The Ritual

by Adam L.G. Nevill

Outside, the thunder ground iron hulls against granite.

Phil paused on the first of the stairs on his way up, and fingered a dark crucifix. As if to himself, he said, ‘You’d think they’d make you feel safe. But they don’t.’

It was stupid, irrational to think so, but his imagination suspected the house was inhabited with something he didn’t need eyes to see. They were small and fragile here. They were defenceless. They were not welcome.

The forest made these people crazy. Because I don’t think people are supposed to come here.’

He was interrupted by a crash. Out there, somewhere in the length and breadth of the countless trees and the oceans of invisible ruin and tangle, a great bow or strong limb had been snapped in half.

And from the foot of the hill, no more than twenty metres below them, as if rising to a new challenge, a long and terrible sound grew from a hidden mouth and made the hill, and every square foot of land for miles around, tremble from its bellow.

A thick shape fills the doorway of your room. You scream when you realize it is coming through on all fours, with the long horns out front.

There was simply no preparation in life for the determined madness of others.

If only we could all stand up. All of us who have died unjustly for the Gods of the insane. There would be so many of us.