four of them. The ending of this story is a bit questionnable as you wonder how in the world the steamroller driver completely missed the fact that it was running over the four politicians. A painted version of the cover of this issue, which was about this story, was later used as the cover for the Fred von Bernewitz's EC book "Tales of Terror!"
"Halfway Horrible" - A man calls for an undertaker to come to his apartment, where he keeps himself enshrouded in darkness. The mysterious man tells the undertaker his story. The man had a split personality which would do worse and worse things, starting with simply going out and partying, but escalating to criminal activities. When the man murders his psychiatrist while in his other personality, he flees the country to Haiti. There he finds a voodoo priest who he convinces to destroy the bad side of his personality. The priest does this, but it results in half of his body rotting away, which is why he called for the undertaker. Sid Check did 4 stories for EC around this time. He featured a Wally Wood/Joe Orlando-type style. He was an okay artist at EC and did some good stories, including this one, but didn't last that long. This story was later adapted as an episode of Tales from the Crypt.
"Hook, Line and Stinker!" - A woman named Bernice has been going out with a man named Stanley for 15 years but he always hesitates to ask her to marry him no matter how much she begs. Lately Stanley has grown to love fishing, bringing home a mounted fish after every weekend. One weekend Bernice goes for a walk and finds Stanley in a field with another woman, revealing that he made everything up about the fishing trips. The next week he returns with another mounted fish, and Bernice attacks him with a knife, mounting his body up on the wall. The issue wraps up with its weakest story, but overall this is still a fairly strong issue across the board.
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