The Story Behind The Cover DIARY of HORROR! 

by Susan Peters

Originally published in DIARY of HORROR! comics #1 in 1952.

June 5, 1952. 

I write this in the hope that someday it will be found and read. I should like to know that this diary which I now begin will someday save other human beings from being caught in the evil clutches of the horrible creatures who will soon make me one of them.

My name is Susan Peters. Up until last year, I lived an uneventful, placid life in the sleepy little village of Baskins Corners, in upstate New York. I worked as a bookkeeper in the hardware store, went to church socials on Saturday nights, and wished with all my heart that something would happen to take me out of the dull safety of our little town. I no longer yearn for excitement; how I would rejoice if I could return at this moment. I—But there are their chains clanking along the stone floor which leads to my cell! I cannot continue now.

June 6, 1952. 

I do not know how much longer I can endure their tortures. They say that I cannot become one of them until they have made me suffer every pain of which the human being is capable. As if I wanted to be one of their ghastly band of ghouls! I wish they would kill me! 

I remember well the night it all started. I had left the hardware store and had stopped at the public library on the way home. I noticed the stranger as I made my way through the dimly-lit stacks of books in the rear section of the old building. He seemed incredibly old in the half-light, and when he dropped the volume which he was holding I automatically knelt to retrieve it. And then, as I stood and handed him the book, I noticed that he was no old man at all, but was instead a young and incredibly handsome youth! In my flustered embarrassment, I could think of no way to refuse to introduce myself after he told me that his name was Peter de Diable. 

And when, after we had chatted for a moment, he offered to walk me home, I assented gladly. Life in Baskins Corners offered little chance for a girl to meet new men, and this dark, excitingly handsome stranger drew me strongly. 

As we left the library I remember noticing the title of the book he carried. It was an old Arabic volume, but the title was printed on the spine in English. It was Demons and Demonology.

June 7, 1952. 

Peter de Diable fascinated me. I thought that I loved him, in the days that followed. I little realized that he attracted me with the evil magnetism of a cruel and unnatural being. 

It was on our first date that I mentioned the occult volume which he had carried when we first met. The conversation had lagged, and in order to fill the gap, I started to tease him about his obvious interest in things supernatural. But as soon as I mentioned the book a terrifying change occurred in Peter. He grasped my wrist in a clasp of steel, and his eyes blazed with anger as they bore into mine. 

"That is none of your affair!" he shouted. "Perhaps someday I will let you know what is contained in the book. But until that day comes, do not mention it in my presence or to anyone else!"

I felt chilled, but on the following day, Peter came to the hardware store and begged for my forgiveness. I could not find it in me to remain angry with him. 

Peter came to see me that night, and we met each night for the next week. It was on the long walks we took in the forest that he explained that he was a scholar who was writing a book on the black magic of the ancient mystics.

I was happy that fortune had led him to pick Baskins Corners as the place to work.

June 8, 1952. 

I saw Peter every night for the next year. But no matter what we did he would always make sure that he was in his room by midnight. At first, I thought that it was merely that he worked hard all day and could not afford to miss his sleep; but Peter grew so panicky when midnight approached that it soon became apparent that there was something far more sinister than that behind his actions. 

It was only three weeks ago that it happened. We were walking in the forest when a spring thunderstorm broke without warning. We ducked under an overhanging ledge to wait until the deluge stopped, but the rain fell as if it would never end. 

"I must go," he said desperately. "What is the time?"

I could see by the radium dial of my wristwatch that it lacked only two minutes to twelve. But, thinking Peter's twelve o'clock curfew an eccentricity, I lied to him. 

“Five minutes to eleven," I said. 

We stood under the cold rock ledge and listened to the rain hiss into the earth all around us. Then a vivid flash of lightning split the blackness around us, and my blood turned icy with fear as I realized why Peter de Diable wanted to be alone in his room at midnight. 

At midnight Peter de Diable was transformed back into an old man!

June 9, 1952. 

The wizened old creature who a few moments before had been a young and handsome man glared at me out of ageless, malevolence eyes. 

"So it has happened, and you have discovered my secret," he rasped. "Now you will come with me to the Land of the Undead!" And there, in the rain forest, with no one to observe but the wet trees and the moss-covered rocks, the old man muttered a series of evil incantations. 

I smelled brimstone. From far-off, I heard the sound of mocking, inhuman laughter. An old and ancient wind blew dryly over my whole body and lifted me into a deep and complete darkness... 

I am not the only human here. There are other women; I have seen them. And once last week I saw them dragging a man to the torture chamber.

They are an army of evil, dead things. In their bodies beat no living hearts, and no blood flows in their veins. They live underground, in a vast network of tunnels that connect with thousands of cemeteries all over the eastern section of the United States. From these graveyards, they steal bodies, which they inject with serums that make living dead slaves of the corpses. And each year certain of the ghouls go up into the world, like Peter de Diable, to recruit new people. Each ghoul comes back with one human prisoner, and each prisoner is doomed to become an immortal creature of evil.

I cannot think of it any longer today...

June 9, 1952. 

I have been told that today I am to be turned into a ghoul. I am resigned to my fate. May God help me and prevent me from causing any of my fellow humans pain. 

I can hear them coming for me. Their chains clank dismally on the stone floor. In a few moments, I shall be a human being no more! I am hiding this in a crevice in my cell. I hope someone finds it and destroys all of the ghouls someday. 

Pray for me. 

END