The demon grants Danny’s selfish wishes, but Helen suspects that Teneshad has a sinister agenda. With ever wish, Teneshad grows larger and tiny demons began to fill their apartment. Danny is dismissive of Helen’s concerns, and is increasingly abusive towards her. The real monster of the story is not Teneshad but Danny, as King uses the story’s supernatural elements as a metaphor for addiction and spousal abuse.

As Lee hoped, King’s involvement generated unprecedented mainstream publicity — and sales — for the comic. The Washington Post and The New York Times ran articles about Dead of Night, while Rolling Stone interviewed King, putting him — with a gruesome image of Teneshad posed behind him — on the cover. A photo of comedian John Belushi reading the comic (with a look of shock on his face) was widely circulated in tabloids.

The fifth issue sees Helen — chained to a bed while Danny leaves the apartment — entertained by Teneshad, who tells a story to pass the time: the story’s setting is outer space, where the last survivors of an alien humanoid race (whose planet was destroyed by Marvel’s world-eating destroyer, Galactus) are adrift after their spaceship runs out of fuel. The survivors turn to cannibalism when their food runs out, and a young girl named Aza fights to survive as she is pursued by her hungry male shipmates.

Aza’s plight is a narrative reflection of Helen’s, with the sexual undertones in both stories apparent, and Toth’s artwork creates an atmosphere of despair.

For this issue, Marvel was forced to publish Dead of Night without Comics Code approval, and subsequent issues would also be published without the CCA’s endorsement. Marvel noticed that this lack of approval had no negative impact on the comic’s sales.

From DEAD OF NIGHT #7: Art by Alex Toth

Because Toth was falling behind schedule on the artwork, another artist — Mike Ploog — illustrated issue six, in which Helen has a disturbing dream about a bullied Kansas teenager who discovers that he is a secret agent for the alien Skrull empire, with orders to kill his neighbors in preparation for an extraterrestrial invasion. (While this scenario is plausible in Marvel’s narrative continuity, the ambiguity of King’s story suggests that the teen may just be a delusional psychopath.)

When Helen wakes, she dismisses her vivid dream as a nightmare, until she reads about the Kansas murders in the Daily Bugle.

From DEAD OF NIGHT #8: Art by Alex Toth

Although Dead of Night references Marvel’s superhero characters, King never used established Marvel characters in the comic and he expected the same courtesy for his characters. However, Marvel was eager to leverage King’s success on its other titles, which caused friction between Marvel and King.

King and Toth were furious when an editor allowed another creative team to use Aza in an issue of Marvel’s licensed toy comic, The Micronauts. Lee pleaded ignorance and promised them that the Dead of Night characters would not be used in other comics again, but the damage had been done. Toth, struggling to meet deadlines and angry at Marvel, informed King and Lee that he was quitting.

King, with no desire to continue the series without his artistic partner and eager to focus on his prose work, decided to leave the comic. Respecting King and Toth’s wishes, issue nine was the last published issue of Dead of Night. Though short-lived, the series is regarded as one of the best and most influential horror comics ever published, inspiring subsequent horror comics at both Marvel and DC Comics, such as Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s bold work on Man-Thing and Frank Miller’s spooky Lovecraftian reboot of Angel and the Ape.

In the final issue of Dead of Night, Helen escapes her abusive husband, stabbing Danny in the eye and setting fire to their apartment (including the spell book) before running out of the apartment building. An angry Teneshad drags Danny to Hell.

However, in the story’s epilogue, Helen visits a doctor, who confirms that she is pregnant. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one of Teneshad’s tiny demons, suggesting that Helen’s story — and, perhaps, that the creation of sophisticated, gripping horror comics — is far from over.