Primal Fear (11 page)

If they moved quickly, they just might be able to stem the bleeding and save the old man’s life.  Later, when the crisis was over, he would look back on this and try to make a shred of sense from it.

Something told him he wouldn’t have much luck.

Harry peered over his shoulder, directly into Slater’s darkened eye.  Once again, he saw a change taking place there.

The white of Slater’s eye was slowly reappearing, its black center shrinking once more to its normal, dilated size.  The body’s strength seemed to flood out of it at the same time, leaving behind the slow and clumsy corpse that had originally wandered into the office several minutes before.  His fury was gone, and his fingers scratched only feebly at Harry’s back, the ability to do any serious harm well beyond them.

Harry pushed the body off of him, scrambling to his feet and bringing his gun once again to bear on Slater’s upturned face.

A floorboard creaked from the office door and Harry quickly raised the gun, his wide eyes taking in the shape of another intruder. 

Hughes stood in the doorway, his mouth hanging open and his eyes flicking nervously back and forth between Harry and the body on the floor.  Finally, he seemed to find the will to speak.

“What the Christ is going on here?”

“I don’t know,” Harry whispered.  “God’s honest truth, Del, I just don’t know.”

He dropped his gaze to the floor, where, once again, Marty Slater lay dead and unmoving.

Chapter Nine

John came to with an immediate sense of relief, as if an immense burden had suddenly been taken from him.  He looked to either side, getting his bearings, finally checking his watch to find out how long he’d been asleep.

Only ten minutes. 

“Are you all right?”

It was the young woman next to him.  She was looking closely at him, as if studying an interesting specimen in a lab experiment.  Or perhaps there was more in her expression than he could see.  Fear?  Maybe a touch of distrust?

“Just a bad dream,” John told her.  He tried to sound convincing, maybe even trying to convince himself at the same time.  “I’m not very fond of flying.  I guess I must have dozed off and . . . well, you know how it goes.”

She nodded, a tiny smile brightening her face.  She seemed to believe him, at least enough to set her own mind at ease.  But the flicker of suspicion was still in her eyes as she nodded once more and then went back to the book she was reading.

What the hell had he just seen?  At first he’d been certain it was only a dream.  A particularly vivid one, true, but still, nothing more than a dream.  But then a vague sense of importance had come over him, a feeling that he was meant to see these strange images.  And even more, he was meant to remember them.  But why? 

He turned toward the window, watching the clouds pass slowly by below.  In the glass, he could make out his reflection.  His eyes were rimmed with red, as if from too many long hours of study.  And there was a slightly haunted look to his gaze now, one brought on by the confusing emotions the dream had dredged up within him.

Fear; he remembered that clearly enough.  A cold and immobilizing sense of nameless fear that had claimed him almost as quickly as the dream had begun.  And there had also been a terrible sense that he was losing control of himself, a feeling like his body had been invaded.  During the dream he’d felt like a puppet; a puppet on invisible strings, being pulled along by a will more powerful than his own.

Another emotion came to him then, one that had filled his thoughts just before waking. 

Rage.  Seething within him, almost uncontrollable in its absolute consumption of his thoughts and actions.  A black rage that had blinded him, as if the puppet master’s anger had somehow infected the puppet.

And there had been pain, too; he suddenly recalled an immense pain in his side just as consciousness had come back to him.  He moved his hand to his side now, just where he’d felt the stabbing pain in the dream.

Nothing.  No discomfort.  No unexplained stains in his shirt and no apparent wounds beneath.  And yet the feeling of being stabbed, of his flesh tearing, remained stubbornly in his memory.

He couldn’t recall what had preceded the pain, only the pain itself.

He remembered seeing the man in the office, rising to his feet and then turning in what appeared to be shock, even terror.  After that there had been a short moment of . . . what? 

Contact?  Conversation?

No, neither was quite right.  It had been more of an attempt at communication rather than an actual exchange of words, a union of minds that had left John feeling even more confused than ever.

Worse than that, he couldn’t recall what he’d been trying so hard to convey to the man.  It had seemed so desperately important at the time, as if a great deal was riding on this single attempt at communication.

