Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

The Englishman steered them down to Little Heaven. The ashen path was wide enough that the machine could fit; any tree in the way got snapped and ground up by the treads. The Englishman glanced at Nate. His face was shiny with sweat.

“You watch how I’m driving, son. I may need you to take the helm soon.”

“ Me? ”

Nate knew how to pedal a bike, sure, but a tank ? He could hear his old playmates crying in the back of the vehicle. He wanted to cry right along with them. They were dead. Everyone’s parents. Even people who had no kids like Doc Lewis and the grouchy cook. His own father. Nate shut his eyes. He could still see the scene inside the chapel: people screaming with blood all down their chests, shrieks and moans, the Reverend standing at the pulpit with his arms in the air as if this was all God’s will.

“What was that thing?” he asked the Englishman.

“What thing are you talking about, precisely?” the Englishman said in the manner of someone who had seen a lot of strange things lately.

“The thing you set on fire.”

The Englishman worked the steering rods. A tree snapped under the treads. “There are details of this world that exist beyond understanding,” he said. “I never would have expected to say such a thing. But there it is. I don’t know what it was, son. Try not to think about it.”

“I can’t help it. I will see it for the rest of my life.”

“I will, too, if it’s any consolation.”

They were nearing Little Heaven. Ebenezer had no intention of driving into it—could you imagine the looks on the kids’ faces at the sight of their dead parents? Better those bodies get burned up, he figured. Better the kids recall their folks in a less traumatic light.

But those things might be lurking in the woods leading back to civilization. No, they would be . He was sure of it. They had let him back in because—well, why wouldn’t they? Another lamb to the slaughter. But he was sure that the slaughterhouse door only swung in one direction, and that they would shortly have to force their way back out.

To that end, Eb would have to be wielding a weapon. Minny, too. It was the only way they’d stand half a chance—and if he were a wagering sort, those were the best odds he’d give them right now.

Little Heaven came into view. Ebenezer drove around the fence, skirting the chapel and the terrible sights it held.

“The woodpile!” Minerva yelled.

He drove to it. When he got out, he saw the fire tearing through the woods to the north. It was advancing with stunning speed: points of flame dancing across the treetops, which swiftly burned down to the forest floor, igniting the browned needles. Christ, he could hear it now—a low, wet, gnashing sound, like a hive of insects chewing and eating as the fire fed on the forest. Minerva hopped down and hauled the burlap tarp off the woodpile.

“We need to wet this!” she said to Eb.

They carried the tarp to the pump. Eb feverishly worked the handle; it took a minor eternity before water began to splash out. They dragged the sopping cover back and wrangled it into the bed of the track machine.

“Get under it!” Minerva instructed the kids.

They did as she said. They all fit underneath the tarp, which would provide at least some protection from the fire that was now bearing hungrily down. Sparks blew all around them, whipped on the wind; they swirled around the track machine like fireflies, fizzling in Eb’s frowsy hair.

Eb clambered back into the cab and angled the machine until it pointed directly down the path leading out of the woods.

“Have you been watching me?” he said to Nate. The boy nodded. “All right, then, come sit where I’m sitting.”

Dutifully, the boy slid over. Eb took Nate’s hands and put them on the steering rods. “You don’t have to adjust these at all, yes? Just keep them steady. Now, you see this pedal? That’s the gas. I want you to put your foot on it.”

Nate pressed down on it with his toe.

“A little harder.”

Nate did. The motor growled menacingly.

“There. That’s the perfect weight. Now put your foot on the brake.” Nate did. Eb slid the transmission into drive. “When I tell you, take your foot off that pedal and put it back on the other one, the gas. We’ll start to move. I want you to keep your foot on the gas pedal just like you did there, okay? And you keep going, no matter what.”

The boy said nothing.

“ Okay? ”

The boy said, “Okay.”

Ebenezer clapped him on the shoulder. “Good lad.”

He clambered into the bed with Minerva. The fire was nipping at their heels; the skin tightened down his neck, sweat darkening his collar. He glanced back and saw the shimmering wall of flame advancing in a breathtaking wave—breathtaking in a literal sense: the fire ate the surrounding oxygen, leaving him with precious little to fill his own lungs. Ebenezer wondered if it would crash over them that same way—a fiery tidal rip curl picking them up, pushing them forward, charring their bodies to ash before they had even a moment to scream—

He slipped the flamethrower tanks over his shoulders. He could see the things massing ahead. They weren’t going to make it easy.

“You ready?”

Minerva nodded. There was a hardness in her eyes he hadn’t seen before.

“Go,” he told the boy.

With a jerk, the machine trundled forward. A few children cried out under the tarp. Eb lit the flamethrower’s pilot light.

The forest fire was closing in; looking back, he saw a vein of white flame rip out of the woods toward the chapel. It would soon climb its roof and set that mighty cross on fire. After that, the bodies inside would begin to blister and char.

“That’s perfect,” he called down to the boy. “That exact speed.”

They hit the first cut of woods. The things attacked.

It happened quickly. A frenzy of activity. They came in multiple surges. Time fractured, and what Eb recalled came in flashes.

FLASH: A shaggy brutish something lumbering out of the trees, many-limbed and growling. Ebenezer hit it with the flamethrower. It went up in a soaring cone of fire, its legs continuing to saw toward the track machine until Minerva shot it twice with the shotgun, blasting gobs of flaming tissue across the dirt. A fresh horror dodged in from the opposite side: a wet, shimmering, torsional creature of outrageous length, the wiry fibers of its anatomy braided together in some living, livid rope—

FLASH: A pack of smaller things rushing at them, a dozen or more, the size of house cats but much faster; Minerva picked a couple of them off as they advanced, and a few more got squashed under the rumbling treads. But two managed to scale the machine and clamber into the bed; their oily skin was covered in wart-like growths, their mouths studded with needle teeth. The first one attacked Eb’s boot, tearing a chunk from the leather. Minerva kicked it into the corner and blasted it into red hash. She wheeled around to grapple with the second monstrosity as—

FLASH: Something swooped down from the sky to land on the hood. An enormous bat-like thing—black wings spread across the whole hood, claws hooking it to the grille. Its body was the size of a big dog, a madcap mishmash of parts. It snapped at the windshield as its claws scrabbled on the hood, trying to climb the glass like some friendly puppy that only wanted to lick the boy’s face. Nate shrieked; the vehicle slowed and he shrank back in the seat, his foot slipping off the gas. Eb pulled the flamethrower’s trigger and got a sad hiss. The fuel tank had run dry. He cut a pistol lose from the slat and shot the thing at point-blank range; it hissed and screeched. He emptied the clip into it, but it clung tenaciously to the hood, scraping its way up the windshield. Minerva turned the shotgun on it. The gun boomed twice, and then the thing was carried off the edge of the track machine, hanging to the hood by the claw on its wing. It shrieked pitifully as the treads caught the flapping edge of its other wing, chewing it underneath the vehicle, where its body crunched with a sickening sound…