Finally, I know what Pinhead does in this story. Oh, I know he would be there, after all, he is one of Clive Barker's greatest creations. In fact, all these characters are Clive Barker's creation. I call Pinhead "The Cenobite" because his real name is unknown (Clive Barker says it will be revealed in an upcoming novel).

This chapter may be extremely graphic and upsetting to some readers, so, read with care. If it's any consolation, it was upsetting to write.

Big Bad Wolf

"It's time to go in, Kirsty," Uncle Frank said. "It's going to rain."

Clouds blunted the moon's brightness, and the yard's green was washed with navy. Even Kirsty's nightgown, so phosphorescent in the moonlight, was dulled. Uncle Frank was kneeling beside her, a shadow cut out of the shrubbery. He tucked his hand under her shoulder blades and sat her up. She stood, taking one last glimpse at the receding moon.

She wanted to be back in her bed with the door shut before Uncle Frank was up stairs. She bolted. She went a few steps before she was yanked back by her cape. Uncle Frank lifted her onto his hip, onto the knife in his pocket.

"It's dark," he said. "Wouldn't want you to hurt your pretty little head, would we?"

He carried her up the stairs, but when he got to her room, he kept walking.

"Uncle Frank," Kirsty whispered, not wanting to wake up Mommy and Daddy and get in trouble, "Where are we going?"

"To my room, " he said. "We don't have to stop playing because of that storm, do we, Beautiful? We can have just as much fun up there."

He moved up the stairs to the attic, and closed the door behind them.

Kirsty stood by the door, clutching her cape around her, as Uncle Frank turned on the light. She felt her heart beat wildly under her crossed arms. She stared at her feet, toes on the blue rug, heels on the wooden floor.

"Let's keep playing Big Bad Wolf," said Uncle Frank above her. He was rustling something. Kirsty's toes dug themselves into the rug. "That was fun, and you look like Little Red Riding Hood. Now, I need to look more like the Wolf." The floor creaked softly, and then there was padding on the big blue rug. The first few drops of rain began to splatter the windowpane. Kirsty heard them.

Bare feet, then bare legs, dusted with black hair, stepped into her vision.

Uncle Frank put his fingers under her chin and lifted her face.

He was naked.

The Cenobite with the pins stood in a dark room overhung with chains and hooks. He looked into his cupped hand. An ornate box lay in his palm. His other hand gently stroked the gold-embossed circle on the top face.

The box was back in his possession after it had completed its course with its former temporary owner, a woman named Reeves, who was interested in the macabre, to the point where she was torturing birds and mice. She graduated to dogs and cats, spilling their blood into a chalice and eating their hearts and livers—not raw, for she had tried that once and vomited crimson all over her bathroom. When the satiation they gave her wore off too quickly, she took her first child, a four-year-old boy in a city park. She had dumped him in a landfill, but not before severing his genitals from his nearly bloodless corpse.

The Box had pointed him toward Reeves. For a long time—he couldn't say how long; time was immaterial; it may have been weeks or months—they watched her, he and the Box. The Box always told him whom it wanted to take next. It showed him things, as he stroked it with his fingertip. The woman was absolutely perfect to add to the collection of souls. Every moment, like a horrid Prometheus, her liver and heart were removed, her throat was slit, her vulva scooped away from her body. Then she was made whole again, and the process would continue.

The Box had been showing him this man, Frank Cotton, for a couple of years now. He, like the woman before him, was perfect. He was stupid in his lusts. The Cenobite had watched him part the lips and thighs of woman after woman, sometimes by force. He had watched him draw blood from his lovers in all sorts of ways, and have the favor returned. He had watched him break skulls under his boots, and then run and hide from men who wanted to do the same to him.

The most interesting thing, to the Cenobite, was Frank's relationship to the small girl standing in front of him, hugging herself and wriggling her toes on the blue carpet. The Cenobite knew human beings held children in quite high esteem, a sentiment he did not share. After all, human beings were nothing but miles of nerve endings, billions of blood vessels waiting to pop and spill, and assorted viscera, wrapped in soft skin. A child just came in a smaller size.

This child, on the other hand, with her missing baby teeth and round cheeks, was going to be Frank Cotton's destruction. The Box had told him this. It was irritatingly vague on that point. How could this little girl, who still couldn't keep her pink shoes tied or her wavy brown hair brushed, be the vehicle that takes a man to Hell?

