The Ritual

because
this is the end. Your life closes this way, in this dark and stinking place that makes no sense. There is no justice in this and no way to escape. But your anguish does not penetrate it at
all. Sitting there on its haunches, on that wretched wooden throne, the long horns rising majestically to the ceiling like some crown, as it watches you, without mercy, empowered by your disgrace
on these dirty planks. Its arms are flung to the ceiling in hideous triumph.
    Your underwear is wet through, your thighs sticky.
    Someone calls to you. From behind.
    ‘Hutch. Hutch. Mate. What? What is it? Where are the others?’
    The voice sounds familiar, but Hutch cannot respond because it is too late and he must wait here for his end. Not long now.
    A hand on his shoulder, shaking. ‘Wake up. Hutch, wake up. It’s a dream. Mate, a dream. You don’t know where you are. Wake up now. It’s over. Come on, mate.’
    Hutch raises his head, keeping his eyes down and away from that awful black shape before him. He looks up and towards the voice, feels the dry salt crack on his dusty cheeks. Luke.
    The recognition of a familiar face makes his own face screw up and tears would have fallen if there were any left. His mouth tastes hot and briny from sobbing. But why? Why is he here, in his
boxer shorts, shivering in the darkness with a wet lap, weeping? He was going to die. After being scared for a very long time. Hutch squeezes his eyes shut, and forces his recollection of the dream
from his thoughts.
    Foolishness creeps through him, warming his cheeks and skin. ‘What the hell?’ He turns to look at what terrified him. In the gloom, faintly lit from some chinks in the ceiling, he
sees its outline. Long limbs and horns, the body taut with expectation.
    But it’s not alive. No, it is an animal. Stuffed and mouse-eaten. Some remnant of lunacy abandoned in a decrepit attic of a forgotten house. He looks up at Luke and shakes his head.
    Luke looks down at him; his eyes full of confusion and fear. ‘We need to get out of here. Now.’
    Hutch nods and reaches out to steady himself against his friend, who holds him beneath an arm and pulls him to his feet.
    ‘The others,’ Luke says. ‘We’ve got to find the others.’

FOURTEEN
    They found Dom outside, kneeling in the long wet grass, wearing just his underwear and a T-shirt. Watching the trees with glassy eyes. His whole body shivered in the dawn
chill.
    Neither of them could touch him. Hutch and Luke had never seen him look this way. Lips dark in a dirt-streaked face, bleached of colour beneath the filth by the cold and by what he had seen, or
dreamed of, like them. Dom’s face was oddly pink too, at the sides of his eyes, where his tears had cleansed a hot and salty path down his unshaven cheeks. He was unaware of them. Was just
motionless and mumbling to himself with the other two shivering beside him, coming down from their own shock and trying to keep it together.
    Tousle-headed and wild of eye, Hutch and Luke could not help but follow Dom’s stare to see what it was he had found out there in the dark trees. But they saw nothing but black wood,
dripping greenery and the whitish glimmer of birch bark, all struggling from the choked forest floor.
    Hutch spoke first. ‘Domja. Domja.’
    He must have heard Hutch, because without turning his head, he said, ‘It’s going to put us up there, in the trees.’
    It could have just been gibberish that Dom had brought with him from sleep, but for a while no one spoke. Until Luke turned to face the house. ‘We’ve got to find Phil.’

FIFTEEN
    Phil was found in the larder, standing up but cowering naked in a corner of the filthy cramped space. Almost luminous in the shadows, his heavy body had withdrawn itself away
from their presence in the doorway. His eyes were locked on to something that was not there, as if it was behind them and slightly above them at the same time. But as his expression was
rigid with such an intensity, they were all still tempted to look up, and behind themselves, to see what it was that their friend saw. Both of Phil’s arms were raised. But there was something
indecisive about the position of his hands. Perhaps he had lifted them to ward something away, but the supporting limbs had become weak as the hopeless idea of defence struck him.
    ‘Phil. Mate. Come on. Let’s get you sorted.’ Hutch had recovered enough from his own trauma upstairs to approach Phil; wary, slow, but