Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

He could tell she was about to launch into a barrage of questions about their encounter. Tiredly, he held his hand up to stop her.

“They could be dangerous,” he said. “That is the key point. They may have followed us back… or they have been here all along.”

“Did they attack you?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Not yet ?”

How could he frame it? That those things had seemed more like prison guards than attack dogs? He didn’t want to talk about it. Or about the Preston School, either—both he and Minerva felt it would sow deeper fear within a group that was already crippled with it.

Ellen said, “I made something for you.”

She reached into her pocket and came out with three small glass balls.

“They’re eyes,” she said. “I made them in the glassworks.”

“You did not have to do that.”

“Nobody has to do anything, Micah. I did it because I wanted to. I tried to match the shade.” She peered into his eye. “I think I got pretty close. Go on. Try one.”

He took one from her palm. It looked like a marble, except with a credible human eye structure at its center. He reached for his eye patch… then hesitated.

“It is not pretty,” he said.

“I don’t imagine so.” She feathered her burn scar with the fingers of her free hand. “At least yours can be covered up.”

He took the patch off. His empty socket had some lint in it, same as what collects in a belly button. He swabbed it out and tried to pop the glass eye into his socket. It wouldn’t fit.

“Wait a sec,” said Ellen.

She went to the pump and returned with a bucket of water. She dipped the eye and handed it back. The wet eye still didn’t fit. It was too big.

She handed him another one. “They’re slightly different sizes.”

He dipped the second eye in the water. This one slipped past his eyelid and into his socket. He could feel it bumping around.

“Too small.”

“Aha, it’s like the three bears,” she said. “Porridge too hot, porridge too cold.” She held up the third and last eye. “Let’s hope this one’s just right.”

Micah winked; the second eye popped out of his socket. He tried the last one. It fit pretty well.

“Let’s take a look,” Ellen said. “It’s… hmmm, it’s drifting left. I’ll center it.”

She put her finger on the eye. Micah felt it move.

“There.” She clapped. “Perfect. You look like less of a desperado now. You can get a square john job after this. A cashier, a bank teller.”

Now Micah smiled. “Those would suit me fine.”

He could picture it. The little house in the burbs, the white picket fence. The nine-to-five. Ellen was part of it, too. A goofy fantasy, but still, he could see it.

“Can I ask?” he said, touching his face—the spot where Ellen’s was burned.

She faced away from him. Had he spoken out of turn?

“A bold ask, Mr. Shughrue,” she said.

She remained silent for a spell. Then she faced him and said, “When someone can no longer scare you into doing what they want you to do… well, let’s just say they resort to other tactics.”

She pumped her legs and started to swing. Her eyes did not leave his own.

“You don’t know how bad someone is sometimes,” she said. “Because at first, none of that badness is evident. It’s all goodness—or, if not outright goodness, then at least nothing especially cruel. That’s my problem. I like guys with an edge. But there’s edge and then there’s edge , and when I was younger, I couldn’t tell the difference. My sister’s the same way.”

She pumped her legs harder. The swing carried her up and down. The hinges squeaked.

“So when you finally see that badness, Micah, you’re kind of wed to it. That badness doesn’t want to let you go. And it gets angrier and angrier that you won’t bend to it the way it thinks you should. It’s pissed that you aren’t scared of it anymore. So it tries to make you scared again. Any old way it can.”

“Uhhh…,” said a voice behind them. “Hey.”

Micah craned his neck to see Ellen’s nephew, Nate. Ellen dragged her feet through the dirt, bringing the swing to a stop.

“What are you doing here?” she said. “Isn’t someone watching you kids?”

“I snuck away.”

Ellen said, “God, Nate. Someone has to know where you are at all times.”

Nate sawed his forearm across his nose. “Sorry.”

Ellen went over to him. Hugged him fiercely. The boy didn’t protest.

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything this morning,” he said. “When… when they dragged you and the other man out of your house.”

“Like what?” Ellen said. “What could you have said?”

Nate breathed in and let it out in a shivering exhale. He mumbled something too garbled for Micah to understand.

“What did you say?” said Ellen.

“I said, I saw them last night. Eli and Elsa and the Redhills.”

The story poured out of the boy. He told them that Eli had come back last night. Nate had seen the four children daisy-chained together, hand to hand. Something about flute music from the woods— that detail raised the short hairs on the back of Micah’s neck. Nate’s last sight of the children was of them dancing around some enormous shape that the boy could not name.

“Do I sound crazy?” Nate asked when he was done.

Ellen said, “No, you don’t sound crazy. Not at all.”

Micah did not know how to take Nate’s story, though it was clear the boy believed it. But then the thing he had glimpsed at their old campsite the other night wasn’t believable, either—and it had been real enough.

“Did you tell your father?” Micah asked.

The boy’s chest hitched. “He didn’t see anything. Or… I don’t know, maybe he couldn’t. He said I was imagining it. That there was nuh-nuh- nothing .”

Ellen hugged Nate again. “We believe you, Nate. Okay?”

Nate sucked back snot. He had nearly cried, but then he hadn’t.

“We’re going to get out of here,” Ellen said. “This place? Little Heaven? We’re done with it. We’ll take as many people as want to go with us. Your dad, too. Hike back, get in our car, and drive someplace for a burger and fries and a chocolate milkshake. A real pig-out. Sound like a plan?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How about it, Micah? Sound like a good plan to you?”

Whether it was a good plan or not, Micah wasn’t sure she should promise the boy anything.

Otis and Charlie appeared at the fence. Their faces were etched with defeat.

“Good to see you back,” said Otis wearily. “No further troubles?”

“No,” Micah told him.

“Glad to hear it. Like the new eye, too. It humanizes you.”

“Hey,” Ellen chided. “He looked plenty human before.”

Otis’s shrug was noncommittal. “Charlie and I are leaving tonight with Terry Redhill. Time to get the police. Get some real help. We should have done it days ago, I guess.”

“We’re taking the truck, Micah,” said Charlie. “Fastest way. Will you come with us?”

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER,they were set to depart.

Darkness bled over the compound. The search had been called off. Only the Rasmussens were still looking; they had broken away from their search party, moving deeper into the woods—just like the Rathbones had done. And the Rathbones had never come back.

The remaining denizens of Little Heaven assembled to see the pickup truck off. They were worn and fearful, their faces showing little hope. The Reverend was nowhere in sight.

Charlie and Otis sat in the cab of the truck, Terry Redhill in the bed. “We’ll drive to the river,” Otis told everybody, speaking over the idling engine. “If it’s running low enough to cross, we’ll take the truck over. If not, we hike the rest of the way.”