Primal Fear

by Boucher, Brad

  And now, as John watched him, he got the feeling his first impression was not entirely inaccurate. Something was definitely bothering the doctor, something he was having trouble expressing. He looked back at John now, his hands held up by his sides.

  “And when he’s awake, forget it, he doesn’t make a sound.”

  “Wait a minute. What?”

  Morris shrugged. “He only speaks when he’s asleep. And

  only in REM sleep.”

  John pointed to the monitor. “You’re telling me he’s

  asleep right now?”

  “That’s right. And that’s not so unusual. Everybody talks in their sleep, at one time or another. It’s perfectly natural. But to talk only in your sleep, and to only say the same thing, night after night . . .” Morris shook his head in defeat. “I’m telling you, I don’t know what to make of this.”

  “On the phone, you said something about his hands . . . some sort of movements he’s making?”

  Morris squinted at the screen. “Probably another minute or two, he’ll be starting them again. We taped this last night, and I know we got the whole cycle down. I can fast-forward it, if you’d like.”

  John shook his head. “No, that’s okay. I can wait.” He motioned towards a chair, the only other one in his tiny, crowded office. “Have a seat, Sidney, please.”

  Morris complied, moving carefully around a pile of books that had been stacked against the wall. He lowered himself into the chair, his eyes wandering over the clutter.

  John followed his gaze, wishing he’d made a greater effort to straighten out his work area, or—preferably—that the university had allotted him a larger working space. True, he felt lucky to have been granted an office in the first place, but with all his books and photographs, there never seemed to be enough room.

  “Look,” Morris said, “I’m sorry I bothered you with this. I’m sure you have enough to do.”

  “No, don’t worry about it.”

  “But it’s like I said, we can’t communicate with this man. Not at all. We don’t even know his name. And then when one of our interns heard him talking, and said he sounded like some Eskimo he’d seen on the Discovery Channel, I just . . . well, I . . .”

  “You thought of me.”

  “I remembered coming to your first lecture, the one on primitive cultures and social progression, and I thought maybe you could help us out.”

  John smiled, doing his best to put the doctor at ease. He clearly wasn’t accustomed to asking for help, and more than that, he appeared to be ashamed that he’d approached John based on his ethnic background.

  But there was an undeniable logic to his request. John was a full-blooded Aleut Eskimo, born and raised in an Aleut fishing village. He knew the language, the customs, and—since leaving his village to attend college—he’d learned enough about the history of his people to earn the reputation as a leader in his field.

  So he couldn’t fault Morris for coming to him for assistance. The reasoning behind his request seemed perfectly sound. But there had to be more to his discomfort than what John could decipher on the surface.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  Morris sighed. “Here’s my problem. Physically, this man is in rough shape. When he was brought in, he was suffering from severe frostbite in the extremities . . . hands, feet, nose and forehead. He had also developed a nasty case of hypothermia. I’m glad they found him when they did. There’s no doubt that he requires serious medical attention, no one’s objecting to that. But because of his apparent state of mind, because we really can’t get through to him . . . well, some of the doctors feel that he should be relocated to the psychiatric ward when he recovers.”

  “And you don’t agree.”

  “No, I don’t. I think we can reach this man. The psychiatric consultants say he’s unresponsive, that his silence isn’t based on a refusal to speak, but rather on an inability to do so.”

  “What’s he like when he’s awake?”

  Morris shrugged. “When he’s awake, it’s like he’s somewhere else, like his mind is just . . . busy somewhere. Not as if there’s nothing going on in there, either. If anything, he seemed very preoccupied, very involved.”

  “With what?”

  “God only knows. But my point is, I believe he’s just so intent on whatever it is he’s thinking about, he doesn’t want to try to talk to us. It’s like he can’t afford the distraction. Now combine that with the obvious language barrier and that’s the case I’m trying to make for him.”

  John watched the screen again, silently contemplating the doctor’s words. “This is very important to you.”

  “Yes, it is. There’s something about him . . . I can’t put my finger on it, but—”

  Morris broke off, pointing back at the video monitor. “Wait, here he goes. These are the movements I told you about.”

  John leaned forward, watching closely as the old man’s arms suddenly rose from his sides, his hands describing careful patterns in the air above his head.

  The motions were slow at first, cautious and deliberate, but they soon began to come faster, as though the patient’s tired muscles were starting to loosen up.

  From the angle of the camera and the poor quality of the image, it was difficult to make any sense at all from the motion. In fact, John was almost prepared to deny there were any patterns to be seen at all.

  To him, the movements seemed random, though he did believe they were based on something else, maybe even on the memory of a carefully orchestrated series of motions. And on some level, in a way that John couldn’t completely understand, the old man’s performance did seem familiar to him.

  He tried to examine the feeling, but couldn’t move any closer to it. It was detached, and very vague, like the blurry memories of the images from a dream.

  “That’s what he does, over and over again,” Morris said. “At first we couldn’t make a pattern out of it, but if you watch him long enough, and if you go back and study the tape, it’s there. It’s very long, very drawn out, but there’s a definite repetitive pattern to what he’s doing.”

