Mark Edward Hall

Chapter 17

De Roché Manor hummed like a well oiled engine. The place was a hive of activity, people in white coats, all business, scurried to and fro carrying silver trays and steaming dishes, arranging furniture and lighting.

Doug roamed the rooms of the estate’s ground floor feeling like an intruder. He’d left Annie in her room with promises that she’d catch up later. It was still more than an hour until dinner, the guests had not yet arrived and Doug felt restless, praying for some convenient get-out clause, a means by which he could escape what he was certain would be an unbearable evening.

Read more…

Chapter 16

When Doug got back to the house at least half a dozen young men and women in white coats were efficiently transferring dozens of shiny stainless steel containers from vans into the kitchen’s rear entrance. There were several security types inspecting the containers and watching the crew’s every move.

Read more…

Chapter 15

The rain shower passed quickly. The air felt crisper and cooler than before. Doug, still restless, strolled along the paths of the estate, determined that there was some mystery here that he could not see, some important clue that might shed light on the reasons he and Annie had been so suddenly wrenched from their quiet lives and propelled headlong into the world of high power, brutal murder and abject uncertainty.

Read more…

Chapter 14

Annie stood at the window hugging the rag doll from her childhood to her bosom, watching Doug make his way up from the beach. She saw him stop in the garden among the life-size figures of David, the Thinker and so many others of her father’s fancy. For a moment Doug looked as if he belonged there with them, forever frozen in some weird and classical time warp.

Read more…

Chapter 13

He stood on the beach alone, breathing raggedly after his run, hands on knees, feeling a terrible weight in his heart. The calm blue surface of the Gulf of Mexico spread out before him, a wilderness he wished he could get lost in. Tiny swells lapped earnestly at the shore. On the western horizon huge thunderheads bruised the sky. Doug bent down and picked up a smooth flat stone, angrily throwing it, skipping it along the surface of the calm sea.

Read more…

Chapter 12

Annie and Doug were announced and they entered the study. De Roché sat with his back to them. He did not turn but simply addressed them from his vantage point in the plush leather chair. The only part of the man that was visible was the back of his head and the neatly-groomed shock of iron-gray hair that covered it.

Read more…

Chapter 11

Annie needed to think. She should not have taken the drugs. But she’d been angry at Doug and she’d done it out of defiance. Now she was sorry. Her actions had reminded her of the other Annie, the Annie she’d left inside the walls of this soulless house more than a decade ago. That Annie was not the woman she was today; confident, self assured, happy. The other Annie was sullen and pensive and almost always afraid; a little girl who had hidden in her room and had welcomed the dreams because reality was so painful.

Read more…

This is an especially long chapter. Some of you have said that you want more each week, so I decided to group a few chapters together as one and see how it works. Let me know what you think.

Enjoy,

Mark

Chapter 10

August 12, 1996. Regressive Therapy

“To the best of my knowledge the visions began when I was nine years old,” Doug said, “and I always associated them with that punch Tommy Ricker gave me in the nose. I could be wrong about that but I don’t think so because there is not a conscious memory of anything even remotely similar to those experiences before that day. From then on it seemed that I was in possession of some terrible power of sight, something that would haunt my life for years to come. I tried to dismiss it, I tried to deny it, but every time I became complacent something would happen that reminded me of who I was and of the terrible things I was capable of seeing. Yes, it all began the day Tommy Ricker broke my nose.”

Read more…

Chapter 9

The chopper landed right on schedule. Jennings was shown to a waiting car. He got in and sat back trying to relax. But there was no way in hell he could. All his muscles were tensed and his mind worried. Spencer seemed quite anxious to pin these deaths on McArthur? McArthur was a suspect; there was no doubt about it. But perhaps he was more than a suspect. What if the government had been watching him since—? The thought struck Jennings suddenly that perhaps they’d never taken their eyes off him. Yes, it was a definite possibility. Frankly Jennings was a little surprised they’d waited this long to make their move. He supposed that guys who could see the kinds of things McArthur could see were valuable. Sure they were. Doug’s was a rare gift and the government wanted to dissect him, to see what made him tick, and they were looking for an excuse to grab him. Jennings was suddenly and absolutely certain of it. McArthur would be a hell of a guinea pig for those CIA spooks to dissect.

Read more…

Chapter 8

The Blackhawk helicopter was waiting at idle when Jennings got to the airport. There were no problems with security. They rushed him right through. He boarded the military transport, strapping his hulking frame into a seat as a crew member handed him a headset.

“What’s this for?”

“Things are noisy,” the crewman hollered above the racket. “Besides, the boss man wants to talk to you.” Jennings nodded and put the headset on. The chopper’s engines whined distantly as the craft lifted into the air. The airport slid away beneath him giving way to the Portland skyline, a jagged coastline, and finally, open ocean.

Read more…

Chapter 7

The jet taxied to a stop. When the attendant opened the door, a dreadful blast of heated air rushed into the aircraft cabin, reminding Doug of a sauna. He hated saunas almost as much as he hated Florida. They both gave him claustrophobia. He took Annie by the hand and led her down the steps to the tarmac. A black limo sat at idle patiently waiting.

The driver was a solid muscular man who looked like he’d been sculpted from stone. His hair was black as wet tar, his skin, olive and he was appallingly handsome.

