The Ritual

After sleeping for a while, he wakes up from thirst. He isn’t afraid because he thinks he has been rescued. With painful effort, he is able to open his eyes and sees his bandage. The bed he is in smells terrible, is filled with lice, and he has urinated on himself. Moving the bandage, he looks at the eiderdown over him and the coffin-like box bed. There is a jug and cup of water on a table next to the bed; he is able to quench his thirst. This action exhausts him. Luke cries, thinking he has been saved, and falls asleep again.

Luke dreams about an old man and woman touching him in a metal tub and speaking in a foreign language. Above the ceiling, there is a rapping noise, and the old people move away from him. He realizes his ankles are tied together and his wrists are tied to a hook in the ceiling. A creature starts to enter the room on all fours.

Luke wakes up, and calls out to his mother. He slowly realizes he is still in the box bed and that the experience was a dream. This makes him feel safe and he falls asleep again.

Metal music wakes up Luke, and it takes him a moment to realize that it is music. He pulls off his bandage and sees three figures in the room. They are humans with animal heads. One has a goat head, the second has a hare head, and the third has a lamb head. The human wearing the goat head takes it off, revealing white and black make-up. Luke sees a closed door behind the people, and a window that is too small for him to squeeze through. The man who was wearing the goat head welcomes him to “south of heaven” (259).

The person wearing the lamb’s head takes it off and laughs. He is also wearing make-up. They are both probably teenagers. They claim to be the Oskerai: the wild hunt. The person wearing the hare head takes it off. It is a teenage girl, also wearing make-up, but hers is more elaborate. Luke asks them to take him to a hospital and touches the large cut in his head. The man holding the goat’s head says Luke will have help soon. The woman holding the hare’s head sticks out her tongue at Luke. They leave the room.

Luke tells the third person that his friends are dead and he needs to talk to the police. The young man holding the lamb’s head says there are no police or hospitals near them, but someone is going for help. He leaves, taking the old CD player with him and locks Luke in the bedroom.

Luke tries to stand and stumbles into the table, knocking over the jug and cup. An old woman enters the room and guides him back to the bed. The young man who wore the lamb’s head is also in the room. Luke starts to salivate and the young man says he won’t come near Luke if he is about to vomit. The young man puts down a tray holding a bowl of stew on the bed. Luke sees that the man has runes and inverted crosses tattooed on his arms, as well as a knife on his belt.

Luke introduces himself and the man says his name is Fenris, which means “wolf.” He says the other man is Loki, which means “devil,” and the young woman is named Surtr, which means “fire.” When asked, Luke says he is from London and went vacationing in the woods. Fenris laughs, which makes Luke angry. He says his friends were killed by a creature, but won’t share their names. Fenris asks about Luke’s job, and he explains that he works at a CD shop. Fenris asks if Luke knows about various black metal bands. Luke lists some, and Fenris says that Blood Frenzy, his band, is the best. Fenris is Norwegian.

Luke says he needs to urinate and the old woman brings him a bucket. The other youth calls out in Norwegian from downstairs. Fenris and the old woman leave, locking the door behind them.

Luke eats the food while listening to the youths yell, stomp around, and bang furniture. He wonders if Fenris and the others killed his friends, but decides they didn’t. When Luke hears the group go outside, he watches them out of the window. They are building a pyre and playing metal music on the CD player. He sees another small house or shed across from the house he is in. Fenris and Loki take off their shirts to reveal more tattoos. Surtr runs outside only wearing the hare’s head. As the drunken youths light the pyre, Luke longs for a cigarette.

He is weak and has to lie down. Luke finally realizes he isn’t safe and wonders if the youths are going to burn him with the pyre. He also wonders if the music will attract the creature in the woods and longs for it to stop. After some consideration, Luke thinks the youths are too dorky to hurt him and the old woman will stop them. He falls asleep.

Fenris comes into Luke’s room and drunkenly sits on the bed, knocking Luke’s head into the side of it. After apologizing, Fenris shows Luke pictures of his band, which includes not only Fenris and Loki, but also a third, unknown man. Luke is puzzled as to why people living in the “social utopia of Scandinavia” (281) would create Satanic black metal. Fenris gives Luke one of his CDs, then slaps Luke across the face and insults him. Luke gets angry, insults the black metal genre, and wants to hurt Fenris.

Fenris gets angry and says they worship Odin, aka Wotan, not Satan. Odin requires blood sacrifices and destruction. Luke gets out of bed. Fenris is obsessed with Ragnarök and Vikings. He plans to summon Odin.

Luke hits Fenris with the water jug twice and Fenris falls. Surtr, wearing the hare head, comes running in. She punches and kicks Luke repeatedly. He passes out when she hits his head wound.

When Luke regains consciousness, Surtr is screaming and kicking as Loki holds her. He drags her away from Luke as she demands to cut Luke. He says it’s not time yet. Fenris moans on the floor.

Loki, Surtr, and Fenris go downstairs. Surtr and Loki continue to argue, but Luke can’t hear Fenris. Luke is bleeding profusely, but isn’t feeling pain because of the endorphins from the fight. He curses Hutch’s shortcut, and longs to know where on the map he is.

