Ritual

by Ryan Casey

  The nurse looked down at his folders. A piece of paper was resting atop them. Then he looked back up at Brian. “Do you have any identification?”

  “Identification? I’m … I’m with the police—”

  “So you said. But I’m afraid you’ll need some identification if we’re to go any further here.”

  The nurse smiled at Brian and Brian wanted to throttle him. He scratched at his stubbly cheek. Looked down the corridor, double doors swinging shut at the end and leaving Brian alone for a moment with this moron. He couldn’t get identification. He didn’t have the authority to be here because legally, he was off duty.

  But he had a job to do.

  So he’d do it, no matter what it took.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the nurse said, looking back down at his piece of paper. “I … If you just get some ID then we’ll be able to send you right through.”

  Brian nodded. Smiled. “It’s alright. You’re only doin’ your job.”

  He went to turn away.

  Then he grabbed the folder from the nurse and ran.

  He looked at the paper as he sprinted down the corridor. Looked at the list of wards, of patients. Behind him, the nurse shouted out, called at him to return as his feet squeaked across the tiles, as he hurtled towards the double doors.

  R Jameson

  W Jobs

  S Kahli

  He pushed through the doors. Felt a stitch split through his stomach and into his chest. Heart pounding way too fast to be healthy.

  But he had to breathe. He had to stay calm. He had to find Joe Kershaw’s name and then he had to keep going.

  A Kelly

  C Kellerson

  Fuck all these Kells …

  J Kershaw

  He stopped when he saw Kershaw. J Kershaw. The only Kershaw on the paper. It was him. It had to be him.

  J Kershaw: Ward 42, First Floor

  “Hey!” The double doors swung open. Behind Brian, the male nurse approached, glasses slipping right down his nose.

  “Sorry,” Brian called, then he threw the folders and the paper back at the nurse and ran, ran towards the main wards, towards the stairs, towards Joe Kershaw.

  He got lost twice in his pursuit for Joe. But eventually he found Ward 41. He had to be nearby. Had to be close by somewhere.

  He walked past wards filled with smelly, sleeping old people. Shit, he couldn’t talk. He was in his fifties after all. He walked past them and nodded at those who were still awake. The old man with the bald head on his iPad looking suitably perplexed. Don’t worry, old man. I know what you’re going through.

  He walked a little further and he saw it. Ward 42. Joe was in here. He had to be in here. He had …

  When he got there, he saw the nurses changing the sheets, and he knew right away something was wrong.

  He got this feeling sometimes. Some people told him it came with the territory of being a police officer, but he wasn’t sure. This sense that something was off. Something wasn’t right. And yet, at the same time, it was inevitable. Completely fucking inevitable.

  “Joe Kershaw?” Brian said, approaching the nurses.

  They swung around. Looked at him, confusion in their eyes. But a look Brian understood. They’d got to him. Someone had got to Joe and they’d dealt with him. Someone from the Children of the Light. Fuck—someone from the police, even. He didn’t know. He couldn’t be sure. But he had to keep on—

  “You were there when I died.”

  The voice came from Brian’s right. Made him jump at first. Then the hope started to build up. The realisation.

  He couldn’t be. It couldn’t be him. It …

  Brian turned around and saw Joe Kershaw lying upright in a hospital bed, cuffs around his bandaged wrists, bulky black guard beside him.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” the guard said. And sure as hell, as soon as he’d said it, Brian heard the footsteps marching down the corridor, into the ward. That nurse. That fucking twat of a nurse couldn’t just cut him some slack.

  Brian walked towards Joe. Stood right over his bed. The guard stepped around the bed, towards him.

  “I need you to tell me who set you up,” Brian said.

  Tears started to fill Joe’s confused eyes. “I didn’t … I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

  “I believe you. I believe you, Joe.”

  “Just—just the mice. I just wanted the mice ’cause they looked nice. That’s all I wanted.”

  He started to pant. The guard grabbed Brian’s arms. “That’ll be enough,” he said.

