Mark Edward Hall

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.

Read more…

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.

My 2005 supernatural thriller The Holocaust Opera is available for the first time ever as a Kindle download. It is now live on Amazon and will be live on Smashwords soon. Just click on the book cover to buy.

Roxanne Templeton moves to New York seeking fame and fortune as a singer. She meets Jeremiah Gideon, a young composer, and is drawn into his web of genius and deceit. She discovers that his music is infected with a deadly virus that dates back to the Holocaust, and to one man in particular, a Doctor Josef Mengele whom the prisoners named The Angel of Death. Roxanne discovers that Mengele has somehow returned from the dead and that he intends to destroy mankind through Jeremiah’s body of infected music.

Time is running out as Roxanne fights to save their souls from the clutches of extinction.

My very long short story, The Fear is one of fourteen stories included in Triskaideka Books anthology, Masters of Horror, edited by Lee Pletzers, Karen Johnson Mead and Robert G. Male.

It is now available on smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/10948. Will soon  be available as a print edition as well as a Kindle e-book.

Here’s the video trailer for my latest book…

It was a great party and the band played well and sounded great.

Doing a private party with my band tonight. We call ourselves Comfortably Numb. We’re sort of a Pink Floyd cover band. We also do a bunch of our own tunes as well as a variety of other classic rock. Great fun. Looking forward to it!

Just found out that The Haunting of Sam Cabot is one of Horror Mall’s top ten bestselling books for February.

Just received word that The Haunting of Sam Cabot is one of Horror Mall’s Top Ten Bestselling E-Books for Feb. 2010.

http://theundeadrat.com/horror-ebooks-feb-2010/

Worked on my latest novel today. Finally let my wife read a portion of it and she came up with some constructive pointers, ideas I had been flirting with but hadn’t put into play. Her input made me rethink my decisions, I made the changes and everything fell into place. Gotta love that girl.

A special thanks to Kim Smith for a super interview on Blog Talk Radio Thursday night. You were gracious and articulate.

“Scary seems too simple a word to describe this psychological horror. I found myself a little afraid to go to sleep the night I read The Haunting of Sam Cabot. Kudos, Mr. Hall, for scaring the daylights out of me.” —Teagan http://www.bookwenches.com

“Sure to cause some sleepless nights, this novella packs a powerful punch, for it encompasses the perilous areas of both insanity and the frighteningly supernatural. A great surprise ending; decidedly twisted and shocking. Might have you questioning your own sanity.” —G.L. Giles, http://www.infernaldreams.net

“The storyline of this novella streamed with the intensity of a cross between The Shining and The Amityville Horror. Amazingly, Hall managed to pen a novella that leaves the reader feeling as though they have digested an entire novel. The tight prose and wonderful detail make for a compelling read.” —Red Adept,  http://redadept.wordpress.com

“Mark Edward Hall’s novella is a first rate creep-out, wonderfully scary, with full, well-drawn characters and a strong, descriptive narrative that channels the best of Edgar Allen Poe. Horror fans will love this tale, especially the shocking conclusion, which will leave them questioning the meaning of reality and the sometimes-tenuous border between sanity and madness. Mark Edward Hall is a literary artist, a strong voice in the horror genre.” —Lloyd F. Richey, Stormdragon

For those who might be interested in hearing me spout off about my latest book—and writing in general—Blog Talk Radio is doing an interview with me on Thursday February, 25th at 8:30 pm Eastern. Here’s the link.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/kims

Hi all. My very long short story, The Fear is being included in Triskaideka Books upcoming anthology, Masters of Horror, edited by Lee Pletzers, Karen Johnson Mead and Robert G. Male. I’ll post when it’s actually on the bookshelves.

Also, my novelette, The Hero of Elm Street is out in the anthology, To the American Soldier, a collection of stories, poems and letters of appreciation to American soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Edited by Mary Sweeney, it can be found at Amazon and wherever books are sold.

Servants of Darkness, my new collection of sinister tales, is now available on Smashwords. Smashwords allows books to be available in a multitude of reader formats, including Sony, Kindle, Pdf and many more. Here’s the link:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=servants+of+darkness

Hello, everybody. If you clicked on my website and found this nearly empty space it’s because my new website is in the process of being built. Have patience and I think that within a few days my webmaster and I will have things under control.