A headache began to throb at John’s temples.  He couldn’t imagine a more frustrating predicament.  Normally, he had no trouble recalling his dreams, often in particularly accurate detail.  Now, when he felt a serious need to go over the feelings and images he’d experienced, he was drawing a blank on its most important aspects.

At least he still had a clear picture of the man he’d seen in the office, the man wearing what he believed to be a police uniform.  Late thirties, maybe even early forties; brown hair and an average build, perhaps in better shape than most in his age group; a bit on the tall side, five eleven or maybe an even six feet.

And the badge sewn onto the shoulder of the man’s uniform, what had it said?

He closed his eyes, trying to coax the memory forward, trying to seize it before it could fade away to nothing, convinced it might be the most important detail of all.  His hands curled into fists on the arms of his seat, his knuckles white.  And finally, as if it had been there all along, just within his grasp, the memory fell into place in his thoughts.

Glen Forest Sheriff’s Department. 

That’s what had been printed on the patch, in stark blue letters against a tan background, the words curling along the top and bottom curves of the patch.  In its center there had been some sort of emblem, maybe the state seal, or even its flag, but that hardly mattered.  What was important was that he’d been able to dredge up the memory, to assign at least a dim amount of meaning to what he’d seen—

His eyes snapped open. 

Of course the man’s face had been significant to him, just as the words on the patch had been a vital ingredient in the fusion of images. 

It hadn’t been a dream after all.  It had been something far more significant.  What he’d just experienced, in the crowded cabin of the airliner, had been a vision, a revelation.  Whether Mahuk had anything to do with it was unknown, at least at this point.  It could just as easily have been attributed to the strange artifact he’d carried onto the plane with him.  The shaman had warned him of its power, and of its value.  Could it have possibly played a role in the vision he’d just had?

He wanted to answer the question with a firm and uncompromising no, and a week ago, he might have.  But now, after what he’d seen, after the odd feelings he’d just experienced, he couldn’t discount any possibility.  Not yet, at least.

When the plane touched down, he would find a phone, try to contact Dr. Morris.  If the old man had had a hand in John’s vision, maybe Morris might be able to provide some background on what his patient had experienced at that time.  If there was a connection, he wanted to know about it.

The woman next to him was watching him again.  “Everything all right?” she asked.  Some of the concern had left her voice, and now she sounded more irritated than suspicious.

He tried to smile, but gave up.  “I have . . . sort of an odd question to ask you.  If I’m not bothering you, that is.”

She marked her place in her book with one long finger and turned completely towards him.

“Go on.”

“I’m just wondering . . . when I was asleep just a few minutes ago, when you thought something was wrong?”

She nodded.

“Did I say anything in my sleep?  Anything at all?”

“You were mumbling, if that’s what you mean.  Nothing that I could make out.”  She smiled, finding a trace of humor in his question.  “If you’re worried you might have given out some secret, don’t worry.  Like I said, I couldn’t understand a word you were saying.”

“Do you remember any of it at all?”

She shook her head.  “Not really.  I just thought—” 

She broke off, a flush darkening her cheeks.  “Well, it sounded to me like you were speaking in, you know, a different language.  I know how terribly prejudiced that must sound—”

“Not at all.”

“Good.  Thank you.  Anyway, I couldn’t understand any of it.  The only time I thought you were actually saying something was when you were repeating the same thing over and over.”

“I repeated something?”`

The woman nodded.  “It was something like ‘a day, a day’, over and over again, like you were calling someone’s name.”

John’s mouth went dry.  He tried to disguise the shock he felt, but knew he’d failed miserably as soon as he looked back at the woman.  Her expression was once again filled with concern, a frown playing at the corners of her mouth.

“I’m sorry.  Did I say something wrong?”

He shook his head.  “No, it’s nothing you said, don’t worry.  But the word you heard . . . do you think it could have been ‘Atae’?”

She nodded, pointing a finger at him.  “Yes, that’s it.  That’s it exactly.  What does it mean?”