Frank Cotton stood in front of the child, whose name was Kirsty. To the child, the man's nudity made him seem bigger and broader. She was frightened.

The Cenobite knew Frank Cotton's mind. He lusted for the child, wanted to penetrate her. The Box had shown him. One of Frank's favorite fantasies was that he had a twin sister, and as he fucked his latest conquest, or, failing that, his own fist, he pretended he was fucking that sister. This little girl would satisfy that yearning for incest, a perversity Frank had not yet enjoyed, as well as his pedophilic curiosities. What he had tasted so far from the girl had whet his appetite. Perhaps it was the fact that this child was two taboos in one. Perhaps it was because the child was genuinely lovely.

The Cenobite knew, that out of all the females Frank Cotton had, this little girl was his favorite. Nobody aroused him like she did.

For that reason, she would suffer plenty.

The Cenobite readied himself for the feast.

Kirsty knew about the male sex, in theory. Her uncle's looked painful—swollen and purple-red with bulging veins. She looked away from it, her face turning crimson. She would get in trouble for looking at it.

The Cenobite sensed Frank's thrill at seeing that blush. It was simply another instance of the man finding humiliation arousing.

Uncle Frank placed his palm on her head, his fingers gripping the back of her skull.

"What's the matter, Kirsty? You think wolves in the wild wear clothes? You're not stupid, are you?"

Kirsty shook her head.

"Okay, then. If we want this to be the best game of Big Bad Wolf it can be, it has to be real, right?"

Kirsty stared at her feet. Uncle Frank tightened his grip.

"Answer me."

Kirsty nodded.

"Good. Look around you, Kirsty. There are plenty of hiding places for you in here. Isn't it a great play room?"

Kirsty nodded again. Uncle Frank kneeled in front of her.

"I'm going to close my eyes, and count to ten, and you're going to hide," Uncle Frank's fingertips stroked her behind her ear. "Then I'll open my eyes, and come looking for you. And if I find you… If I catch you…." Uncle Frank put his lips to her neck, "I'm going to eat you all up."

The Cenobite saw the image in the child's eye—the uncle ripping out hunks of her flesh with his teeth, or opening his mouth wider and wider, until he was able to swallow her whole. It would be dark in her uncle's stomach.

Frank closed his eyes. "One…"

Frantic, Kirsty tried to open the door. The knob wouldn't turn. Frank chuckled.

"Oh, don't think you can get away from the Big Bad Wolf so easily, Beautiful. He's very, very hungry. Two…."

The child cried silently, the tears making tracks down the round, reddened face, but the large brown eyes were still glancing carefully around the room. Her little mouth was set in a determined line. She tiptoed on silent feet away from her uncle, the red cloak still wrapped tightly around her.

"Three…"

There were numerous boxes and trunks in the room, as well as a queen -sized bed. The little girl was weighing her options—was the bed big enough for her to crawl under, yet too small for the massive, naked man to come after her?

"Four…"

She tested the lid of a large trunk, one of a series of similar sized trunks. It opened smoothly.

"Five…"

She raised one little leg over the side of the trunk. She bumped her knee in the process, and bit back a cry. The trunk rocked slightly.

"I hear you, Beautiful. Don't make it too easy. Six…"

Kirsty swiftly closed the trunk lid. It didn't make a sound.

"Seven…"

She raised the lid and closed it again. This time, it made an audible click.

"Eight…"

She nodded to herself, and tiptoed back to the bed.

"Nine…."

She slithered underneath it, placing herself in the very middle of the rug underneath. She curled up as small as possible into herself.

"Ten! Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Frank, of course, began with the biggest trunk.

"Well, well, aren't you the clever little girl," he said, going to the next trunk. "we'll see who's smarter in the end…Not here, either."

As Frank went through the trunks, and started looking in the cardboard boxes, the Cenobite sensed the man's frustration growing. This wasn't a man prolonging the anticipation for his victim; this was a man bested by a child.

Frank was, indeed, a man stupid with lust.

"The wolf," Frank growled through his teeth, "is starving. He's getting very angry. Maybe Little Red Riding Hood had better give herself up, while the wolf is still tame enough not to hurt her too much."

Under the bed, Kirsty sobbed into her cupped hands.

"The wolf," Frank continued, picking up a blade he placed on the nightstand and flicking it open, "has a very sharp tooth. I think Little Red knows about that tooth. The wolf has shown it to her before."

