Adam Nevill - The Reddening

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Adam L. G. Nevill

Ritual Limited

Devon, England

MMXIX

The Reddening

by Adam L. G. Nevill

Published by

Ritual Limited

Devon, England

MMXIX

www.adamlgnevill.com

The Reddening Adam L. G. Nevill

This Edition Ritual Limited

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address above.

Cover artwork by Samuel Araya

eBook formatting and conversion by Polgarus Studio

ISBN 978-1-9160941-2-3 [Mobi]

The Reddening / Adam L. G. Nevill. 1st ed.

For Will Tenant, David Bruckner, Joe Barton, Richard Holmes, Keith Thompson, all at Imaginarium, and the cast, crew and post-production team of The Ritual. You took the last old god of the woods by the horns.

They were the first fossil teeth I had ever seen, and as I laid my hands on them, relics of extinct races and witnesses of an order of things which passed away with them, I shrank back involuntarily... I am not ashamed to own that in the presence of these remains I felt more of awe than joy.

Father John MacEnery (on his discovery of prehistoric artefacts in Kents Cavern,

South Devon, 1825).

In the coming darkness, stepping off the stony cliff path and into thin air did not seem unfeasible. Andy too easily composed the only headline hed ever make, post-mortem. Body recovered in harbour...

A mere glance down and he sensed the potential for a terrible skittering of his feet. The earth rolling marbles beneath his boots before the sickening plummet tingled his sphincter. Over hed go, snatching, thumping, scraping onto spumes of foam in the din of water that smashed the slate teeth of the shoreline two hundred feet below.

Or would he drop silently, without fuss? He pictured an egg breaking on the side of a ceramic bowl and winced.

Even though little had been marked or signposted across the last five miles to offer an escape from the coast path, remaining on it was too dangerous. The further hed ventured the more remote and hostile the cast of the land, so unlike the lush, near-tropical sections around Torbay, or the long, open reaches of South Hams.

Heather now bearded the slate and shale at the top of the cliffs, producing a vast rust and grey stonescape that suggested Scotland or the South Island of New Zealand, not what he expected to find in South Devon.

Since the first coves of the morning, north of Divilmouth, hed walked the edge of an unceasing undulation of mostly bare, hilly farmland. Distant copses had occasionally sprouted on higher ground, the silhouettes of the trees seemingly silent and still with anticipation, like warriors watching on horseback in old Westerns.

Earlier, closer to Divilmouth harbour, it had been the vista of an enormous aquamarine sea that had lulled him into complacency. Nothing could go wrong beside water so achingly beautiful. But beauty doesnt last. That stretch of the coast was a long way behind him now and hed not seen another walker since. Only a paraglider had offered any human contact. That was at midday and hed been packing up when Andy stopped for lunch, three hours gone. The man had called the hills the cardiacs.

Those hills.

Rendered clumsy with fatigue by late afternoon, what remained of his bodys depleted stamina tinkled inside a near-empty tank. Andy couldnt even recall how many rocky hillsides or rough stone steps hed struggled up. Maybe four, but theyd all looked similar and in his memory had fused into one tortuous travail. Descending the slopes had pressed his toenails into their cuticles: hed not trimmed his nails before wearing new hiking boots and was close to limping.

There had been no mention of so many hills in his guidebook, a publication aimed at those with more local knowledge than he possessed. Although it had let him down on each walk so far, hed wanted to get his moneys worth so had persevered with Spectacular Walks on the South West Coast Path: South Devon. But what if hed been elderly? The numerous steep rises would burst hearts.

Forty minutes for lunch at midday was also a stupid decision. As were the hours hed spent exploring the first three coves at ten. His one litre of water was long gone. This is how people get into trouble. The tone of his head-voice was now his dads.

Time.

The atmospherics served as a premonition of how dark it would soon be. To get out of the situation safely hed need every minute of the one hour of remaining sunlight. Then another hour of half-light to find the car.

Andy looked up, imploringly, at the light situation. Cloud had tarnished the sky metallic, giving the sea an appearance of liquid steel. In one circular portion of the iron cumulus, light splintered to produce the sulfur and mercury of a Turner seascape. Far out at sea, one great shaft of concentrated sunlight struck the water, producing a white-gold disc too blinding to look into.

But definition along the cliff edge was growing vague. Greens, blues and reds were being extracted from the earth. He pictured himself reduced to a tiny figure in a dark aerial photograph, the surface murky with dust.

Wind with cold pins began to sheet off the sea, shivering his flesh. Perspiration beneath his fleece transformed into a second skin of frost, covering his back, groin and forehead. For all the protection it offered, his thin woollen hat might have been a Christmas crown made from tissue paper.

The latest edition to the new script was rain. The white horizon was blackening. If you get wet in a cold wind...Shit going wrong just builds. He could no longer use the GPS on his phone either: hed run the battery down by taking pictures to show his wife.

Anticipation of a temperature plummet at nightfall tightened the tourniquet of concern further, squeezing his thoughts into choices measurable on a three-fingered hand.

Should he go back to where he had a vague memory of a path heading inland, in the direction of a Land Trust property? He guessed that route promised to be a death march uphill into the interior. Then hed have to locate the house. Would it be open off-season? Those places usually closed at five anyway. Or was it six?

Or should he just press on for his original goal, the nature reserve at Brickburgh? Hed intended to cut inland from there on the sole track his map noted: a route that would eventually circle back and deliver him to the small Access Countryside car park where hed left his Volvo at nine that morning.

Though it was the best option for locating the car, the Brickburgh route would surely involve over an hour on the hilly coastal path in dimming light and intensifying cold. So Andy ruled it out almost as soon as he mooted the notion. A glance at the beach below pulled his eyes to the steep shale hills that buttressed the shore. The map helpfully indicated that two more beaches would follow that one too. There wasnt sufficient light remaining to make agonisingly slow progress up three more