Devil Dead

by Linda Ladd

  Novak couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t wait any longer. “I’ve gotta get her down from there. She’s still burning. She’s still on fire. I gotta put it out.”

  Claire looked back at him, as if she was suspended in a confusing dream, and then she nodded and glanced around. When she saw a garden hose coiled on the back of the house, she sprinted for it. Novak ran after her, grabbing the faucet and twisting the handle. Then he took the hose and dragged it as far as he could toward the barn and the burning body and tried his best to douse the flames, the scorching heat singeing his face and hair. He couldn’t get close enough to completely put it out, the flames too intense, too high, and too hot, a rising wind fanning the blaze even farther into the night sky.

  Novak stopped where he was, his mind tortured with his helplessness. How could anybody do such a thing to a kid like Adonis? How could they? And why? Oh, God, somebody had come out to her house in the dead of night and murdered her in the worst way imaginable. What if she’d been alive when they had lit her on fire? Right then, right there, he went stone cold inside, and that’s when he vowed to God that he’d find whoever did this to his friend and make them pay for it with their lives. If it took him forever, he would get the son of a bitch who did this to a poor, innocent, abused little girl like Adonis.

  Absolutely sick to the depths of her soul and not even able to look at the small blackened corpse, Claire stared at Novak’s hard, totally enraged face for a mere moment, and then she left him there, still trying to douse Adonis’s body with the small and completely ineffective hose. She walked several yards away and punched in 911 and alerted the Thibodaux Fire Department, and told them to hurry, that they had a barn on fire and a murder victim. Then she climbed up the steps to the back porch and crossed some old and creaky boards to the back door. It stood wide open and led straight into Adonis’s old-fashioned kitchen.

  Claire stopped cautiously at the threshold and looked around, thinking the perpetrator might still be inside, robbing the place or hanging around to admire his handiwork. She kept her weapon up and remained on high alert. The inside of the house was full of smoke now, and hot enough to bring sweat popping out on her face, but it was the acrid odor of the fire and the smell of cooking human flesh that permeated everything, everywhere, pungent, sickening, horrible to think about. She ground her teeth together and tried not to consider the air that she was breathing, tried not to remember how pitiful Adonis was, how slight and frail and unable to defend herself. Just like Novak had said.

  There had been one hell of a struggle inside that kitchen, no doubt about it. It looked like Adonis, as small and weak as she had appeared, had fought her assailant tooth and nail for her life. Claire wondered briefly if the girl could have lit herself on fire in some kind of crazy suicide attempt, but quickly negated that idea. No, Claire had a feeling that the poor kid had been dragged outside in her own backyard, kicking and fighting and screaming, and then cold-bloodedly burned to a crisp. Oh, God, what kind of person could even do that to another helpless human being? Who would have anything against some reclusive and defective girl who lived alone out in the sticks? Why her? Why now? Why any of it?

  Outside, the crackle and pop and hiss of collapsing timbers in the burning barn continued uninterrupted, despite Novak’s futile attempts to put out the fire. All around her, the golden glow danced around on the pink-flowered wallpaper and reflected flames in the old casement windows. She just stood there a moment, trying to think. Not long after, Novak walked inside and let the screened porch door slam behind him. His face looked ashen and sick and awful but determined. He had black soot all over him now. On his hands and face and green T-shirt and tan pants. It looked to Claire like the palms of his hands had been burned.

  “Novak, I am so sorry. I am so sorry.” She watched him, but he didn’t say a word. He was in so much pain that she couldn’t even bear to look at him. She looked away and said, “You gonna be okay?”

  “That little girl was a friend of mine. I’m gonna get whoever did this. I am going to get them.”

