The Ritual

much – desired him
dead.
    He boiled, sweated cold over his face. Gritted his teeth until they hurt and he raised the rifle at the window.
    Fired.
    In went the entire glass pane and up and onto her toes went Surtr, like she’d been electrocuted. For a split second she was all shaky black hair and big white eyes. Something smashed
inside. She cried out.
    Was she hit?
    Up, forward, back, down with the bolt in the breech. When Luke looked up she had gone from the parlour, the door closed behind her.
    Luke hobbled sideways across the paddock and looked down and into the hallway of the house from outside. Heard the bump bump bump of her feet, somewhere inside, in the dark, out of sight. But
she could not have reached the stairs, so she must have run inside the kitchen. Luke continued to walk sideways, outside, across the face of the house, with the rifle raised. He’d shoot the
bitch through the glass of the kitchen windows. An eagerness, verging on excitement, made him tingle all over and sweat heavy.
    There she was, going out the tiny back door of the kitchen; he saw her through the dirty windows as he squinted along the gun barrel.
    Luke ran, ungainly, sloppily, with his breath hoarse and infuriating in his ears, down the side of the house, the rifle raised. He was desperate to fire it again. But he made sure to come round
the corner of the house carefully, and into the rear paddock before the orchard, looking everywhere and ready to go.
    No one on the grass.
    Movement out there: in the orchard, on the other side of the truck. Off she went, fast for a big girl, between the trees planted along the side of the rutted track.
    The rifle sights swam, then moved before his eyes. His hands were overeager, shaky. He blinked sweat out of his eyes. Refocused. Had her sighted. Then she was gone from the sights again,
changing her direction, dodging, her big thighs pumping.
    When he finally had her shape in front of the rifle sights, as she moved between two black-limbed trees, he fired.
    Too high. Or had he hit her? She had vanished.
    Cordite seared his face, his eyes, throat and nose. His ears rang out their resistance like a drill.
    But no, he had not hit her, because there she was, still on her feet and running across the track at the side of the orchard. By the time he had the rifle cocked again, she was gone, into the
trees where the forest began, on the other side of the track.
    Disappointed, he looked at the white truck. Went to it. Through the passenger window, he saw sweet wrappers in the foot wells, a discarded book of maps written in Swedish. A right-hand drive.
Opened the door. The smell of rubber, oil, wet metal, old cigarette smoke hit him. Scents of the old world; the world this vehicle could take him back to. It was filthy inside. Dirt was compacted
into the mats and the seats; the floor of the cabin was bare metal. The rubber pads were gone from the pedals; upholstery was split on the long bench seat. A bright turquoise fishing lure hung from
the rear-view mirror. In the flatbed an open bag of tools, empty red plastic fuel containers, a dozen crushed beer cans. It was not their vehicle. It had brought them here, but they had taken it
from someone, somewhere else.
    Luke put the gun down. Then leant inside the truck cabin and touched the steering column, put his finger tips on to the slot for the ignition key, hoping. Empty.
    Keys, keys, fucking keys.
    He decided there and then to just get the hell out, and fast. He turned and walked gingerly back towards the house, one hand clamped upon the movements of the new mouth in his hip.
    Stopped. Turned around and went back for the gun that he had left on the grass. ‘Fuck.’ He wasn’t thinking straight. Was dizzy with hunger and burning with thirst; faint from
the excitement that kept draining out of him, before being suddenly invigorated back through him from his exhausted glands, over and over and over again. His thighs felt so heavy. Shadows flickered
at the sides of his vision. He spat, carried on.
    The old woman was gone when he arrived back inside the kitchen. He called out. ‘Hello. Hello.’ But no one answered or came.
    There were no taps, no sink; the house had never been plumbed. But he found six one-litre water bottles that had been reused to bring water to the house from the well he still had not seen. He
uncapped one bottle; belted the warmish water inside him until a crippling stitch made him stop, bend over and gasp.
    There was a