Tales from the Darkside

I'll Give You a Million

Two old, rich men like to wager among themselves on trivial matters for huge amounts. One of them, Williams, offers his friend a million dollars for his immortal soul. Blaine accepts but discovers that he is dying of cancer - frightened, he tries to buy his soul back. Williams holds out for more money, until it's too late - Blaine dies. Soulless, he comes back for his soul, shocking Williams into a heart attack...and the Devil comes to claim his due from both of them.

Pain Killer

Harvey goes to Dr. Roebuck with back pains and Roebuck prescribes a miraculous cure. It's not until later that Harvey finds the price he must pay...

The Odds

Tommy Vale, a barroom bookie finds himself in a curious predicament: a man comes in who can't lose. As the story unravels, he finds out that his opponent is Lacey, a man who went broke gambling with Vale in the past. Now Lacey is back from the dead, with tips from the other side, and is unbeatable. In a final ghoulish wager, Lacey bets that Vale will die at a particular time, and he's never been wrong. But the clock chimes and Vale is still alive. Lacey is forced to depart, and Vale reveals that he set the clock ahead five minutes, then dies right on time.

Mookie and Pookie

Twin siblings, Mookie and Pookie, are extremely close. But Mookie has a terminal illness. Later the scientific genius Mookie succesfully downloads his mind into the computer before he dies. But now that he's in there Pookie must convince her parents not to pull the plug.

Slippage

A young ad-design artist begins to literally "slip" out of reality. Slowly but surely he seems to be fading out of existence: first his payroll checks disappear, then his high school not only fails to mail him about their reunion, but has no records of his existence. The artist soon realizes that since he's drifted through life, he's basically "slipping through the cracks". Even his mother has no memory of him. At the end, even his wife and best friend (now the woman's husband in this new reality) forget he ever existed.