Ritual

by Ryan Casey

Never.

  A gap in the road.

  A chance to skip ahead. Ahead of these people. Towards the train station.

  The sound of the busker’s acoustic guitar got louder.

  The smells of cheap perfume, the tastes of sweat, the chatter of a thousand voices, all louder, all more intense, all more …

  She jogged off the kerb and into the empty road.

  Ran around the side of the group of people.

  Saw the train station getting closer.

  Her escape route.

  Her way out.

  Her—

  She felt something slam against her right leg.

  Slam hard.

  And then she was flying into the road.

  Flying head first into the road.

  And when she made contact with the hot concrete—when she bashed her teeth and tasted blood in her mouth, she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that someone had tripped her. Someone from the crowd had stuck their foot out and tripped her.

  She didn’t get much of a chance to think about it.

  She heard a horn.

  Heard the screeching of brakes.

  Looked back, back at the road she swore had been empty, back in the direction she’d come from.

  She saw the bus.

  Saw it hurtling towards her.

  Saw the look in the driver’s eyes.

  A look she’d seen before.

  Shit.

  No doubt now.

  No accident.

  No—

  And then she felt the front of the bus slam into her body and everything went dark.

  Twenty-Nine

  “Are you gonna be lolling about in there all night or are you actually going to come downstairs at some point?”

  Brian lay in bed, laptop on his knee, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. His back ached like mad—always did after a day at work nowadays. Wanted nothing more than just to lie around and sleep for a week, Hannah by his side, Sam quietly snoozing away in his cot.

  Luckily, Sam was behaving. Sleeping real well lately.

  It was just Brian who couldn’t rest.

  He looked up at Hannah. He could see she was smiling as she leaned against the bedroom door. She was wearing her silver nightgown, the one that felt so silky smooth … but nowhere near as smooth as her silky skin, of course.

  She might’ve been smiling but Brian had heard the sarcasm in her voice. The hint of bitterness. The little dig. She didn’t like it when he lazed about on his own like this, especially not when he was in the middle of a rough case. He didn’t blame her. When it came to avoiding work-related obsession, he hardly had the best track record.

  “I’ll be down soon,” he said. “Unless you fancy joining me.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’d love to. But I’ve seen what you’re like when you’re on that thing. Probably wouldn’t even know if I was giving you a handjob.”

  “Trust me,” Brian said, growing stiff. “I would.”

  Hannah smiled and shook her head. “Get whatever it is you have to do done then get downstairs for some inane television. Rare we get a chance to laze about without Sam crying. He’s been good as gold lately, y’know?”

  “Right,” Brian said, smiling back at Hannah. But his eyes kept on drifting back to Google. Back to his searches. Searches for cult-related activities around Preston and the Lancashire area. For a religion like the one Alison told him of—“sun worshippers.” And not the Benidorm kind. Sex Incantation. Levels. All that kind of shit.

  He’d dug up a whole bunch of information. But it was all from America, all from years back, even before Carly and Alison’s youthful experiences.

  He’d drawn a blank.

  And it was pissing him off.

  “I won’t ask how the case is going,” Hannah said.

  Brian stretched out his arms. Heard his back crack. “Well. Not a lot to tell, y’know. Still piecing things together.”

  “You handling it okay?”

  “Handling it okay?”

  “You know what I mean, Brian.”

  He saw the concern on Hannah’s face. Really, he couldn’t blame her. Shouldn’t get annoyed. She’d seen him put through hell. She’d been through hell with him. She didn’t want to lose him to anything, whether it was obsession or death. She wanted to keep him on the right path.

  And he loved her for that.

  “I’ll be down soon,” Brian said, smiling. “Really.”

  “Good,” Hannah said, moving away from the bedroom door. “Take those glasses off before you come down though. Make you look about … oh, wait. Yeah. They make you look your age.”

  Brian raised his middle finger.

  Hannah giggled.

  She stepped out of the room and Brian found himself just staring over at the door for a few minutes, thinking about how lucky he was. He had a gorgeous girlfriend—they called each other husband and wife at times, but they both knew how fickle official marriage actually was. He had a gorgeous son who he loved to pieces. And yes, maybe his older son Davey resented him for his lack of fatherhood. Maybe he despised him for the things he’d seen his father do when he was a kid. For the impact Brian’s job had on his formative years.

  But right now he had another shot.

  And he couldn’t let that go to waste.

  He closed the lid of the laptop.

  Walked out of the bedroom.

  Towards Sam’s room.

  He tried his best not to make a sound as he stepped into Sam’s room. Twinkling mobile twirling above his bed. The gentle sound of his rising and falling chest.

  He looked over the side of the cot at his sleeping son and he didn’t lean down to kiss him, didn’t say a word. Didn’t want to disturb him. He just stared. Stared and smiled. Stared and marvelled at how fucking lucky he was.

  Then he turned and walked back towards the bedroom.

  Hannah was standing at the top of the stairs.

  “Fuck,” Brian said, heart picking up with the shock. “D’you want to give me another heart attack or summat?”

  “Sorry,” she mouthed. She had something in her hand. Held it out to Brian. “This came for you earlier. Forgot to mention it.”

