Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

Then, seemingly moments after it started, it was over. The track machine shunted down the slope, leaving the things behind. They had escaped the kill zone, and nothing appeared to be following. The forest fire was now a faint glow across the bottomlands, though it wouldn’t be long before it caught up to them again.

Eb threw his arms up. “You beautiful bastard, you!” he shouted at Minerva.

The track machine ground to a halt. Ebenezer took a peek under the tarp to make sure the children were okay; then he turned to Minerva with a boyish grin—

She kicked him in the chest and sent him crashing off the tailgate. He hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of him.

“Get up,” she said coldly, hopping off the tailgate herself.

It felt as though his chest had caved in. He was able to pull in a few shallow heaves and drag himself to his feet. What the hell was she on about? They had survived by the skin of their teeth and now—

“Get your gun,” she said once he was up.

She walked to a spot thirty yards away. Then she turned to face him, waiting.

“I’m going to shoot you now, Ebenezer Elkins,” she said calmly.

He was still doubled over, sucking wind. “Wh-what?”

“I’ll give you a moment to check your weapon and catch your wind. You tell me when you’re ready.”

He stared at her, baffled. “Minerva, for Christ’s sake.”

“Check your load, pal. We don’t got all day here.”

Fire collected along the curve of the earth. Minerva closed her eyes and waited. She had felt it by then, for the first time ever: the sensation she would come to know as the Sharpening. She’d felt it during the firefight just passed. Everything had slowed down, and she was able to operate calmly within the cool center of chaos. Right at that moment, it felt the most natural thing in the world.

Ebenezer dusted himself off. “You can’t possibly be serious.”

She closed her eyes, feeling her newfound capacities surge through her. “Oh, I am. As a heart attack.”

His voice changed—became accepting, as men such as him tended to be under even the most unreasonable circumstances. “May I ask why?”

“No. You ready yet?”

She opened her eyes. Eb stared searchingly at her across the starlit path.

“I’m not ready, no. Not hardly. Minny, I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand, Ebenezer. You just have to skin that pistol, point, and shoot. Should be easy enough for you. Made a tidy living off it, haven’t you?”

Ebenezer saw something then. A thin band of gold rimming her irises—though it was too dark and he too far away to note it with such precision—but yes, something deep-set and ineffable in her eyes. Something ticking ever clockwise, sharp and pure.

“If we do this, I—I don’t shoot to wound,” he said. “I’m not built that way.”

“You better do what you do, then.”

The children peeked from beneath the tarp, their eyes wide and curious.

“I don’t want to, Minerva. I will kill you. I’ll have to. Why end everything like this when we’ve been so lucky?”

She didn’t answer him. Her hand fell to the Colt at her waist. Ebenezer tucked his own pistol into his waistband. His fingers danced above the grips. The fire was set to scream over the rise, devouring everything in its path.

“Ready?” she said.

“No. But I’m afraid I’ll be ready well before you are, milady.”

They drew.

She’s so fast was Ebenezer’s amazed thought.

Minerva’s first shot tore through his leg just below his knee. He’d managed to clear the gun from his waistband, but her next shot clipped its barrel, sending it flying through the air. He uttered a shocked cry and fell back, clutching his knee. Blood pulsed through the neat hole in his pants.

“Ah- fuuuuuuuuu —” was all he could get out.

She hopped into the track machine again and came back to him with something in her hands. She flung it at his feet. He was in such pain, tears swimming in his eyes, that he could not make it out. She toed it a little closer. Some kind of dried reptile head. A snake, if he had to guess.

“You killed my father in a shack near Yuba fourteen years ago,” she said simply.

He stared at her gape-jawed, unable to comprehend.

“And because you killed my father, my brother died. All on the same day.”

“Who?” he managed to ask through gritted teeth.

“Charles Atwater.”

“But I didn’t…”

Minerva cocked the pistol and pointed it between his eyes. “Think on it.”

In time, he nodded. “Ah. A gambler… yes?” He winced, the pain in his knee drilling up and down his leg. “I was hired… to collect his debt.”

“You were just doing your job, right?”

“Of course. Had I known…”

“How could you have known?” she said, softening just slightly.

He dropped his head. Then he began to laugh. His shoulders hitched softly with it.

“All this time, Minerva. You’ve been waiting on this moment?”

She didn’t answer. What was the point? When Ebenezer looked up, he was smiling. “You got it out of your system, I trust?”

“I don’t figure so, no.”

“That would have been my guess.” He laughed again. “The whole time! Oh, but you are a patient viper.”

Minerva walked to the machine and slung herself into the cab. “Scoot over,” she told Nate. She put the vehicle in gear. The fire glinted in the side-view mirror, bearing down.

“What just happened?” Nate asked.

“He said he wants to walk home.”

Ebenezer’s voice rose over the onrushing fire: “Are we all square now, Minerva? Tell me we’re even now, at least!”

She didn’t bother answering that, either.

THE REVEREND AMOS FLESHERscreamed out of unconsciousness.

It was dark. So very dark. Had he been dreaming? The dream itself was gone, but its outlines still clung to his mind: an inky spillage roiling with unseen bodies. He shivered. He was shirtless, his belly spilling over the waistband of his trousers.

He was still here. His father’s room. The house of treasures. He saw a light a dozen yards off. A flashlight lay on the floor, pointing at the wall. The rock met at a perfect ninety-degree angle. Puzzling. His initial sense of this space was of a huge bubble inside the rock. But seeing the way the rock met, his mind reoriented its parameters: not an orb but a cube.

Hell is a box.

He recoiled. The voice had come from his own head—mirthless, a flat, deadened tone—but the words were so powerful that it felt as if they had been whispered into his ear. But when he turned and looked, only the darkness peered back.

His legs were tacky with blood. How? It came back to him. The one-eyed bastard! Amos’s fingers roamed around to his spine. His fingertips touched flayed meat. He cried out in pain. Jesus Lord, merciful provider. The fucker had quartered him like a hog. He would bleed to death! He tried to call out, but his lips were waxy and his vocal cords shredded. Had he been screaming in his sleep?

He tried to stand. Impossible. His legs were numb and useless; they might as well have been made of wood. Had the one-eyed fuck severed a nerve cluster in his spine?

He hauled himself forward, fingers seeking purchase on the rock. One of his fingernails peeled off with a gluey snap, but it didn’t hurt one bit. He laughed again—what’s a fingernail? what’s a finger? what’s a toe?—and hauled his body on, singing an old hymn: