The Ritual

violently expelling his breath in a gust that ended in a cry when he plunged into the miasma
something inhuman had left upon the summit. He gathered himself in the very place where it had just been, where it had craned forward to snatch Dom as he sat before the tent, looking the wrong way.
Downwind of him.
    ‘Clever bastard.’
    Which was why Dom had not detected the heavy animal spore of a coat wet and fouled and ungroomed, or the hot meaty stench of a large mouth, and the livestock reek of air silently exhaled through
a great muzzle.
    At the edge of the hill, Luke looked down to the distant southern treeline. Nothing. There was nothing there at all any more.
    ‘What? Where is it?’ Dom whispered, his voice so tight and high it was unrecognizable.
    ‘Gone. Down there.’ Luke glanced over his shoulder and across the roof of the tent. ‘Look to your front!’
    ‘What?’
    ‘To the front!’ Luke bounded back to where Dom sat, staring up at him, terrified and bemused.
    Luke scanned the rocky plateau, the edges of the summit, to the west and the north. Nothing.
    He shook his head and bent over, hands on thighs, gulping at the dusky air. ‘Jesus.’
    ‘What? Where is it?’
    Luke looked at Dom. ‘It drew me out. Made me follow the sounds. But it doesn’t come from there. But from behind you when you’re looking in the wrong direction. It was behind
the tent.’
    ‘No.’
    Luke nodded. ‘I suddenly knew what that fucker was up to. It came up the back way, the south side. For you.’
    ‘Shit.’ Dom shuffled to his feet, leaned on his crutch. ‘Behind the tent? You see it?’
    They looked at each other, so deeply into each other’s eyes it hurt. Luke shook his head. ‘But I think it’s big.’

FORTY-ONE
    ‘It was close again. Did you hear it?’
    But when Luke turned his head to see why Dom had not acknowledged that he had heard it too, Dom’s eyes were closed and he was gripped by an exhausted and haunted slumber, which was all
this forest would allow a man.
    He shook Dom’s shoulder.
    Slowly, Dom opened his eyes. ‘Did I sleep?’ His voice was thick, slurred.
    ‘You go and sleep first,’ Luke said quietly, and shone his torch into the entrance of the tent. It was ten thirty and the first hour of eight hours of darkness had passed.
    Sitting back-to-back before the mouth of the tent, they had covered themselves in their sleeping bags, open and spread like blankets, to watch the last of the light fade. Each of them held a
torch and a knife.
    Both of them going inside the tent was certain death; they would have to take turns resting. Luke had suggested it earlier, but Dom had balked at the idea of being trapped inside the tent and
unable to see around himself. Instead, he’d opted to stay up, to stay awake all night, and to keep watch.
    ‘I won’t sleep,’ Luke said. ‘You go first. You have to sleep, Dom. I’ll keep watch until midnight. You’re no good to us if you fall asleep out
here.’
    But Dom continued to sit outside the tent, his shoulder pressed into Luke’s back, his torch flicking about the rocky summit on his side. ‘Sorry. I won’t fall asleep again. I
promise.’
    Another hour passed without any sound or sign of it.
    Luke shuddered; his mind was dull. He kept his torch beam trained into the darkness. Already the torchlight was vague, dimming. He would soon have to use the spare torch that had belonged to
Phil. But his body was enveloped in the soothing warmth of a winter sleeping bag, and he didn’t want to move. Not yet. It was the first time that day he’d felt even a smidgen of
comfort.
    Dom wheezed; asleep again beside him.
    Luke’s own mind began to insist on the oblivion of sleep too. No matter the threat of extinction, his head even fell twice before he snapped awake, cold with fear and tightening his grip
on the torch.
    Without sleep, how could he even think about the trek tomorrow, back down there and into the darkness of its realm? His body was spent, every muscle flat but aching, his spine a single
column of pain. Dom couldn’t be trusted to stay awake if he roused him now to keep a solitary watch while he grabbed an hour’s rest. Dom needed sleep more than he did. Needed to rest
that knee. Every minute of sleep Dom secured increased their chances of survival the following day because it would make Dom more alert, while he blazed the trail towards the end of this ancient
hell.
    Luke adjusted his position and knelt up inside his sleeping bag,