Soul Hunter

By JA Carlton

Eddy Jay was the most prolific serial child killer you never heard of. 

 

Twenty years ago, in the town of Sedalia, he was killed. 

 

Today, on the anniversary of his murder he's back to finish what he started over forty years ago.

 

Justin Sanders hunts ghosts, demons and things that go "bump" in the night, it's in his blood.

 

When the spirit of Eddy Jay returns to claim 'the one that got away', the young psychic finds himself embroiled in a supernatural game of cat and mouse that started decades before he was born. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: JA Carlton
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224343188

Book preview

Other Works By JA Carlton

The Freedom Fighter Series:

Wednesday’s Child

Into The Fire

Fortune’s Tide

Heroes of the Line:

Nick, of Time; Heroes of the Line Book 1

Second Hand; Heroes of the Line Book 2

The Third Race; Heroes of the Line Book 3

Broken

––––––––

In The Works:

The Fourth Tier; Heroes of the Line Book 4

In The Name of God

Medusa’s Eyes

Avalon

CURRENT

Gleaming brushed steel sank through the gristle-like meat of Charisse Martin’s thigh, stopping only when it hit bone, but it did continue to press. Charisse screamed, trying to pull the blade from her leg but instead it turned, the edge angling upward, slicing through the muscle, shearing off another chunk of flesh, unable to resist the murderous intent of the thing that was wielding the knife from where it sat squatting inside her.

Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, another scream pealed from behind her lips, Oooh Dear God my heavenly father! Help your humble child, she prayed carving off another piece of her body before turning the edge to her forearm. She sawed into it, blinded by tears and burning pain as blood poured along the carpet, followed by the wet, rubbery thud of another chunk left behind.

She stumbled, bouncing off the wall toward her office where the only potential for salvation might be. She had to get to, and through, the seal painted on her floor; if she could get through it, then perhaps the entity that had control of her might wind up trapped within it.

That this thing riding her was once a man was almost certain, but that she hadn’t sensed it, that it had managed to sneak up on her and take her over, was unbelievable. She grew up and lived in a world where the population was standing-room-only, if one counted those who’d either missed the bus to their final destinations or were trapped for some other reason.

The dead walked among the living in her world and always had. She always knew where they were and often what they wanted, but this thing, this once-upon-a-man was no ordinary ghost, no demon, no wraith that she knew what to do with; it was something, some kind of creature she’d never encountered before.

She’d felt a lot of angry spirits in her thirty some-odd years, including the seething hatred that drove demons to torment mankind, but the sadistic glee she could feel writhing in her own breast as this thing used her very own hands to carve her own body to bits, was beyond any of hell’s own grotesqueries.

She burst through the door, her gaze pinned to the desk across the room, on the other side of the pentagram. The pentagram was the most basic of Solomon’s Seals meant to protect those who used it, from all forms of evil whether supernatural or earthly. It was one of the first signs every psychic learned, and one of the most potent. If she could just get to it!

For a split second, she was almost felt free, the icy trail that betrayed her captor’s presence cruised up her spine, into the base of her skull standing her hair on end, and for the next moment after that, she felt the warmth of life return.

A bolt hit her squarely in the back, snaring her exhausted step in the fringes of a rag rug. The only part of the impact she felt was the tremor of it through the areas of her body that were now missing pieces. The severed nerve endings seemed to vibrate with the motion of disturbed air. It was several seconds before the rest of the feel of the floor finally came through her senses. As she tried to push herself to her feet, the chef’s knife still clamped tight in her frozen grip, something seemed to stomp in the middle of her back. She cried out.

An icy breeze caressed the cup of her ear in tight, vicious bursts that reminded her of a bully’s laughter.

Dear lord in heaven, she breathed trying to push up yet again only to feel the impact of a fist against the back of her head and another laugh when her skull bounced against the floor.

A quick breath of inspiration gave her the will to turn and look behind her. What she saw froze her to the bone.

