Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

“ My cunty rotted out, Cedric ,” the Long Walker said matter-of-factly. “ Everything that had gone off inside of me came right out, slicker than snot on a doorknob. But it was sloooooow . It took months. I lay there for hours in my own shit and ruin. I died alone, all alone. ”

A thundering BOOM! —

A ragged hole punched through the shack door, splinters spitting in every direction. Lead shot whizzed past mere inches from Petty’s ear, so close that it sent her hair fluttering.

The Long Walker advanced. The door opened without it even touching the handle, as if blown open by a mammoth gust of wind. The Long Walker’s body expanded, the flaps of its duster billowing, then shrank again to fit through the doorway. It dragged Petty inside with it.

The shack was lit by a kerosene lantern. A fire guttered in a potbellied stove. Animal skins cured on the walls. The man was big and self-sufficient by the looks of it, with a graying beard. He was jacking shells into his double-barreled shotgun as the Long Walker came in.

“Oh God,” the man said, dropping the gun. “Oh no…”

He curled up in the corner and covered his face with his hands and shook. He had lived in these inhospitable woods with the howling of wind and wolves, yet he had been reduced to a child at the mere sight of this thing.

“Go away,” he pleaded. “Please just go away.”

The creature seemed even bigger within these confines, its milky skull brushing the roof. A coldness wept off its body, particular to creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean. It crossed the shack, passing the man where he sat mewling, to a tool rack on the wall. Knives and other sharp implements for the flensing, puncturing, and skinning of animal carcasses.

The Long Walker selected one seemingly at random—but Petty could tell that this thing never acted randomly. Its every gesture served some terrible purpose. The knife was fingerling thin. The blade was pitted and rusty, but its edge was sharp—and it became keener, more glittery , when the thing took possession of it, as though the Long Walker’s touch conferred a deeper refinement of its purpose. The Long Walker ran the edge along its fingers. The blade slit its tissue cleanly, but no blood welled: its flesh was flawless porcelain clean through to whatever bone might have lurked at its core.

“Vivisection,” it said. “Is this word familiar to you, my Pet?”

Petty shook her head. The Long Walker flirted the blade over its fingers.

“Oh yes,” it said. “Sometimes it is the only way.”

The Long Walker hunched before her with its arms hugged round its knees, the knife’s tip touching the oiled dirt floor. Its posture did almost nothing to change the sweeping size of its body. Its eyes were very strange indeed. To Petty they resembled Christmas tree ornaments but darker, more secretive—and she could see things moving behind them, their shadows held by the lamp.

“To know something—to truly know that thing—you must open that thing up.”

The man continued to moan. More than anything in the world, Petty wanted to run away, to run and keep running even if that meant she would be alone in the woods. She had an overwhelming sense that the Long Walker was going to show her things soon. Open her eyes to wonderments she could go several lifetimes without ever knowing.

“The only way to understand anything is to see what makes it tick.” The Long Walker exposed its toothless gums. “Tick. Tick. Tick.” It held the knife by its handle and let the blade swing side to side like the pendulum on a clock. “To see how those things fit together, yes? To expose the soft and delicate parts.”

“You already know how they fit together,” said Petty.

The Long Walker shook its head. “Each is subtly different, my Pet. And it is these subtleties that intrigue.”

She could see that it was excited for what was to come. Its skin jumped with anticipation. Yet mixed in with that excitement was a strain of deep tiredness, as if it had done this exact thing so often that the act had long ago surrendered any enjoyment. Seeing this, Petty felt a weird pity for the thing.

Wretchedly, the man asked: “Am I in hell?”

The Long Walker hung its head between its shoulders. The knife moved from one of its hands to the other, never stopping, as if the blade was white-hot to the touch.

“Hell is a box,” it said to the man. “Yes, it is. Hell is a box not much bigger than your own body. It is dark inside the box, and cold, but the encasement is thin—so thin that you can almost convince yourself that you can break out if you only tried. You cannot feel anything inside this box. But you can hear and… sense, to a certain extent. Outside of that box is everyone you ever loved. All the people you have cared for and who care for you. And they are in agony. You cannot touch them. They are screaming, calling for you—your name is always upon their lips. And you cannot go to them or comfort them in any way. And that is your hell, friend. Hell is a box.”

The knife’s handle danced along its knuckles, a neat trick. The shadows thickened and the lamp’s light bled low.

“What I have for you is not hell,” the Long Walker told the man. “But for a brief while, it may feel something like it.”

THEY DROVE EASTin the lightening day. Micah had rented a Cadillac Coupe DeVille. White leather seats, mahogany dash, A/C, crimson trim, quadraphonic stereo system with an eight-track player. Its big-bore V-8 purred. It wasn’t the sort of vehicle he would normally drive, but it suited his doomsday demeanor. No use saving for a rainy day when your days were numbered.

“You never moved far away, did you?” Minerva said from the backseat.

Micah said, “It is where we settled. Ellen wanted it.”

“That close? Practically living in the shadow of it?”

Micah said, “Somebody had to.”

They followed the road, letting it pull them back to the source. It felt almost like driving back through time: the last fifteen years washing away, putting them right where they had been… except they were older and more worn out and much more frightened than they had been all those years ago. They drove in silence for the most part, not listening to the radio even though the car speakers were top-of-the-line. The odometer clicked off the miles to Grinder’s Switch. They arrived early in the afternoon.

They pulled into the same gas station where they had stocked up on provisions fifteen years ago.

“I’ll wait here,” Eb said, stretching his bum leg out in the backseat.

“Get you anything?” Micah asked.

“A few bottles of Yoo-hoo, for consistency’s sake.”

Micah stepped into the store with Minerva. It looked remarkably as it had, apart from the addition of two video game cabinets beside the newspaper racks: Asteroids and Pac-Man . Micah watched the little yellow character like a pie with a wedge cut out of it racing round its maze, wakka-wakka-wakka-wakka . What was the point? Ah God, he was old. A fogey. Petty had asked for an Atari system not long ago. Micah said he didn’t want to see her wasting her time. But it was the duty of the young to waste their time, seeing as they had so much of it.

The man behind the counter was the same from years ago. He looked roughly a thousand years old. He wore dentures that pushed his lips apart, and his nose had been broken since Micah last set eyes on him. Micah bought Eb’s Yoo-hoos, some wooden matches, a jar of peanut butter, and a loaf of Wonder Bread. The clerk totaled up his purchases sullenly and put them in a paper sack. Minerva bought a quart of Dr Pepper and two Milky Ways.