Prologue

Whatever you do, don't open the door!
Recently separated wife and mother of two, Meredith Rhoads finds herself alone and without help when a stranger comes knocking at her apartment door in the middle of the night. She had not expected to see a child though the peep hole. A young girl with dead black eyes and a ghostly pale face stares like a sculpture and speaks without moving, begging to be let in. What she soon discovers is that this late night visit was not an isolated incident, but just one of countless reports of so-called Black-eyed Children attacks throughout her hometown of Belleville Ontario, and sadistic brutality seems in there nature.
Family friend Det. Jennifer Jenson has been following the reports for some time, enlisting the help of a Vatican scientist and his priestly apprentice to discover the macabre meaning of these viscously cruel and seemingly impossible attacks. After a supernatural episode in school, Meredith's 10-year-old daughter Ashley knows more about the demon children than she lets on. Her visions are real and filled with vivid and unexplained images of burning witches, ritualistic sacrifice and the dead rising from the grave. It is in nightmares where a dark and ancient presence keeps close by, watching . . . waiting, as there is much more to the Rhoads family than meets the eye.
As All Hallows Eve approaches a blood moon rises in a crimson sky, and a small group of unlikely brave must race against the clock, following the clues through a vast world of occult history and lore, secret societies and underground tunnels to discover the identity and grand purpose of the Dark Man. His legion of Black-eyed Kids have chosen the one night where every door opens for every child, and behind trick-or-treat masks are the dead eyes of the contagious possessed, and there will be blood.
Trust no one, and keep your crucifix handy, because what is about to be revealed to the world cannot be unlearned, and will chill you to your very core.