Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

Virgil squinted through the sheeting rain. He was still woozy from the beating that jigaboo had laid on him. For an instant, he pictured a gaggle of witches—these old crones with sagging papery skin and cruel twists of mouths shuffling between the tall dark pines clung with eldritch skeins of moss… witches, or perhaps just creatures who dressed to look like witches, but who were in truth more ancient and evil than any witch—

But no. It was just one person. A figure standing motionless in the shadowy canopy of the woods.

“Who’s out there? Who—”

Whatever it was, it came forward fast—spooky fast. One moment it was fifty yards off and the next it was right there, a few feet from the fence. It was Cyril… looked like Cy, anyhow. Except the eyes were off. And the way he stood there kinda creaky-looking, like his bones were all busted under his skin.

He looks like somebody already dead. This was Virgil’s trembling thought. His old pal Cy was dead as a doornail, except that little nugget of information hadn’t sunk into his decayed head quite yet. Virgil figured it would have to come as a shock to his dear friend.

“Everything okay, Cy?”

Cyril smiled. His teeth were gray like the dead tooth in his grandma’s mouth with a copper wire around it. Except every one of Cy’s teeth was gray—you’d think he had painted them with lead or something.

“Fine and dandy, Virg.”

“Well, good.” Virgil swallowed. Rain washed down his throat. It tasted bad, like water a corpse had sat in for days. “Where you been?”

“Oh, out and about.”

That was another worrisome thing. Cy’s voice was funny, too. Wet and rattling as if stuff was coming loose inside of him.

“I thought… jeez, you’re going to call me a dummy, but I thought maybe you’d left, Cy. You couldn’t stand another minute and skedaddled.”

“Aw, hell.” Cy hawked back and spat. The oyster of congealed phlegm just kinda fell out of his mouth like a dead slug and dribbled down his boot, black as clotted oil. “You think I’d leave all this happy horseshit?”

“Sure. No.” Virgil tried to smile, but the muscles of his face didn’t feel like they were working so hot. “You bet.”

Right then, Virgil felt like running. Yep, turning tail and sprinting away from his old buddy Cy. His heart was bappity-bapping inside his chest, and there was a tightness in his crotch as if a hard little balloon were swelling up behind his bladder.

“They all ought to pay, don’t you think?”

“Who’s that, Cy?”

Cyril motioned at Little Heaven with his chin—the pitiful whole of it. “Everyone. All these fuckers. Pay for disobeying the Lord.”

Since when did Cy give two shits about the Lord? “Well now, I don’t really see how they’ve—”

“Shut up, squirrel head,” Cy said. Virgil zipped his lip. “Shouldn’t they pay for what they let happen to you? That fairy nig beating on your head like a bongo drum while they all stood around with their dicks in their hands?”

Virgil caught a smell coming off his compadre. He nearly gagged. It would be rude to puke on account of Cy reeking so bad. A strong sense of unreality washed over Virgil; he felt light-headed, like when he used to huff gasoline in Mission Dolores Park.

“They could have stepped in, yeah.”

“Bet your ass, buckaroo,” said Cy. “Now let me tell you—clean the shit out of your ears, dim bulb, and listen up good—the Reverend’s got a plan.”

Virgil smiled dozily. “Is that so?”

“That’s a fact, jack. And all you got to do is exactly what he says. Figure you can manage that, or will following simple instructions make your fool brains squirt out your ears?”

“Aw, come on now, Cy…”

Virgil’s thoughts were swimmy and remote. It was as if his brain was trying to sprint away from him, away from Little Heaven and everything that was happening. But where could it go? It was trapped in his stupid skull, just like Virgil was trapped here.

“Can you help, Cy? I’d feel a lot better if you were helping. You always were the—”

“The brains of the operation. Yeah, Virg, I know. Lord knows I do. But not this time. You’re on your own.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t anymore.”

“Why?” Virgil repeated stupidly.

Cyril opened his mouth. Virgil took an instinctive step back. The inside of Cy’s mouth was all black, but things were moving in the pit of his throat. Bugs, it looked like. But it couldn’t be. Roaches scuttling over one another…

Virgil said, “Oh.”

Cyril shut his mouth. He had begun to drift away from the fence, back toward the woods. Virgil couldn’t see his feet moving. That was odd, wasn’t it?

I hid a gun in our bunkhouse , Cyril said… Actually, he didn’t say anything. His lips were shut. But Virgil could hear him just fine.

A long bladelike insect—a centipede?—slid out of Cyril’s nostril. It curled around the rim of his nose, its legs skiddle-skaddling and antennae twitching, crawled between his eyes and up his forehead to vanish into the tangled nest of his hair. Virgil did not scream, but if his throat hadn’t been so dry all of a sudden, he surely would have.

Look under the bed, Virg. Take the gun. You’ll need it.

Cy kept on floating back toward the trees. To be honest, Virgil couldn’t say he was all that sad to see him go. Cyril’s body knitted into the gloom of the woods. A few minutes later, the rain stopped entirely.

Virgil walked through the muddy slop to their bunkhouse. The gun—a Bulldog .38 revolver—and a box of ammunition were stashed under the cot in a hole dug under the clapboards, just like Cyril had said it would be. Good ole Cy, always looking out.

Virgil stuck the pistol into his waistband. Then he crossed the square to the chapel and knocked on the door. The Reverend answered. He didn’t look so hot. His hair fell over his forehead in greasy strings. He stunk like a polecat in July.

“Come in.” He smiled—a gruesome sight—his eyes flicking edgewise. “We have much work to do.”

Reluctantly, with the same dread a man might feel stepping into his own casket, Virgil Swicker went inside.

EBENEZER FLEDthe ruin of Grinder’s Switch and hit the interstate, gunning the Oldsmobile’s engine hard as he piled up the miles between himself and Little Heaven.

The big-bore engine sent a soothing vibration through the whole car. He flicked on the radio and caught the Sonics singing “The Witch” on KIOT 102.5—“ Spinning platters without the chatter! ”—out of Albuquerque.

The blood on his scalp and ear had coagulated and turned crusty. He stopped at a Texaco station and cleaned himself up in the bathroom—the gas jockey had looked like he was going to withhold the lavatory key, but something in Eb’s demeanor convinced him to hand it over. When Eb emerged, he looked somewhat presentable. He got on the road again and pulled into a roadside diner sometime later. A bubble of polished glass and steel made dull by the constantly blowing dust. He could see a few people inside at the counter or sitting in padded booths. A pie case revolved at the end of the counter—huge, three-inch-thick wedges peaked with meringue or whipped cream. He wiped the drool off his lips and considered his state. He was in no shape for public viewing, not without having to answer a lot of questions. What he needed was a motel room, a bath, and to sleep in a real bed for roughly fifteen years.

A pay phone stood near the diner’s entrance. He flipped open the car’s ashtray and found a crumpled dollar bill, plus a few dimes and nickels. His back was welded to the upholstery with sweat; he peeled off the seat like a giant Band-Aid and made his way to the phone.