  Brian let him grab hold of him. But he wasn’t giving up. “Joe, I know you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. And I know you didn’t kill Carly or Harry. I need to know who gave you the mice, Joe. Who was it? What did they look like?”

  “They—they gave me syringes and mice and … they said I just had to go over the road and make it look … all pretty with the cats and the rats and—”

  “Sir, we’re walking away right this second,” the guard said.

  Brian struggled against him. Joe was panting, tears rolling down his cheeks, but he could sense he was getting close. An admission. An admission right there that he’d been forced into trashing Carly and Harry’s place. His own sick fantasies used against him.

  Now he just needed to know the truth.

  “Who gave you the syringes and the mice, Joe? Who made you go into Harry and Carly’s place?”

  Another guard flew into Brian, started pulling, every bone and muscle feeling like they were about to burst out of his body as they stretched and stretched and stretched.

  “Joe, please,” Brian called as he was dragged further and further away. “I need to know what they looked like. Was it Lilian? Was it a woman called—”

  “It wasn’t a woman,” Joe said, lifting his head and looking Brian right in his eyes with a startling lucidity. “It was a man. With—with the sun on his fingers.”

  A man with the sun on his fingers.

  Fuck. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t good enough.

  “What did he look like?” Brian shouted, his feet scraping against the tiles, old people turning their heads from their hospital beds and looking at him like he was insane. “Joe, I need to know what he looked like!”

  But Joe didn’t answer.

  At least Brian didn’t hear him answer.

  The guards dragged him into the lift and slammed the doors shut.

  His time with Joe Kershaw was over.

  Thirty-Nine

  Brian didn’t think much of the cloud of smoke in the near-distance as he walked home from the hospital.

  His mind was too focused on Joe Kershaw. Fixated on what he’d told him.

  The man with the sun on his fingers.

  What did it mean? Was it bullshit? The sun certainly added up with the whole “In the light of the sun, I give thee …” vibe. But the sun on his finger. What did he mean by that? Or was Brian just being paranoid? Was it all just some clever diversion tactic by Joe Kershaw? Was he barking up the wrong tree completely?

  He smelled the smoke the closer he got to his house. It was a chilly night for the middle of summer, his black coat doing little to keep him warm. His arms ached from where the guards had thrown him out of the hospital. He knew he was in trouble. Deep fucking trouble the second he got to work tomorrow. He knew he’d fucked up his future. A goose chase too far.

  And for what?

  To be told by a lunatic that the man who’d provided him with his mouse-decapitation kit, told him to stage that bathroom scene at Harry and Carly’s, that someone with the sun on their finger had made them do it.

  Brian felt agitation. Real tangible agitation. The more he walked, the more it seemed to seize up his legs, into his belly, through his chest. Fuck. One thing he was forgetting in all this shit was that Joe Kershaw killed his mum. He’d killed his mum and he liked fucking draining the blood out of mice and bathing in it, whatever. He was a nutjob. A complete fucking nutjob. So who’s to say he wasn’t more deeply invo
lved? Who’s to say he wasn’t just stringing Brian along, making him dig deeper and deeper?

  The flashing of blue lights in the distance. Down his road, actually. People standing in the middle of the road. Shit, some kind of incident? A fire or something? Didn’t surprise him. Probably Melanie and Stu. Always smoking like mad. Probably dozed off smoking on a ciggy. Set the place alight. Own fault, really. There were enough warnings and things like that these days on telly and on the internet. If they couldn’t be fucking responsible then hell, maybe they deserved to go up in flames.

  Brian stuck his hands in his pockets and walked down the pavement towards the commotion. He was in a bit of a bubble, really. Not quite taking in his surroundings. Not quite comprehending what was unfolding in front of him. ’Cause he couldn’t get Lilian Chalmers out of his head. Over at the River Edge Methodist Church. The words she’d whispered in his ear.

  I’d hate to see you fail your family, Detective.

  That smug fucking look on her face.

