Primal Fear

by Boucher, Brad

  “Watch yourself,” Harry warned.

  “—I will—don’t wor—”

  “Signal’s breaking up already,” Harry sighed, mentally reconstructing Charlie’s path. Ascending the rope would be no problem for him. Out in the storm, however, scaling the rock face would be another story entirely. Without any serious problems, it would still be another ten minutes or so before Charlie even reached the Jeep.

  “I think we should keep moving,” John said.

  Harry shook his head. “No. We’re not going anywhere until Charlie gets back. I can’t take the chance of the two of us splitting up.”

  “We don’t have that kind of time.” John’s voice was hoarse, his tone strained.

  “We’re staying put. That’s all there is to it. I don’t know what else you expect—”

  “Mahuk is dying,” John said. “He doesn’t have much time. Neither do we.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just . . . I just know it. I can feel it.”

  Harry turned around just in time to see John doubling over in pain. His back was to Harry, his face hidden from view, but there was no mistaking his body language. His shoulders were hunched, his arms curled tightly around his midsection.

  The flashlight tumbled from John’s fingers, its lens cracking wide open on the bare rock at his feet. The bulb flickered once and then died, cutting off half the light in the cavern.

  Harry stabbed his own light in that direction, moving as quickly as he could on the slippery floor to come to John’s aid. By the time he reached him, John had gone down onto one knee, his head turned down into his chest as if he were trying to curl himself into a ball. A low moan escaped him, the sound of a man in agony.

  “John,” Harry said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “What is it?”

  “. . . so much pain,” John stammered. His words came weakly, with obvious effort. “I can feel it. God . . . I can . . . feel everything.”

  “Is it Mahuk?”

  “Yes. He’s dying. Dying and he wants . . . to warn us.”

  Harry lowered himself to his knees, trying to turn John around to face him.

  “John, come on. Snap out of it.”

  But John’s condition only seemed to grow worse. His breathing came in hitches and gasps and his entire body was beginning to tremble uncontrollably.

  “We have to get you out of here,” Harry said.

  John’s hand sprang up and seized Harry’s wrist, his grip painful and relentless. “No,” he said. “We . . . can’t go.”

  “Bullshit. We have to—”

  “Just give me a minute,” John pleaded. “Just one minute . . .” He lifted his head to peer at Harry, half of his face swimming into the glare of Harry’s flashlight. His mouth was twisted into a grimace, his teeth gritted together in fierce determination as he struggled to conquer the unwanted link with Mahuk. Tears coursed down his cheeks, and Harry could see the torment that John was doing his best to endure.

  “One minute,” Harry decided. “Not one second longer. If there’s no change by then, I’ll drag you out of here myself.”

  John groaned as a fresh wave of agony overtook him. He turned his face further into the light, trying to speak but suddenly unable to.

  The right side of his face came into view.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Harry spat out, recoiling from the young Aleut. He wanted to look away, but couldn’t. Couldn’t afford to.

  Something told him that turning away now would be the biggest mistake he’d ever made in his life.

  He brought the flashlight up, shined it directly into John’s contorted face.

  His right eye had gone dead white.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The old man was dying.

  Dr. Morris pumped Mahuk’s chest violently, vaguely aware that he could very easily break the patient’s ribs if he didn’t watch himself. But there wasn’t time to worry about that now. There was a man’s life in the balance, a man who’d only been hanging on tenuously to begin with.

  “Get that crash cart over here now!” he barked, stepping aside to let a medical technician relieve him on the CPR. They’d been working on the old man for six minutes now, trying to get his heart going. If they couldn’t revive him soon . . .

  Nurse Pratcher approached him from across the room, her gaze stern, the corners of her mouth turned downward into a hard frown. “Shouldn’t we remove his restraints, doctor?”

  His eyes fell to the nylon straps that held the old man’s wrists firmly in place. It still bothered him that John had been unwilling to offer a reasonable explanation for his request. And yet he’d been forced to seriously consider John’s point, that the young man had never steered him wrong in the past. So why would he start now?

  Two hours ago, Morris had relented, ordering the straps to be put in place. Now he was beginning to question the logic of his decision.

  “Sir?” Nurse Pratcher was waiting impatiently for an answer. Even with an entire trauma team working on the patient, every second counted.

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said quietly, his voice filled with resignation, “have the restraints removed immediately.”

  John struggled to his feet, steadying himself against Harry’s outstretched arm. He’d apparently managed to shake off most of the pain, though his face was still pinched and his breathing still strained. His right eye was still completely white, and Harry found his gaze moving to it again and again.

  John seemed to sense Harry’s distrust. “It’s all right,” he muttered. “It’s all right this time. He’s not trying to control me. He’s just trying to . . . to help me.” Already his voice had regained much of its strength, though his tone suggested he was wavering on the edge of confusion. “We have to go on.”

  “Listen to me,” Harry told him, “if we don’t get you out of here now, you may not make it at all.” His words were spoken without much conviction, and John seemed to recognize that immediately.

  “If we don’t go on, anything that happens to me isn’t going to make a bit of difference.”