  He didn’t realise what it was until he grabbed hold of it.

  Until he felt the material in his hand.

  A brown envelope.

  Just like the one he’d received the hair in.

  His whole body went weak as he held this envelope. All his surroundings seemed to drift away, soften, fade into the background.

  “You okay?” Hannah asked.

  Brian took in a deep breath and nodded. He lifted his head and smiled at Hannah. “Yeah. Thanks. I’ll … Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be down.”

  She looked at him, curiosity in her eyes.

  Then she nodded.

  Turned to the stairs.

  Walked down them.

  Brian looked down at the envelope. His heart pounded. He didn’t want to open it. Didn’t want to see what was inside. And yet he knew he had to. He knew he had to because someone had come to his home and delivered him this. Someone wanted him to receive it. Someone was targeting him.

  He stuck his thumb under the top of the envelope.

  Scraped the paper away from the glue.

  Split the top of it, had to start peeling it back again, all the time his hands getting shakier, his chest getting tighter.

  And then he opened up the top of it.

  Tilted it.

  Expected hair to fall into his hands.

  But no hair fell out.

  No, this time, a small piece of paper fell out. A piece small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.

  He put the envelope to one side. Held the piece of paper in his hands. Opened it, slowly.

  “What is it?”

  The voice made him jump. Hannah’s voice. Shit. Didn’t realise she was still standing in front of him. He cleared his throat. Tried to cook up some half-assed excuse. “It’s … It’s just …” />
  But he knew there was no point in lying.

  He knew she knew it was something case related.

  The claws of his work-life tightening their grip on his family life yet again.

  Hannah shook her head. Turned around. Walked down the stairs.

  Behind Brian, from his bedroom, Sam started to cry.

  He stood there on the landing watching Hannah descend, listening to his son cry.

  But all he could think about was the note in his hands.

  All he could think about were the words typed on it.

  Old Bunker off Langley Lane. Be there at 12am. Come alone.

  Thirty

  The old bunker at Langley Lane was another one of those classic places in Preston that just so happened to be derelict and just so happened to be creepy as fuck.

  Just Brian’s luck that he’d end up being reeled into meeting an anonymous stranger who’d been sending him hair and notes in the mail right here.

  He sat in his car outside the main gate. The bunker was an impressive building—mounds in the grass like the homes of Teletubbies. Only there were industrial green metal buildings sprouting out of the top of them, stretching right across a barren stretch of land in north Preston. Although the bunker itself was derelict, abandoned many years ago, it was one of the few places where urban explorers didn’t seem to hang around. Not like the old abandoned mental hospital or the orphanage in town. Brian wasn’t sure why. And in a way, it made being here even eerier.

  Because nobody was here to bail him out if things went tits up.

  He’d relied on Location Services enough times to last him a bloody lifetime.

  He kept the lights of his car off. Sat in the complete darkness. A part of him wanted to see whoever it was he was supposed to be meeting before they got here—he wanted to be the first to know of anyone walking towards his car, whether they were holding a hammer or a knife or a gun or—

  Fuck. What was he doing here?

  He sat in the darkness. Engine off. Lights off. ’Cause he didn’t want anyone to know he was here. He didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence. Partly because he was scared. But partly because he knew he was breaking procedure once again. Disobeying his duties. Not just as a police officer but as a partner, as a father. He’d explained to Hannah that he had to go out. That he had to meet someone. And she’d argued with him. Told him to stop being fucking stupid. To stop pretending he was some kind of superhero ’cause he wasn’t—he was a retiring cop in his fifties.

  He needed to wake up to his real responsibilities. He accepted that.

  But he just had to do this one thing first.

  He swallowed a groggy frog in his throat. You know the kind. The kind that wedges right at the tip of your trachea and won’t go away no matter how hard you cough, how much you swallow. And somehow these frogs seemed to get bigger and taste more rancid with age, too. One of the other downsides of growing up. One of the many.

  He stared into the darkness and he thought about the thing that preoccupied his thoughts whenever he was in the darkness these days. Death. Was it blacker than this? Blacker than a dark country night? Quieter, too?

  Yes. The difference between death and a dark night was that death was eternal. With a dark country night, you always had the sun to rise in the morning, awake you from your unconsciousness.

  Movement. Behind the car. He saw it in his wing mirror. Saw it and then as soon as he’d seen it it’d gone. Nothing. Nothing but darkness.

  He felt his palms heating up, building with sweat. Felt his chest tightening. He was stupid. Stupid coming out here in the middle of the night. Especially after what Alison West had told him.

  They’re watching us.

  Maybe they were watching him right now.

  Maybe they’d lured him where he was alone. Away from society.

  Away from anywhere he could be heard crying for help.

  He remembered the three bodies. Harry Galbraith, Carly Mahone, the girl who hadn’t yet been identified. He remembered the way the flies had crawled inside Carly’s vagina. Laying their maggots. Eating her from the middle.

  He remembered the cat pinned to the wall, terror on its feline face.

  Alison West’s story of Sex Incantation, of levelling up.

