The Devil's Laughter

by William W. Johnstone

“But if we do nothing,” Nelson Marshall said, “Link will destroy us, taking us out with surprise moves like this one tonight.”

  “That is also true,” Lynette said.

  “Then – ” Dave Bradley opened his hands.

  “Buy him out,” Britton suggested. “Every man has his price.”

  Lynette shook her head, the movement clearly visible from the fiery light behind her. “Men like Link Donovan cannot be bought off. They are men of principle. They have morals” – she spat on the ground as if the word left a bad taste in her mouth – “and all kinds of other Christian shit like that. I don’t know what to do about him.” She looked at the firemen, working on the blaze like automatons – which they were. “What happened here tonight will go unnoticed long enough for us to either succeed or fail. Either way, it won’t make any difference. If we fail, we die. And time is running out. The Dark One grows impatient.”

  Charlie Ford walked up. “Link took Sally with him. I’ve spoken with witnesses. And there’s more. Those against us have once more gathered out at Link’s place. Most of them. Deputies have ringed the house against attack.”

  Lynette nodded her understanding. “Were the sacred ashes saved this night?”

  “Yes,” Britton said. “I personally saw to that. They are safe.”

  “Where will you two live now?” Nelson asked. “It would be my pleasure to have you stay at my house.”

  “No,” Lynette shook her head. “Have your people clean out the upper floor at the old plant. The office part. Start now. Furnish it well. We’ll stay there. It’s only fitting.”

  Nelson bowed and walked away.

  “Why that dreadful place,” Judge Britton asked, “when we could stay in much more comfortable homes in town?”

  “The old plant is stone and steel,” Lynette replied.

  “It won’t burn. Link Donovan can easily be trapped out there, unlike in town. And time is running out for us. We’re down to days now. Perhaps even hours. The master could well be thinking of withdrawing his presence. I can feel it. We’ve got to have a success. If we fail here, I want to take Link Donovan with us when we die.”

  “As you wish,” Britton said.

  * * *

  Toby Belenger lifted his hand to strike the girl, then shook his head and dropped his hand. Link freed the girl’s ankles and Tom sat her down.

  “You spoiled everything!” Sally screamed at Link. “I was to meet my master tonight. I was guaranteed eternal life.”

  “One of yours, I presume?” Father Lattier asked Toby.

  “Yes,” the minister said. “One of my failures.”

  “Nonsense!” the old priest scoffed. “I have seen only a few children her age taking any sort of part in this devil’s pact. She was born with the bad seed in her. You didn’t fail. You just never had a chance with her.”

  Sally spat at the priest and cursed him.

  Ray was standing quietly, leaning up against a wall, staring at the young girl. “Twelve, aren’t you, Sally?” he asked.

  “Fuck you, pig!” she told him.

  “What do you propose we do with her?” Gerard asked.

  “Take her down to the road and turn her loose,” Link said. “I damn sure don’t want to keep her here.”

  “Oh, please don’t drive me away from the warmth of your home,” Sally said, mocking them all, the evil shining from her eyes. Then she laughed insanely.

  Anne rubbed her arms where goose bumps had suddenly appeared. All in the room could feel the evil emanating from the girl.

  Link held out the barbed wire. Sally looked at it and smiled. “Why barbed wire?” he asked.

  She laughed, and all in the room knew that the laughter was not hers.

  “I was wrong,” Father Lattier said. “Satan is present. This girl is possessed.”

  Sally stuck out her tongue. To those in the room, the tongue appeared to be forked. She laughed and laughed, then hissed at them.

  “Stop believing her tongue is forked!” Link shouted. “Stop believing it and it won’t be.”

  The girl’s tongue became normal. Her eyes shone hate at Link. “They would fail without you,” she said. “You have the mark on you.”

  “What mark?” Bob Evans asked.

  “You can’t see it,” the girl explained. “But I can. He’s a chosen one. Condemned by the New Testament and blessed by the Old.” She stared at Link. “You’ll have your own demons to fight someday.”

