The Ritual

you’d hit the gym like we agreed, Dom.’
    ‘Oh, listen to the gentleman of leisure. I’ve got three kids, mate. Try hitting the gym when you work sixty hours a week and have a family to support.’
    Hutch raised both hands. ‘Boys. Boys. We’re wasting time here and we’re getting pissed on. At least on the path we’ll have a bit of purpose. If it goes nowhere, we make a
judgement call. And either break south through the crap again or we try and find our way back the way we came in yesterday, like Luke says. But that’s got to be a last resort, considering the
condition some of us are in and how difficult it is to even move across that terrain.’
    Phil finally spoke, but kept his back to them. ‘The last thing we want is to be in here again at night.’

EIGHTEEN
    The very thought of which was exactly why Hutch could not prevent the unnaturally vivid images of the dream from recurring as he walked slowly away from the hovel, with one of
Dom’s arms around his shoulders. He’d never sleep walked in his life before.
    He could still visualize the details of the dream as if it were a film he had seen the previous evening in a cinema. His mind clawed through the dim and grubby recollections for some kind of
sign; some sense that would explain exactly why he had risen from his sleeping bag and climbed the stairs to the attic and then been found kneeling before a hideous rotten effigy.
    Two figures had been standing beside him in the dark downstairs of the house. That was how the dream began. Old faces with dirty teeth told him to climb the stairs. Had told him that someone was waiting. Don’t keep him waiting, they had said. Your clothes are in the fire.
    And up he had gone. Up, up, up the black wooden stairs. He desperately didn’t want to climb them, but the will of the dream would permit no turning around or going back down. He’d
tried to stop his ascent, but remembered going numb and being unable to breathe. So up he went. And to think he had even been physically climbing the stairs at the same time.
    ‘Not so fast, H!’ Dom called out beside him.
    ‘Mmm? Sorry.’ Hutch slowed down.
    His feet had been bare, the soles black with the filth on the old wooden stairs. Hands out, he’d steadied himself against the dark wood that had felt wet underfoot. He was naked. His body
thin and pale and shivery; he’d felt like a little boy tottering for his bath. Yes, he had been smaller, and younger in the dream. He’d desperately wanted to be covered, protected.
    There were no windows in the house, just a faint reddish light coming down from up there. Around the corner of the staircase he’d then staggered into the attic, and opened his mouth
to call for help. But no sound had come out of his mouth. There was no air inside him, like he was winded.
    Inside the red place he’d kept his head down and his eyes fixed on his dirty feet. Dirty and wet. Wet from the piss that had tickled warm against his thighs and dripped down his
calves.
    He’d tried not to look up, because something was in there with him. Snorting with excitement because it could smell his piss and fear.
    Bones. There were bones on the floor. They made it all worse. Especially the ones with the grey bits attached. And some of the little bodies had gone so black he could not tell what they had
once been. On the stained planks he’d stepped around the bones, but some had still crunched under his blackened soles and slid around his grimy toes. The bones got bigger as he moved closer
to the snorting sound.
    And then he could smell it. Dung in straw, cattle sweat and sulphur stink; it made his eyes water. A goaty breath panted over his head and bare chest and made him cough. The taint had
still been inside his mouth when Luke woke him.
    In the dream, the knocking began when he smelled it . Near him. Sounded like wood banging against wood. In front of him. And he could not prevent a peek at what made the hollow knocking
noise.
    Black hooves. Once again they reared up in his mind. Big and sharp with yellowish bone at the tip. Wide as a horse’s feet, snapping down against the wooden box it sat inside. Banged them
with excitement it did. The black rim of the wooden box was chipped and grooved.
    Its glee grew as his soft white body came closer. So close. Coming out of a big head he had heard wet snorts and deep whinnies. Clack, clack, snap went its hot mouth with the yellow teeth
inside, like a trap.
    Before him, below him, cut smooth