Lonely

The Lonely is a creepy horror comic about a man who is murdered at sea and a rotting corpse that keeps coming back. The story is narrated by the dead man. It appeared in Black Cat Mystery #48 (Feb 1954).

It was late afternoon and there was a storm on the horizon. Johnny and I were out fishing in my boat. The waves began to pitch and swell.

I didn’t know it then, but Johnny was planning to murder me. When I was least suspecting it, he crept up behind me and shoved me overboard.

After a while, I stopped struggling and just sank beneath the waves. A peaceful feeling came over me as the water filled my lungs and I just drifted along with the tide.

The storm blew in and as it got worse, the boat was in danger of sinking. Johnny was forced to abandon it. Putting on a life-jacket, he dived into the water.

He swam for his life and eventually, he made it to a tiny island. By that time, he was exhausted and he collapsed on the sand. He lay there sleeping, listening to the sound of the waves beating against the shore. Johnny had no idea that the waves had washed me up onto the beach as well.

When he woke up and saw me sitting there next to him, he got quite a shock. My skin was a dull green color and the fish had eaten my eyes. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

For a while he just stared at me. The sight made him sick and he threw up on the sand. Then, he grabbed me under the arms and dragged me out into the water. He mustn’t have been thinking clearly, because the tide just carried me in again.

He kept dragging me out further and further, but the waves kept carrying me back in. Finally, he gave up and just sat there on the beach, staring at me. He was too tired to do anything else.

Suddenly, he scrambled to his feet and started digging in the sand. The sand was soft and it didn’t take him long to dig a big hole. He grabbed me by the feet and dragged me over to it.

After he buried me, Johnny breathed a sigh of relief, but every few minutes, he would sneak a glance at my makeshift grave.

The trouble was, he couldn’t relax. Not while I was there. It was driving him crazy.

Eventually, he couldn’t take it anymore, so he clawed at the sand and dug me up. It was hot and I smelled worse than ever. Flies were buzzing around me. He found an old rope half-buried in the sand and he tied it around me.

Then, he tied the other end to a large rock and tossed it out to sea. He tossed me in after it and the rock kept me weighted down. Johnny sat down on the beach with a big smile on his face.

Days passed and I slowly decomposed. Johnny was starving and dehydrated. He had no food to eat and no fresh water to drink. He couldn’t even catch any fish because I was scaring them away.

He kept looking out to sea, waiting and waiting to be rescued, but no ships passed by. As he waited, he began muttering to himself. It seemed like help was never going to come and Johnny was slowly losing his mind.

One day, he suddenly jumped up and started running into the water. The rope had snapped and I was drifting out to sea. Johnny grabbed me and dragged me back to shore. Then, he sat down beside me and began talking excitedly. I guess he got lonely.