Mark Edward Hall

Chapter 2

Doug had been right. Their pursuers were close. Dawn was almost up when they reached the highway. Morning commuters sped past, whirring tires shooting rooster-tails of rainwater at them. Gunshots blasted behind them. The bullets missed but struck a passing car. The vehicle fishtailed wildly before slamming violently into guardrails. Sparks erupted into a column of orange flame. Behind it braking tires howled on pavement and cars skidded to avoid colliding. Doug, still carrying Annie, ran out into the busy northbound lanes. He just managed to dodge a speeding SUV when more gunfire erupted somewhere behind them. He heard bullets striking metal.

Collisions.

A concussive explosion.

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Chapter 1

APRIL 20th

The telephone call that saved their lives, and nearly destroyed them, came at five o’clock on a rainy, windy morning in April.

Douglas McArthur was having a terrible dream.

No . . . please, God, no. Not after all this time. It couldn’t be happening all over again. I need to wake up before this gets out of hand.

But it was already too late; he was fully immersed in the nightmare and there didn’t seem to be any way out of it. He saw the shape standing on the door stoop—tall, impossibly tall—wearing the familiar fleshy, black robe, the cowl covering the head, the single burning red eye bright as a miniature sun. And he saw the kid’s startled expression a split second before his body fossilized, turning to something akin to sandstone, and then crumbling to dust at his feet. And it was so real, like he was somehow a part of it, connected to it in some elemental way. Yet he knew it was impossible. He was asleep in his bed with Annie beside him.

But the dream that could not be real would not end. He knew the killer was aware of him watching, knowing that he knew, and taking some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing. He saw the shape streak past the dead boy and move on into the house.

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SOUL THIEF

A Novel by Mark Edward Hall

“The Soul Thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to destroy.”

John10:10

PART ONE

TRINITY

PROLOGUE

APRIL 19^th

On the night of April 19th the Callaghan family of Exeter New Hampshire was settling down to watch television after their evening meal. The Callaghans were an ordinary American family. Ben Callaghan, husband, father, little league coach, worked in the plumbing and heating business. Peg Callaghan was a full time mother and housewife. Ben and Peg Callaghan had two children: twelve year old Jason and six year old Trinity.

Just after eight PM the doorbell rang. The family dog, a yellow Labrador retriever named Dingo, raised his hackles and began to bark.

“Would you please see who that is?” Ben Callaghan asked his son Jason. He was watching Survivor on television and the interruption was an irritation.

“Sure,” Jason said, getting up off the couch and heading for the door. There were two doors, actually, an inner door that led out onto a glassed-in porch and an outer door that led to the front steps.

When Jason opened the inner door the dog rushed past him still barking frantically. This did not bother Jason much, for the dog always barked when someone came to the door. It was usually an excited, tail-wagging bark, because the Callaghan family had many friends and sometimes these friends brought treats for Dingo.

Someone’s coming to the door. Good. This shouldn’t take any time at all. They’d better shut that dog up, though. I hate dogs almost as much as they hate me.

Jason switched on the outside light and saw the silhouette of a person standing beyond the glass of the outer door. Jason could not discern any features; just the vague form of someone who seemed very tall, dressed in what looked like a black raincoat with an attached hood. Outside the howling wind of a spring storm gusted sheets of rain against the door’s window. Dingo saw the silhouette too, and this only heightened his frantic baying.

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Soul Thief, a free serial novel coming soon exclusively on my website. I plan on posting a chapter or two each week, depending on length. Stay tuned for updates.