“Hi,” he said casting a small polite smile at Doug and a bright, toothy grin at Annie. He held the door. “I’m Theo. Mr. De Roché sent me. You must be Annie?”

“Yes,” Annie said, falling into the car. “This’s Doug,” she said slurring her speech.

Doug shook the man’s hand.

Read more…

Chapter 6

It was nearly 10 am before Portland Police Lieutenant Richard Jennings left the scene of Doug and Annie McArthur’s ruined house and the subsequent carnage left in its wake. Five men were dead from gunshot wounds; none had been carrying identification. Even worse, there had been a massive pileup on both the north and southbound lanes of Interstate 95. Two motorists were dead and six were in the hospital, three in critical condition. Two separate individuals had come forward saying that their cars had been hijacked by gunmen. One had identified photos of Doug and Annie McArthur; the other had no idea who the two gunmen were that threw her out of her vehicle, and furthermore, she could not adequately describe them. For unknown reasons, their faces were just blanks, she told authorities.

Following the initial stages of the investigation, things had happened fast. The State Police had quickly moved in and taken charge of the investigation, followed almost immediately by people in plain dark suits that Jennings recognized as federal agents. When he quizzed them about what agency they worked for he was given the cold shoulder. The State Police were gone in a heartbeat, leaving Jennings to deal with the feds. For the most part they were rude assholes who treated Jennings like a boy scout. By mid-morning they’d dismissed him altogether, telling him in no uncertain terms that his help was no longer needed on the case. He was too close to McArthur and his wife to be objective. Jennings had left the scene feeling like a beaten dog, vowing that there was no way he was going to sit idly by while his best friends were in trouble and on the run.

Read more…

Chapter 5

“I am an artist,” Annie had proclaimed without conceit on the very day she and Doug had met. It was almost the first thing she had said to him, in fact, as though she were setting ground rules around which the two could establish a relationship. Doug had been left with little doubt that art was Annie’s calling. Regardless of her position in life as sole heiress of a political and financial dynasty and the responsibilities that went along with that position, Annie considered herself first and foremost an artist. They’d met at the University of Maine in Orono. It was their first day of classes, freshman year when Annie had made her proclamation.

“Oh?” Doug had replied. “What sort of artist are you?”

“I paint pictures,” she said.

“Pictures? Lots of artists do that. What kind of pictures?”

“Whatever comes to mind,” she said with a broad and beautiful smile, her mysterious eyes twinkling. Doug was lost in them almost immediately.

The University of Maine was the only school Doug could afford, and he was grateful to be there. Annie could have afforded anything, but that’s where she’d decided to go. At first Doug had been skeptical, little rich bitch slumming with the commoners, but the better he’d gotten to know her, the more he believed she was sincere. She was bright, and so filled with life. Like she was tasting freedom for the first time.

Little did he know.

Read more…

Chapter 4

The large business jet was waiting when they arrived at the airport. The small crew was cordial but businesslike. The flight left the ground within five minutes of boarding. An attendant, a smartly dressed woman in her forties named Greta with a pretty but smug face and shifty eyes handed Annie a phone.

“Daddy?” Annie said, her voice breaking, sounding oddly like that of a child’s. “Tell me what happened. Yes, I’m okay. I want to know everything.” Annie kept the phone to her ear for a long time, occasionally exclaiming in awe or grief. “Oh no. My God, no. Daddy . . . please don’t cry . . . please. I know. Yes, I love you too, Daddy.”

Slowly, as if in a trance, Annie put the phone down. Doug wanted to puke. He was pitting his love for Annie against his hatred for her father and in the process he was totally ignoring the fact that her mother was dead and that she was hurting. But he couldn’t help it. This was all wrong. They’d vowed never to go back there. Now they were being forced into it; De Roché was manipulating Annie’s emotions like a talented maestro conducting an orchestra.

Annie fixed Doug with a vacant, helpless stare. “Oh . . . Christ, Doug,” she said, and the words were choked in an odd way, as though she was trying to swallow them.

Doug reached over and touched her trembling hand. “God, Annie, I’m so sorry.”

“Daddy . . . heard . . . her . . . get out of bed around midnight. He drifted back to sleep and woke up to the sound of gunfire. He went . . . looking for her and someone shot at him. The gunman somehow escaped. Daddy found Mama on the bathroom floor with a  . . . bullet through her heart.”

“Annie, that place is a fortress. How could a gunman get through security?”

Read more…

Chapter 3

In a room beneath an ancient cathedral, a telephone began to ring. The monk in the simple black robe and white collar turned away from the altar at which he had been praying and stared at the ringing telephone as if it were something not of this world. Carefully he tucked the object which he had been clutching tightly in his praying fists into the side pocket of his robe. This was only the third time in as many years that this particular phone had rung. The telephone number was unpublished and there were only seven men in the world who knew it. After the third ring, the monk got to his feet and picked up the handset.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I have news,” the voice on the other end of the line proclaimed. The caller was male and he sounded winded and overwrought.

The monk hesitated for a long moment before replying. “What is the code?” he asked. He would never acknowledge his identity unless the code was repeated exactly as he knew it; exactly as they all knew it. To do so would be to violate the most sacred of all oaths.

Read more…

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.

Read more…

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.

Read more…

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.