John swallowed, hoping the sudden sick feeling he had in the pit of his stomach wasn’t obvious in his expression.  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Laurie sat at her desk in the upstairs bedroom, working on her home computer, only half aware of the chill that had crept into the house.  She tried to busy herself with answering a few e-mails and balancing the check book, anything to keep her mind occupied.  The thought of what had happened in the house next door, and the idea of what Marty Slater had done to himself just wouldn’t stop nagging at her thoughts.

Harry hadn’t exactly been generous with the details of what he’d found in Slater’s basement, or even regarding the condition in which he’d found their neighbor, but what little information he had shared was enough to make her feel sick to her stomach.  How could such a thing happen so close to home?  How could the man have lived so many years in such a small, close-knit community and not reveal—even accidentally—his private darkness? 

If she’d known how closely her thoughts on the matter mirrored Harry’s, she would have felt only mildly surprised.  Over the years, she’d become used to how often they’d shared the same thoughts and feelings at the exact same time, or how many times they’d completed each other’s sentences.  She supposed it happened with any couple who’d been so close for so many years; after a while, once you got to know each other well enough, it only made sense that you would think along the same wavelengths.

Still, there was that new tension between them lately.  It crept up in their conversations over dinner; it reared its head every time they talked about cutting back and tightening the monthly budget.  And what only seemed to make matters worse was the fact that she could understand his reluctance to start a family; from a practical and economic standpoint, his argument was a sound one.  How exactly could they hope to provide for a child—and pay all the medical expenses that came along with childbirth—when they were barely keeping their own heads above water?  How would they pay the mortgage and utility bills with the added strain on their budget that a child would inevitably introduce?

She couldn’t answer those questions, and she recognized their validity.  And she understood the need to ask them and properly address them.  But understanding Harry’s feelings on the subject and
accepting
those feelings were two very different things.  She could even accept his reluctance to talk about it; it was no surprise that he viewed their financial problems as some sort of failure on his part.  A failure to provide for his family, a failure to put enough food on the table or enough fuel in the oil tank for the winter.  But as much as she tried to explain to him that he couldn’t place the blame on himself, he continued to do just that.  She’d told him time and again that he couldn’t be held responsible for the poor economy.  She’d told him that she understood the importance of his career and why they couldn’t just move away to greener financial pastures.  She’d even told him point blank that she knew in her heart that he was doing the absolute best he could with what he had.   

And yet he couldn’t find it in himself to let some of the burden of blame slip from his shoulders.  Maybe it was a question of pride, or maybe he saw it as a challenge to his male ego, but lately, he’d become so hung up on it that he wouldn’t even discuss the matter with her anymore.  In all the years they’d been married, it had become the only subject that he’d refused to consider.  There was a time when they’d been able to discuss anything, no matter how serious or how trivial it might be.  Now, lately . . . well, there were nights when they barely talked at all.

A chill touched her neck again and she shivered.  How had it gotten so cold in the house?  She’d turned the heat up ten minutes before, but now it felt as if an icy draft had found its way into the room.  She rubbed the back of her neck, turning towards the window.  It was closed and locked.

She leaned over the back of the chair, facing the doorway and the dark hallway beyond.  Had Harry finally made it home?  She hadn’t heard the front door, but if he’d just opened it, that would explain the draft she could feel coming from the hall.

“Harry?  That you?”

The icy contact came again, this time more insistently.  Her back arched in a reflexive attempt to break the touch, but there was no escaping it. 

All at once she felt uncomfortable, like someone was watching her.  Not just watching her, either, but studying her.  Glaring at her.  She looked over her shoulder again, trying to tell herself she was alone in the room, letting her eyes prove that no one else was there.  And yet the sensation of someone nearby refused to go away.  In fact, it only grew stronger.  If she closed her eyes, it would have been easy to imagine someone standing over her, directly behind her chair, arms reaching out to touch her.  To harm her.

Because all at once her nerve endings seemed to catch fire, sending danger signals through her nervous system.  There was something terribly wrong here.  Something that meant to do her great harm, and although she couldn’t see it, every fiber of her being told her to get out of the room, to leave the house immediately.