Note: "Some stories are a joy to put to paper, a blast to write from beginning to end. "The Black Phone" wasn't one of those stories. I struggled with it through draft after draft, six in all before I was happy with it, and even then, it was too long, a forty-page novelleenie. Something had to go, and on the day before I sent it to Andy Cox at The Third Alternative, I made a final, drastic cut: I lopped off the entire last chapter, which told what happened to John Finney after he made it out of that awful basement. It was really an extended epilogue, the story after the story, and I thought by taking it out, it made the conclusion that much more jolting - like a phone suddenly slamming down and ending a conversation without warning." [info from archived joehillfiction.com site; PDF doesn't seem to be available on the current site]