Manson! was her first thought, and yet she knew it couldn’t be the infamous cult leader. This ex-human was tall, his apparition was tall and broad. He exuded strength and a kind of intelligent certainty that made what was left of her skin crawl. He evoked the kind of visceral response, even in death, that, in life, would have made folks with any kind of instinct or sensitivity want to keep as far from him as possible.

In short, he was exactly the kind of man that the swastika wearing lost soul had never been able to become.

He was sitting on her legs watching her assess him. The whites of her eyes were bold moons eclipsed by dark brown irises and zig zagged with bloodshot lightning bolts. She was afraid and he was delighting in it.

Wh...who were you? She finally managed to gasp, wondering at the tickle in the back of her brain while she waited for a response she knew wouldn’t come.

What do you want? She asked, what was left of her fingers clawing into the rag rug, striving for that pentagram on the floor.

Watching her body slither out from within the apparition was more disconcerting than she could have imagined.

After a lifetime of encounters with things that would send most reasonable people screaming into the night, Charisse, deep in her soul, knew she would not survive this one.

Her head snapped forward again, as if with a blow. The floor seemed to vibrate with heavy booted footsteps before one landed square in the middle of her low back, crushing with force that no living being could have mustered.

That ethereal cold penetrated her again, a frigid intimacy that threatened to stampede fear toward the foreground of her mind. His coldness lay atop her, his mouth whispered chilling fog into her ear, Why don’t you let me do that.

And then he was within her once more, a sinister puppet-master with a purpose she couldn’t fathom.

I can’t thank you enough for your help, she heard him mock as he pulled her toward the pentagram.

F,f,for what? She stammered, all her reserves almost gone, though she still wondered how this had come to her, how this thing had singled her out from all the other psychics in Sedalia.

For helping me celebrate my anniversary of course, she could feel his lascivious smile curling her very own lips away from her teeth, almost like a dog giving a stranger a warning.

Anniversary? She questioned, spinning her mental wheels, it was important, there was something familiar about this once-upon-a-person. In seconds it was as if all the tumblers in her mind fell in line and a shiver rocked her entire body.

S...Simp...Simmon...Simons! You were Eddy Jay Simons, my God! Twenty years ago...the children, she ground her teeth, biting back the need to scream while watching as he forced her better hand into the free flowing hole on her arm, then scraped the hooked line of a ‘j’ in her blood, into the carpeting. He repeated the process a few inches over, until he had the letter ‘u’, then once more, until her vision blurred and darkened as he squiggled the letter ‘s’, making it impossible to mistake the name he was scrawling. It was the first three letters of the name of the man she’d met with earlier this evening.

As the light of Charisse’s life faded from this world she clutched at a rose quartz crystal she wore, striving to imprint it, to somehow leave a warning about Eddy’s return, what he was doing, and that though she had no idea why, he was using her to call out to the strongest psychic she’d ever met, a twenty six year old boy named Justin Sanders.

Laying face down between the rag rug and the pentagram painted into her carpeting, the shadow of Eddy’s face grinned from behind Charisse’s death mask, I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your world down.

The apparition of Edward Jacob Simons rose from Charisse Martin’s body, a single hand trailing behind within her throat as the rest of him stepped clear.

A faint glow of white from beneath her chocolate skin twisted and flailed as his hand slowly withdrew from the flesh of her neck, fingers coiled tightly around that writhing strand of blue-white energy. With a deep, throaty chuckle he held the strand up and opened his mouth, slurping the energy in like a wayward strand of spaghetti.

He swallowed hard a couple of times, then stood in the middle of Charisse’s corpse, his hands out, his eyes closed as he turned in a slow circle then finally focused on a chair beside her desk.

Now, let’s see what you turned out to be, he sighed situating himself over the chair, then lowering himself into it, his hands curled around the scrollwork of the arm rests. The instant his fingers closed on the wood, images rocketed into his mind, flying like shards of crystal through his psyche.

