Scream! #12, 9 June 1984

• The Dracula File (artist Eric Bradbury, writer Ken Noble)
• The Nightcomers (artist John Richardson, writer Tom Tully)
• The Thirteenth Floor (artist José Ortiz, writer Ian Holland)
• Tales from the Grave: The Escape – first episode (artist Jim Watson, writer S. Goodall)
• A Ghastly Tale – The Final Cut!
• Library of Death: Terror of the Tomb (artist José Casanovas, writer Simon Furman)
• Fiends and Neighbours – cartoon (artist Graham Allen)
• Monster (artist Jesus Redondo, writer Rick Clark)

More attempts at Ghastly’s face, and another clue is dropped. The fourth entry is the one that is paying more attention to the clues already dropped, but Ghastly makes no acknowledgment of it. Nobody is in the London Dungeon this week.

Here we have another wrap-around cover, this time of this week’s Library of Death story. The story is rendered by the ever-popular José Casanovas. Well, we don’t often see Casanovas drawing ancient Egypt and walking mummies, so here is the story for Casanovas fans.

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Dracula is using some surprising tactics in his quest for blood tonight: first he turns bus driver (now where did he get his HT licence?) and later he lies in wait in a post box. But he’s also rumbled that vampire hunter Stakis survived his trap, and it’s rousing memories of another vampire hunter. Woo…has our Dracula actually been traumatised by his experiences with Van Helsing?

The Nightcomers make their way into Raven’s Meet and discover the first evidence of why it is so horribly haunted. Someone was clearly messing around with the supernatural and unleashed forces they couldn’t control, and it could only have been that Simon Cutler. Beforehand, they found a very unhappy woman haunting the well, and think she might be the key to the mystery. But now there is a more pressing problem they haven’t seen yet – a bony hand reaching for Rick…

Max is at it again. This time it’s with a pompous housing official, Mr Bullock, who made a blunder in the booking for new tenants, the Sopers, and is not exactly anxious to correct his mistake. Instead, the remedy he offers splits the Soper family up and he doesn’t care squat. The punishment of the Thirteenth Floor has Bullock washed up on a raft and headed for a desert island, with sharks right behind him. Not quite sure how this punishment fits the crime, but let’s see how it plays out next week.

The Leper begins a new story about another nasty undertaker, Old Jeb, who likes taking rich pickings off corpses and counting them each night (talk about Scrooge!) and his ill-used apprentice, Billy White. But don’t spare any sympathy for Billy; he’s just as bad and greedy as Old Jeb. So bad in fact, that he murders Old Jeb, takes his pickings, and puts himself into a client’s coffin, which is intended to carry the corpse away on a ship. It looks like a great way to escape, but we suspect this will only have grave consequences for Billy…

In “Monster”, a bounty hunter has a go at Uncle Terry with a rifle. The result is another death at Uncle Terry’s hands and Ken being shot. Uncle Terry carries the injured Ken to a house in search of help. Unfortunately for him he has no concept of what “Beware of the Dogs” means and can’t read the warning sign because he has never been taught to read – and the dogs are lunging for him already.

We also get an Uncle Terry type in the Ghastly Tale, who takes the film director’s call to “cut” a bit too literally…

Next issue is #13, and for a comic like this, that’s a call for a special celebration. Indeed, we have a half-page blurb on how Scream will celebrate its 13^th.