“Crypt of Terror” is renamed again to the name it will forever be remembered for with Tales from the Crypt #20 (June 1950). “Rx… Death!” is perhaps a cute little six page allegory about substance abuse. Gregg’s live-in sister Janet notices that Gregg spends all his evenings studying and working and stressing. Insisting he get a medical checkup, the doctor prescribes some medicine, and wouldn’t you know it, the medicine works and Gregg begins to spend the evenings wining and dining and enjoying his life again.
But there’s a problem: Turns out the pharmacist was sent the wrong chemical. In fact, the chemical acts a lot like digestive enzymes, and poor Gregg is rotting from the inside; literally his body is digesting itself. The doctor comes back to explain this horror to Janet and she notices something dripping onto her hand:
Ol’ Gregg is nothing more than a heaving angry blob by the end of it – thankfully we, as a reader, don’t get to see much of it – just a shapeless dark mass with burning eyes.
Wow – what an ending! I think this is my favorite type of tale: gruesome, while still leaving a lot to the imagination.