The Ritual

it through? This was a place no more than a few
miles from the carcass in the tree. Something they could make no sense of, but should get as far away from as possible before nightfall.
    Everyone’s judgement was impaired. Nothing said or done now could be trusted. But somehow it wouldn’t be forgotten or forgiven.
    Slowly, Luke walked towards the black house. To the sound of their voices. The others were inside now, all talking at the same time. Someone was laughing. Phil. Luke threw his cigarette into the
weeds and considered joining them and forcing himself back into the camaraderie.
    A crash erupted behind him. A tremendous splintering of wood. From out of the trees.
    He turned around and stared at the wall of dark wood they had just walked out of. Beside the silvery rain falling past the trees and the chaos of bracken between the thick trunks, nothing moved.
But the terrific sound of strong fresh wood being snapped still rang through his ears. A trace of an echo, like the hollow sound made by a stone bouncing off tree trunks, seemed to pass away, deep
into the forest.
    What could possibly have broken a tree like that? Somewhere inside there, not too far back, he could almost see the pale sappy fibres and spikes breaking from the bark of a thick limb. Ripped
from a blackened trunk like an arm from a torso.
    Swallowing, and suddenly feeling weaker and more insignificant than he could ever remember, Luke couldn’t move. Pulse up between his ears, he stood still, disorientated with fear, like he
was waiting for something to smash out of the wood and rush towards him. He briefly imagined a terrific rage and strength, a terrible intent, out there. Imagined it until he almost accepted it.
    Thunder rolled across the sky, over the treetops and into the wet murk above the house. The sound of the rain against the wood changed from a pattering to a sky-fall of stones.
    ‘Buddy!’ It was Hutch. ‘Get in here. You have to see this.’
    Luke snapped out of his trance. Wondered at himself. Exhaustion overwhelmed you. Played tricks with your mind. The dark trees they had been amongst all afternoon and evening had left a stain
inside him; a taint upon every thought and feeling if he allowed his mind to drift.
    He needed to keep active. Focused. He moved to the door. Just inside the frame he could see Hutch’s pale face peering out. He’d taken his hat off.
    ‘Did you hear that?’
    Hutch looked at the sky. ‘I know. Thunder and a cloud burst. We couldn’t have found this place any sooner. I think a storm would’ve finished off the fatties. We’d have
been forced to lose them.’
    ‘Piss off, Yorkshire!’ Dom called from inside the dark hovel.
    Despite his unease, Luke couldn’t stop the nervous giggle that came down his nose. Stupidly, he was smiling too. Hutch turned around to go back inside the house, where torch beams flashed
across indistinct walls.
    ‘No. Not that. The trees. In the trees. Did you not hear it?’
    But Hutch wasn’t listening. He was back inside with the other two. ‘What you got there, Domja?’
    Luke heard Dom say, ‘More of that evil Christian shit.’ He took one look back at the woods then passed through the doorway to join the others.

SEVEN
    It was impossible to tell how long the place had been uninhabited. Or what kind of people once lived there.
    Uncovered by yellow torchlight, that struggled to reach far into the cramped hovel, the first thing Luke noticed were the skulls. And then the crucifixes.
    From small birds to what could have been squirrels and stoats, small mottled heads had been fixed with rusted nails to the timber walls of the large room on the ground floor. Larger skulls of
lynx and deer and elk had mostly fallen from the walls and cracked against the floorboards. One or two still grinned from near the low ceiling, where their porous bones managed to hang on.
    Between the skulls still mounted upon the walls were at least a dozen crosses. By the look of them, though no one looked for too long, they had been handcrafted from bundles of twigs tied with
twine, and were mostly tilting now, or even hanging upside down. From the ceiling beams that brushed the tops of their uncovered heads, two empty and corroded oil lamps creaked irritably on their
hooks if touched.
    Under the floor, mice scampered. In this place they sounded angry at being disturbed, though something far too confident and unafraid was also suggested in their rustlings.
    Hutch came back from an