Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

Virgil wasn’t sure he wanted to give the man more ammo. He got a sense the next round the Rev chambered might be earmarked for Virg’s noggin. But with the whipped-dog servility that had been knit to his nature for years, he went into the vestry and got the bullets. His eyes fell on the shape of the Conkwright woman with her brains bashed in.

When he returned, the Reverend handed him the gun. “Load it.”

Virgil did as he asked. It was so much easier this way. Just follow instructions. Virgil always got into trouble when he tried to think for himself. Better to put it in someone else’s hands. His mind relaxed as he thumbed the rounds into the pistol. The Reverend led; Virgil obeyed. Easy as peach ’n’ pie.

He handed the gun back. The Reverend jammed it down the front of his trousers. He chuckled.

“Look at me. Johnny Six-guns!”

Virgil managed a tinny laugh. It was kinda funny. The Reverend with his fancy hair sweated flat as a pancake and hanging over his ears, with a roscoe peeking out of his pants. He couldn’t help noticing the Reverend also sported a huge erection. It jabbed against the tight material, hard and somehow bladelike.

Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me, sailor?

Virgil laughed again, a little hysterically. Man, life moved fast, didn’t it? One day this, the next day that. Go with the flow, Joe.

The Reverend wrapped his hand around the back of Virgil’s neck and pulled him forward until their foreheads touched. “These next twenty minutes are the most important ones of your life. Do you understand?”

“Uh-huh,” Virgil said, not understanding at all.

“If you stay the course, your reward will be infinite. Would you like that, Brother Swicker?”

“Sure, I guess.”

The Reverend grinned. “Bless your pea-pickin’ heart.”

The Reverend then went to the nearest child, a girl of about eight. He grabbed her ankles and pulled. The girl’s dress hiked up. Her panties were wet on account of her pissing herself. The Reverend dragged her out the door down the steps—her skull made a hollow bonk on each stair—and laid her on the ground not far from the fence.

When he came back in, Virgil hadn’t moved. The Reverend frowned.

“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”

Virgil hopped to it. It didn’t take long—about twenty minutes, like the Rev said. At the end, the kids were lying side by side all in a row. They were asleep, not dead, their legs twitching. Most of them had peed themselves, and they began to involuntarily shiver when the piss cooled on their thighs.

“Yes, oh yes,” the Reverend cooed. “We have done good works today.”

“Why…?”

The Rev cut his eyes at Virgil. “Why what?”

“Why… the kids?”

“Because,” the Rev said, “it has always been the children.”

The Reverend’s headlamp eyes were staring into the woods. His body was motionless as if he’d been frozen. Virgil stared in the same direction.

Something was coming, just like the Reverend promised. No, not just one thing— many . Virgil rubbed his eyes—he really did that, just like an actor in a movie who thinks he’s seeing a mirage. It didn’t make sense, was why. This all felt unreal, same as a movie.

The shapes drew closer. Virgil saw them… but it couldn’t be. There was something else behind those shapes, too—something larger, draped in shadow. Gooseflesh climbed the knobs of Virgil’s spine and spread around his neck in a pebbled collar. His breath came in small, whiny gasps like a hurt dog.

“For you,” the Reverend said to the shadowy thing. “All for you.”

Virgil’s mind broke a little at the sight—or maybe broke a lot. It was hard to tell with minds, because the world didn’t change. Only the way you processed it did.

Hey! Just go with the flow, Joe.

EBENEZER PILOTEDthe track machine up the path leading to Little Heaven. The high beams illuminated the pines. The machine lumbered over stumps and downed logs, charging through the river without issue. He drove it with ease; the steering levers required only small adjustments. Not a single bug splattered the windshield. It then came to Eb: he’d been in the woods for days and didn’t have one mosquito or blackfly or tick bite.

He set the brake and idled at the base of a shallow rise. From here, the path ran straight to the gates of Little Heaven with no aggressive turns or bends.

He let out a shaky breath. “Right. Hop to it, my son.”

He unzipped the cab’s roof. The sky was salted with muted stars. He stood on the seat and hopped over the front panel into the bed. Working quickly, he laid out the shotgun, the Colts, the spare clips. He strapped the clips to the front panel of the bed with duct tape. Then he cut three lengths of rope and tied them around the topmost slat of the panel. He fastened the shotgun and the pistols to the end of each rope—shotgun on the left side, pistols on the right. The guns hung from the ropes and clinked lightly against the panels, all within reach.

He cut a longer length of rope and threaded it through his belt loops. He pulled one of the Cubanos from his pocket, unwrapped it, and nipped the nub off with his teeth. He spat it out and flicked the Zippo and thumbed the flywheel and lit the stogie. A deep inhale, a cough, then he hopped down from the tailgate.

The forest did not stir, but ahead—and not far, either—he could sense them. The skin tightened up in his throat.

He found a stick that looked like it might work and opened the driver-side door. He set one end of the stick on the gas pedal and wedged the other end under the seat; the engine growled. He tested to make sure it wouldn’t jar loose, then locked the steering levers so the machine would drive straight ahead. He puffed on the cigar and blew a few smoke rings. It had been ages since he’d had one of these. Why in blazes had he quit? Lovely habit.

He licked his lips. His mouth was dry as a wood chip. Ebenezer’s entire life boiled down to the following few minutes. Well, hell, couldn’t the same be said of any man? There was that handful of minutes that really mattered, and then there were all the other minutes that made up that man’s life. And those minutes had led him here, hadn’t they? That big clock in the sky was always ticking against fate.

“Fortune favors the brave,” he whispered. “Or does it favor the lunatics? Either way, Ebenezer, my son, you’ve got a coin flip’s chance.”

He popped the transmission into drive. The track machine lurched forward. He swung himself over the front panel into the bed. He twisted the knobs on the flamethrower’s canisters and heard a hiss; he lit the nozzle with the Zippo—a small blue flame like a furnace’s pilot light. He shrugged the weapon over his shoulders.

Steadying himself as the machine clattered up the incline, he tied one end of the rope around his waist to the wood slat on his left side of the front panel, then knotted the other end on the right side. He leaned back, testing the makeshift harness. He could sway his body a foot to the left or the right along the rope, close enough to cut his guns loose if the flamethrower petered out.

Ebenezer fired a flare into the trees ahead on his right. It traced a low orbit and dropped, sputtering, into the woods two hundred yards ahead. He reloaded the gun and shot another flare into the woods to his left. By their fitful glow, he could see things moving, their bodies crossing the flickering light in an agitated manner.

He sucked on the cigar and cracked his neck to drain his sinus cavities. His heart was pounding, but his hands barely shook. He would kill them all if possible, or he would die in the midst of killing however many he could. They would not scare him ever again.