The child was shaking with terror. The Cenobite sucked it in. It was strong and pure and astringent.

Frank knelt beside the bed. He reached under it. His fingertips brushed her hair.

The terror that froze her thawed to frenzied panic and she squirmed further away, but the bedsprings pressed into her back as her uncle jumped across the bed and knelt down, peering at her. Only half of his teeth were visible in the light and shadow.

She shut her eyes, bracing herself for the knife, for the naked skin on her body…she didn't know what would be worse.

She heard a click and a whir. Bright light bled through her eyelids and soaked into her retinas. She opened her eyes to see Uncle Frank lying by the bed, aiming a little box- shaped object carefully at her.

Before she could blink again, there was a click followed by a flash that blinded her. In her daze, she was grabbed by the arm and pulled out from under the bed. The rug peeled back the scab on her knee. The Cenobite saw it, through the Box.

Curled up on the floor, this close to Uncle Frank's nudity, Kirsty was forced to look at the man's sex. It jumped on its stem, rocking toward her. It reached for her. She tried to scream, and a hand was clamped over her mouth. Uncle Frank jerked her up onto his crossed legs.

"You can do whatever you want in here," he hissed, "but don't you ever, ever scream. You got that? That's the only thing you can't do." He reached for the knife and held the glint of the blade in front of Kirsty's eyes. "Do you understand me?"

Kirsty's chest and belly heaved, but she managed to nod.

"Good girl," Uncle Frank purred. "That's my Beautiful. Now, the Big Bad Wolf's got you. What are you going to do? Hmmmm? What can you do? Show me what you can do."

Something popped inside Kirsty's skull, and rational thought—he has a knife and can kill me—societal mores—kids can't hit grown-ups—and familial loyalty—this is my uncle, I'm supposed to love him—vanished, obliterated by instincts. Her arm flailed up and she punched Frank in the face.

It wasn't hard enough to make him bleed, but hard enough to make him flinch. While he was stiff with surprise, she reared up and punched him again. She scratched madly with all ten fingernails, opening tiny trails in his flesh from his cheeks to his chest. The world was blurring, like when she was flying at the moon, like when she was on a speeding train.

The world flipped over and she was flat on her back. Uncle Frank was on top of her now, full-weight, panting and grinning.

"Fucking magnificent." Then his head disappeared, and she felt a crushing, piercing pain on her side. She would have screamed; she forgot about the knife, but his hand slapped over her mouth. Uncle Frank's teeth sank into her again and again—into her belly, into her inner thighs, along her ribs.

I don't want to die.

You won't die. Not today. Not for a long, long time.

The voice that had said that came from the walls, the floor, and the ceiling of the room. The room had become a box, and the sides of the box spoke to her as one.

Who are you? She asked.

Uncle Frank hooked his hands into the waistband of her new pajama bottoms and pulled them down.

Are you the man in the moon?

There's no call for names, child. You won't remember this.

Her wrists were pinned. A wadded-up piece of cloth was shoved into her mouth.

Please! Help me!

This is tedious, the deep voice rumbled.

She felt breath on that space Mommy and Daddy and Nana never touched, and she herself only touched with a washcloth or toilet paper. She kicked, but Uncle Frank pinned her knees to the side.

Please! He's gonna kill me!

If you remember this, you'll think it was hardly worth your trouble. Not compared to what may come.

Uncle Frank licked and sucked. He moaned and hummed.

She couldn't think anymore. The attic tilted and rocked. Uncle Frank had let her knees go, and her heels drummed on his back and sides and scrabbled on the rug. Any moment now, he would swallow her whole. Her insides would be pulled out and into his mouth. She had felt this feeling before, down there, but she didn't remember it feeling so big, so out of control. It was an itch, and jerking, and crackling.

Finally, the mouth stopped working. Uncle Frank sat up, releasing Kirsty's wrists. He pulled the wadded-up rag-ball out of her mouth. She lay boneless, bloodless, breathless.

"Now," he said, "the Big Bad Wolf ate Little Red Riding Hood all up. She was delicious."

That means I'm dead, Kirsty thought, or maybe even said out loud. That means the game's over.

"But," Uncle Frank continued, "the Big Bad Wolf is a werewolf, and, if you get bitten by a werewolf"—his fingers unbuttoned Kirsty's new pajama top, slowly—"that means you are a werewolf." He untied the cape around Kirsty's neck. He gently sat her up.

