The Ritual

The old woman cuts off Luke’s underwear, leaving him naked, then feeds him stew. She puts something on his cuts. Luke starts to panic, she holds him, and he cries. He asks her to kill him, then asks her to confront the others with him and he will leave her alone with the little people in the attic. As she prepares a blood-stained gown and crown of dead flowers, Luke wants revenge for everyone who was sacrificed to “Gods of the insane” (351).

When the old woman leaves the room, Luke tries to stand up but falls because of his bound ankles. He eventually gets to his feet by using the wall and looks out the window. There is a large pyre and a cross planted in the ground upside down. Surtr is naked and takes pictures of Loki and Fenris with the cross. This makes Luke angry. He sits down and rocks.

Loki and Fenris take Luke outside. Luke twists out of their hands and falls to the ground. The old woman sits on the porch; the rifle is leaning against the porch railing. Luke urinates. Fenris says he will knock Luke unconscious if he continues to struggle, and Loki gives Luke a drink of moonshine. The young men wear their band t-shirts, while Surtr remains naked. Luke notices that her genitalia is pierced multiple times, but she doesn’t have tattoos like the men. Loki and Fenris take the cross out of the ground and lay it down. Luke hates the teens.

As they tie his feet to the cross, with Surtr sitting on him, Luke thinks about what he will miss from his life, sobs, and growls. Loki and Fenris put the blood-stained gown on him, then tie Luke’s arms to the cross. Luke screams. Loki and Fenris plant the cross back in its hole in the ground, suspending Luke upside down on it. They put the crown of dead flowers on him. As Loki and Fenris drink and sing, Luke screams, sobs, and is grateful that he’s lost his mind.

Luke insults Blood Frenzy’s music, insults Surtr’s appearance, and demands the creature come to him. Loki, Fenris, and Surtr argue with the old woman. She goes inside and Surtr turns off the music. As Luke passes out, he sees the little people in the forest.

Luke dreams about a moonlit procession of the little people around a cart. He is in the cart, then being tied to a stone next to his dead friends, who are also tied to stones. In another place, a barn or church, he sees a woman giving birth. She dies and her child is not fully human. Luke seems to wake up, but has another dream about the little people. The old woman gives him her knife, then disappears.

When Luke wakes up again, he is no longer dreaming. He is in the box bed, but not bound. His knife is on the bed, and the gown and crown are on the side of the bed.

Luke, still naked, crouches on the floor of the bedroom as the sun rises. He thinks about his dreams and the events of the previous night, and finds the will to live and fight. Luke refuses to be a victim any longer, and wonders if he can kill other humans. His rage won’t come back to him when he demands it. He dresses in the gown and crown, and thinks about how he will have to defeat the creature after defeating the humans, and decides to deal with his problems one at a time.

Luke realizes that the door to the bedroom is unlocked. He goes downstairs and wonders where the keys to the truck are. Fenris lies inside a box bed that is usually used as a table in the kitchen, next to the old woman in another box bed. Luke sees the rifle leaning against a wall. Fenris gets out of bed, holding his knife. Luke runs at Fenris, but hesitates to cut him. Fenris cuts Luke at the hip. Luke insults Fenris, grabs his arm, and stabs him in the stomach.

Luke grabs the gun, but his hands are shaking too much to use it. He tries to hit Fenris with the butt of the gun, but can’t navigate it. Fenris cuts Luke in his arm and chest. Luke kicks Fenris in his stomach cut, slides the bolt of the gun around and tries to shoot, but it doesn’t fire. Fenris cries, calls out for Loki, and drops his knife. Luke puts down the gun, picks up the knife, stabs Fenris in the throat, and apologizes. Fenris starts crawling outside.

The old woman watches and seems to speak approvingly, but Luke can’t understand her. He picks up the gun, finally sees the safety, and slides it off. Loki comes into the kitchen and Luke shoots him in the pelvis. The old woman cries with her hands over her ears. Luke reloads and follows Loki, who is stumbling onto the porch. Loki begs Luke to stop. Luke demands to know where the keys to the truck are. Loki says they are in his jacket upstairs and cries. Luke also cries, then gets angry and shoots Loki in the head.

Luke reloads and goes outside. He stands over Fenris, condemns his actions, and says there are consequences. Luke shoots Fenris in the head and goes back into the kitchen. He calls out to Surtr. The old woman nods at the wall. Surtr comes downstairs, and Luke shoots at her, but misses. She runs outside and he follows. Luke shoots and misses again as she runs around the house and vanishes. He looks in the truck and the keys are not inside it. Swearing, Luke goes back in the kitchen, drinks some water, and eats some bread. When he goes upstairs, he finds the keys in Loki’s jacket.

Back downstairs, Luke sees the old woman outside, through the window. She is chanting, and he recognizes one word, “Moder” (391), meaning “mother.” He yells “no” at the old woman. She continues to sing; he realizes she is using him, thinks about his dead friends, and shoots her. When she falls, he sees that she has hooves instead of feet.

Luke wants to end Moder’s reign, and pulls the knife out of Fenris’s neck. On the porch, he puts down the knife and gun, then takes off the gown.

Luke takes the gun up to the attic, and sets it on the floor. He stabs all of the little people in their heads with the knife. As he picks up the gun, he hears the creature outside, then hears Surtr scream; the creature has killed her.

When Luke gets outside, the old woman’s body is gone. He has some suicidal ideation, then heads toward the truck, holding the keys in his mouth, because his hands are filled with the knife and gun.

Luke hears the creature again, looks through the tree line through the rifle’s sights, and heads toward the truck. As he enters the truck, he keeps the gun pointed at the forest out the window. After setting down the knife on the dashboard, Luke struggles to insert the keys because his hands are shaking. He eventually gets the truck started, but then its engine dies. It starts and dies two more times before it stays running. Luke drives it down the track while chanting, “Come on” (404). The track goes through the orchard and into the forest.

Tree branches slap him through the open windows, so he tries to close them and stalls the truck. Luke gets angry, gets the windows up, and restarts the engine. He looks in the rearview mirror and sees the creature leave Surtr, mutilated, in the flatbed. As he tries to aim the gun behind him, the engine dies again. He stops trying to navigate the gun in the small cabin of the truck, restarts the truck, and drives as fast as he can down the road.

The creature runs behind him, then runs in front of the truck. Luke, looking behind, stops the truck in front of the creature. It runs around to the back of the truck and holds it in place. Then it jumps on top of the truck, and Luke starts driving again. The creature pulls Surtr off the flatbed. Luke screams and misdirects the truck. It gets stuck; he moves it back and forth in a slow turn while holding the knife against the steering wheel. Eventually, he is able to move forward again.

The truck’s one working headlight shines on the creature. It looks like a human crossed with a goat. The creature puts its horns through the windshield, pinning Luke to his seat. He vomits on the creature, then stabs it in the throat with the knife. The creature roars and withdraws its head from the cabin. Luke can hear it coughing. The truck is too smashed up to work, so he crawls out of it.

Luke doesn’t hear the creature as he walks through the forest along the track. He sees little people and shoots the rifle into the forest. As evening falls, he reaches the end of the track on a rocky plain at the edge of the forest. After walking away from the forest, he rests, then begins walking again. Luke follows another track and feels like everything he accomplished in civilization is meaningless. The only thing that matters is that he has survived and is alive. The world doesn’t care if he lives, and he feels free of everything.