Welcome to the first half of Chapter 1 . . . where it all begins.

Got here without reading The Prologue? Use the landing page here to navigate to read that first. You’ll be glad you did!

Otherwise, prepare to meet the four musketeers whose journey will guide you into the dark places that lead to The Ritual . . .

Part One: Invasion

Chapter 1: New Blood
Part One

Brook’s End in the late 1980’s remained nothing short of your everyday, run-of-the-mill small town. The sort of a place cosmopolitan types would never care to visit—let alone set up a permanent residence. And yet people lived in such towns. And some even liked it. The kind of people who were quite content to live far away from the hustle-and-bustle, maximum strength formula, drive-thru and DON’T WALK life of the big city a lifetime of miles to the south.

The town’s pace was in tune with its name: things happened in a slow, sleepy gurgle. The older folks found it a blessing. The younger generation was less enraptured. But most of the adult population would agree, to differing degrees, Brook’s End provided a nice enough place to live.

The house on the hill remained like a lurking memory. But every town had some sort of tragedy in its past. Such stains were pandemic. And the horror of the events at the Griffin house only acted as a reminder of how nice things were down below. To most folks, it was even a sort of comfort; after all, lightning never strikes in the same place twice. Or so the people of Brook’s End believed.

The house stood deserted ever since the bodies of Judge Griffin and his family were found. The stories of the sights and the smell of that discovery had become the town’s closest thing to their own urban legend. No one could explain why Mrs. Griffin had done it. Truth told, no one really wanted to know; it wouldn’t lessen the horrible facts of the gruesome tragedy.

Not surprisingly, no one would ever consider buying such a tainted house. Jack Mallory, the real estate agent, finally gave up trying to push it on the market. Every time prospective buyers would ask about the previous owners, he knew he’d lost a commission. Despite being a salesman, he wasn’t a liar. He was even less of an actor, so people could read it on his face without him ever saying a word. Something had happened in that house. Something awful.

Although, except for the broken upper windows—one in the front and one in the back, courtesy of a rock-throwing brat long gone—from the outside, the house appeared only mildly dilapidated. And so, it stood on the hill, at the edge of the woods, ironically defying decay; its two, large lower front windows looking down on the town like great, gaping eyes.

The house and its history had also become fodder for many a nightmare and late-night ghost story. The broken windows had been boarded up, but hastily. The air would rush through the cracks creating a hollow wailing which all the younger children of the town associated with what became known as the Ghost of Griffin Hall. The story went to say the dead murderess walked through the house at night looking for someone else to kill.

Ridiculous? Yes.

Frightening?

Yes.

It was frightening: because man is by nature afraid of the unknown and whatever had really happened up there in the house on the hill on that dark night—or, rather, the reason behind it—remained to this day a mystery.

However, there was a good side to all of this. The empty house provided the perfect hideout for parent-escaping teenagers: four, to be specific. Despite warnings from adults about tramps and escaped lunatics taking refuge in the house, the Brew Brothers—as they called themselves—had made Griffin Hall their permanent, clandestine clubhouse: a shared secret domain, never mentioned by name. They referred to it only as “The Place”.

The leader of the Brew Brothers, Scott Benedict, was a short, dark-haired kid whose genes worked in his favor, affording him an offbeat “boy next door” visage instead of the more stereotypical “brainiac dork” look other kids with his intellect often bore. He was also lucky enough to already have turned seventeen a while ago while his buddies all still awaited the day. Seventeen meant you could drive. So, in the eyes of the other three Brew Brothers, Scott was one lucky bastard.

They called themselves the Brew Brothers since the activity they most regularly took part in at The Place remained the chaperone-free enjoyment of a couple of six-packs and some good old kicking back and shit shooting. None of them liked the taste of the beer as much as they pretended to; they liked the buzz, though, and the warm fuzzy of being pleasantly befuddled with friends. But it was more than that. They never spoke about it and never really understood it, but they each somehow unconsciously felt it as a necessary right-of-passage—an ancient bonding ritual connecting them to something from long ago: something from more primitive and mysterious times. And they had no way of knowing how close to such things they would soon become.

