# Read the first page of Little Heaven by Nick Cutter Read the opening of Little Heaven by Nick Cutter free, no signup. Three mercenaries are hired to investigate a remote backwoods religious cult. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/little-heaven-nick-cutter - Genre: Horror - Year: 2017 - ISBN: 9781501104237 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9781501168406&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781501104237 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781501104237 ## The opening There is a saying that goes: Evil never dies; it merely sleeps. And when that evil awakes, it can do so soundlessly—or almost so. Even insects can scream. The little aphid did, though at a register too high for any human ear to perceive. It toiled in the root system of a cactus plant growing on the edge of the New Mexico desert. An insect so small that it was practically invisible to the naked eye. This was how it would begin again. The wheel coming around. While the aphid fed on sugars deposited in the cactus roots, something curled up from the blackest recesses of the earth. It slipped inside the aphid's body. If there was any pain—and yes, there would be—the insect was unable to articulate its agony beyond that thin scream. The aphid trundled up the root stem, through the loose-packed sand, up onto one of the cactus’s fleshy leaves. There it encountered a honey ant, which fed on the honeydew that aphids produce. Their antennae touched briefly: Whatever had stolen inside the aphid slipped soundlessly into the ant—something as inessential as the smoke billowing from the chimney of a charnel house. The aphid erupted with a tiny pressurized hiss. The ant returned to its hill, skittering through a fall of lemony afternoon sunlight. It disappeared down the hole. Shortly afterward, the hill emptied, ants pouring forth in furious multitudes. The ants organized themselves in a skirmish line like soldiers on the march, and proceeded determinedly until they came to the burrow of a meadow mouse. They filed down the burrow, thousand upon thousand. There came an agonized squeal. Presently the mouse emerged. It hopped and shook, its skin squirming. The mouse spun a few agitated circles before righting itself and dashing into the dry grass. It paused here and there to gnaw at its flesh, drawing blood. In time, it crossed paths with a desert shrew. Moments later there arose a high, mindless shriek. The shrew encountered an opossum, which in turn encountered a black-tailed jackrabbit, which hurled itself screechingly into the jaws of a kit fox, which thrashed and gibbered and scurried into a den that housed a family of jaguarundis. More shrieks cresting across the arid expanse of sand. Night fell over the desert. In the darkness, something shambled from the den. The moon touched upon its strange extrusions, its flesh shining wetly in the pale moonlight. It breathed through many mouths and gazed through a cluster of eyes lodged in a knot of fatted, blood-streaked fur. It locomoted on many legs, each of them foreshortened, compressed like the bellows of an accordion; the creature, whatever it was, scuttled in the manner of a crab. This abomination carried itself across the sands, moving stealthily, its quartet of snouts dilated to the breeze. A solitary gray wolf sat on a rocky outcropping, scanning the mesa. An old wolf, much scarred, an ear torn off in some long-ago territorial battle. The wolf spotted movement. A shape shambled into view. This thing moved as though wounded, and yet the wolf’s predatory instincts said, No, no, no—this thing was not hurt. It was . . . something else. The wolf loped off to investigate. It was wary but unafraid. If this other creature could bleed, the wolf would bleed it. It had no fear. The wolf was apex. It had never encountered a creature that was its equal, not once in its long life. ## Books with a similar feel - [Little Eve by Catriona Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/little-eve-catriona-ward.md) - [Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia](https://uncovered.ink/read/velvet-was-the-night-silvia-moreno-garcia.md) - [Red London by Alma Katsu](https://uncovered.ink/read/red-london-alma-katsu.md) - [Bodies of Work by Clay McLeod Chapman](https://uncovered.ink/read/bodies-of-work-clay-mcleod-chapman.md) - [The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-cabin-at-the-end-of-the-world-paul-tremblay.md) - [My Darling Girl by Jennifer McMahon](https://uncovered.ink/read/my-darling-girl-jennifer-mcmahon.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.