  Claire knew exactly how he felt. The pain, the loss, the utter rage at the monster who had done such a terrible thing, and more than anything, the overwhelming, paralyzing need for revenge. She had felt that way herself plenty of times when she found victims who were innocent except for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. “They won’t get away with this, Novak. I promise you that. But you gotta let me call in the detectives at Lafourche Parish. They’re good, real good. I worked with them, so I know them. Let me get them out here, now, while the crime scene’s still untouched. Let them work this place. The fire department’s already on its way. There’s got to be evidence we can find.”

  Novak didn’t say a word, just stared wordlessly at her through the hazy smoke hanging waist-high inside the kitchen. “I’m gonna check out the house. Make sure he’s gone.”

  He left the kitchen but was back in a matter of minutes. He still looked like he wanted to murder the next person he laid eyes on.

  Claire tried again. “My partner when I was down here? Zee Jackson? I can pave the way with him and the forensic team. They need to sweep this scene ASAP. I’m tellin’ you, we need to get them out here. Now.” Then she just stopped talking, the smell of roasting flesh overcoming her for a second. She truly felt sick to her stomach. Rising nausea. Like she was going to vomit. Novak looked even worse.

  Glancing out through the window over the sink, she could see that the girl’s body was down on the ground now, lying a good distance away from the burning building. The corpse looked like a stick of burned firewood, but Novak had spread his jacket over the head and chest of the body. Oh, God, every damn thing they’d run across so far in this case was just so absolutely horrendous. Acts of pure depravity and inhumanity. And they still had no idea where the hell Andrea Quinn was. Or, Claire thought suddenly, could that poor tortured body lying out there in the yard be Andrea, burned well beyond recognition? Could Adonis have been the one who set the victim on fire?

  Claire looked again at Novak’s stricken countenance. She hesitated, afraid to voice her thoughts. “You sure that’s Adonis out there, Novak? Maybe it isn’t her? Maybe it’s somebody else. Maybe it’s Andrea Quinn? Anybody could’ve gotten in the killer’s way. That body doesn’t have to be Adonis. It could be anybody.”

  “It’s Adonis.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I just know.”

  Claire blew out a deep breath and refocused her attention on the trashed kitchen. There were broken dishes all over the floor, the shards painted with pink and blue flowers, and ashes still wafted through the open door on the heat currents and hung in the air. Chairs were overturned, the kitchen table pushed out of place. “We are still in Lafourche Parish, right? Or is this place in Terrebonne?”

  “It’s Lafourche. The road we came in on runs over the Terrebonne line not too far from here.”

  Novak stared down at Claire, and their gazes locked together. The most terrible expression still lingered in his eyes. She did not have the heart to press him further about anything. Not yet. He was just not ready. There would be an autopsy and dental records, with which they would have to identify a body burned that badly. Unless Adonis had no dental records, which was probably a distinct possibility. Andrea Quinn would have them, but they would probably have to be attained in France. Claire felt very afraid for Andrea Quinn now, very afraid that she was already dead, murdered in some brutal way, and maybe even burned alive, too.

  Suddenly, Novak turned away from her and just stared out the back window at the body, motionless, and no doubt steeling himself for whatever came next. Still watching Novak’s ramrod-straight back and clenched fists, Claire took out her phone and put in a call to Zee Jackson.

  Witch Way

  After the evil demons made her kill the young girl and left her there all alone, Diana stayed in her bed, her whole body trembling with fear and horror over what she’d been forced to do. She began to cry and wept all thr
ough the night and couldn’t even bear to get up or look outside the window or answer the door when the big man came and knocked and left her groceries and Happy Meals and comic books. She was so terrified now that she wouldn’t even go into the bathroom alone, and she kept Toby beside her every minute, for fear of what they might do to him.

  But despite her fervent prayers, the demons eventually returned again to torment her. This time they came in the daytime, and this time there were three of them. Another girl was with them, one with long blond hair and a pretty face, and they all stood together under her bedroom window and called to her in the same low and frightening voices. They kept repeating the same words, over and over and over, until she put her hands over her ears to block them out. Weeeee neeeed blooood. Weeeee neeeeed blooood.” But she was scared to leave her room, so she just cowered in the corner and hid her face in Toby’s neck.