Towhead Alex Carter kicked the dirt at his feet, having arrived first. As always. And more than anything, he hated being first. Especially at The Place. He might have been the only one of the Brothers to admit it to himself, but being there alone still spooked him on some level. But it beat the alternative. He always ran for his life as sixth period came to an end. It was a desperate attempt to save himself from the horror and humiliation he knew always lay just around the corner. And he was terrified one day he wouldn’t make it. That he’d be caught, and it would all be over. If only—

“Hey, Carter!”

Alex looked up to see Robert approaching, full force. Robert was a confident, carefree, square-jawed tough-guy. His fuck-you-if-you-don’t-like-me attitude hung, unspoken about him like an odd, odorless cologne; you couldn’t smell it, but it affected you, nevertheless. Alex wished it would rub off. Even a little.

“Hey, Mendez,” he tossed back.

Robert flipped his wrist to eye his watch. “I got three o’clock.”

Alex checked his own watch, not really caring. The hands read three-oh-one. He looked back at Robert and shrugged. Robert shook his head and peered out over the horizon.

Alex watched him, suddenly hypnotized. Roberto (“don’t fuckin’ call me that!”) Mendez was clearly developing into a man: his naturally wide boy’s body fleshing out into a nice V-shape, his Adam’s apple protruding like the college kids from Grover U, and the Italian genes from his mother’s side of the family already giving him that permanent five o’clock shadow look. Alex became aware for the first time that, though they were both sixteen, Robert already looked like a young man and Alex—except for the sparse pubic hair—was still the picture of a boy, barely on the brink. He wondered if Robert was aware of it as well.

“It’s about time!”

Alex snapped out of his inner world at Robert’s loud statement. He turned to see Randy coming out of the woods, sporting his ubiquitous, endearing grin.

“Hey, guys,” he called out.

Robert just watched as Randy bounced up to them. Robert smirked, shaking his head ever so slightly. The damned guy did bounce. Always had a slight spring in his step that tousled his gently curling hair, grown past his shoulders some time ago. And it always amused Robert. He thought to himself: Must bounce so much ’cause his head’s so full of air.

“How you guys doing?” Randy managed.

“Just waiting for our fearless leader,” Robert said.

Randy turned to Alex as he ambled the rest of the way to them.

“Hey, Alex” he said—his grin never faltering.

“Hey, Randy.”

Hey. Always Hey. Alex wondered whatever happened to Hello. Somewhere along the line, it had become too formal, too un-cool. Everything was Hey, now. To say “Good morning’ or even “Hello” to another kid would get you looked at as an oddball. Something which Alex feared. Although he wasn’t sure if it was the fear of being seen as different or actually being different since they both amounted to the same dreaded results: being laughed at, ostracized and hated. And he’d had a taste of that already.

“Hello, Musketeers!”

They all turned to see Scott as he approached. Alex smiled, admiring how only Scott could still say “Hello”. Scott was his hero. Hell, somehow, he was all their heroes on some level—whether they knew it or not. Just another element that made him a natural leader.

“You’re late,” Robert pointed out.

Scott retorted, smiling wide, “Well, you’re ugly, but we excuse that!”

Alex smirked and Randy chuckled. Even Robert grinned and shook his head. You just couldn’t hate Scott no matter what. He was just too damned likeable.

“I’ll get you for that later,” Robert barely threatened.

“I’m counting on it,” Scott threw back as he came up to the group and stopped. “Well, we’re all here. Shall we?”

They stood in front of the nearly horizontal double doors that led into the fruit cellar. It was the only way into the house as all the other doors had been padlocked long ago. On their first scouting of The Place, they had tried all the locks and found this one to be broken. It latched closed enough to give the appearance of being locked, but one tug and it gave every time.

The protocol began. Scott lowered his backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out the flashlight. Robert yanked the lock open and slipped it off the latch. He undid the latch and slipped the lock back on. Then, he lifted the right-hand door. It creaked like a corny cliché. The darkness below lay thick and impermeable. Without the slightest hint of concern, Scott moved forward with the flashlight and started down the stairs. Randy had held out an arm to say “After you” to Alex so many times, Alex didn’t even wait anymore; he had for some time now been officially second to enter The Place. He started down after Scott. Randy went in after him and Robert followed, closing the door behind him.

Next up: Chapter 1: New Blood (the conclusion)

Wherein you’ll learn what happens to the boys inside the house and meet our final main character.

You can use the following link to the home page to navigate to the latest chapter that's posted: THE RITUAL - Home Page