  “How long has he been under your care?”

  “Almost a week. The police brought him in last Sunday, found him wandering around alone out by the canal, already suffering from exposure by then. He’s done this every night since he came in. Only when he’s in REM sleep, and then two or three times a night.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Tell me about it. His hands are in pretty bad shape, too. Acute frostbite, advanced arthritis . . . You’d never know it watching him here, though. Look at his hands, look at the way they move.”

  But John was no longer listening. On the video screen, the old man was speaking again, his voice a muffled, halting monotone. And John thought he’d heard something, a single word that had broken through to him.

  “What was that?” He reached out, rewinding the tape, watching as the image moved rapidly backwards. He turned up the volume again, moving closer to the television’s tiny speaker.

  And he heard the word again, perfectly clear this time.

  “. . . Atae . . .”

  John froze, holding his breath. There could be no mistaking what the old man had just said, a name that he hadn’t heard in years, since his days in the village of his youth.

  “It sounded like . . .”

  He shook his head slowly. “But that couldn’t be—”

  It came again, more distinctly this time. “Atae . . . Atae . . .” Another string of words followed, spoken loudly enough for

  John to hear, clearly enough for him to understand.

  “. . . juk-hta ctusa . . . ara aji . . .”

  John swallowed, reaching out to switch off the VCR. The screen faded to black, and he could see his reflection there, startled, uneasy.

  Morris must have seen it, too, a sudden dread written on his face. “What is it?”

  “This man,” John said quietly, tapping his finger on the monitor. �
��I have to meet him. I have to see him right away.”

  John watched the old man from behind the reinforced observation window. He couldn’t make out the words coming from beyond the glass; he could only tell that the old man was still speaking. They’d reached the Parkland Medical Center in just thirty minutes, and now John was eager to hear the old man for himself, to meet him in person.

  John let his gaze linger on the old man’s face. The wide, flattened nose, the thick lips and heavy brow, so much like his own distinguishing features. “Well, there’s no doubt that he’s an Eskimo Indian. Not necessarily Aleut, but I’d have to talk to him, try to place the dialect.”

  “Hey, just to get his name would be a step in the right direction.”

  John looked back at Dr. Morris, suddenly wishing he’d dressed a little better that morning. He could only imagine the impression he’d leave on the hospital staff, wearing an old pair of jeans and a Montreal Canadians hockey jersey. He tugged self-consciously at the collar of his leather jacket, pushed back a lock of his shoulder-length hair.

  “There’s no way he’s going to think I’m a doctor,” he murmured to Morris.

  “I wouldn’t worry about that. He might even get a sense of familiarity from you, who knows? Maybe he—”

  “I’d like to go in and see him. I promise I won’t wake him.” Then, realizing he’d interrupted, he turned and offered an apology. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . this really interests me. I’d like to be sure to hear anything he has to say.”

  “That’s fine,” Morris said, “but keep in mind, we don’t know anything about him. No name, no ID, no idea of his age. I’m making a rough guess that he’s in his early to mid-eighties, but that’s based on appearance and physical condition alone. I could be off by as much as a decade either way.” He led John through a plain wooden door and into the room itself.

  John stepped immediately to the bedside as the doctor hung back. “He’s in very poor health,” Morris murmured, shaking his head. “Frankly, right now, it’s touch-and-go. We’re doing everything we can, but . . .” He let the words die away, their message clear.

  John nodded, watching silently as the old man’s hands began to twitch.

  “He’s doing it again,” Morris said. “This is how it always starts.”

  A moment later, the old man’s hands rose up and resumed their cryptic motions, moving swiftly and confidently through a complicated series of patterns. Fingers spread wide, he tilted his palms inward, turning his wrists in ceremonious skill, each subtle movement carried out in the depths of sleep.

  His labored breathing grew louder, and he began to speak, his voice rising into the silence in search of a listener, becoming more urgent as the circling of his hands became more complex.

  “Atae! Hta-aji . . . kahpoqh ake . . . ake . . .”

  Outside, the wind howled past the room’s single window, rattling the panes.

  “Reminds me of a case history I read once,” Morris said softly. “Never thought I’d see it for myself. It happened in New Jersey, in the early sixties. An elderly woman who had been committed to an asylum used to perform the same movements with her hands and arms, all day long. Got so bad that they had to restrain her. The original assumption was that the motions were due to some sort of random motor malfunction, just a repetitive, involuntary movement that didn’t really mean anything at all.”

  Did they ever figure it out?”

  “Yes. Turned out that she was recreating the motions of her position on a manufacturing assembly line from over thirty years before. Amazing, really, when you think about it.”

  “This isn’t random,” John said from beside the bed, “not at all.” His voice was suddenly wary, his tone severe. “And he’s not reliving anything from his past.”

  Morris approached the bed. “What do you mean? You know what he’s doing?”

  John nodded, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “The motions are part of an old Aleut ritual, one that hasn’t been performed for hundreds of years.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “This isn’t just some old man,” John said. “Wherever he came from, he was the village shaman. And what he’s doing now, it’s part of a ritual of summoning.”