  Of Carly Mahone at the top of Pendle Hill on the cusp of Level Ten.

  But what was Level Ten?

  What was—

  He heard a tap on the boot of his car.

  When he looked in the wing mirror this time, he didn’t see anyone.

  But when he looked in his rear-view mirror, he saw a silhouette.

  A dark silhouette standing right at the back of his car.

  Staring in through his back window.

  Brian went completely still. Completely rigid. His mouth dried up. Words failed him. He didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what to say. Just needed to wait. Just needed to sit here and wait and—

  “McDone?”

  The voice was unfamiliar. Deep. A voice he didn’t recognise.

  Brian licked his lips, swallowed. “Yes?” Fuck. It came out so weak, so high-pitched. Hardly the toughest fucking first impression.

  The silhouette moved around the car. Moved around to the passenger door. Didn’t say a word, just kept on walking and walking. Brian checked the interior lock. And then ... shit. The passenger door was unlocked. Fuck. He’d got so focused and bothered about locking his fucking driver’s door that he’d forgotten about the passenger one.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  The silhouette got closer.

  Too late to reach over.

  Too late to lock it manually.

  Too late to—

  The door clicked.

  Started to open.

  The interior light of the car illuminated.

  It blinded Brian. Blinded him just momentarily, but long enough to distort his view of the figure in the car, long enough to put him at a disadvantage.

  He blinked away the colours in his eyes and the passenger door closed.

  He looked at the person sitting in the passenger seat, heart racing, nigh on shitting himself.

  It was a man. Tall. Well-built. Short dark hair, which was greying in places. He looked youthful, although Brian guessed he was older than he probably looked. Perhaps even Brian’s age. Held a mirror to his face and made him realise just how damned badly he’d aged. The man was wearing a dark blazer, a white shirt, slim blue jeans. Which made Brian hate him just a little more. The fact that he could pull on slim jeans was a real fucking bugbear.

  “Do—do you mind explaining yourself to me?” Brian asked, trying to grapple the smallest sense of authority.

  The man looked at Brian with his green eyes. Half-smiled. “There’s a lot to explain, McDone. A hell of a lot to explain.”

  It was then that Brian saw him reach for something; saw him pull something out of his coat. And all his muscles went weak again until he realised it was just a black folder, documents stuffed inside it.

  “You could start with who the hell you think you are,” Brian said.

  The man looked back up at Brian, folder on his knee. “George. George Andrews. Or for the sake of our conversation, Detective Inspector George Andrews.”

  Brian frowned. “You’re ... you’re a cop?”

  “I was a cop,” he said, clipping open the folder. “Until all this.”

  Brian stared down at the folder, heart thumping in his chest, adrenaline still spinning through his system. “Until all what?”

  He opened the folder. And Brian saw documents upon documents. Old documents. Gave off that musty smell. That smell of age.

  “Until the exact same thing that’s happening right now.”

  Brian caught a glimpse of a black and white photograph.

  A woman.

  Naked.

  Eyes blacked out.

  Ears snipped off.

  An old photograph.

  “How did you ...”

  Then the light inside the
car went out and Brian was plunged into darkness.

  Thirty-One

  Although a complete stranger sat in Brian’s car, he wasn’t sure which of the pair of them seemed more nervous.

  George Andrews’ hands shook as he leafed through the documents on his lap. No, not just George Andrews—former detective inspector George Andrews.

  And yet here he was with what appeared to be case files.

  Lots of case files.

  Historical case files from a case that appeared remarkably like the one Brian was working on right now.

  “How did you get hold of these?”

  George laughed. Though it was as forced and nervous a laugh as Brian had ever heard. “Tough keeping hold of ’em. Did what I had to do. Almost lost a little more than my job in doing so, but y’know. Figured they’d come in handy some day.”

  Brian watched as he turned the pages.

  As a clear bag filled with silver hair revealed itself.

  Hair, just like the one that Brian had received. The supposed doll hair.

  “Most of the evidence was destroyed,” George said. The veins on his hands were poking through his clear skin, twitching as his heart pounded. “But managed to keep hold of some of it. It’ll probably cost me my life someday but hey. Figure we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do.”

  Brian paused a few moments. Listened to the complete silence from outside. He wanted to look around the darkness outside, but he couldn’t because the headlights were off, the interior light blinding any possible view.

  Sitting ducks.

  Sitting ducks staring at a wall of darkness; a two-way mirror where anything could be on the other side.

  “Why did you send me the hair?”

  George lifted his head and looked at Brian, smiled like he’d just woken from a trance. “I knew it was time. Twenty and a half years. Needed to reach out to someone trustworthy. But someone who I heard has a bit of a … a record. How’d they take it, hmm? Surprised it got to you in the first place.”

  “Doll’s hair?”

  “You know it’s not doll’s hair, McDone. Don’t insult my intelligence. Don’t insult your own.”

  Just hearing those words lifted a weight from Brian’s shoulders. Because George was right—he’d known all along it wasn’t fucking doll’s hair. And yet he’d accepted it. He’d accepted it because Marlow had told him that’s what it was, and he had to behave if he wanted to please Marlow.