PAWN

by Nicole Burron

The deadliest debts are the ones you choose.
Mark is a pawnbroker who can't escape debt.
His business was supposed to cover the costs of his father's assisted living care, but he's running out of time.
When a peculiar woman offers him a rare car, it feels like the deal he's been waiting for.
The catch: he must also take a collection of unsettling objects she is eager to unload.
As the bills stack up and his father's care hangs in the balance, Mark's desperation grows—and the woman's "bargains" are stranger than he could have imagined.
Has Mark found a way out, or has he stepped into a debt that demands far more than money?

62 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 6, 2025

About the author

Nicole Burron writes horror that examines the systems designed to break us. Her protagonists aren’t about being likable; they’re desperate, morally compromised, and capable of terrible things because they’re trapped in structures that offer no ethical exits.

Her work exposes the horror hiding in plain sight. The harmful systems society remains complacent in and the people who feed those systems with more power.

Burron’s horror asks the questions we’re afraid to answer: How far will you go when the system gives you no good options? And what does it say about us that sometimes, in these broken systems, destruction feels like the only form of self-preservation left?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Reviews

[Marco Mannone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This snappy little novella reads like an episode of Tales From The Crypt: a creepy and twisted shot of karmic horror. Burron provides a compelling and largely sympathetic protagonist (antihero?) in Mark, a struggling mechanic moonlighting as a pawnbroker to make ends meet. His biggest end to meet is his ailing father, whom he doesn't have the best relationship with. Mark's fortune changes for the better, at least initially, upon meeting a frail old widow eager to sell off the relics of her past, but as you can probably guess, not is all as it seems... Present-tense prose always takes me some getting used to, but in hindsight it added a sense of urgency which is appropriate for the narrative considering Mark's mounting desperation. This was a fast and entertaining read. Looking forward to whatever Burron cooks up next...

[Micah Thorp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like all well-constructed horror stories, Pawn by Nicole Burron (2025) is a wonderful example of carefully calibrated tension, strong character motivation and twisted drama. The underlying story isn’t complex, though there is a nice twist at the end (no spoilers here…). A simple transactional relationship is fraught with all the surrounding emotions and frustrations of Mark and Evelyn which slowly build to a dark conclusion. The best part of Pawn is the writing, which is exquisitely well paced with just enough character development to invest the reader in the story without getting bogged down in too much detail - which helps hold the suspense. The deeper the reader gets into the book, the harder it becomes to put down. Well worth the read.