Shadows of the Soul

Wade Hunter
PublishAmerica (2006)
ISBN 9781424125326
Reviewed by Ellen Hogan for Reader Views (1/07)


This book is a compilation of stories, but instead of being by different authors they are all from the mind of one man.  Here are a few that I enjoyed.

“Open Doors”
Jim and Heather had been looking for a home. When they looked at this house, Heather knew she had found it. It was perfect for them and their pets. Jim asked the landlord if he allowed pets, and while he was waiting for the answer, he thought it over when he stepped into the house. Something had made him feel uneasy and it wasn't the thought of the monthly rent. The landlord said that pets were fine.  Heather wanted the house so Jim asked if they could meet on Friday to sign the papers.

A month after they moved into the house Heather was in love with it. The cats, however, did not like the house at all. Heather said it was just a change in environment, but they were still acting strange. Heather told Jim to ask their neighbor Chad, who was a veterinarian, what they could do about the cats. Chad told him he needed a beer and he would fix something up for the cats. Jim told Chad that one of the cats was sitting at the end of the bed hissing and woke them up. He asked if it seemed like the cat was protecting them from something. Jim said strangely, yes. Chad said that Mrs. Dee said the same thing about her cat before it disappeared.  Strange things started to happen at Jim and Heather's at night. The cats would alert them each night to what was going on. Finally one morning Chad went and knocked at the door and got no answer.  Jim and Heather had disappeared the night before with no trace.  He called the local police and when they went inside, no one was there.

“Monster”
Ezekiel's brother John told him there was a monster in the closet. It got so Ezekiel was so scared to go to bed at night as he didn't want John to put him in the closet with the monster. If Ezekiel cried John would beat him up. Poor little Ezekiel could not tell anyone what was going on. The nice polite side of John was all that their mother saw. One day Ezekiel's dog Eclipse was missing and he told John. So they went looking for him in the woods. They called and called but Eclipse did not come. Finally they found the body of Ezekiel's dog in the high grass.  His throat was slashed and his tail was missing.

While they were looking at Eclipse, Jack Friedman, a football player from school with a pretty girl, asked what they were looking at. He asked if they killed the dog, but Ezekiel told him the dog was theirs. Jack had been drinking and laughed about him being dead. This made John very angry and they started to fight. When the fight was over, John told Ezekiel that nothing happened and not to say anything about it.

That night John put Ezekiel in the closet again. This time though it wasn't quite as scary because Ezekiel thought mostly about his brother. When they got up the next morning two police officers came to the house to ask questions about the death of Jack Friedman.  John told them that they didn't know anything about it and feigned innocence. But, Ezekiel told the police where to find the bottle that John killed Jack with and that it wasn't the first time that he had killed. John had killed their dog Eclipse and taken his tail as a trophy along with the tails of the other pets he had killed; but had he?

“End of the Road”
Mayor Tom was running for a new term. As always he was down feeding the hungry in the soup kitchens with a special soup that he made. This particular day though was a media op, and reporters were able to ask questions. One reporter, Clark Spangler, asked if the funds for the Mayor's Dark Force were coming out of the main budget. Well, Mayor Tom told him he had no idea what Mr. Spangler was talking about. But, Spangler   persisted and said he had documents to prove his allegations.  That night Mark Webb knew something had to be done about Spangler. He began to devise a plan.

Meanwhile, poor Deborah Winters was about to be raped and robed. As the robbers looked for her money and goods she was taunted by one of them. Just before he was about to rape her she was scared literally to death. Then the Dark Force arrived and cleaned up the robbers, killing one of them. The other they took to the End of the Road.

Mark Webb told Clark Spangler that they could work together to bring down Mayor Tom.  Mayor Tom and Mark set up an elaborate ruse so Clark would think he really had the goods on the Mayor. Instead they wound up taking Clark to the End of the Road, where Mayor Tom personally took care of him. Mayor Tom's Dark Force stopped crime by taking the criminals to the End of the Road and killing them, then grinding up their bodies. Mayor Tom then made his soup for the homeless out of criminals.

All the stories in “Shadows of the Soul” are different and some are a little twisted. They are good reading and I would recommend them to anyone interested in this genre.

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