The Ritual is Adam Nevill's horror novel depicting a group of friends lost in a remote wilderness in Sweden where something supernatural lurks. Because there was no smell coming from the corpse.

And soon they were all silent again, but their feet made more noise than at any other time during the hike of the last two days. But as the others talked they moved away from the thing in the tree more quickly than they had approached it. The sound of these voices reassured three of them enough to start talking over each other. Phil couldn't keep the tremor from his voice. Vulnerable, because this mutilated statement up above their heads was the only thing on the camping holiday he did not have an answer for. Somehow the shock of this sight made him look younger. He always led the group as it staggered through the forest looking for the new trail. Just above it was an eye, big as a snooker ball but glazed and dull. Until, in the violent red and yellow suddenness of hung meat, the bony grin of a jaw bone waspicked out by them all.

And at first no head could be seen in the mess of blood and flesh. A ragged hem about a crumpled centre suggested the skin had been torn from the back in one quick ripping motion. The pelt was spread out across surrounding branches, holed but stretched taut in places. Between the limbs of a spruce tree it was displayed, but in such a tattered state they could not tell what it had once been.įrom the large rib cage drooped the gut, wet and blue in the light seeping through the canopy of leaves.

Looked up.Ībove them, beyond the reach of a man standing upright, the dead thing sagged. Bent from the weight of the rucksacks, bedding and wet tents, they stood under it. Breathing hard, damp with sweat and rain, speechless with fatigue, they came to a halt. Right after they clambered over another fallen tree to stumble into more of the scratching bracken, they came across it. All four of them saw it at the same time. But it was the dead thing they found hanging from a tree that changed the trip beyond recognition. The rain fell hard and cold, the white sun never broke through the low grey cloud, and they were lost. And on the second day things did not get better.

Adam nevill the ritual