  She was involved. She was behind all these murders and she was rubbing his face in it. The man with the sun on his fingers, whoever he was, it didn’t really matter. One of Lilian’s lackeys. Someone doing her dirty work.

  He had to chop the head from the snake if he wanted to get anywhere.

  And if he had to do it alone, he would.

  Because someone had to.

  Someone …

  He stopped walking. Stopped, his bubble bursting in an instant.

  He stopped because he saw the flames.

  Except they couldn’t be flames. They couldn’t be flames because they …

  They were covering his house.

  They were …

  Dread built up inside Brian’s stomach. Everything clicked together in a sudden, sharp jolt.

  All rational thought slipped away.

  All of it, except for one.

  Hannah and Sam.

  Hannah and Sam were inside.

  He ran down the pavement towards his house. Ran faster than he’d ever fucking ran in his entire life. He couldn’t think. Couldn’t process anything. Only the growing heat of the flames as he got closer to his house, to Hannah and to Sam.

  Only the sight of his burning front door.

  Of the fire hoses blasting at the flames.

  The neighbours gathered around holding hands and staring at it like it was some kind of bonfire.

  The smell of smoke.

  “Hannah!” he called. And he thought someone replied. Thought he heard someone whisper, “That’s him! Him who lives there!”

  But he didn’t stop. Didn’t stick around to confirm the truth, the awful fucking truth.

  His house was burning down.

  His family was in danger.

  The people he loved needed him.

  “Hannah!” he shouted, but then someone wrapped their arms around his chest, someone dragged him away from the intensifying heat as the flames crackled around the house, as debris spat out of the furnace.

  “Please, Mr McDone,” someone said—a fireman maybe, Brian didn’t know, didn’t fucking care. “Please—”

  “My girlfriend,” he shouted, as another fireman wrestled him to the road, as he kept on struggling and struggling, tears rolling down his hot cheeks. “My … my son.”

  He tried to keep on struggling but he couldn’t move. Couldn’t move a muscle.

  People were saying things to him. Shouting at him. Telling him to stay put and stay calm and oh God Brian I hope you’re okay I hope Hannah’s okay I hope Sam’s—

  The front door of the house swung open.

  Three firemen rushed out.

  Someone wrapped around their shoulders.

  Someone in their arms.

  “Hannah!” Brian screamed, shaking and struggling again. “Sam! Hannah! Please. Please …”

  Hannah didn’t respond. She didn’t respond as they lay her down on a stretcher and wheeled her towards the ambulance. Her skin was cracked. Cracked and charred and covered in blood. Blood which oozed through onto the white sheets. An oxygen mask slipped over her face but blood covered that. Her lips didn’t move. She didn’t do a thing. Her blackened skin was still, completely still.

  And by her side, Sam lay just as still.

  “My … my baby,” Brian cried, unaware of anything but this. Of this that mattered. Of all that mattered in his fucking life lying right there on those beds being wheeled into the ambulance. “My Sam. Please. Please…”

  They wheeled Hannah and Sam into the ambulance.

  Slammed the door shut.

  The sirens roared, and then they were gone.

  Forty

  Brian sat outside critical care and waited for news.

  Sights, sounds, smells, he knew they were all occurring. He had a vague sense of people walking past him. Of a dull drone from inside critical care. Of chatter. Of disinfectant. But it was like his perception of these sensory inputs had been turned down. Like his ability to pick them apart and comprehend them, one by one, had gone. And it was fading more and more by the second.

  Because he needed to know Hannah and Sam were okay.

  He swallowed burning saliva, acidic and vomity. He kept on thinking that he needed to know they were okay, but that was approaching it wrong. He knew they weren’t okay. He’d seen them dragged out of the burning house. He’d seen the bloody sores all over Hannah’s bare skin. Seen her limp and unmoving body.

  Sam right beside her, just as still, not making a sound.

  The tears welled up in his exhausted eyes. He wasn’t sure he had much more fluid left to cry.