  Harry weighed his options, staring at John as his thoughts raced desperately for a solution. First and foremost among his immediate concerns was the fact that John had somehow once again become linked to Mahuk. And while he insisted there was no danger this time, Harry still had his doubts. Who was to say the situation couldn’t change rapidly from bad to worse? He’d already seen it happen once.

  Still, John seemed to have a greater amount of control over himself this time. Perhaps, in his weakness, Mahuk was having difficulty in maintaining the link.

  “Harry,” John said, “I have to do this. If I have to, I’ll go on alone.”

  Harry shook his head, the decision made. “You don’t have to do that. I’m in. Let me just try to locate Charlie.” He brought his radio up and tried twice to make contact. Both attempts were unsuccessful and he finally sighed in defeat and clipped the radio back onto his belt.

  John turned away from the opening, standing on his own now and lifting his duffel bag. His eyes scanned the chamber for a moment, growing suddenly wider as he spotted something over Harry’s shoulder.

  “What?” Harry asked, already turning. “What is it?”

  John pointed towards the ceiling. “There’s some kind of opening up there.”

  Harry peered up at the pool of blackness that consumed half the ceiling. Approaching slowly, he shined his flashlight into it, able to make out the inner walls of the hole for only a few more feet before the blackness claimed them again.

  “Could just be a gap between the rocks.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Harry lowered his gaze, looked closely at John. His right eye was still white, his face haggard and pale. Fear and exhaustion had conspired to make him look ten years older.

  “You sure?”

  John nodded. “I feel like we’re close.”

  Harry surveyed the opening once more. There was a deep gouge in the rock within the hole, one that he could just about
reach with his outstretched arm.

  “Here, hold this.” He handed over his flashlight and reached up with both hands, pushing his fingers into the crack and grunting as he pulled himself up into the darkness. John centered the light on the inner wall of the hole, giving Harry as much visibility as he could.

  “See anything?”

  Harry pulled himself up further. “It’s another cavern, you’re right about that.” His voice echoed back from the blackness that surrounded him. “Can’t see much, but it feels huge up here.”

  He freed one of his hands and felt along the wall of the shaft until it leveled out about a foot above his head. His fingers detected a sharp outcropping of rock and he used it to pull himself up onto a flat ledge of cold stone.

  “You okay up there?” John called out from below.

  “Yeah,” he said, winded from the climb. “Can you hand me that lantern?”

  John passed it up as carefully as he could and a moment later Harry was touching a match to its stub of wick, taking in as much of the surrounding area as he could. The cavern was indeed quite large, stretching out ahead and to either side of him further than the light from the lantern could penetrate. The ceiling above was much higher here, at least fifteen or twenty feet, and the shelf of rock upon which he’d come to rest was in fact a part of the rough, uneven floor.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” he called to John. “It’s like an airplane hangar up here.”

  “Give me a hand. I have to come up.”

  “It’s just a big empty space. There’s nothing to—”

  “It’s up there,” John said sharply. “I’m sure of it. I can feel it.”

  Harry froze, suddenly wary of the blackness at the edges of the lantern’s reach. Could it be true? Was the tupilaq up here with him, perhaps just beyond the limits of visibility? Worse still, could it already have come back to life? Was it poised in the shadows, ready to attack?

  He shook his head, fighting back the images that were rising up in his mind. If the tupilaq had already been revived, John would know about it. He certainly would have warned Harry by now.

  “Anything else I should know?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Only that we should hurry. I don’t know how much longer we’ve got.”

  Harry rolled onto his stomach, reaching down to grasp John’s hand, helping him climb up onto the ledge beside him. John crouched there and narrowed his eyes, peering into the shadows.

  “You okay?” Harry asked.

  John just shook his head, his eyes scanning the high ceilings, his shoulders hunched against the cold.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m hoping we’re not too late. I don’t think Mahuk is going to make it.”

  Harry stared hard at him, saw that the milky white haze in John’s right eye was beginning to fade, the familiar brown pigmentation beneath becoming more prominent with each passing moment. John’s link with Mahuk seemed to be steadily deteriorating.

  He helped John to his feet, relieving him of the duffel bag and pulling it onto his own shoulder.

  “Which way?”

  John pointed towards their right. “Can’t you feel it?”

  Harry only shook his head. “I don’t feel a thing.”

  They began to move in that direction, the lantern held out in front of them. The cavern was bigger than either of them had even imagined and they must have covered almost half a mile when the radio crackled to life at Harry’s hip.

  “Harry? You there?”

  It was Charlie. He’d made it back inside.

  Harry lifted his radio to his mouth and signaled for John to hold up. “Did you get through?”

  “Negative, Chief. The storm’s getting worse. You wouldn’t believe it out there. I couldn’t get anybody.”

  “Damn it,” Harry whispered. He leaned against the cold stone wall and thumbed the talk switch again. “Listen up, Charlie. John and I had to move on. We’re going to need your help. Where are you now?”

  “Where we found the kids. How much further in did you go?”

  “Not in. Up. We’re above you. There’s a small opening in the ceiling of the chamber, to the right of the bodies.”

  “Yeah, I can see it. I’m looking at it now.”

