Ritual

by Ryan Casey

  Five

  Harry Galbraith didn’t believe in bad omens, signs, things like that.

  But if he had, who knows how his and Carly’s story might’ve played out.

  He sat in the driver’s seat of the broken-down Jeep wondering why coincidence would choose to strike now. In the middle of the narrow country lane right up the back of Beacon Fell, rain lashing down on the windscreen, clouds thickening more and more.

  In his pocket, he felt the pressure from the engagement ring.

  The ring he was planning to reveal to Carly when they’d set up camp.

  The ring he was going to offer to his dying girlfriend.

  “Is it really knackered?” Carly asked.

  Harry turned the key again. Put his foot on the gas. Nothing but a cough and a splutter. Didn’t sound good. He was no expert with cars—that accolade went to his younger mechanic brother, Richard—but he knew what knackered sounded like. He’d heard Richard messing around with knackered cars back when they grew up together down in Ashton. The sound of revving filling the road, prompting the neighbours out of their living rooms, up to the curtains to shake a head, to throw daggers.

  Just a pity he wasn’t even in England anymore. Moved over to India with his wife and their three kids. And as much as Richard begged Harry and Carly to go visit someday, Harry knew for a fact that the chances of ever seeing his brother again were slim to none.

  Because he wasn’t sure what he’d do when Carly died.

  No, if Carly died.

  No. Fuck that. Fuck that. She wasn’t dying. She was fighting. She was—

  “Harry?”

  Carly’s voice snapped Harry out of his trance. He turned to look at her, the sound of rain still peppering down on the windscreen. She was smiling at him. Smiling with such beauty—but stretched beauty. Thinning, gaunt beauty. Beauty that the cancer was trying its damnedest to take away.

  “Maybe we should call someone. The AA or something. Have them tow us out of here.”

  Harry’s stomach sank. He shook his head, bit his lip. Looked back out at the road, at the thick mass of all kinds of trees—English Oak, Scots Pine, conifers. Two-hundred acres of national park just to the north of Preston. The place they were supposed to go wild camping. The place that neither the weather or this damned car wanted them to get anywhere near.

  “We can always come back. Next weekend. Or something.”

  Harry could hear the disappointment in his girlfriend’s voice. And it was the last thing he wanted to hear. He didn’t want her to be disappointed, not ever again. Especially not by him. After all, she’d been nagging on at him to get this “piece of junk” Jeep serviced for God knows how long now. He just kept putting it off and putting it off … So hell. This was his fault. His doing.

  He’d let down his thirty-three-year-old girlfriend—the woman he loved.

  There were only so many times a fifty-three-year-old could let down someone twenty years their junior and get away with it.

  No.

  Don’t fucking think like that.

  Not the time and not the place.

  Harry pulled his phone out of his pocket. No damned signal, of course. He grabbed the handle to the door and opened it up, the sound of the rain bashing the concrete and the tree branches growing louder.

  “Where you off?”

  “Gonna see if I can get some signal,” Harry said, leaning on the car door. Only out here a few seconds and already he was soaked. “Then we’re gonna head into those woods and get the tent set up.”

  A spark of light filled Carly’s face. “But the repairs and—and we won’t have the Jeep—”

  “Then screw the Jeep,” Harry said, shrugging as rain dripped down his chin. “We’ll just have to walk it home, won’t we?”

  A smile stretched across Carly’s face and Harry fell in love all over again.

  He turned and faced the black mass of trees. Wasn’t sure he was getting any better signal in there, their branches carpeting the fell, so he’d have to head up the road a bit. See how long it took.

  They were staying here tonight. He was proposing tonight.

  One way or another, this special trip away was going to plan.

  Even if in doing so the plan went completely balls up.

  He walked right down the road without passing anyone. He looked over his shoulder a few times, back at the car. Not sure why. Not like it was going anywhere. The rain kept on lashing down. The wind made the pines scrape against one another, made Harry squint to get a good look at his water-drenched phone.

