Adam Nevill - The Ritual

Big boots boomed against the bottom two steps of the staircase and then came banging down the cramped hall on the ground floor. Loki was trying to be calm, but was worried; Luke could hear it in his voice, as he called out in Norwegian to Fenris; who he must have been able to see out on the porch or in the grass paddock. Luke shouldered the weapon and pointed the barrel into the middle of the doorframe. The rifle was so heavy, so long; it was hard to keep it aloft and steady. It made his arms feel frail.

But as soon as he had the rifle’s sights aimed at the doorway, Loki ducked into the kitchen, stooping at the waist so his head would miss the top of the frame. He did not see Luke until it was too late. Their eyes locked for a moment. Loki’s were puffy with sleep, running with mascara, and twitchy with shock. Just as he frowned in confusion, Luke shot him.

The rifle bucked; not too hard. But the sound deafened him. It seemed to crack the slate floor, smash all the windows and roar like a jet too low to the earth. Loki disappeared from the door. Luke’s ears whistled. The old lady cried out, afraid. Her little rough hands clouted her own ears. All was jittery around Luke; the world leapt in and out and nothing made sense in the ringing of his ears, in the impact of sending that bullet through a man.

Luke punched the bolt up, forward, back, and down. A brass shell dropped and bounced on to the slate stones; some smoke drifted from the end of the shell case. He was getting better. Not so clumsy. He could smell fireworks.

Loki was on all fours in the grubby hallway. Head down, hair covering his gasping face, his great back shuddering. Strangely, he too crawled at the front door which was wide open now.

Luke slipped on the floor. Looked down. His foot was wet with his own blood. He had slipped in the blood that was running down his leg from his hip. There was very little pain in his hip, but the sight of the blood made his vision go white. He stopped to be sick in the hallway, but nothing came out beside some phlegm. Mostly, it was just a big gassy burp. He looked over his shoulder at the stairs. But Surtr was not coming down yet. Up there it was silent.

Loki had reached the doorway and rolled onto his back, half on the porch, half in the hallway. They looked into each other’s eyes. They were both panting, exhausted, and unable to speak for a while. He had not realized the barrel of the gun had been directed so low when he shot Loki, but he had gunned him somewhere through the pelvis, where Loki’s big hands were now pressing into a dark wetness.

‘Luke. Stop!’ he commanded in his deep voice. Even covered in cracked white face-paint, Loki had never looked so pale.

Luke shook his head. Swallowed, but could not find his voice.

‘Luke, no. I ask this of you.’

Then words rushed out of him. ‘Where are the keys to the truck?’

Loki stayed quiet, but winced, screwed up his eyes against the pain.

‘Keys, Loki?’ He looked over his shoulder. Still no Surtr.

‘Upstairs. In my jacket.’

‘Where your fat bitch is? Nice try.’

Loki looked at him again; he was terrified, he had been telling Luke the truth about the whereabouts of the keys. Luke stared at the long figure down there, shivering in agony. The man couldn’t have been older than twenty. Loki started to cry. Luke could not look him in the eye for long. He started to cry too; couldn’t help himself. He felt a terrible grinding remorse for what he had just done to Fenris and Loki; he was about to shut down at any moment.

Luke stopped crying. Was suddenly angry with himself. Swallowed hard. ‘My friends wanted to live, Loki. To see their children.’ He cleared his throat; spat phlegm onto the floor. ‘Mercy is a privilege out here. Not a right. You made it that way. You can die by your own rules.’ Luke cleared his throat again and said, ‘Fuck it.’ He aimed the end of the rifle barrel at Loki’s big face. ‘Consequences, Loki.’

‘No, Luke,’ Loki said in a voice that was not so deep now. He raised a big hand and stretched it towards Luke, palm first. The palm was bright red and wet.

Luke shot him through his fingers. Banged Loki’s big head down against the wooden deck of the porch. Behind his head was an instant wide swirl of murky liquid peppered with hard bits that Luke could not bring himself to look into. The sound of it coming out of Loki’s head was the worst thing he had ever heard.

Luke punched the bolt up, forward, back, and down. Stepped over Loki, who still twitched and shivered down the length of his legs. Luke was not worried about him getting up again.

Luke sniffed; there was mucus all over his mouth and chin. With one forearm he wiped at his eyes, then at his mouth.

Fenris was lying on his side, still moving, about twenty feet from the house. Pulling himself along the ground with one arm, towards the trees. Just to get away. Luke followed him. There was a lot of blood in the grass.

Then Luke paused and turned around to look up at the windows of the house. The whitish balloon of Surtr’s face peered down at him from the little window of the room where they had kept him captive. Her face was full of shock. They stared at each other and then she retreated away from the glass.

‘Hey,’ he said to Fenris. ‘Hey.’

Fenris looked up at him, his eyes bulged from his smeared face. A horrible speckling of blood dotted his chin and the forearm beneath the hand that clutched at the handle of the hunting knife moving up and down in his throat.

Luke looked away, at the trees. He felt dizzy and sick and he just wanted to sit down on the grass, but could not bring himself to get any closer to the sounds Fenris was making.

‘I could get the truck running. Put you in the back. Drive like a bastard to … Where, I don’t fucking know, but that road must go somewhere, Fenris.’

Fenris propped himself up on one elbow. He gasped, he choked, his throat produced a horrible aerosol of blood, a mist as he pulled air in and out of himself from mouth, nose and throat.

Luke looked back at the house, wondering if there was a second gun. Nothing moved in the old black building, but Surtr would have to come down soon. From where he stood in the paddock, he could see through the open front door, and along the hallway to the far rear wall of the building. But still, nothing moved.

He looked down at Fenris again. He wanted, he needed, to speak. To make some sense of this to himself. It was like he was just doing things without thinking any of it through. He was operating on instinct now. But where did these instincts come from?

‘It’s too late for all that,’ Luke said, surprising himself with his own voice that possessed an inappropriate strength. ‘I don’t think the world has enough time left for all that, Fenris. It’s too late to understand, you know. Everything has just gone too far. You can’t persuade any more, or re-educate. You think this, I think that.’

Fenris might not have been listening; he clawed towards Luke’s leg.

‘You kidnap, you murder. Can you expect any mercy? There are consequences. I told Loki the same thing. You never thought about them. Did you? Even if you were caught, you would still expect special treatment. That’s what gets me the most. And you would get it. Fuck that shit, Fenris. Just fuck it.’

Fenris gobbled with his mouth at the air; he reached for Luke’s leg again and convulsed. Luke shot him through his right eye from close range.

Luke turned and walked back to the house, paused on the porch. Stood beside Loki, to the left of the doorframe, and peered into the brownish hallway. Loki had stopped moving now, but was leaking all over the uneven planking. Luke regretted not asking Loki or Fenris where they had put his tobacco. He was light in the head, soul-buoyant. Wanted this finished, quick now.