The Ritual

into the jumping shadows at the side of
the track in the time it took to blink an eye. The figure had been at least twenty yards behind his rear bumper, but tall on those black legs, thin as stilts, that bent the wrong way at the knee
joint.
    He hurriedly turned the headlights on, then switched them to full beam; the sudden strobe of white light was an instant comfort inside the cocoon of rain-heavy leaves that now draped themselves
across the windscreen like the flabby hands of protesters, attempting to slow down a diplomat’s car driving through a crowd.
    It had been running down the road behind him, was keeping up. A thing dark. Thin rear legs. No tail. A brief ripple of light across a flank tooled with muscle. ‘Jesus fucking
Christ!’
    He was doing thirty miles an hour when he smacked his head against the steel underside of the cabin roof and was forced to brake, to slow down. One eye shut from the pain; an old wound up there
had reopened or just set fire to itself again.
    Crawling, skidding; he spent more time looking into the rear-view mirror, than he did over the wet white bonnet.
    Which is why he did an emergency stop when something darted across the front of the vehicle. His breastbone hit the steering wheel and set the horn blasting; his forehead banged, slapped, then
pressed flat, against the cold inside of the windscreen.
    For a while he did not know which way he was facing, until his senses landed safely and reorientated his spatial awareness. He pulled himself back hard into his seat.
    As he lowered his eyes, he caught the last of something moving; close to the ground, slipping into the trees. It was a thing both lean and brawny.
    Had he not stopped he would have hit it. ‘Fuck!’
    The engine had stalled again, and if it stalled once more he swore he would get out of the cabin and put a bullet through the bonnet of the spluttering shuddering mess of a truck.
    He got it started again as the panic made his jaw shake as if he were suddenly freezing.
    Were the rear wheels now stuck in a rut though? The truck would only now move in increments, as if the handbrake was still on. The engine whined and steamed. Then the whole vehicle jolted
forward, almost pitching him off the road.
    Something had been holding the truck again, from behind.
    Luke glanced at the rear-view mirror. A black shape suddenly flared up, and reared away as if on long quivering stilts.
    And then it was on the roof. Clambering and all about the windows on every side. He heard himself scream. The dim light dimmed.
    The banging of hammers upon the roof; the ricochets of bone feet on metal smarted inside his tender ears. A pink-teated underside of a great belly across the windscreen, black-haired and
doggish. Hint of an amber eye the size of an apple to his right.
    He looked at the eye.
    Saw a great mouth opening instead. Black gums, and yellow canines the length of middle fingers. Breath condensed on the glass, then it was gone.
    And so was he, with the accelerator plugged to the metal floor, and his thoughts reeling round and round in a terrible whirlpooling skull-wind, and the branches of trees grooved the side panels,
and twigs scratched at the glass like they had claws of their own and wanted to shell him like an oyster.
    Bang! Bang! Bang! The hooves of horses across a metal sheet, as something stamped upon the cabin roof again, then ran across the flatbed and vanished, taking poor Surtr with it, like her remains
were the remnants of a disembowelled doll, held by one ankle.
    Luke was still screaming when the truck veered from one side of the road to the other, entering the forest a few feet on either side of the track. A headlamp went smash. The bumper tore off, and
the wheels went over it with a crumple he felt more than heard.
    He stamped on the brake to regain control of the vehicle. The truck slid. Came to a jolting stop that put his forehead into the windscreen again.
    He sat back, gaping. He’d got the vehicle wedged at an angle, diagonally across the track. Up ahead, the tunnel of overhanging forest narrowed, and completely shut off the light.
    Reverse. First gear. Reverse. First gear . . . A ten-point turn before he stopped counting and began whimpering.
    He thought of getting out and using the rifle. Then was certain, again, that he should just put the end of the barrel inside his mouth and end the delay of his demise. It was inevitable.
    Fear and big white eyes inside a suit of dirty skin: that’s all he was