  “Whatever that means,” Link said. “Get her out of my house, Tom. Take her down to the gates, take the ropes off her wrists, and throw her over the fence.”

  “I’ll do it,” Clement said. The deputy had come inside for a fresh cup of coffee. “I got to go back down and relieve Steve, anyway.”

  “Sure, come on,” Sally said. “You and me could get in the back seat and have some fun. I give great head, man.”

  Clement shuddered at just the thought.

  Sally laughed. “What’s the matter, man? You got something against a blow job?”

  “Get her out of the house!” Toby said. “Send her back to the arms of Satan.”

  “Suffer the little children unto me,” Sally said mockingly. “We are innocent.” Dark peals of laughter erupted from her throat.

  Clement put a hand on her shoulder and she tried to bite him. He got his hand away just in time.

  “Keep your fucking hands off me, pig,” she told him. “I know the way to the road.”

  “Then move,” Clement told her.

  Link fixed a strong drink and sat down wearily. The adrenaline had stopped pumping and he was suddenly very, very tired.

  “So you burned down Judge Jackson’s place,” Ray said. “I caught that on the unit radio. How many people did you kill?”

  “Oh, twenty or thirty,” Link said matter-of-factly.

  “Good,” Father Lattier said.

  Ray looked at the old priest, amazement on his face that a man of God would say such a thing.

  “They’ll have the dickens of a time explaining that many bodies,” Preacher Dan Knox said.

  “Explaining to whom?” Link asked. “None of this will be reported to the press or to anybody else. Those that were burned to ashes in the fire will be taken out into the parish and buried deep and unmarked. This was just one little skirmish in the war, that’s all. We have a lot of battles yet to fight, and we’d better not lose a one.”

  “The girl said that you were marked . . . that she could see it,” Toby said, staring at Link. “Condemned by the New Testament and blessed by the Old.”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea what she’s talking about,” Link said.

  A scream came from near the road. It ended in a burbling shriek. Wild laughter followed the shrieking. The house emptied.

  The people stood by the gate and looked down at the bloody body of Clement. Over in the ditch, by the road, Steve Mallory also lay in a bloody heap. Both bodies had been horribly mutilated; both had lengths of barbed wire wrapped around their throats.

  Sally was gone.

  “But . . . she’s just a child!” Gerard said. “She couldn’t have done this alone. My God! Steve’s guts have been pulled out.”

  “She wasn’t alone,” Link said. “She had Satan with her.”

  * * *

  Ray put his hand on the phone in his office. For the fifteenth time – at least – he took his hand off the phone. He had already spoken to the sheriffs in the surrounding parishes. Not one had asked about the previous night’s fire. The departments all monitored each other’s radio transmissions. They had to have heard the chatter. Yet they apparently had not. After speaking with the other sheriffs and hanging up totally frustrated, Ray had gone to the computer room and tried to send out teletypes. The computer would not accept them. He typed up a letter and tried to FAX his situation out. The machine would not send it.

  He was down to three deputies, Gerard, and himself. He had called from Link’s place for a local funeral home to come get the bodies of Steve and Clem
ent. They never showed up. The bodies were in the freezer at the jail. Grotesque.

  He could not recall ever feeling this helpless. Powerless. And frustrated.

  And not for one second did he believe that little Sally Wilson had killed two of his young, strong, and very capable deputies. Both men had been savaged. Brutally ripped apart. Even Link admitted that he didn’t think a girl her size could, even under demonic possession, do that to two grown men, and do it so swiftly.

  But if she did have help, who – or what – was it?

  Ray shuddered at just the thought. He slipped into his jacket and waved at Gerard. “Hold the fort, Gerard. I’m going to do something I should have done days ago.”

  “Need some help?”

  “No.” He was out the door before Gerard could ask him any more questions.

  Gerard sat at his desk and looked at the phone. It had not rung one time in several days. He picked it up and punched out the number of the local time and temperature.

  “The time is nine-fifteen, you silly asshole,” the female voice informed him. “What’s the matter, don’t you have a watch? Or are you too stupid to tell time? The temperature is forty-eight degrees. That’s Fahrenheit, piggie. Today’s forecast is for cloudy skies. Tonight it’s probably going to rain. Cold rain. Why don’t you go out and play in it? You might catch pneumonia and die.” Whatever it was broke the connection.

