Primal Fear

by Boucher, Brad

  “Harry? Is everything all right?”

  Harry didn’t move, not sure if he should call out to her. Would John become disturbed if he raised his voice? The decision was made a second later as he heard Laurie beginning to make her way down the stairs.

  He had no choice now.

  “Honey, don’t come down here,” he called, trying to keep his own fear out of his voice. “Go back upstairs.”

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  John stiffened and began to turn slowly towards him. His hands continued to move, their motions growing faster and more complex.

  “Oh shit,” Harry whispered, genuine fear gnawing at his belly.

  The overturned lamp flickered twice and then died. A moment later, the power went out in the rest of the house, leaving Harry in complete blackness just as John’s face was about to swim into view. Harry listened carefully, trying to determine if John was moving toward him, trying to remain alert in case of a sudden attack.

  “I’m not exactly sure what’s going on down here,” he shouted. “Just go back upstairs and close the bedroom door.”

  “Should I call someone?”

  He could tell by the pitch of her voice that she was frightened. But she was doing what he’d told her, turning back towards the relative safety of the bedroom.

  Harry considered her question, came to a decision. “Not yet.”

  He heard the bedroom door close upstairs and felt a measure of relief. The darkness seemed to close in on him, and the temperature dropped even further, leaving him in an icy void that challenged his senses.

  He thought he could make out a faint shuffling sound to his left, the same sound John’s bare feet had been making on the carpet only a minute before. The urge to turn in that direction was terribly strong, but Harry held his ground. In the dark, he knew, it could be very difficult to pinpoint the exact source of a sound.

  He struggled to let his instincts tell him what his senses could not, trying to second guess John’s intentions, to predict his movements. But nothing came. Nothing he could act on, in any case. How could he hope to formulate a plan of defense when he didn’t fully understand what John was up to in the first place?

  To his right, closer now, he heard the sound of someone whispering.

  Harry cocked his head, otherwise remaining perfectly still. Had John moved that quickly? That silently? He doubted it. John couldn’t possibly have closed in on Harry’s position so swiftly and in such utter silence. And that meant—

  Harry’s instincts came alive as a floorboard creaked directly ahead of him, from precisely the same point where John had been standing when the lights had gone dead. He closed his eyes and listened. A moment later, the sound came again as the weight on the loose board was taken away.

  John had just made his first step in Harry’s direction. Harry knew it like he knew his own name; every fiber of his instinct told him that it was so.

  He waited for the next sound, concentrating all of his senses into the simple act of listening. And there it was, seconds later, the shuffle of a bare foot upon the thick shag rug.

  John’s second step.

  Closer.

  Harry gauged the distance, estimated that John would be within reach in four or five more steps. He would attack then, just as John’s silent approach brought him into striking distance. The outline of a plan began to take shape in his mind. Whatever had come over John, whether it was a spell or a trance or even the effects of some kind of unknown curse, it had to be broken.

  John’s whispering reached his ears, and Harry trimmed his estimation by a third. Two more steps now, he calculated, and John would be within easy reach.

  He opened his eyes, tensed his muscles, but another sound began to interfere with his perceptions. It came from outside, out in the raging storm: the rumble of an approaching snow plow as it moved slowly along East Main Street. Its racket was a distraction, growing steadily louder as it reached the crest of the small hill just half a mile from Harry’s property.

  Shutting out the sound was not an option. It was too loud, too close. And it had prevented him from hearing John’s last footstep. For all Harry knew, John could be standing less than a foot and a half away by now.

  Outside, the plow grew steadily nearer, moving towards his house from the east, from town. A glimmer of hope sparked in Harry’s thoughts. The plow’s easterly approach would soon lead it along the slow curve towards Route 16, a bend in the road that was less than a tenth of a mile from Harry’s property line. At that point, at the apex of the curve, its lights would be pointed straight at the house. The spare bedroom would almost certainly be brightened by its approach.

  Harry waited silently, his eyes searching the blackness.

  The plow reached the turn, its driver downshifting. The strobe flash of its yellow bubble lights caught the corner of Harry’s eye through one of the slots of the window blinds. His eyes flicked in that direction involuntarily, a strategic error he identified as soon as he committed it.

  He tore his gaze away, turning it once more into the darkness in front of him, but not before it recorded and transmitted a single vital piece of information. The flashing yellow light moved out of his line of vision just as he looked away, but beyond it he could plainly see the porch lights of the house directly across the road from his own. They were burning brightly against the gloom of the storm, and he knew for a fact that both homes were serviced by the same transformer.

  The storm, for all its fury, was not the cause of the darkness in his home.

  Before he could analyze this information or consider its significance, the plow reached the sharpest point of the turn. The glare from its headlights found the far wall, creating a patch of brightness there, a pattern broken into a series of lines by the slats of the mini-blinds. Harry held his breath as the snow-plow continued along the curve, its light beginning to slowly traverse the bedroom.

  He scanned the shadows for any sign of John’s whereabouts, knowing that sooner or later the light was bound to fall upon him and reveal his position.

