Nick Cutter - Little Heaven

Please, Ellen , he thought. Come back.

A BABY.Could it possibly be?

For all the world, it appeared to be just that. An infant, cherubic and chubby, its flesh a clean-scrubbed pink. A healthy eight pounds, six ounces, if any of them were to hazard a guess.

This was what had tumbled from the slit in Augustus Preston’s back. What had been nesting inside of his body for God knows how long.

It squirmed from its gelatinous sheath—a placental sac of sorts, splattered with the contents of Preston’s skull. It wriggled out of its translucent membrane and writhed on the stone like a fat, contented grub. Michelin Man arms and legs, plump fingers grasping at the air. It could have just fallen from the stork’s blanket. It was as cute as a bug’s ear, it really was. A thousand photographers would line up to snap a shot of the little darling.

The three of them stepped around the shriveled mess that was Augustus Preston, drawing nearer to the baby. Its aspect shimmered; it was almost as if it was clarifying and solidifying its own shape before their eyes. For an instant Micah saw a prawn-bodied fetus with a bulbous rotted-melon head crawling spastically over the stone; its eyes and mouth and nose were horribly compacted, as if it had been born under immense pressure that had wrenched its features monstrously out of shape—

The next instant, those deformities disappeared. The baby was cute, angelic.

The compulsion to touch it was irresistible. Each of them felt a powerful stirring in their sex organs—but there was nothing lustful in this feeling. It was a straightforward, procreative urge. They each wanted to have a baby. Desperately. Right that minute. A baby just like this perfect dewdrop, right here.

The creature shimmered again; in that shimmer, its perfection dissolved for a few stuttering heartbeats. The child had no sex organs; the space between its legs was studded with inflamed nodes that looked a little like misshapen nipples. Its skin was faintly wrinkled—the crepe-like folds that grace the backs of an old woman’s hands. And its eyes were not those of an infant: black as tar, glinting with an ancient cunning.

But these obvious malformations quickly dwindled to irrelevancies. This infant was purest beauty, sheerest love. It made a display of its nakedness, angling its body to show off its buttery curves. Inviting them to touch it—just one finger, the barest brush of its skin. It humped awkwardly toward Eli Rathbone, who lay a few feet away. The baby’s tongue popped out of its too-plump lips, licking them lasciviously, obscenely—an infantile come-on that made Ebenezer ill. But his revulsion was a distant thing, far less powerful than his urge to touch or even kiss this child. He was not a fan of babies. Shrieking, shitting, life-ruining creatures. But this child… oh yes, he wanted to sweep it up in his arms and shower it with kisses, even though he felt certain those kisses would taste of old death.

It is not a baby was Micah’s own desperate thought. It is something terrible, something that wants to have its way with all of us…

Minerva’s knees gave out; she sank down in front of the child. “Such a pweeetty bayyyy-beeeee,” she cooed.

She reached out a trembling hand. Micah batted it away. The baby’s eyes rolled, trapping Micah in its baleful glare.

“We have to kill it,” Micah heard himself say.

“And why would we ever consider doing that to such a cutie-pie?” Ebenezer said in a breathy voice.

Micah was distantly aware of the horror of the scene: the three of them in a box made of rock with a dozen emaciated children, doting over something that looked for all the world like a baby but was in fact something far older and infinitely more hostile.

The Father.

Micah drunkenly swung around. He had surrendered control of his limbs. This thing on the floor was robbing him of his motor skills somehow. The beam of his flashlight fell upon the bayonet. He approached it clubfootedly, swaying like a wino. He managed to pick it up. He swiveled to spot Ebenezer and Minerva reaching for the baby again.

“No!”

He blundered toward them. His feet got tangled with Preston’s legs as he lurched past the corpse. Eb’s and Minny’s fingers were only inches from the baby’s piglet-pink skin—Micah swept his arm in a rude chopping motion, hitting their grasping hands away. He shouldered them both aside, hearing the wind whoof out of Ebenezer.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “Don’t look at it.”

He knelt next to it. He lifted the bayonet and stabbed down, aiming for its chest. The thing’s eyes widened in shock. The bayonet zagged sideways, nicking the rock an inch left of the baby. Micah raised the blade—it took an enormous force of will—and tried again. This time, the bayonet zagged in the other direction. It felt like trying to touch two giant magnets with matching polarities; he would get close—so, so close—only to miss with his strike.

Ebenezer grabbed his elbow. “ Heeeeyyy , don’t hurt the—”

Micah shrugged him off. The baby was squalling pitiably, eyes squeezed shut as saliva bubbled between its lips. It looked more like an infant than ever: perfect, pristine. Micah positioned the blade directly over its flaccid chest. He hunched his shoulders, using the full weight of his body to bring the bayonet slowly and remorselessly down—

The baby’s eyes widened. For the first time, Micah saw fear kindling in those fuming black pits.

No. Don’t you dare .

The voice that filled Micah’s head was the dreadful rasp. Micah shuddered… then, summoning all his will, bore down again.

Stop , the thing spoke inside his head with a rising note of concern.

Micah glanced at Minerva and Ebenezer. So they could hear it, too. It wasn’t just him.

No , Micah thought back at it. You die now.

Anything , it said desperately. Whatever you desire…

AFTERWARD, WHEN THEY THINK ABOUTit, the shape of those moments will never be quite clear. Their thoughts become hazy. Did any of them truly ask for anything? Did they wish in the traditional sense: a plucked eyelash, a whispered hope before blowing out their birthday candles? Was it ever so cut-and-dried?

Or was it more that the Father had reached into their hearts and found their deepest longing, and in that moment granted it? Was it that they didn’t even understand what they had wished for—and would that be so unbelievable? How many of us truly know the beat of our hidden hearts?

None of them will be able to find any certainty. It simply occurred. All three of them felt it. Their bodies filled with the terrible, overpowering certainty of it happening.

Anything. Whatever you desire.

One wish. A terrible one. They were granted their heart’s desire. Unconsciously and involuntarily. And from that moment forward, they would be forever burdened with it.

WHEN THEIR MENTAL HAZE BEGANto lift, they found that they were still in the chamber. The baby was crawling toward Eli.

“No,” Micah said.

He shook his head to clear the cobwebs. What had just gone on? He felt like a dinner party guest who had entered a room where everyone had been talking about him and now they had all lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

The baby continued humping toward Eli. Its fingers were elongating, becoming less plump and coming to resemble twitching pink wires.

“No,” Micah said, more forcefully this time.

I neeeed them , the thing’s voice wheedled in his mind. I gave you what you wanted… gave you everything…

Gave him what? Micah shook his head again. He couldn’t clear the fog; his skull felt as if it was stuffed full of cotton balls.