  Finally, the demons got tired of playing their games and came stomping up the steps to get her, yelling and screaming and threatening to kill her. Then the boy demon and the girl demon grabbed her arms and dragged her between them down the back steps and out the swamp trail to the Sanctuary, while the blond girl just followed along behind them and said nothing. Inside, they had brought a new Sacrificial Lamb, and the coffee cans of animal blood that Diana had collected for them were sitting beside the tub. Diana wept and cried and begged, but she didn’t resist because she knew they would kill her, too, like they did the other young girls they had brought out to the Sanctuary to sacrifice.

  The new girl demon was dressed all in red, a long robe that zipped up the front and dragged the floor, but she looked afraid and hung back away from the others and watched them. She acted nervous and didn’t say anything at all. Then the boy and girl demons thrust Adonis up next to the weeping and hysterical Sacrificial Lamb. This time, there was some kind of a shiny gun in the boy demon’s hand. They told her that this evil witch was from that Tulane place, too, just like all the others. That there were plenty more witches where she came from, all waiting to join their little satanic coven. Then they laughed, and the boy demon came up behind her and gripped his hand over her wrist, and the Sacrificial Lamb closed her eyes and wailed horribly under the silver tape as he pressed the gun barrel up against her temple.

  But then, miraculously, outside the Sanctuary, back at the house, they heard some voices calling out, the sounds loud in the quiet afternoon. Everybody in the Sanctuary froze, shocked anyone else was around, and the Sacrificial Lamb started twisting and turning and screaming under the tape. Then the boy demon clubbed her in the temple with the butt of the gun, once, very hard, and then again, even harder. After that, the girl hung limply against the ropes that bound her to the loft ladder.

  Grabbing Diana, he whispered harshly into her ear. “You go back to the house, you hear me, Diana? And you better get rid of them, or we’ll kill them, too. I’ll shoot them dead, and they’ll never know what hit them. Then we’ll kill you.”

  So they pushed her outside the Sanctuary door and told her they’d be watching and listening to everything she said. So scared now that she could barely move her legs, Diana started back down the trail toward her house. Halfway there, she could see a man and a woman standing out in her backyard. When they saw her coming, they started walking across the grass toward her. Then they smiled and spoke in a friendly manner. The man had a different kind of accent, one that she’d never heard before. It sounded a little bit like some of the Cajun folks who lived in the bayous. Both of them smiled at her and acted very friendly.

  “Why, hello, there,” the tall man said. “Sorry to have to bother you, miss.”

  “That’s okay,” she got out somehow. She tried not to glance back at the trail behind her, but it was hard not to just start screaming and run away from them. She knew that the demons were watching and holding the gun on her and the nice couple. They both smiled some more, real friendly like, and kept looking around the yard and at the barn.

  “What’s your name?” said the girl.

  “Diana.”

  “You know what, Diana,” the girl said then. “We’ve been hiking up along the bayou. You know, sightseeing, and the like. Our water bottles are empty, and we’re just really thirsty. Could we please have a drink from your hose? It’s just so hot out here today. We are burning up.”

  Diana nodded and hurried over to the faucet attached to the back of the house. There was a garden hose coiled up there, and she turned it on and handed it to the man. Both of them drank thirstily, laughing when they got their Tshirts wet. Then the man held the hose over his head and drenched himself all over. The woman did the same thing, and both of them laughed as if that was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Diana just stared at the nice people but she didn’t laugh. She was silent and wished they would hurry up and go away before the demons killed them. But her nerves were quivering because she knew that the demons could burst out with the gun at any time, and the nice man and woman wouldn’t have a chance. She didn’t want any bad things to happen to the smiling couple. They were too nice.

