Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

Micah knelt in front of Petty, inspected her for injuries. “Did it hurt you?”

She shook her head. She seemed both alert and hazy at once, as though trapped in a very vivid dream she was helpless to wake from.

“Are you okay?”

“Are you here?” she said. “ Really here?”

“You are not dreaming, Pet. I am here.”

“I’m scared.”

“Me too. More than you can imagine.”

“It said you owed its daddy. What do you owe, Dad?”

Everything, Pet. Everything I can possibly give.

Micah turned to the things, the father and its doting son. “I know what you want. But you have to let them all go.”

The Big Thing squatted beside the baby. For some time, they held a silent palaver.

“What if we want… everything?” the Big Thing finally said.

“You do not want them,” Micah said evenly. “You never did.”

The two things conferred further. The Big Thing appeared to chuckle.

“Yes,” it said. “Just one of you will do.”

“And you must lift the curse. Take it back.”

A smile touched the corners of the Big Thing’s mouth. “Curse? My father should be outraged. Was it not exactly what you wished for?”

Micah said nothing. In time, the Big Thing nodded. “As you wish. My father is merciful.”

Micah turned to Ebenezer and Minerva. “Take her,” he said. “Quickly.”

“Micah, no,” said Minerva. “What are you—?”

Micah turned away. He couldn’t stand to look at them. He had known from the outset that it would come to this. He had realized—in the deepest, most honest chamber of his heart—that it would have to end like this. It was the only way. The creature would take all of them, or it would take Micah alone. But Micah had to give himself willingly. And he knew the thing wanted him so, so badly. For he was surely the only member of his species who had ever caused it true fear, true pain, in its vast and fearsome life.

Micah turned back to confront his daughter’s agonized face. He hugged Pet tightly. With her arms pinned to her sides, she was too surprised to return it. He felt the heat of her body and the rapid beat of her heart. He tried to imprint it in his mind: her warmth, her innocence, all the love pouring out of him into her.

“I love you, Pet.” She shimmered before him. “I love you so much. And your mother, of course. More than anything on earth. You be sure to tell her that, okay? You tell her how much I love you both. Will you do that?”

His daughter nodded obediently. He wondered if she had any idea of just how much he loved her. Does a child ever understand the irrational, endless love of a parent?

“Go, then,” he said. “And do not ever come back. Do you hear me?”

“No, Daddy. I won’t go without you.”

“It cannot be any other way, my love. You do not understand, but you have to trust me. I am begging you.”

Minerva and Ebenezer stood in the sputtering light of the lantern. Micah appealed to them next. “Go. Now. What in hell’s name are you waiting for?”

“We can’t just—” Minerva started.

Micah stilled her with a look. She knew, too. As did Ebenezer. This was the only possible way. The cards were stacked against them. Those cards had begun to stack the moment Micah had accepted Ellen Bellhaven’s request to take her to Little Heaven to find her missing nephew.

Micah tried to let go of his daughter. His arms wouldn’t unlock. He wanted to hold her forever. But he had to let go.

His arms wrapped around her, the comfort he felt with her in his hands—his hands . He saw them now in the flickering lantern light. Hard, callused. A killer’s hands. At first, he hadn’t wanted to hold Petty when she was an infant. This memory came to him, clear as spring water. He had been afraid that some of his evilness might invade her tiny body. But he sensed a change in himself the moment she was born, right in his very atoms. His arms, his hands, his entire body was changing in subtle ways in order to accept this sweet burden he’d been given. She fits perfectly in my hands , he remembered thinking when the doctor gave her to him. They have shaped themselves to her without my even knowing—

He let his daughter go. It was the hardest thing he’d ever had to do. “Go, my Pet.”

“No!” the girl screamed, clutching at him.

The Big Thing chuckled, enjoying the touching family moment.

“We can accommodate two,” it said.

“You will have to take her,” Micah pleaded with Ebenezer and Minny. “Please.”

They grabbed his daughter’s arms. Her screams intensified as they dragged her away, legs kicking wildly. Ebenezer whispered something into her ear. At that, Petty stopped kicking. Her eyes shone in the dim, the brightest spots in the chamber.

“I love you, Daddy” was all she said.

“Blow me a kiss, darling.”

She did. He watched it float through the dark air, then reached out and snatched it. Micah put his daughter’s last kiss in his pocket. “Thank you, baby. I will need it.” They left him, Petty trembling, still disbelieving, her body limp as a wrung dishrag. Minerva followed her, stunned and softly weeping. Ebenezer was last; he departed with a terse but compassionate nod. The three of them crawled into the tunnel. The Big Thing followed them out, leaving Micah with its daddy.

Micah exhaled. He pulled himself together. He unbuttoned his shirt in the flickering glow of the lantern. The baby made gluttonous sucking sounds. His hand trembled as he stretched the skin of his stomach taut. Old flesh, wasn’t it? It had felt a lot, carried him through so much. It bore the nicks and scrapes of its service.

It is not an easy thing, stabbing oneself. Micah had scarcely considered how it ought to be done, never having harbored those thoughts. Fast and declarative seemed best. Cut fast, cut deep.

Micah heard the rope ladder banging against the rock as Petty and the other two climbed up it. Go on, baby. Keep going. Never look back.

He hissed through his teeth as the knife slid into his belly. He jerked the blade across in a straight and bitter line; his flesh readily opened up. He dropped to his knees, swooning as blood soaked into his waistband. Deep enough? He sensed the thing would have its own methods of opening him up.

A delicate touch on his shoulder. A red rope had descended from the ceiling to alight upon him. It wasn’t painful. The warmest kiss. He batted it away. That couldn’t happen yet. He had one final task to complete.

He dragged his bleeding body over to his backpack and rooted inside. His hands closed around the bricklike object he’d carried many miles. He pulled it out. The baby issued a quizzical burble.

Micah had purchased it from an acquaintance from his sad old, bad old days. He had purchased it before heading off to find Ebenezer, meeting the man in a parking garage and paying in cash. Such transactions should carry no trace. The man he had bought it from asked no questions regarding its usage—men like the seller made it their business to proffer product without moral consequence. He only told Micah that it was enough to do the trick, which had sounded about right to Micah.

He turned to the baby. Showed it what he was holding.

“I hope,” he said laboredly, “you are not afraid of enclosed spaces.”

“DADDY!”the Long Walker shrieked.

Petty—who was up the ladder by then, although her progress had been slowed by her tears—looked down at the thing, which stood at the bottom of the basin watching as they ascended. Pet was startled by the childish pitch of its voice. Its huge moonface was split in a rictus of rage—the expression of something that had been tricked most awfully.