  Gerard sighed and started to call Link. Then he remembered Link’s line was dead. He activated his phone recorder and called the sheriff in the parish directly above his.

  “Tony? Gerard Lucas. Tony, we got some bad problems down here. We need your help in the worst way.”

  “Gerard, ol’ buddy. How’s Carla?”

  “She’s fine, Tony. Tony, didn’t you hear me? I need your help down here?”

  “We’ve got to get together sometime, Gerard. Burn some meat and drink some beer. Things quiet down there?”

  “Tony, you’re a stupid snotlicker,” Gerard said. “I think you’re the ugliest bastard that ever lived and your wife has screwed every man in ten parishes. She says you must have the shortest dick in the world.”

  “It’s nice of you to say that, Gerard. You and me, we go way back, don’t we? Yeah, it’s unusually quiet up here, too, Gerard. Heck, we haven’t even worked a wreck in four or five days. That’s got to be some kind of record. No fights, nothing. That’s odd, isn’t it? Boy, when are we going to get together and act rowdy

  ... or as rowdy as our wives will let us, that is?” Tony laughed at that.

  “Soon, Tony. Real soon. That’s a promise. Talk to you later, man.”

  “Thanks for callin’, Gerard. Glad to hear that everything is quiet down your way. Talk to you soon. Bye, now.”

  Tom, Leon, and Miles had gathered around, listening to the strange conversation. Gerard played the tape for them.

  Tom Halbert lifted his hands. They were trembling. “I’m scared, Gerard. I mean, for the first time since this crap started, I’m really scared.”

  “Welcome to the club,” the chief deputy said.

  Chapter 5

  Link drove into town shortly after Gerard’s conversation with the neighboring sheriff. He drove past the bank where he had cashed the bogus check. The bank was closed. He drove to the post office to check his P. O. box. It was stuffed full of mail, very little of it his. He sorted through the mess, took what was not his into the counter area, and handed it to the clerk.

  “Wrong box,” he said.

  “Well, what do you want me to do about it?” the clerk snapped. “Lord knows, I do my best and get no thanks for it at all. I think that postal workers are the most underpaid, most unappreciated people in the world. I – ”

  He was still griping and bitching and preaching when Link walked out.

  He drove over to the Catholic church. Both priests were out of pocket. Toby Belenger was gone from his house. Link headed for the courthouse. There, Gerard played the tape for him.

  “It’s coming down to the wire now,” Gerard said, “isn’t it, Link?”

  “That would be my guess. Ol’ Nick must be straining every muscle to keep this mind-control thing going. Or maybe he can do it with just the snap of a finger. Hell, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Where’s Ray?”

  “I don’t know. Said he was going out to do something he should have done days ago.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. He was gone before I could ask him. You know how Ray can get at times.”

  “Gerard, leave one deputy here, and you and the rest fan out. Find Ray. He may be getting in way over his head. I’ll look out near what’s left of the Jackson estate. By the way, where is the good judge and his wife and company staying now?”

  “I have no idea. I hadn’t even thought of that.”

  “We need to find out. I have my walkie-talkie with me. If I don’t get out of range.”

  “You be careful out there, Link. After last night, they’ll be gunning for your butt.”

  Link grinned. “I’m couning on it.”

  Link unzipped the bag that contained his MAC-10 and laid it on the seat beside him. He had two clips hooked together with a clip fastener for quicker changing. He drove to town, then cut onto the road leading out to the ruins of the Jackson estate. No sign of Ray in the town.

  The ruins were still smoking and probably would for many more hours. The roof had caved in and one wall had collapsed. The grounds were deserted. Link circled the property, turning onto the gravel road behind the estate, then once more hooking up with the hardtop that would lead him back to town.

  “Anybody seen any sign of him?” the voice came from the walkie-talkie. Gerard was not I.D.’ing himself and neither were any of the remaining deputies. Everyone reported a negative.