  He would be quite close, Harry knew. The coldness had seemed to grow worse as John had drawn closer, as if he were its epicenter. Now it seemed almost unbearable, so profoundly frigid that Harry felt as if he’d stepped outside, into the grip of the storm.

  The light was almost upon him, slanting crazily in a diagonal path across the wall. Harry’s eyes darted back and forth, his hands clenching into fists by his sides. He felt uncertain now, confused by John’s absence.

  A few seconds later, the light found Harry. He jerked his head to the left, away from the windows, trying to shield his eyes from the brightness.

  John’s face hovered in the blackness in front of him, surely no more than a foot away and washed a ghastly white by the snow-plow’s headlights. His mouth was twisted into a feral scowl, his teeth bared and glistening. His right eye had gone completely white. The other glared at Harry, filled with hatred, reflecting a rage that was barely under control, but was about to be let free.

  Harry spun towards him. He sensed John’s hands coming up before he actually saw them, and he reacted instantly, bringing his own arms into a position to block the younger man’s attack.

  Outside, the snow-plow passed them by completely, plunging the room into total darkness once again. Harry used the blackness as a cover and made his move.

  He launched himself at John, crashing into his chest and managing to pin his left arm to his side. John grunted, a guttural sound that was nearly inhuman. Harry ignored it, using his momentum to shove John towards the bed, hoping to push him off balance.

  But John scarcely budged. His free hand lashed out at Harry, catching him square in the temple.

  The blow was staggering, much more powerful than Harry had anticipated. A bright flash of stars exploded behind his eyes and he shook his head quickly, trying to clear them away.

  John struck again, this time making contact with Harry’s jaw. Harry felt the inside of his cheek split and tas
ted his own blood. A renewed sense of urgency swelled within him.

  He reached out blindly into the darkness to his left, his hand making contact with John’s arm by pure chance. Grunting with the effort, Harry seized John’s wrist and held off his next blow, his other hand rising to the center of John’s chest and pushing him violently away. At the same time, he hooked his left foot behind John’s leg.

  John went down hard, colliding with the night stand beside the bed and flipping it onto its side. It crushed the bedside lamp against the floor, its ceramic base shattering in a shower of glass. As John tried to regain his footing, Harry twisted the young man’s right arm up behind his back, forcing him onto his stomach. He placed his knee in the small of John’s back and held him there.

  John struggled beneath him, all the while snarling incoherently, his muscles rippling under Harry’s weight. He was slick with sweat, his flesh slippery and difficult to hold. From upstairs, he heard Laurie pulling open the door to the master bedroom, stepping into the hall.

  “Harry?” she called. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” he shouted. “Something’s wrong with John. Get me the flashlight.” After a moment’s consideration, he added, “And bring my handcuffs, too.”

  “Your handcuffs? Harry, what—”

  “Honey, just hurry up, please.”

  John seemed to be tiring, though not by much. His struggles were still quite violent, and it was all Harry could do to hold him down.

  “Another couple of minutes and we’ll be in business,” he murmured, more to ease his own strained nerves than to offer John any sort of consolation. But no sooner had he uttered the words than John ceased his movements completely, going limp on the floor beneath Harry’s weight.

  Harry’s first instinct was that it was a trick, little more than a poor attempt on John’s part to get him to let his guard down. He peered carefully at the right side of John’s face, but in the darkness he couldn’t make out a thing.

  He could hear Laurie descending the stairs now, her pace frantic. The dim glow of the flashlight began to penetrate the gloom, and within seconds, its bright beam was arcing across the bedroom as she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Harry turned towards her and held out his hand, careful not to look directly into the eye of the flashlight. “Now I need the cuffs.”

  “Oh my God, Harry, what are you doing to him? What’s going on?”

  “Laurie, please. Just bring me the cuffs.”

  Laurie took two steps towards him and the lights came on in the hall, followed quickly by the sound of the furnace kicking in.

  The power had come back on.

  “Turn on the ceiling light,” he told Laurie.

  She complied, flooding the room with light.

  Harry turned back to John, examining the exposed right side of his face. The young man’s eyes were closed, and Harry had to peel open his right lid with his thumb.

  The whiteness had vanished. The eye was back to its original dark brown, the same as it had been when he’d first met John the morning before. The room itself seemed warmer now, too, as if whatever had held influence over John had taken the iciness away upon its departure.

  “Is he all right?” Laurie asked timidly, still holding the flashlight.

  “I hope so.” Harry swung John’s left arm down to join his right and cuffed both hands behind his back. John seemed to be unconscious, his muscles slack, his limbs showing no resistance.

  Harry turned him onto his side.

  “What do we do now?” Laurie asked. “Should I call the station?”

  “Not yet,” Harry said, turning towards her.

  “Jesus, Harry,” she spat out, “you’re bleeding.”

  He flicked his tongue out, tasted fresh blood on his lips. His bottom lip had split, but it didn’t seem serious.

  “I’ll get the first aid kit,” Laurie said.

  From the floor, John let out a groan. Laurie stopped in her tracks, turned in the doorway to see what was happening. Harry could see fear in her eyes, but she held her ground, more concerned with his own well- being at this point than her own.