Kirsty gazed at her toes. There was a click and a flash.

She rolled to her hands and knees and tried to hide between the boxes. The flash found her. She scrabbled over the trunks, trying to get back under the bed. She'd figure out what to do once she got there. Maybe that voice would help her.

The camera flashed over and over, like bullets firing. Temporarily blinded, she half-fell, half-jumped off the trunk, landing awkwardly on all fours. She scurried toward the bed. She had one arm underneath before Uncle Frank grabbed her around the waist. She clawed at the rug under the bed.

"Now, now, that's enough. Come to Daddy," his sweat made her pajama top, which was hanging limp and open, stick to her skin. His sick evil thing pressed into her back. "I'm a boy wolf and you're a girl wolf, Beautiful. You know what that means?"

Kirsty waited for him to tell her. She had decided to go limp. She was so tired, and so naked, and he was too big.

"Do you know?" Uncle Frank's hands were everywhere at once. "That means we mate."

The next few minutes, which may have been hours, were blinding and deafening. Uncle Frank's hissing whispers and grunts battered the inside of her skull. He called her Persephone, Bitch, Beautiful, Little Queen, Little Lover, Little Goddess, and Kirsty. Who was Kirsty? What did they mean, all these words he kept breathing out into her face?

There was nothing left of Uncle Frank but his voice and the sick evil thing, which was now bigger than she was, which was now Uncle Frank's entire body, and was trying to push its way into her up from the bottom. It pulled away, and then she could breathe, but then it would try to push back in and she would be dying again. She knew she was dying, not because it hurt, but because she felt what her Nana called her soul fall away from her body. She felt it sinking. It would sink a long, long way down, and the place where it would settle would be very dark and lonely.

The Man in the Moon came once, above Uncle Frank. He stood there in his funny clothes made out of what looked like stretchy tar, with all those pins and needles. He stared at Kirsty with shiny oil eyes. He raised his nose and breathed in deep, as if he smelled something wonderful.

Help me!

Don't waste your terror, child.

Hurts!

Pay attention. This pain is only as big as your fear makes it. This man is not inside you. This man is weak.

"Fuck!" Uncle Frank was angry. "You're still too little. You'll need stitches if I go all the way."

He rolled off Kirsty and pulled himself up. His head and arms and legs were back, the sick evil the size it was supposed to be (but still too big), and where it belonged. She closed her eyes. His hand moved between both their legs.

A moaning growl. When had she heard that before?

Wet warmth on her stomach and in the private place.

Kirsty lay there, wanting to die from shame. Whatever was on her body was something like snot, or puke, or pee, or some mix of all three.

There was another click and a flash, followed by silence so profound, and that lasted so long, Kirsty thought Uncle Frank had left. The thought of being alone in the attic with all its shadows frightened her, but she stifled her tears. She knew the Man in the Moon, if he were still there, wouldn't hug her or talk nicely to her if she cried, so there was no point.

"Gorgeous," Uncle Frank breathed next to her. He touched her face.

Thunder crashed outside.

Kirsty knew the Man in the Moon was gone.

Uncle Frank was dressed again. He carefully wiped her off. "This is special, Kirsty. It's sperm, and if you were older, it could…" His voice droned on. Kirsty watched the rain as hard as she could. She looked for shapes in the droplets exploding, reforming, and oozing down the window—she saw a big tree, and a ballerina, and a rearing horse. The lightning lit them up purple and white.

"I love rain," Uncle Frank said. He had stood her between his legs, and was carefully buttoning up her pajama top. "It's one of my favorite things. I can tell you like it, too."

Kirsty watched a raindrop rabbit dash across the windowpane.

Uncle Frank carried her to bed and tucked her in. He sat on the mattress and gazed at Kirsty, brushing his fingers through her hair.

"I don't know how your Daddy keeps his hands off of you," he said. "You're so scrumptious. You're irresistible."

Kirsty hugged Hanuman tightly.

"You're adorable when you're scared. You're adorable now."

Kirsty's lower lip trembled. Her teeth chattered softly.

"Kirsty, there's nothing to be upset about. We'll try that again when you're a little older."

"But it hurt," Kirsty whispered.