When Loki knocks on the door, Luke holds the jug. However, Loki doesn’t enter. Through the door, he tells Luke that Fenris has killed before and is now mad at Luke. Luke asks if Loki and the others killed his friends, and Loki says that they didn’t, and he wants to see the creature that did.

Loki tells Luke that Surtr has killed people by chopping them into pieces and now wants to kill Luke. Loki asks Luke to stop fighting and agrees to bring him water. However, Loki refuses to bring Luke a bandage, painkillers, or cigarettes. Loki also refuses to call an ambulance. Luke drinks water and wonders why the people took all his clothes except for his underwear. He is angry at himself for believing he was safe and cries on the floor.

Luke hears people walking around the house, but can’t see much in the dark, since it is night and the house has no electricity. He falls asleep and dreams about turning around and looking at a bright moon. When he wakes up, he hears something in the attic above him, and thinks it sounds like children walking. The noise stops and Luke searches for a way out of the room. The door is solid and heavy, the window is small, and the floorboards can’t be pried up. He considers breaking the jug and using the shards to cut into the walls.

The noises above him start up again, and he tries saying hello. There are more noises above, as if there are more children shuffling around above him. Luke wonders if the teens have captured children as well as him. His head hurts, and he is exhausted from moving around, so he lies down and plans to attempt his escape in the morning.

Luke dreams that he is looking out the window at a huge moon. A “little person” (303) is in the room behind him and says things that sound sensible. Outside, he sees little white people in the tree line behind a clearing. They are dancing, so it’s hard to see them clearly, but he hears them call for him to come down. The child-like figures start making barking noises. Luke can see that they have many teeth in wide mouths, and are holding long bones. The bones are taken inside a stone chamber. Then, he is inside the chamber with the bones.

When Luke wakes up, Fenris, Loki, and Surtr are around his bed and tie up his wrists. They say they found his friend, Dom. Fenris pushes Luke down the stairs to the first floor, where there is a kitchen and parlor. Fenris pushes Luke out the front door. The old woman is on the porch. Dom’s mutilated corpse is strung up in the trees nearby. Fenris claims to have summoned the god with his black metal music. Luke faints and falls.

Loki talks about the extreme remoteness of the area, which allows them to summon an old god. He and Fenris discuss how Luke’s friends were sacrifices. The old woman speaks in Norwegian, which Loki translates: “[W]hat once was given, is missing. One will come to fetch it back” (310).

Luke jumps up and runs past the house, a truck, and an orchard toward a clay track. Surtr runs after him, and Fenris moves to cut off Luke. When Surtr knocks into him, he kicks her in the stomach and falls over. Fenris laughs and starts kicking Luke in the head. Surtr pulls his hair and opens up his head wound. Luke punches her in the chin. Fenris stomps on Luke’s face, breaking his nose. Surtr straddles Luke’s head and repeatedly smashes it into the ground. Loki pulls her off Luke and holds a gun. Luke feels hopeless.

Loki puts Luke back in the bed. Several hours later, Loki returns, drunk, and sets a gun next to the door. Luke feels like he won’t survive and angrily starts insulting Loki’s tattoos because they are a mix of pagan and Christian symbols. Next, Luke insults the actions of Loki and his friends.

Loki calls Luke a “sheep” and says he is asleep to the truth. Loki admits that he regrets burning old churches, and wishes he had burned Scientology’s churches. Loki says he wants to show his friends “real magic” (319). He describes Fenris killing animals and priests, and says being a Viking is to be truly evil. Loki and his friends have killed nine people, and will summon Odin.

Luke laughs and asks what happened to the spoiled kid named Loki, and why he rebelled in a country with a high quality of life. Loki continues to call Luke a sleeping sheep. Luke says Surtr and Fenris need psychological medication, and insists that magic isn’t real: Everything is a mess. Loki agrees, gives Luke a drink of moonshine, and explains that it doesn’t matter who he and his friends kill. They started out as Satanists, but then evolved into following Odin. He wishes they had burned the buildings of many different religions, and rants about Ragnarök.

Luke insults Loki again. Loki insists they all came to the forest for a reason: the wild hunt. Luke says the creature is unnatural but not a god. Loki says Luke is destined to be given to the creature as a sacrifice. Luke says the old religion is dead, and old gods have no future. Luke says Loki and his friends will end up in prison, and they deserve the death penalty.

Luke overhears the old woman chastising Fenris, Loki, and Surtr downstairs. They come upstairs and Fenris cuts the ties around Luke’s ankles. The old woman, Fenris, and Loki lead Luke upstairs to the attic. It smells like petrified flesh. Fenris puts his hand over Luke’s mouth and Loki shines his lantern around the room. Luke sees the little people propped up and in caskets surrounded by boxes of bones. They have animal legs. The old woman stands by two little figures in chairs. Loki and Fenris speak in Norwegian. The desiccated little people whisper and move. Loki says they are “the ancient ones.”

The old woman draws an old knife. Loki and Fenris argue in Norwegian, and the old woman growls at them. Fenris pulls Luke back and out of the attic. Luke falls at the bottom of the stairs, hitting his broken nose, and faints for a moment. He hears more animal sounds and a voice that he guesses belongs to the old woman.