Though Eddy had long ago become accustomed to the sensations that came with borrowing a victim’s psychic powers, the psychometric experience was one of the few he found, uncomfortable. The splintered perspective and imagery reminded him of shoddy faux documentary camera work. It was exactly the same way Charisse had frequently described the sensation when she used this particular gift to obtain information through something a subject had touched.

Images flashed through Eddy’s mind, crystal clear, in color and with full sound.

Blue eyes stared out from a blonde haloed face, pupils dilated, rose-petal lips slightly parted, air moving quickly, a flash of sweat down the straining muscles of a luxurious silken neck. A fan of blonde; a pulsing at the base of the throat, Eddy knew to be a tell-tale sign of a soul near ecstasy. Satin skin and taut breasts heaved beneath his fingers, velvet walls clamped around his quivering penis. Held breath, strain, liquid explosion, easy gasp, the taste of salty satisfied sweat.

Eddy uncurled his hands from the arms of the chair, that sinister smile returned to his lips, Healthy boy, good, he drawled, his memory flying back in time, almost forty years, to the beginning of his own glory days.

—

1974

Things were about to get interesting. Mitch and Butch were laying on the floor cruising head first toward chemical oblivion, and Bev was just about to crash from her last hit. There wasn’t a frame of mind in the house that Eddy, lounging in his father’s armchair, hadn’t orchestrated to near perfection.

Yep. Tonight, things were going to be interesting.

His head cocked to the side as a teaser for the evening news promised a deeper reveal of President Gerald Ford’s amnesty plan for draft dodgers and deserters from Vietnam.

Mitch turned his pot red eyes to Eddy, Can you believe Squint re-upped? Whoda thought Chicken Little woulda had it in him to go at all let alone make a career out of it huh?

He’s working a desk job, Eddy shook his head, unable to fathom that the roly-poly tub he’d kept around for entertainment more than anything else, could have gone military, he doesn’t have the sack to be a real soldier.

I don’t know man, did you see him last time he came home? Looked like a real soldier to me.

Butch, rolled over, sucking down another hit from his joint before passing it to Mitch, Got your dick up didn’t he? I bet you just looooove a man in uniform, fuckin’ queer.

Shut it ass hole! Mitch whispered snatching the roach, sucking his hit, then offering it to Eddy who shook his head. He didn’t have any use for drugs for himself.

Nobody gives a shit you’re a fag man, get over it, Eddy fluted over the mouth of his beer bottle.  

Mitch held the roach toward Bev who sat on the floor, very like a stoned and broken pet, at her big brother’s side.

Nah, that’s not what she wants, the man who fancied himself a king among rabble smirked, reached into his pocket and held up a small packet of white, dangling it in front of her face.

She mewled, trying to reach for it but failing as he snatched it back.

Watch this, he sneered to his followers, then through the long brown curtain of her hair grasped her chin, turning her face toward his. Serve me, he ordered drawing her up to her knees and maneuvering her until she was between his legs.

What’re you...? Butch started to ask, his eyes glued to the young woman as she slid her hands up Eddy’s thighs deftly opening his pants. He grinned hiking his hips up until she was able to slide them down enough to free his quickly hardening penis. No fuckin’ way... man that’s, not right, Butch hissed but couldn’t take his eyes off the sight.

She’ll do you next.

Mitch’s gaze flipped between Butch’s somewhere-between-admiration-and-disgusted expression, and Eddy’s meat, as his sister angled it into her mouth.

Eddy leaned back, his eyes mostly closed, clandestinely watching his sheep. The glow on Mitch’s face betrayed the purity of his love for the wannabe king. As long as they’d known each other, Eddy knew the battered workhorse of a boy, with all the smarts of a speed-bump, had been in love with him. There was almost nothing he could ask of Mitch that he wouldn’t do, or try to. The only failing he had in Eddy’s mind, was that he wasn’t, by nature, a violent kid. There’d been too much violence done to him by the whisky soaked sack of uselessness he called dad for Mitch to enjoy passing it forward. Now, when it came to protecting Eddy, or anyone the power-hungry young man commanded him to, that was a whole different story.