  Because Hannah and Sam weren’t okay.

  They weren’t okay because he’d left the house. He’d left in pursuit of answers. In search of the truth.

  And now here they were in critical condition.

  And here he was, alive, physically unhurt, waiting.

  He lifted his head and stared at the white tiles of the waiting room. He wanted to go into critical care. To storm on in there. Because he needed to know the truth. None of that bullshit about how well they were doing or how it wasn’t the right moment or he wouldn’t want to see them in their current condition. He just wanted to know what the hell was going on.

  But he didn’t get up. He didn’t get up and walk into critical care. Not because he knew he wasn’t supposed to, but because he was scared.

  He was scared of the truth.

  Scared that the truth meant the two people he loved most in this world were gone.

  He already knew they’d suffered, and that was bad enough in itself.

  He leaned back and closed his burning eyes. He could smell smoke on his black coat, and all it did was remind him of the sight of Hannah and Sam being dragged out of their home. He knew it’d remind him of it forever, no matter how this ended.

  Fuck. Their home. Their home they’d worked for. Their home they’d built. Burned down. Gone. All because Brian had to go poking his nose in. All because he shook the wasps’ nest.

  And his job, too. What DC Annie Sanders told him on the phone about how much shit he was in. He was going to get the boot. He was going to lose his massive pay-off. Just when he needed it to try and pick up the pieces, to try and start afresh, it wasn’t going to be here for him.

  But even that seemed insignificant.

  It seemed insignificant because right now, he wasn’t even sure if he’d need it.

  If Hannah and Sam didn’t make it, he wouldn’t need it.

  A familiar emptiness filled his chest as the smell of smoke grew stronger—or at least, his perception of it intensified. An emptiness he felt back when he struggled the first time. Back when he’d held those razors. Back when he’d pressed them to his wrist and felt the pain all slip away.

  The emptiness he tried to fill when he put a rope around his neck and tried to end it.

  So selfish. So fucking selfish. ’Cause he’d had everything. He’d had Vanessa and he’d had Davey and he’d fucked that all up.

  And t
his time, he’d had Hannah and Sam, and he’d fucked that up, too.

  All because of his job.

  All because he couldn’t live if he didn’t know the truth.

  All because he didn’t know when to give up.

  As he clenched his eyes shut, he thought about suicide. It was a real option if Hannah and Sam didn’t make it. Probably drive up to the North of Scotland or something. Walk the highlands for a bit. Then hang himself from a tree when he was nicely drunk. Because he couldn’t live without them. He couldn’t push on without them.

  And even if he did still make it, he had to give up the case. He had to stop fighting. He had to behave. Because he needed his pay-off more than ever if they made it. Needed it to start afresh. To hit the reset. Didn’t matter how convinced he was that Lilian Chalmers and the Children of the Light were behind the burning of his house, just like they were behind the burning of George Andrews’ house—he felt anger towards them, pure unadulterated rage, and he’d get his revenge one day—but right now he needed to stop pushing. For the sake of his future. For the sake of his family’s future.

  “Mr McDone?”

  Brian didn’t open his eyes right away. Took him a moment to process that someone was actually addressing him.

  And even when he did process it—when he felt the dull ache of dread fill his stomach—he didn’t want to open his eyes. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to know the truth. Not anymore. He wanted to sit here forever. He wanted to sit here forever because at least then Hannah and Sam might be okay. At least then, they might make it.

  He opened his eyes.

  Held his breath.

  Turned to the voice.

  At first, he couldn’t understand. A woman was standing there, a nurse in blue, with dark hair and a thin smile on her pale, tired face.

  But there was something in her arms.

  Someone in her arms.

  Brian stood. Rushed over to her. “Oh, Sam. Sam. My God. My God.”

  He put his hands under his son’s arms and lifted him. Sam was okay. He was burn free. He was smiling. Smiling at his daddy.

  He was fucking okay.

  Brian held his warm body close, tears dripping down onto his son’s shoulder.