"Kirsty, you need to learn to embrace all sensations. I'm trying to teach you how to make Heaven out of Hell. Think of your—think of all the other little girls and boys at your school. They don't know anything about that. They don't know anything. They're dead. You and I are alive."

"I don't understand."

"You will. And you'll thank me and love me for this. All the women I teach do. And they're much older, so it's harder for them. It'll be easy for you."

He leaned down and kissed her gently on the mouth, and then stood and walked to the door. As he was about to step over the threshold, he turned back.

"Kirsty? You remember what I told you about what will happen if you don't keep secrets?"

"Yes, Uncle Frank. I'll keep the secret. I don't want to go to jail."

"I wouldn't let you. Happy Birthday, Beautiful. Sweet dreams."

He closed the door behind him.

The Cenobite was building a box. Not a Lament Configuration, like his was, but a box of smoke and mirrors.

This box would go inside the little girl's mind. Inside the box would go all the memories of terror, of pain, of shame. Once they were locked away, those memories would grow and grow. The box still had plenty of room for more memories, an infinite number of memories, to be precise. Eventually, they would break the box's walls. It wasn't a question of quantity of memories, but of years passing that would make the box's walls rupture. The Cenobite made the walls of the box so that they could shatter at any time, but not too soon. Those memories had to gestate. They had to grow strong. When the box broke open, all the monsters of Kirsty Cotton's past would come flying out. They would cause her great pain and suffering, and the Cenobite planned to observe this when it happened.

There was also a practical reason for this box. It wouldn't do for the child to remember the Cenobite. At worst, she would interfere with the plans for Frank Cotton.

It seemed to the Cenobite that the child would be as interesting as her uncle, if not more so. Now that he had made the box, and knew that all glimpses of him would be locked up inside it until it was too late for little Kirsty to do anything about them, he planned to visit her and her uncle again.

Kirsty woke the next morning feeling sick and anxious. Her underpants were missing, which terrified her. She walked around the house in a daze, stubbing her toes and dropping things. She clung to Mommy and Daddy, and was in tears when they left the room.

"Come now!" Nana snapped. "You should be happy, after that nice birthday! A big girl like you!"

Mommy held Kirsty and rocked her. She read her stories and got her to color. Daddy tried to make her laugh, and then watched cartoons with her. Though these were all nice things, Kirsty couldn't seem to shake away the scared, fuzzy feeling.

When she curled up in the kitchen cupboard, she felt a little better.

Uncle Frank stayed up in the attic nearly all day. He came down in the afternoon, when Mommy was getting ready to cook dinner. Kirsty heard his voice and almost threw up.

It was just a bad dream. Like the train.

"Hey, Cynthia," Uncle Frank brushed by Mommy to open the refrigerator. He pulled out a beer and popped it open, leaning against the fridge door and smiling at Mommy's back with that smile that didn't show his teeth.

"Hello, Frank. Nice of you to join us."

"It won't be for long. I got a date."

"You? A date? Really?" Mommy looked at Uncle Frank, and then looked at him again. She raised her eyebrows. "Jesus. You going back out with the grizzly bear from last night?"

Uncle Frank touched the scratches on his face and neck and laughed out of his nose. "You bet. You're witty, Cynthia. I love that about you."

"Hmmm. I should try to be less witty, then."

"Oh, Cynthia. You break my heart. You really do."

"Well, Frank, I don't see why. You have a date tonight, and you had a date last night, and the night before last, and probably for every night next week..."

"I've been trying to figure you out for years. You're a mystery. You make me crazy."

"That's your misfortune, Frank," Mommy turned to the sink, ripped open a bag of spinach, and dumped it in the colander. "Now leave me be. I'm trying to fix dinner."

From the crack in the cupboard door, Kirsty watched Uncle Frank's mouth tighten and curl. His eyes shone. He rocked away from the fridge, and moved toward Mommy.

Kirsty screamed and crawled out of her cupboard, making both her mother and uncle jump. Her legs were already running before she had stood up all the way, and she tripped, catching herself on her hands, before righting herself and running toward her mother. She got between the two adults, wrapping her arms tightly around Mommy's waist and burying her face in her stomach.

"Kirsty! What's wrong? I swear, you've been so odd all day."

Not even Uncle Frank's eyes, burning into her back, could tear Kirsty from her mother.

Inside her mind, the foundation of the box, the Cenobite's birthday present, reached deep and firm.