  “You know, we’ve been down here looking for a friend of ours. A girl named Cecilia. She’s real pretty with blond hair that’s real straight and looks almost white and blue eyes. Real tall, too, and kinda pale skin with lots of freckles. She usually wears her hair in a long braid that hangs way down her back, almost to her waist. You ever seen her around here? She told us she thought the bayous were really interesting and that she likes to come down and shoot pictures of all the plants and animals. She’s a real good photographer. We’re trying to hook up with her.”

  Diana felt like she was gonna be sick. They were describing the first Sacrificial Lamb. The one Beelzebub made her stick in the throat with a knife. All of a sudden, she got all light-headed and faint, and had to reach out and brace her hand on the house.

  “Hey, are you all right?” said the woman. “Your face is all flushed. Maybe you should sit down over there in the shade and drink some water, too. It’s nice and cold. Maybe you ought to spray yourself, too, so you’ll cool off. You’re really sweating.”

  “No, no, I’m okay,” Diana said quickly. Her voice came out all stuttering and weak. “Nobody much comes ’round here so I don’t think that Cecilia girl would’ve, neither. I don’t ever see nobody.”

  “Yeah, we’re certainly way off the beaten track, that’s for sure,” the woman said.

  Then they both drank some more water out of the hose and talked some more about their friend and the beauty of the bayous and complimented her on the realism of the stuffed animals on her porch, and then they thanked her and the man bid her adieu. That’s what he said, adieu, which she knew meant good-bye in French, so that’s where he must be from.

  As soon as they were gone around the front of the house, the demons came out from the trees and grabbed her and pulled her back to the Sanctuary. The pretty blond girl was still inside, and the poor Sacrificial Lamb was still hanging limply against the ropes, barely even conscious. Diana felt sick to think what was gonna happen to her and had to look away and swallow hard.

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t give us away,” the boy demon growled into her averted face. “You better not ever tell anybody about us, or your little puppy there is a goner. We’ll cut his throat and make you drink his blood. Then I’ll cut you from your throat to your legs and hang you up and drain you like you do all those animals you kill.”

  Diana just stood there and wished they would just hurry up and kill her so she didn’t have to be afraid anymore. Then they told her to get into the tub and make it quick. She climbed in, and then for a little while, she just kept her eyes squeezed shut and tried not to think about what was gonna happen to her and to the girl who was beginning to stir a little again and regain consciousness. But she could hear the demons whispering together where they stood in the shadows under the loft. They were angry at each other now, arguing back and forth, as if they really hated each other.

  “They’re getting too close,”
said Beelzebub. “They’ll recognize us, and we’re gonna get caught this time. We gotta get the hell outta here. This was way too close for comfort. Maybe we oughta cut our losses, kill these last two, and find us another place to do the sacrifices.”

  Lilith gave such a low, mocking laugh that it raised the hairs on Diana’s bare arms. She sounded evil. She was evil. Even more evil than Beelzebub was. “You are such a damn coward. You call yourself a demon; that’s a laugh. This’s too good a setup to just end everything. We’ve always dreamed of havin’ a cult, of killin’ people for Satan. You’re just scared. Nobody ever comes out here and that stupid girl over there is the perfect victim. We’ll never find anybody else so scared of us.” She stopped and sort of pushed the boy in the chest, hard enough to make him stagger a step backward. “So quit with the worrying; I’ll take care everything. I know who those two out there are—I’ve seen them around—and I know where they live. All I have to do is follow them, and when I get a chance, I’ll take them out.”

  “What if they leave town? Just take off. Take a plane to God knows where.”

  “I don’t care where they go or how far they go. I can kill them without getting caught. I’ve been killing people long before I even met you, you know that, ever since I went to school in France, and I know how to do it without anybody ever being the wiser. I’ve gotten away with it before, and I’ve got plenty of money, too. They aren’t gonna come around here ever again, not when I get through with them, I can promise you that. So quit your sniveling, you coward. We haven’t gotten caught yet, have we? And we won’t, if you just shut up with your whining and do what I tell you to.”