  He’d been walking a good five minutes when a bar of signal finally appeared on his phone.

  He felt relief. Momentary relief. ’Cause he was soaked and he was cold and hell, he’d walked a bit too far.

  But his relief didn’t last long.

  Because he heard a scream.

  At first he thought it must’ve been a bird. But no, too big for a bird. Too loud.

  No. It was a human scream.

  Carly’s scream.

  He spun around, dread filling his body, and he went to run back to the Jeep, sprint back to it as fast as he could.

  But he didn’t even make it five steps.

  A man stood opposite him.

  Hammer in hand.

  Smiling.

  And before Harry could ask him who he was—before he could tell him to get out of the way—the man cracked the hammer against Harry’s left cheek.

  Sent him flying onto the ground.

  And as blood filled his mouth and the purple fuzziness of unconsciousness surrounded his eyes, he heard Carly scream again.

  Then, blackness.

  Six

  Brian glanced at his watch and the nerves started to build up inside.

  Eleven-thirty. Which meant lunch break was approaching. Which meant his appointment was approaching.

  An appointment he didn’t like to tell anyone about. Not his colleagues. Not even Hannah.

  But an appointment he had a duty to make. A responsibility to attend.

  First Wednesday of every month, he was there.

  Although he never stopped being nervous about it. Especially not after Marlow’s thinly veiled threats in their meeting two days ago. Granted, two uneventful days had passed since then with nothing spectacular to report. Sam threw up on him a few times. Ruined a few of his nicest shirts.

  The things a parent does for love.

  But if he spoiled one more shirt …

  Brian stared into the blank void of his computer screen. Well, hardly a blank void, but an Excel spreadsheet full of crime reports, so the closest thing. Didn’t help that the damned old thing flickered, gave him a splitting headache after an hour or so of looking at it. Trust him to end up with one of the shitty old CRTs. They’d probably still expect him to work on it when the piece of crap finally gave in completely.

  But hey. Maybe that’s exactly what his superiors were waiting for. An opportunity to get rid of him. Sorry, Brian, but you must’ve broken the monitor. We’ll have to offer you an ultra-fucking-condescending retirement package for criminal damage.

  Or maybe he was just being paranoid.

  Probably just being paranoid.

  The sounds of keyboards tapping filled the second-floor offices of the Preston Police Department. A sound that Brian always found a relief to get away from at the end of a long day—and the long days seemed to be stretching ever longer the older he got. The place reeked of coffee, too. He used to enjoy the odd latte—probably still would—but unfortunately caffeine didn’t agree with his gut quite so much these days. Acted as a good laxative, though, so there was that. Everything had its uses.

  “Sup, Bri?”

  Brian looked to his left. Saw Detective Constable Arif standing with a few letters under his arm. He was chubby, smelled of sweat, but to his credit he had lost a little weight.

  Or maybe it was just the beard. He’d had a shave recently, got rid of that mass of black fur that used to cover his face. Maybe he hadn’t rea
lly lost any weight. Trick of the eye. Damned good one at that, if so.

  “The usual,” Brian said, swerving around to face Arif head-on. “Life.”

  He saw Arif smile and tut.

  The smile and a tut was a good sign.

  Because it meant he hadn’t figured out Brian was lying.

  “Got some mail for ya,” Arif said, handing Brian a crinkled brown envelope. “Got a pen pal?”

  “Probably Molfer writing to tell me how brilliant and sunny Barbados is,” Brian said.

  “Oh believe me, he’ll video link in to the entire office when he wants to boast,” Arif said.

  Brian stuck his finger under the flap of the envelope. He couldn’t disagree with Arif. Molfer had turned out okay, but he was still a boast. And fortunately for him, he was a boaster who’d reached retirement age just before the latest wave of cuts kicked in for good. So he took it while he had the chance and flew off to Barbados with his … well, with his whoever. He wasn’t married now. His mum, perhaps.