  He turned to John, just in time to see the young man’s eyes open.

  “Harry?” John muttered. “Was I—”

  His voice sounded normal, all of its earlier menace gone completely now.

  “Do you remember anything, John? Anything at all?”

  John nodded slowly. “Almost all of it. But it wasn’t me. You have to believe me.”

  “I know.”

  John was silent for a long moment. At last, with a strength in his voice that belied his current condition, he turned his head as far in Harry’s direction as he could manage, and spoke quietly. “You have to take these off of me,” he said. “I have to call Doctor Morris as soon as I can.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think Mahuk is dying. If I’m right, we don’t have much time.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  John sighed into the telephone, his face a mask of frustration. Laurie stood over him, applying antiseptic to a small cut above his left eye. He winced, but didn’t pull away, and Laurie mouthed an apology before continuing.

  Harry sat at the opposite end of the table, idly toying with his handcuffs but otherwise completely engrossed in John’s end of the conversation. The young man had been arguing with Dr. Morris for the better part of ten minutes, and still seemed to be getting nowhere.

  John’s expression became grim and he paused, cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, speaking as quietly as he could. “Mahuk just had another episode, the worse one yet. They’ve got him in intensive care, listed as critical. Dr. Morris says that he’s setting up an around-the-clock watch, but he doesn’t think the old man will make it through the night.” He met Harry’s stare. “He’s in a coma. They don’t think he’ll regain consciousness.”

  Harry looked away, letting his thoughts drift as John continued to discuss the case with Dr. Morris. If what John had told him was true, then they had very little time left to find the tupilaq’s body and destroy it. Only Mahuk’s health stood in the way of the demon’s resurrection, and now it seemed as if even that was dwindling fast.

  John shook his head, talking into the phone again. “Look, there’s one more thing that I need you to do. I know you’re going to think I’ve lost it when you hear this, but please, I can’t stress this enough: you have to believe me.” He took a deep breath and plunged on. “I have to ask you to restrain Mahuk’s movements. I know how that must sound—”

  Even from the other side of the table, Harry could hear the doctor’s outraged voice over the phone. His words came through clearly and Harry could hear within them the same anger he’d felt himself the day before.

  To his credit, John jumped back into the conversation, defending his request against the doctor’s protest. “Goddamn it, Sidney, I’ve never given you a reason to distrust me before. What makes you think I’d try to mislead you now? What I need from you is a promise that you’ll strap that old man’s hands down as firmly as you can. I don’t care how you do it or what you have to say to justify your actions, but it has to be done. Tell them that the restraints are there for his own protection, to keep him from hurting himself, if you think that’ll make a difference. They’ll buy it, but only if it comes from you. Sidney—”

  John stopped and stared at the phone. “Hello?”

  “What happened?”

  “I think he . . . shit, he hung up on me.” He slammed the receiver back into its cradle, and when he pulled his hand away from the phone, Harry noted with no small concern that it was shaking.

  Hoping to bring John’s anger down a notch or two, Harry said, “So. That went well.”

  John grinned in spite of himself, a tiny bark of laughter fighting its way from his lips. “That’s what I’m starting to like about you, Harry. No matter what happens, you always know just what to say.”

  “At least what you told him makes sense,” Laurie put in. “Mahuk really could
hurt himself during another seizure.”

  “He already did. During his last seizure, he went into convulsions and managed to dislocate his right shoulder. And a day and a half ago, a stab wound was found in his left side. They still can’t explain that one.”

  “Oh, my God,” Harry whispered. “I think that’s my fault.”

  “How can that be?”

  “At the morgue,” Harry said, “I fought Slater off with a shard of glass from the broken picture frame. I stabbed him in the left side.”

  John picked up his line of thought. “And we know that it was Mahuk that was controlling the body, at least at first. He must have still been linked to it . . .”

  “And what happened here tonight? Was that Mahuk again?”

  “I believe so. But I think it was just his power, not his will. If what you described to me was right, I was performing the same ritual of summoning that’s required to raise Wyh-heah Qui Waq.”

  “I don’t understand. I thought it was coming back whether we wanted it to or not. Now you’re saying that it has to be physically summoned?”

  “No, it’s coming back all right. The moment that Mahuk dies, it’ll be free. But it’s very eager. It wants to escape now. And as Mahuk grows weaker, the demon’s strength becomes greater. I think Mahuk was trying to contact me again through Atae, maybe even to warn me. But then the demon must have seized that power and tried to influence me to perform the ritual. It’s the same thing it’s been trying to do to Mahuk, to use his own weakness to free it.”

  “Can it do that? I mean, is it really that powerful?”

  “Yeah, I think it is. We saw the proof, right here, a half hour ago. We’re very lucky you were able to get through to me before the ritual was completed. But it’ll try again, I’m sure of it. By forcing the last of Jha-Laman’s descendants to perform the ritual to free it, Wyh-heah Qui Waq’s resurrection will be a personal affront to the power of the shaman. That’s why I asked Dr. Morris to restrain Mahuk. His hands must not be allowed to move again.”