Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

“Shug, I’m sorry.” A wave of adrenaline shakes rolled through her. She stared at her gun hand, the one that had betrayed her. “I don’t know what…”

She read it in his eyes. You are not made for this, Minny. There was nothing cruel in his appraisal. It wasn’t a slight on her toughs or spine—simply that, in the cut, she couldn’t pull the trigger. And he could.

They walked over to Virgil. His big toe poked through a hole in his woolen sock. Merciless, what a bullet could do. There was no need to check for a pulse. The top of Virgil’s head was missing. Everything above his eyes, which were still filmy with tears, staring blankly into the cold night sky.

THIS IS ONE BLUBBERING NINNY who’s better off dead was Amos’s thought as he put the gun into Virgil’s hand.

The idiot’s eyes were all swimmy as he made with the waterworks. Amos had to swallow his revulsion. Virgil had been useful in a pinch, but now he was deadweight. In fact, Amos had been speculating about how to get rid of the dummy. And now, out of the blue, the perfect opportunity—two birds with one stone.

Virgil nodded at the Reverend’s simple instructions, docile as a lamb. Then he began to fire. Amos didn’t wait to see the result. He scampered up the incline, slipping on dead pine needles. He laughed thinly— a-hee, a-hee-heeee —because there was something deliciously funny about the events of the past hours… and because he couldn’t stop laughing, even when he bit his lip so hard that the skin tore and blood gushed—he just kept on howling, the shrill gasping notes pouring out of him.

Job 8:21 , he thought. God will fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing! Hallelujah, praised be, and pass the spuds!

He ran as fast as his legs would carry him as the gunshots continued to ring out from behind. Pop-papop-pop-poppoppop! The shots abruptly stopped; the woods ran thick with silence. Good-bye, Virgil! See you in the funny pages, Skinny Bitch! Farewell, One-Eye! Godspeed to none of you, and may Satan feast on your genitals in hell!

He hurried toward the black rock. He was not tired, and his pace did not flag. He was filled with a limitless reservoir of energy. Even though his legs were leaden and his chest searing, he felt like those niggers in Africa who had developed incredible cardiovascular endurance from being chased across the veld by hungry lions. He could run a million miles!

His eyes momentarily slipped shut. The wondrous creature lay there, imprinted on his eyelids. Oh, what a sight that had been.

You are beautiful.

This had been Amos’s awestruck thought. The thing had to be twelve feet tall. Long, articulate legs and arms. Its flesh was smooth as porcelain. Its belly was cask-like, as if pregnant with some unfathomable offspring. Amos’s heart quailed at the sight of it easing through the trees. Its head was enormous. Its mouth stretched across the entirety of its face; it looked to be smiling, but as its mouth followed the upward curve of its skull, a smile must be its default expression. Its eyes were ineffably black and lusterless, like buttons: Amos pictured the four little holes in their centers where a seamstress could loop her thread.

It had come through the trees slowly and somehow playfully. There was a hint of shyness in its movements. Amos’s eyes had quivered in their sockets, as if his peepers were under some enormous pressure, jittering like roaches in a hot pan. He knew why his eyes were struggling, too: they were trying to see the shape behind the shape. The creature had another face, and it lurked beneath the one Amos was allowed to see—but his frail human eyes and his inadequate and too-literal mind were preventing him from seeing its more breathtaking true shape.

It had bent over the sleeping children, sniffing them as a coyote might a moldering carcass; the slits in the middle of its face dilated. Its black tongue made a sandpapery note as it slid over its fleshless lips. It had no teeth to speak of; rags of wet tissue dangled and swayed in its mouth, reminding Amos of the fibrous pith inside a pumpkin.

It then produced a flute. Its fingers danced nimbly along its length, coaxing from it notes that raised the hairs on the nape of Amos’s neck. The children had stood up all at once. Their eyes were still closed, but their bodies were alert. They linked hands. The creature began to dance. It was both horrible and magnetic: the strange articulation of its limbs, the mad glee with which it jigged. The children mimicked it, their legs and arms moving unnaturally.

The thing danced into the woods. The children followed. They went quickly, their feet seeming not to touch the ground. Virgil only stood in a slack-mouthed stupor. Amos shook him—when that failed, he slapped Virgil hard across the face. The dimwit’s eyes unfogged, the faintest glimmer coming back into them.

“We must follow, my son.”

Virgil swallowed with effort. “Yeah. Follow. I can do that.”

And they had done so, shuffling along in pursuit of the thing. Until they had been set upon by the troublesome outsiders—but those two ended up doing Amos a great service by erasing a vestigial player from the proceedings and hopefully wiping themselves out in the bargain. Everything was coming up Flesher!

The trees now gave way to a clearing. The moonlight settled across an empty expanse—sand scalloped by the wind and the black rock standing watchfully in the distance. In that same moonlight, he could see small footprints in the sand. He followed them, his heart singing.

He had done his duty. Now he would reap the reward. What form would it take? He had no use for money or renown, the common ambitions that common men spent their common lives pursuing. He desired knowledge. An understanding of how this world—or the worlds beyond it—operated. A peek behind the curtain. He wanted to see God—not the one his worshippers cowered before, either. The God that had led Amos out here in the first place. The God of Flies and Blood. He wanted to thank that God for making Amos Flesher just the way he was.

The footprints led straight to the black rock. A quiet hum emanated from it. He followed the footprints around the rockface, glancing back to see if anyone was in pursuit. He paused. There—far away but visible. The sweep of a flashlight? He bared his teeth. The outsiders. The bastards. He could only hope that Virgil had killed one of them and perhaps hurt the other. But the one-eyed man struck Amos as a fellow who’d be calm in a shoot-out. No matter. Once he had claimed his just reward, Amos would deal with them. Oh yes, he could take his time with it. There was nobody out here to help them.

Amos picked up the pace, swallowing the blood from his torn lip. The rock tilted ninety degrees as it opened onto a fresh face. He jogged along it. His sweat mixed with the lanolin in his pomade and slid down his cheeks in gooey runners. He wiped them away absentmindedly and crooned an old gospel ditty.

Amos tripped and stumbled, arms outflung. He found his feet again and carried on, singing a new song that he made up as he went. His rich baritone carried out over the wastes.

He reached a cleft in the rock. An odd glow poured from its mouth. The footsteps carried on into the enveloping darkness that existed past the entry.