  “Summoning? You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m completely serious. I know what I’m seeing. Only a village shaman would know these motions, and he would pass them onto his successor when his time to die is drawing near. But this ceremony, the one we’re seeing now, is never performed to its conclusion. It’s only taught in pieces, and even then, only in the most guarded circumstances.”

  “Then how do you know what it is?”

  John thought he could detect a note of challenge in the doctor’s voice, but he didn’t rise to it. His voice, when he replied, was no louder than it had been only a moment before. “It’s like I told you, I’ve devoted my life to the study of my people. I’ve learned quite a bit over the years.”

  Morris glanced at the old man and then back to John again. “Any idea what he’s saying? Can you make anything out?”

  John bent beside the old man, turning his head until his right ear was only inches from the patient’s moving lips. He made sure to avoid the hands, reluctant to break their rhythm, listening carefully for what he already suspected he would hear.

  “Juk-hta Atae . . . Atae . . . aji-juk . . . hta . . .”

  “He’s calling upon his spirit guide for help. He’s very frightened, very upset. And he wants Atae to protect him.”

  At the sound of the name, the old man’s head swiveled suddenly on his shoulders, turning to stare directly at John with his blinded eye. It moved confidently in its socket, coming to rest precisely on John’s face, as if it were capable of seeing him, even while he was still deeply asleep.

  John jerked back involuntarily, a cold knot of fear tightening in his belly.

  The old man’s lips curled back, revealing a row of crooked, stained teeth. “Atae,” he whispered, his words seemingly directed straight at John. “. . . juk-hta ctusa . . . ara aji . . .” His voice rose in volume, becoming more urgent, until he was almost shouting, his head rising off the pillow in the effort to deliver them. “Wyh-heah . . . Wyh-heah Qui-Waq . . .”

  John stared back at him, the color slowly fading from his face.

  “What’s he saying that’s so—” Morris broke off as he saw John’s expression.

  John could only imagine how he must look. He’d never felt such an inexplicable sense of dread, never been touched by such undiluted fear before. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just got spooked.” He raised his hand, pushed a stray lock of hair away from his face.

  The old man’s hands dropped back onto the bed, curling into useless arthritic fists. But even in sleep, his dead eye continued to rest upon John. It moved smoothly in pursuit of him, filled with an impossible awareness that chilled John to the bone as he moved away from the bed.

  “I think he’s coming around,” Morris said. “Maybe he’ll want to talk to you.”

  John hesitated. The old man’s words had unnerved him, words he’d never suspected he’d hear in his lifetime. And something about that stare, that single dead eye watching him wherever he went . . .

  All of his confidence in the strength of his modern knowledge had almost gone out the window in that instant. Now, he took a moment to regain his composure as the old man’s good eye slowly opened and centered upon him.

  There seemed to be a moment of recognition, an almost mystical instant of connection between them. John could feel Dr. Morris watching him closely from across the room, and he wondered briefly if his friend could feel the electricity that seemed to fill the air around them.

  John approached the bed once more. “Chak-ta. Taja ich iji?”

  The old man stared, something in his expression betraying the fact that he’d understood John’s query completely. And yet he still didn’t make a sound, instead choosing to nod slowly as a crooked, tired smile spread across his face. A tear slipped fr
om the corner of his good eye, sliding down his cheek to fall onto his hospital gown.

  “He understands me,” John murmured. He leaned forward, reaching out to steady himself on the cold steel rail of the hospital bed. He suddenly felt very weak in the knees, his senses dazed. But he managed to speak softly, cautiously.

  This time the old man responded, his voice weak and hoarse. He uttered only a handful of syllables, speaking slowly and painfully, but John nodded as he went on.

  “His name is Mahuk,” John reported. “He’s from one of the northern villages, one of the old nomadic tribes.”

  The old man murmured something else and when John tried to translate, he felt as if he’d lost a good deal of his breath. “He’s saying . . . he says he’s a descendant of Maku Jha Laman . . .”

  John swallowed, his voice finally starting to waver. Something was wrong here. Terribly wrong. The old legends

  were only stories, just tales made up as warnings to children, to frighten them in the cold, dark winter nights . . .

  “Who?” Morris asked. “Who’s this Maku—”

  “He was one of the most powerful shaman in my people’s history,” John said quietly. “He lived more than two hundred years ago.”

  John watched numbly as Dr. Morris graced him with a dubious glance as he went back to speaking in his native tongue. But however strange it must sound, there was no denying the fact that he’d managed to finally break through to the old man.

  “He says . . .”

  John hesitated, unsure that he’d heard it correctly himself. “He says there is great danger, that he has left his village to fight it.”

  “What kind of danger?”

  “Wyh-heah Qui Waq,” John said, and the old man’s gaze darkened as the words filled the room. “He says it’s coming.”

  Morris frowned, obviously confused.

  The old man was only trying to warn them, John knew. Trying to help them. But he was scared, and very weak. And the fear in his own expression—a fear he was doing his best to conceal even now—had only served to make matters worse.