Comics / Comics News

Brandon Ford's Pay Phone

By The Editor
March 29, 2010 - 08:14

January 1998.

While a fierce winter falls upon the streets of New York City, a vicious killer is on the hunt for new blood. From his third floor apartment window, he watches, waits, using the pay phone across the street as the key to finding his victims. With his voice and his charms, he lures them to his door…

…and one by one they meet their fate.

On a gray morning, he spies someone new. Someone different.

Someone who reminds him of someone he knows. Someone very, very special. And he’ll stop at nothing to be sure that special someone… is next. What ever you do, don’t answer the phone. It just might be for you.

Excerpt

“Maybe I should go.” She motioned to stand.
This shocked him back into reality. He reached for her forearm and held on tight as she motioned to grab her coat. “No. Stay.”

“You’re hurting my arm.”

He let go. Smiled. “I’m sorry… I’m… sorry.” He spoke low, soft, lucid.

She smiled. Sat back down. “I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she said.

“I must be crazy.” She closed her eyes, thought for a second, then opened them.

“Yeah,” she said. “Call me crazy. But I like you, Jake.” She leaned over and reached for the glass.

His grip on the knife tightened and he pulled it forth, raising it high. “I like you, too.”

The blade plunged into her soft flesh, tearing through her spine. She gasped and fell forward, the glass landing beside her and shattering against the wooden floorboards. He stood and started toward her as she bled profusely, a river of red spilling from the gaping wound. Lying facedown, she choked and gurgled on her own blood, coughing up one mouthful after another.

“Look at this,” he said. “Look at the mess you’re making, Elizabeth…” He reached down, gripping the knife by the handle again. Twisting, he pushed hard, sending the blade deeper inside. She moaned and gasped for what would be her last breath.

When she stopped moving, stopped panting, stopped breathing, he pulled the knife out of her. It took quite the hefty tug, but came free in his hand in seconds. He placed the dripping blade beside her. As he knelt down, his legs covered in warm, fresh red, he rolled her over onto her back. Gazing down upon her frozen features, he found no beauty there, but felt beyond aroused. It was as though a switch had been turned on inside of him and he felt alive again. Alive for the first time in God only knew how long. Elizabeth had been the first in weeks, months. He could find no one as anxious as she to succumb to his playful, flirtatious advances. He’d spent many restless nights dreaming of tasting fear. Fantasized of inflicting pain, of wreaking havoc on another living soul. This was who he was, this was what he did. He liked it… a lot.

Lifting the shirt over her head, her bare breasts exposed, he ran his hand along her flesh. Back to her eyes again. He leaned in close. “You never should’ve answered that phone, Elizabeth,” he said. “But I’m glad you did.”

Brandon Ford Biography

Brandon Ford has written two other novels for Arctic Wolf Publishing: Crystal Bay and Splattered Beauty. He has also contributed to several anthologies, including Abaculus 2007, Abaculus III, Sinister Landscapes, Raw: Brutality as Art, The Death Panel, and Creeping Shadows, a collection of three short novels. He currently resides in Philadelphia.

Visit Brandon on the web at the following link:
www.myspace.com/writerbrandonford

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12