  But hey. Barbados with your mum was better than Preston on any day of the week.

  “How’s the family?” Arif asked.

  Brian opened up the envelope. Upturned it so the contents would fall out onto his desk. “Hannah’s her usual self. Which is a dream compared to what Vanessa used to be like.”

  “And the little’un?”

  “He’s hard work. Has a wonderful knack of projectile vomming whenever his daddy’s in proximity. But y’know. It’s …”

  Brian stopped speaking.

  He stopped speaking ’cause the contents of the envelope fell out into his palm.

  “What’s …” Arif started.

  He didn’t continue.

  Or maybe he did.

  All that mattered were the several strands of long golden string in Brian’s hand.

  No, not string.

  Hair.

  Woman’s hair. He could almost smell the shampoo on it. Fruity, like that Aussie stuff Hannah used.

  “Weird pen pal,” Arif said.

  Brian swallowed a lump in his throat. He wasn’t sure why he felt so strange exactly, but he couldn’t shake the undeniable bad feeling inside. The sense of foreboding, like dark clouds before an impending storm. “Get them down to forensics.”

  “A bit of hair? Ain’t that a bit excessive?”

  “Just get them checked, Arif,” Brian said.

  He handed the hair to Arif and checked his watch. Shit. Twenty to twelve already.

  “And where are you off to?” Arif asked.

  Brian opened his mouth and almost let the truth be known.

  Then he half-smiled at Arif. “General appointment. I’ll be back in an hour-ish.”

  He turned and walked through the office.

  “Try not to pick up any more hair-donating admirers on your way out!”

  “I’ll try,” Brian said.

  He walked down the stairs. Out of the office. And all the way the sickly taste built in his mouth. The sense of something bad on its way.

  That hair. That blonde hair.

  Why had someone sent him hair?

  What did it mean?

  He stepped out into the rain. Looked up at the thick grey clouds and listened to the sounds of horns pipping, got a lungful of exhaust fumes.

  And he walked.

  By the time he reached Preston Prison, Brian had mostly banished the strange envelope and its contents from his mind.

  But he’d remember it all again soon.

  Very soon.

  Seven

  “Bet I can beat you to the bridge!”

  “Danny, don’t!”

  Calvin Knowles watched his older brother ride off down the canal towards the tunnel. Idiot. Absolute idiot. He knew Calvin couldn’t cycle as fast as he could. And he knew Calvin didn’t like being left alone down here. Especially not with some of the weird old men who came this way with their dogs and their smelly breath and coats.

  But it was the water that scared Calvin most. That was the real reason. The thick, brown mass of water. Empty beer cans and pieces of bread floating on the top of it. So still. A kid had fallen in there once, apparently. Some guy pushed him in for a joke and wouldn’t let him out. And it was for that reason Mum didn’t like Danny or Calvin coming down by the canal, not anymore.

  But Danny liked doing things he wasn’t supposed to do.

  Calvin watched his older brother whizz down the pathway. Calvin didn’t like it under there either. Sometimes when they went under there, kids not as young as them but still kids really would be holding each other, putting their tongues in their mouths like Calvin caught Daddy and that other woman who wasn’t his mum doing once.

  The smell of wee. The graffiti all over the mossy walls with words he didn’t understand, drawings of things that looked vaguely familiar but he could only place as “rude.”

  He didn’t like the canal. He didn’t like the bridge.

  He wanted to go home.

  But the only way home was with his brother. He knew that and Danny knew that. And that’s what made it harder. That’s what made Danny take him to places he wasn’t supposed to go. Danny was a bad kid. He was in Year Five and Calvin was in Year Two and everyone went on about how “hard” his older brother was.

  He didn’t know what they meant by that but he’d seen his brother laughing at other kids in the playground just like he laughed at Calvin back home so he guessed it must be something to do with that.

  He was glad it was summer. But he just wished he could do stuff without his brother.

