SWNOVELS Chapter The Ritual
“You’re a real coward, Richard. I don’t even know why I bothered to try and help you,” Marlon stated in disgust as he looked down at his brother sitting on the roadside curb.
Richard was small for his thirteen years, his head just barely reaching above a kitchen table. In fact, most people who saw him assumed he was a midget. In direct contrast, Marlon towered over his vertically-challenged baby brother.
Marlon suddenly kicked out at Richard, connecting hard with the side of his right thigh. “Get up, you chicken!” he shouted, not caring that he might wake somebody in the dark, silent neighbourhood.
“Ow! That’s gonna leave a bruise, you know? What will I tell Ma if she asks me how I got it?” Richard complained as he rose from his seated position.
“Tell her you knocked into a desk. What do I care?” Marlon told him abruptly before he bent down to bring his face to within a hand’s span of his brother’s.
“Now, are we doing this or not, little bro? I thought you said you’re tired of being picked on ’cause of your size. If you do this, nobody will have a low opinion of you anymore,” Marlon claimed, then suddenly laughed. “Low opinion. I just got the joke,” he mocked Richard.
“But how is this going to help me, huh?” Richard asked, ignoring the cruel barb.
The midnight air was quiet as the two boys stood opposite the cemetery, staring at the closed gates and the pitch blackness beyond. They had silently stolen out of their house with the express purpose of coming here. Both shivered slightly as a sole breeze ran icy fingers across their faces.
“Look, let’s just go in and meet the others who are probably waiting for us. I swear, if you made me come out here and arrange for the guys to meet us inside all for nothing, I’m gonna beat the crap outta you,” Marlon threatened his cowering brother.
“Fine, fine. Let’s go then. I don’t care anymore. If going into that place will stop others from making fun of me, then let’s do it,” Richard suddenly said, walking determinedly towards the poorly sealed entrance of the graveyard.
Marlon took a few long strides to catch up to his brother. Having found the slightly pulled apart bars of the ornate but somewhat sagging gate, both easily squeezed through the gap. Two minutes of walking down the lane leading to the burial plots brought them to an especially dark area. All around them the brothers could discern the silhouettes of head stones dotted about like scattered markers, most of which were either sunk deep into the earth, or askew from years of neglect.
“Don’t these headstones look like broken off teeth?” Richard suddenly asked Marlon.
“Shut up!” Marlon said in rude reply.
A few metres in on the left they could see a large maple or oak tree spreading its wide branches across an especially derelict part of the cemetery. They also saw three figures standing under the branching dome. The beam of a pen torch was a ridiculous attempt to banish the heavy darkness.
“What kept you?” Tristan said a second before Tyrone complained, “Guys, you took your damn time to get here!” The third person turned out to be a girl, dressed completely in denim: denim jeans, denim jacket over a white Levi t-shirt, and a denim hat perched cockily on her head.
“He chickened out on you or what?” she now asked as she looked disdainfully down at Richard.
“He nearly did, but it’s all good now, Jessie,” Marlon confirmed.
“Right then, let’s get on with it already,” Tyrone said as he harshly pushed Richard into the circle the others had formed around him. Each of them produced a small candle; Jessie quickly lit each one. Putting away her lighter, the girl fished out a pocket knife which she expertly flicked open. The sharp snick of the extending blade cut through the tomb-like silence. The gleaming metal mesmerized Richard, making him ignore the other teenagers who had all sat down, but not before each had placed their burning candle around the standing boy. The tableau of the dwarf-like boy standing in a ring of wavering light, surrounded by complete darkness beyond the circle, was surreal.
Jessie made a slight cut on her palm, just enough to draw a droplet of blood, then passed the knife to the others who each did the same. Next, each of them reached out a hand, palm down, to let three drops of blood drip in front of their candle. Richard was spellbound by their actions, standing stock still, his eyes gaping and his breathing stilled in fear. When he looked up from the last drop of blood hitting the earth in front of his feet, he met Marlon’s eyes. His had been the last drop to fall upon the arid ground. The blood drops soaked swiftly into the soil, leaving only dark patches of sand behind.
“Time for you to do what you came here to do, brother,” Marlon softly instructed Richard.
“Touch each patch of bloodied sand with your left index finger, saying the name of the person whose blood was spilled there. Then blow out each candle, but not before you say your name out loud each time,” Jessie commanded him. “Then sit cross-legged in the centre.”
As if his body no longer belonged to him, Richard robotically did as he was told. He dug his left index finger into the blotches of blood, saying the name of the person whose blood was now part of the earth. “Tyrone … Tristan … Jessie … Marlon… .” Next, he uttered his name in a soft whisper as he blew out each lit candle. With the dying of the last candle’s light, Tristan once again switched on the pen light, directing its thin beam towards the now seated Richard.
Far above the circle of youngsters, hidden deep within the sturdy branches, a pair of glowing eyes observed the scenario with great interest. The eyes had pulsed brightly when Richard had blown out each candle. They now glowed steadily, looking like two tiny flickering embers against the enshrouding darkness. Stealthily, the owner of the glowing orbs made its measured way down the tree, towards the circle of warm bodies.
“Richard, say the words. Marlon told you what to say, didn’t he?” Jessie asked in a firm, commanding voice. Richard could only nod his head in assent, for his throat was too parched to speak. “Then say it!” Jessie barked at the terrified boy. As if her harsh tone had shattered the lump blocking his ability to speak, he croaked out the words.