  “We’re up through there. Once you climb up, put your back to the wall and take a right. We’re about a half mile in, maybe more. Hard to tell in here. Can’t be too much more than that.”

  Harry watched John as he spoke. The young man was clearly agitated, impatient to move along. He had wandered about twenty feet away and was swinging a flashlight back and forth into the darkness ahead of them.

  “Okay,” Charlie said. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll be right up. Leave a light on for me.”

  “You got it.”

  “I’ll try to keep my eyes open and—”

  Charlie stopped short, his voice cut off but the channel remaining open for another few seconds.

  Harry raised the radio to his lips, his jaw suddenly tense. “Charlie? What’s the matter?”

  There was a pause, one that seemed to too long to Harry. Even John seemed aware that something was wrong. He returned to Harry’s side and listened intently, his eyes fastened upon Harry’s.

  “There’s something . . .” Charlie’s voice was barely a whisper. “Something’s moving down here.”

  “Come again?”

  Harry let a minute slip by in perfect silence, still waiting for a reply. There couldn’t possibly be anything moving around down there; even the wind couldn’t make it that deep into the cavern. But Charlie had clearly been spooked by something. There could be no mistaking the tension that had crept into his voice.

  Finally, his patience waning, Harry lifted the radio and tried again.

  “Charlie, talk to me. What the hell is going on?”

  Charlie’s response was hushed. “Stand by. I heard it again. I’m looking around. It’s got to be coming from around here somewhere.”

  “What does it sound like?”

  “I don’t know. A . . . rustling . . . sort of, somewhere out back here.”

  Harry could picture him down there, stabbing his flashlight into the shadows, trying to spot a hint of movement in the blackness.

  “Could just be an animal,” he offered.

  “I don’t think so. I can’t see anything. Shit, there’s nothing back here.”

  There was another excruciating minute of silence, stretching out to what seemed like an hour. And then, over the radio, Harry could make out the muffled sound of movement, like dry leaves stirring in a soft breeze.

  Charlie’s voice came through then, loudly, his tone verging on panic. “Harry, there’s something down here that . . . oh, shit.”

  “What is it?”

  “Harry, it’s . . . it’s coming out of one of the kids. Jesus, what’s going on here?”

  “Charlie, what was that?” Harry put down John’s duffel bag and took a step back in the direction from which they’d come. “You okay?”

  “You got to get down here, Chief, stat. There’s something happening . . . It doesn’t make any sense. Please.”

  Harry could hear the rising panic in Charlie’s voice, and that was what finally got through to him. He was about to make a run for the chamber in response to Charlie’s desperate call when John suddenly crumpled into a heap at his side, his hands clutched to his chest. His body rolled into Harry’s legs, bringing him down, too, and the radio slid from his grasp to become lost somewhere in the darkness around him.

  “Son of a bitch,” Harry spat out, swinging the lantern back and forth carefully, hoping to catch sight of the radio. Instead, he found John’s flashlight and seized it, relieved to see that it still worked. He trained it on John and saw that his companion was twisted into a fetal position, his fingers writhing against his midsection.

  John grunted, the kind of sound Harry would expect to hear from someone who’d just been shot. Placing his free hand carefully on John’s shoulder, he rolled him
onto his back, trying to get a better idea of what had happened to him.

  John’s face was pale, his skin clammy. He looked as though he was on the verge of death, as if he had only a few precious seconds left. And Harry suddenly understood.

  It was his link with Mahuk that had brought him to this. The old man was clearly in his final moments of life, and whatever pain he was feeling, it was burning its way through John’s body as well. Killing him from a thousand miles away.

  “John!” he shouted, gripping the young man’s shoulder and shaking him fiercely. “You have to break off from Mahuk. You have to fight him. He’s going to kill you if you don’t.”

  For a moment there was no change at all. His skin felt cold to the touch and his eyes had rolled back into his head. And then he became completely still, his breathing cut off in the middle of a sharp intake of air.

  “John!” Harry slapped him, got no response at all. He felt for a pulse, holding his own breath as he waited for some sign of life. For a full thirty seconds, he waited, and then, finally, he felt the soft pulse of John’s blood at his wrist.

  He breathed a long sigh of relief, swinging the flashlight around the cavern floor until he spotted the radio. It was lying well out of reach, but he could still hear Charlie’s voice as it spilled out of the tiny speaker. The panic in his voice was clear, impossible to ignore. Something had gone terribly wrong, he knew, and Charlie was clearly under some sort of attack. But by whom?

  Or what?

  John’s pulse was growing stronger, but it still hadn’t reached a rate that was in the least bit reassuring. At least not enough to leave his side, not even for a moment.

  “John, wake up,” he urged, his finger pressed tightly against the other man’s jugular. “Come on, you can’t do this to me.”

  John’s face was still very pale, his head lolling awkwardly on his shoulders as Harry shook him. His eyelids fluttered briefly and then opened, only to fall slowly closed again. Even during the short time they’d been open, Harry had seen that there was no sign of whiteness in John’s right eye. His link with Mahuk had finally dissolved completely.

  “Goddammit, wake up!”