La Firma de la Bruja (The Witch's Signature)

This issue of *Selección Terror* #590 (October 1984, Editorial Bruguera) contains "La Firma de la Bruja" (The Witch's Signature) by Clark Carrados, a Gothic horror serial. The narrative opens with a man descending a perilous clifftside path to a hidden coastal cave, equipped with a mysterious map. Inside the cave he encounters a skeletal hand and a terrifying red light, panicking and fleeing to his death over the cliff. The scene shifts to Jason Theary, a recovering businessman vacationing in the seaside village of Merton Bay, who befriends Paula Nesbitt during a coastal walk. Paula recounts local history: 250 years prior, villagers burned an accused witch, who cursed them with vengeance marked by her signature on her murderers' descendants. When a drowned corpse washes ashore bearing a strange mark on his forehead, villagers invoke the curse, though the local doctor dismisses it as accidental. Theary suspects deliberate deception and becomes drawn into unraveling the mystery.