  He passed a carload of young men and women, Chris Brooks in the front seat. The punk gave him the bird and Link returned the gesture. The driver spun around in the road and came hard after the Bronco.

  “Don’t get cute with me, boys,” Link muttered, keeping an eye on them in his rearview. “I don’t give a damn for your so-called constitutional rights.”

  The carload of punks roared around Link, the young men and women screaming curses at him, all of them waving their middle fingers. “If that’s all you do, people,” Link said, “you’ll go on living a while longer.”

  But he had a strong suspicion the carload of punks was not going to leave it at that. Could not did not enter the picture. They had made their choice – nobody had forced them – and all had willingly and knowingly picked the wrong road to take. Now they were about to take on the wrong man.

  The driver of the car slowed, made a wide turn, and blocked the blacktop. The punks and their bitches piled out. Link slowed and stopped.

  “Come on, pops!” one of the young men called. It was Nelson Marshall’s son, Bob. A burly, surly, smart-assed spoiled brat. The young man had been a troublemaker all his life. “Come on, you bastard. Let’s see how tough you are.”

  He jerked a gun out of his back pocket.

  Link had stopped a good two hundred yards away. He doubted the punk could hit him at this range. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. He backed up about fifty yards. The young men and women hooted and called him filthy names.

  “What’s your twenty, Link?” Gerard radioed.

  Link looked at the walkie-talkie, then reached over and turned it off. He didn’t want a lot of legalistic law and order and I’ll-read-you-your-rights crap now. He picked up his MAC-10 and jacked a round into the slot.

  Bob snapped off a round. The slug from the short-barreled pistol – it sounded like a .38 – went wide. It was still a very uncomfortable feeling.

  “I’ll give you one more chance,” Link muttered. He backed up and turned around, putting distance between himself and the carload of crapheads.

  They followed him, driving fast to catch up.

  “Shit!” Link said.

  A bullet punched through the rear slidin
g glass of the Bronco. The slug angled off and slammed into the interior roof paneling. It did not punch through.

  “That’s all, people,” Link muttered. “I’m through running.”

  He cut off the road, punched in the four-wheel-drive-on-demand button, and headed into a field. He spun the wheel hard, all four tires biting into the soggy ground and slinging mud. Bob Marshall gunned the engine of the low slung car and jumped the ditch, roaring into the field. Hands were sticking out of the car, hands with guns in them. Lead howled and whistled around Link. He gave the windshield of the car a long burst from the MAC-10.

  The glass spider-webbed and someone inside the car screamed. Bob was slumped over the wheel, half his head missing. The car bounced across the field and slammed into a tree. Whoever was sitting in the passenger side of the front seat went right through the windshield and got hung up in the lower branches of the tree. The radiator smashed and steam clouded the cool air.

  Link dropped the Bronco in gear and drove out of the field. He pulled out onto the blacktop, punched the vehicle out of four-wheel drive, and headed back to town. He did not look back.

  Link flagged down Gerard, and the two men pulled into the parking lot of a deserted service station. Link stuck his head out of the window and told the chief deputy what had happened.

  “And Bob Marshall is dead?” Gerard asked.

  “If he’s alive, he’s going to have to tote his brains around in his pocket,” Link replied. “And the one hung up in the tree wasn’t in real good shape either when I left.”

  “This is going to shove Nelson right over the edge.”

  “Good,” Link said, lighting a cigarette. “Let’s bring this thing to a head and pop the boil.”

  “Link,” the lawman said. “You – ”

  “Don’t start spouting legalistic bullshit at me, Gerard. All that is right out the window now. And you know it. What we have here is pure, unbridled anarchy. It’s a shoot-on-sight situation and that is precisely what I plan on doing from this moment on. I gave those punks out on the road a couple of chances to leave me alone. They ignored it. Now I’m through playing deadly games. From this moment on, I’m going to shoot first and worry about it later. And if you’ve got any sense at all, you’ll take that badge off and toss it in the glove compartment and come out shooting – if you want to live, that is. I’m through talking, Gerard. That’s it. See you around.”