  He looked around at the canal as the sound of Danny’s laughter and pedals grew further away. Looked across at the massive bushes and hedges, so still, water from the rain dripping down into the canal. If he stared long enough into them, he thought he saw movement.

  Movement of someone watching.

  Of someone waiting to pounce.

  A monster.

  A—

  “Hurry up, Cal! I’ll bike home without you!”

  Calvin looked back around at his brother. He wasn’t too far away, not really, but it looked like forever away. Especially with the canal beside him. The canal made him ride slower. Made him ride wobblier. Made his heart flutter and his breathing get harder. He just wanted to get to the tunnel and get through it and get it done with.

  Like Dad said, he needed to toughen up. Maybe this was what he meant.

  He put a foot on the pedal of his blue bike—one of Danny’s old ones; he had a flashy new silver one now that all the other kids said was cool—and he gripped the handlebars tight and cycled towards the tunnel, towards his brother. He tried to ignore his heart, which kept on racing fast. Tried not to look at the canal. Because one look at the canal and maybe he’d see something. Something awful and terrible like from his dreams.

  Something evil.

  Something—

  He heard something.

  Something in the bushes.

  Something moving to his right.

  And he wanted to look. He wanted to turn and he wanted to look, ’cause as much as he didn’t want to see what was there, he knew he had to. He had to see and he had to understand what he was getting away from.

  No.

  Just focus on pedalling.

  Focus on the bridge.

  Focus on …

  When he looked ahead, his stomach dropped completely.

  Danny was off his bike. His bike was on its side right under the bridge. He’d fallen off. That’s what’d happened. He’d fallen off.

  “Calvin!” Danny shouted, fear and pain in his voice. “Calvin, p-please! Help!”

  But Calvin’s legs froze as he got closer to the tunnel. Because he looked in through the darkness and he saw something from his nightmares.

  The tunnel getting longer and longer, stretching out.

  The smell of wee getting stronger.

  The drawings getting nastier.

  Tongues down throats.

  Like Daddy and the woman who wasn’t his mum.<
br />
  Like Daddy and—

  “Jesus, Calvin! Help us here.”

  Calvin heard the shift in his brother’s voice. The shift from pain to anger. And he knew what it meant if he didn’t do what he was told. He’d tried not doing things when Danny was angry in the past and his left arm was still sore from it. When people asked about the bruises he just said it was play-fighting.

  Which it was.

  His brother was only play-fighting.

  Even though it made him cry, it was only play-fighting.

  Even though it made him sick and dizzy, it was only play-fighting.

  Danny wouldn’t hurt him. Not really.

  “It’s okay, Dan,” Calvin said, trying not to think about the tunnel or the canal, just about Danny, his brother who was hurt, his brother who needed him. “I’m—I’m coming for you.”

  He tightened his grip on the worn-down rubber handles.

  Looked at his brother.

  Took a deep breath in.

  Be brave, Calvin. Be “hard” like your brother.

  He let out his breath and he pedalled.

  The closer he got to his brother, the faster he moved, the better he felt. ’Cause he was nearly there. He was nearly at his brother and soon he’d be able to help his brother. And his brother would thank him for it. His brother would think he’s “hard” and tell all his friends in Year Five that his little brother was “hard” and then more people would like Calvin, more people would invite him round to tea like they did Danny, more people would want to play out with him instead of laughing about him.

  Yes. That’s what this was. This was about being “hard”. This was about being brave. This was …

  He tried not to look at the water as he hurtled towards the tunnel.

  But something caught his eye.

  Something floating just before the tunnel entrance.

  It wasn’t bread. It wasn’t beer cans either.

  It was something … big.

  No. Two big things.

  Two big lumps with flies buzzing around them.

  A smell hit Calvin’s nostrils. A smell worse than that time when he’d had the tummy upset. Made him feel like he was gonna have another tummy upset all over again.

  He couldn’t look away from the canal.