Butch on the other hand, was the newest addition to Eddy’s tight little group. He’d arrived in town during Sophmore year at Sedalia High, and fallen directly into Eddy’s gravitational pull, adding one more set of fists to those ready to take after Eddy’s nemesis, Jason Sanders; if the boy ever managed to get the best of Eddy again.

It happened when they were nine, still in elementary school, and the memory of the only time he’d ever been bested brought a flush of embarrassment to Eddy’s cheeks. He could still hear the fear in Jason’s breathless voice tickling his ear. I’ve had it with you Simons, ever come after me or any of my family or friends ever again and you’ll wind up in juvie till your folks are too old to see you. Got it!?

Eddy could still feel the boy’s arm around his throat, squeezing just enough to punctuate his sincerity. In front of him, Mitch and Squint looked on, shifting nervously from foot to foot, unsure of what to do as the Sheriff turned onto Main, his cruiser easing in their general direction. He felt himself nod and cursed his treasonous neck for doing so, then as Jason backed toward Hilltop Rd., heard himself swear, You’re a dead man Sanders! I’ll fuckin’ kill you! You hear me! but he hadn’t, there was too much he wanted from this world to jeopardize it all with a hasty revenge.

Heavy pressure at the root of his cock brought him back to the present, his hips beat hard against his sister’s diligently working mouth, both of his acolytes were watching, unable to turn away as he gasped and shuddered his release. There was only one more step required to cement their unyielding obedience.

Bev craned her head, looking up into his eyes, her own lighting up when he dangled the packet of heroin in front of her face again then motioned to Butch.

Take care of him then it’s yours. 

Jesus Christ, Mitch breathed, his eyes glued to his master, aglow with barely concealed worship.

Bev crawled across the floor toward Butch.

I can’t man, he shook his head, backing away from the sixteen year old girl.

If you’d rather I can get my belt and beat the shit out of her. She’s gotta earn it somehow.

NO! Butch protested, his face twisting in horror. There was no doubt in his mind Eddy would beat the young woman senseless if he found himself wanting to. He was a narcissist with a frightening capacity for violence Butch had seen far too frequently during their last couple years of high school.

Eddy rose from his throne, pushing Bev onto her face on the floor then rucking her skirt up, leaving her exposed from the waist down. Then get your dick out, get it up and fuck her.

God you’re... Mitch breathed watching intensely.

Eddy glanced at his devotee, threw him a kiss then grasped Butch’s pants, popping the button and slipping behind him, sliding the zipper down then pushing his pants down. Eddy leaned forward, his lips at Butch’s ear.

You know you want it. Take it. She won’t get any relief until you do. Ease her pain, he whispered watching the man’s rod harden as Bev pushed herself to her hands and knees, her rear in the air, her legs open for him, her haven throbbing as she mewled into the carpet.

Jesus Christ, Mitch breathed watching Butch grab himself for a moment before grasping Bev by the hips and stationing himself behind her.

Want a turn? Eddy asked motioning to his sister.

Mitch shook his head, his adoration clear, his desire visible through his windowpane countenance.

How about this? Eddy asked opening his pants again and pulling himself out into the open.

Oh God, Mitch nodded dazed by his deepest desire on the verge of coming true as Eddy stroked himself to life.

Drop ‘em, the boy who would be king ordered.

He would’ve laughed watching Mitch fumble his pants down, his erection bursting through the fly of his shorts once he opened his jeans, but he needed the boy too much to risk alienating him.

Turn around and bend over, Eddy ordered drizzling his beer over the young man’s hind end while watching Butch cement his loyalty by raping his sister.

He studied his acolytes, teasing Mitch, taunting him with feather light strokes and tentative pokes, tormenting him until he was groaning with desperation. When the young man was ready, and three feet away Butch was at the peak of orgasm, Eddy grasped Mitch by the hips and pulled him backward, impaling the young man on his stony rod, delighting in his howl of surprise and pain.

—

Slow down Eddy. Bev can’t keep up, Butch panted, pulling the