“With this blood I call upon you, O Night Ghoul, to come forth and be the Protector of one oppressed. Be the Accepted of one Rejected; be the Confident Companion of one Reluctant.” Richard rushed through the litany, anxious that he might forget parts of the summoning if he said it too slowly.
“Do you like the name I used? ‘Night Ghoul’? I think it’s a genius touch,” Marlon whispered to his friends.
“Man, it’s wicked!” Tristan agreed while Jessie winked at Marlon. Tyrone sat with a stupid grin plastered across his strikingly handsome face, his light green eyes clearly visible in the light of the pen torch.
“Is it done? Will I be treated better now, Marlon?” Richard asked, hope suffusing his tone.
“Yes, it’s all good. You’re now protected, little brother,” Marlon said as all of them rose to their feet. They closed the circle and each one slapped Richard lightly on his back in camaraderie. Nobody saw the tall, dark form materialize just beyond their ring of light.
“Wow, that was soooo cool!” Tyrone exclaimed. He laughed in delight and turned towards Jessie to say something to her. Whatever it was he was about to tell her died instantly upon his lips when he caught sight of the cloaked figure looming over them.
“Bro. What’s up, man?” Tristan asked, looking in perplexity at Tyrone. “You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
In response, Tyrone lifted a shaky hand to point an even shakier finger to a spot behind them.
“Yeah, right. Like we’re gonna fall for that old trick,” Jessie said before she contemptuously turned around. By then, Richard, too, had caught sight of the figure, as he had been facing outward along with Tyrone.
Just as Jessie finally saw the menacing shape, it flew in amongst them like a devil from hell. It went straight for Tyrone, gouging the boy’s eyes out with two slashes of its sharp nails. When the figure turned around towards the rest of the youngsters, they screamed and scattered like bowling pins knocked over hard, but not before the features of the thing had been seared on their minds.
Its skin was a mottled, sickly gray; the eye sockets were hollowed out pits that held an orange flame in each centre. A fleshy lump served as a nose set above a wide mouth filled with broken, jagged teeth.
Tyrone was wailing non-stop at the top of his voice, his panicked and pain-crazed mind making him stumble around blindly. He was suddenly silenced in mid-shriek; that abrupt cessation of sound spurred the fleeing youngsters to race even faster towards the cemetery gate.
“What the hell is that?!” Tristan screamed.
“Is it still behind us?” Jessie asked.
“Did it just kill Tyrone?” Marlon wondered.
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” shouted Richard as all of them finally reached the safety of the gate. “Why are you asking me? You brought me to this unholy place, remember?” the young boy accused them in anger. The sudden sound of crunching gravel behind them froze them in their tracks, mere paces away from the gate. As one, as if they were being operated on strings by a marionette master, they reluctantly turned around.
About ten paces from them, the menacing figure stood watching them, completely composed and at ease. It didn’t stand upright, but was slightly hunched over, as if its back were misshapen or bearing some invisible load. Its arms were held aloft in front of its chest, the hands curling and uncurling in eager anticipation of imminent violence.
“Aaaahhh!” Marlon thundered before sprinting like an energized bunny for the gap in the gate. Seconds later Jessie squeezed through, with Tristan hot on her heels. Richard stood rooted to the spot, incapable of movement.
The nightmare figure flashed past him, not even touching the boy, as it sped to capture Tristan. It grabbed the teenager violently by his blond hair as the boy placed a hand on one of the bars of the gate. The creature jerked Tristan back so hard that he went flying through the air to land with a thump upon his back. Marlon and Jessie stared in wide-eyed horror as the thing launched itself to land on top of Tristan, fastening its filthy hands around the boy’s throat to start choking him.
“Richard!” Marlon shouted in a hoarse voice, “Run! Run, for God’s sake, please!” he begged his brother. The figure looked up slowly from where it was choking the life out of Tristan, its burning orbs fastening on the still petrified Richard.
“You belong to me, boy. You offered yourself freely to the Blood Ghoul. You cannot escape me,” the creature suddenly hissed sibilantly as it rose from the limp form of Tristan. Leisurely, as if it had all the time in the world, it approached Richard.
Beyond the gate, Jessie cursed and said, “To hell with this. He’s your brother. You go save him.” Then she high-tailed it. Marlon once more shouted at Richard, “Run! Why are you just standing there? Run, Richard! Run!”
With what felt like an enormous effort, Richard broke his transfixed gaze to face Marlon. In a resigned voice infused with doom, he said, “Brother, you said you’d stop my pain of being made to feel like an outsider. You promised you’d end my loneliness and constant bullying because of my size. You’ve kept your promise, and I’m grateful.”
“What are you talking about?” Marlon now screamed louder than ever before, his voice nearly hoarse. He moved a few paces towards the gate in his desperation to get Richard to come to him. “This is not what I had meant! The ritual was only a joke, a hoax to make you gain some confidence. Please, I beg you, run to me! You can make it, Richard! Trust me, you can!” he beseeched Richard.
“I did trust you,” Richard said with a sad smile. Then the Blood Ghoul reached the boy.
“Nooooo!” Marlon screamed as he ran towards the gap in the gate to get to Richard. The Blood Ghoul glared in warning at Marlon as it wrapped an arm around Richard, enfolding the boy in its tattered cloak. Without a sound, it led an unresisting Richard off towards a crypt in the darkest part of the graveyard, leaving a maniacally sobbing Marlon clinging to the sagging cemetery gate.