Welcome to Room 1313. The summer is fast approaching and a nice holiday is just what you need after a year without travel. You should book a lovely room in a far away place and just get out there. Only there is a problem…how do you get out of Room 1313!
Here are thirteen lucky reservations from the Golden to Bronze Age you might not want to keep. Maybe try an AirBnB or something…
Golden Age
“The Affair of Room 1313” Adventures Into the Unknown #4 (April-May 1949) was written by an unknown author. John Abbott is an insurance salesman sent as a joke to a company that was out of business for decades. Only he does find the room and makes the sale. The evil Mr. Gregory chases him from the office. When the man returns to the building a second time, it means death! The elevator operator, the people at the office all died twenty-five years ago in an elevator accident.
“The Haunted Room” Marvel Tales #93 (August 1949) was written by an unknown author. American writer, Norman Raine, is staying in a haunted room at an inn in Hungary. The innkeeper finds him dead the next morning and reads his account over the phone to the police. The last page reveals who killed him (Lovecraft style!) At the window he saw two werewolves try to get it, one female, the other male. He didn’t let either in. In the morning he let’s in the innkeeper’s wife, Sonya!
“The Last Man” This Magazine Is Haunted #5 (June 1952) written by Earl Hamner Jr., yes, the same guy who gave us The Waltons. He also wrote a great episode for The Twilight Zone. If I didn’t know better I would say this comic was inspired by Robert E. Howard’s “Pigeons From Hell” (made into an episode of Thriller). Carnies refuse to pay the high price at the local hotel and decide to stay in a haunted house. They meet an old man on the road who warms them off. The men go anyway and Eddie is murdered in the night by someone with a hammer. Slowly each man is killed even after they leave the house. The last man discovers who the killer is… the old man from the road, a ghost. Gives new meaning to that old song; “If I had a hammer…”
“Corpse Convention” Adventures Into Darkness #6 (October 1952) was written by an unknown author. Sam and Grace Allison arrive in New York City for their honeymoon. At the Marta Hotel, everyone looks ghoulish and can’t wait for something to that night. The couple take the only room left, on the thirteenth floor. Their bell-hop jumps out the window but doesn’t die. Grace faints. Sam goes looking for help but finds the fiends have put a spell on his wife. Only the Bible can save them. Getting away, they see they have lost a day from their memory. The owners of the failing hotel killed themselves in a suicide club.
“Horror Comes to Room 1313” Voodoo #11 (September 1953) is a much reprinted story whose author is not known. Three different people stay in Room 1313 and jump to their deaths. Detective-Sargent Starnes is a plucky Irishman who will figure out what is going on. He, too, stays in the room. A weird monster appears and he throws himself out the window. The cops below catch him in a blanket. Starnes isn’t believed but the hotel tells burns while the monster laughs.
“The Forgotten Room” Nightmare #12 (April 1954) was written by an unknown author. Al and Emma Peale rent an old brownstone for a coffee shop. An old woman tells them something terrible happened in the place. That night they witness a man and woman fighting, with the man being shot by the woman. When they try to report it to a cop, the body has disappeared. Al goes to the landlord and hears what happened back in 1900. Al and the landlord investigate and make a weird discovery…. the old woman and the people she poisoned long ago.
Silver Age
“A Room For the Night” The World Around Us #24 (August 1960) was written by an unknown author. A couple is out on a dark night, looking for accommodations. (Maybe their names are Brad and Janet?) An old lady allows them to stay in her home. They leave an envelope with some money as thanks. Later they hear that the house they stayed in burned down years ago. When they return they find a ruin and their money still sitting there…
“I Dared to Enter the Haunted Room” Tales to Astonish #17 (March 1961) was written by Stan Lee and Larry Lieber. An insane scientist creates a bomb to blow up the world. He hides it in a room that is supposedly haunted. Leaving the room, nobody can see him. The room has made him into a ghost. He disappears and his bomb never goes off.
“Room 13” Ghost Stories # 17 (March 1967) Derik and Alice Brant stay in an old inn in the English countryside. Insisting on taking the last room, Room 13, they experience floating objects then a parade of ghostly figures. The door can’t be opened. They are locked in, becoming inhabitants of the ghost realm. The innkeeper thinks they have left early.
Bronze Age
“The House of Mystery’s Room 13” Super DC Giant #S-20 (October-November 1970). The revived The House of Mystery called their intro page “Room 13” so when they did a 68 page “Giant” issue they had to have a short tale for the frame story. And, of course, it had to feature those annoying cover kids. The author is not credited.
Marshal, Lisa and Leroy find a weird contraption in an alley. It has two miniature people inside it. When they press a flashing button, Cain is zapped and transported into the device…queue the first story please…at the end of the comic, Cain is returned to the normal world where he chases the boys into a room. Room 13, where nothing bad will happen, as he explains to Lisa, until Friday the 13th.
“Secret of the Haunted Room” Creepy #38 (March 1971) written by Bill Warren. Artist Ernie Colon combined the cover and photographs into the comic. Sandy Cohen, good-for-nothing nephew and gambler, inherits a mansion in Gardinder, Oregon. There is one condition in the will: he must move in immediately and live there for the rest of his life. Exploring the house, he meets Miss Twirgas, a ghost from 1910. She was murdered by her fiance, Stephen…or was she? She is vampire and Sandy meets the same fate as Stephen.
“The Disappearing Room” Haunted #8 (October 1972) was written by Joe Gill. According to a strange letter, lovely American girl, Lucinda Wyden, inherits Wyden Hall in England. She meets Clifford Wyden, another heir and guy who likes to dress like Shakespeare. Other family members show up and explain the probate. If Lucinda or Clifford was to give up their claim, then the house would not go to Horace and his wife. Talk of a secret room leads to a grisly discovery. The body of the third Earl of Wyden, the ghost who wrote Lucinda’s letter. Horace reveals he is actually hundreds of years old. He killed the original Earl. The skeleton claims him and his wife. Lucinda and Clifford are free to find a way to inherit…perhaps marriage?
“Room For One More” Haunted #16 (June 1974) was written by Joe Gill. Jonathan Muggs gets a job as night watchman at the cemetery so he can grave-rob the richest family in town, the Lamberts. When old man Lambert tells Johnny he will be buried with a fortune in gold, the thief enters the tomb. A ghost appears and traps him inside. The solid gold coffin is little comfort to a man who will starve to death.
Some Other Rooms For Let…
The idea of a room with an unlucky number is a chestnut of the Horror writing trade dating back to Pliny the Elder. Some classic versions include “The Tapestried Chamber” by Sir Walter Scott (1828), “The Furnished Room” by O. Henry (1904), and “Number 13” by M. R. James (1904). The Eagles’ “Hotel California” gave us a Rock’Roll version of the idea. More recently Stephen King wrote “1408” (Blood and Smoke, 1999) that was made into a film in 2007. King referred to it as his version of “Ghostly Room at the Inn”.
Some of these comics are available at DCM.
