Primal Fear (2 page)

Atae:  (Ah-
Tay
)

Artaqua:  (Ah-
Tah
-Kwah)

Jha Laman:  (
Jar
-Lah-Mahn)

And that should just about do it.  Are these words important to the plot of the book?  Oh yeah, they sure are.  Did I make them all up?  Oh, yeah, I sure did.  All except one, and that’s the first on the list.  It’s actually a real legend, the one on which I based this book: The tupilaq.

Yeah, that word is real, and when I think about it . . . well, that just creeps me out . . .

Prologue

University of Montreal

Montreal, Canada

The image on the monitor screen flickered with static, but despite the poor quality of the recording, John Artaqua could still make out the old man’s features.

His right eye was the color of sour milk, its vision probably lost to cataracts many years before, and it remained sightlessly fixed upon the ceiling.  His good eye flicked from side to side, as though in the throes of a dream, his withered hands clenching into tight fists upon the crisp white sheets that covered him.  His mouth twitched, but nothing more than a whisper escaped his lips.

Sweat beaded his forehead, coursing down the sides of his face, vanishing in the matted tangle of his snow-white hair.  His emaciated body writhed on the bed, twisting from side to side.  His lips moved again, forming words too soft to be overheard.

John reached out and turned up the volume.  “I wish I could make out what he’s saying.”  He watched the screen closely, trying to match up the faint mumbling with a familiar pattern in the movement of the old man’s lips.  But the patient was too frail, his voice too weak, and John soon abandoned the tactic completely.

“Has he said anything you can understand?  Anything at all?”

Just beside him, Dr. Morris shook his head.  He’d brought the tape to John ten minutes earlier, but already he seemed to regret the decision.  “Nothing.  It’s like I told you on the phone.  The only thing we’re sure of is the fact that he’s not speaking English.”

“So you haven’t communicated with him at all.”

“No.  Not even basic sign language.  During the day, we’re practically playing charades with him, but nothing seems to be getting through.”

John turned to face him, taking his eyes off the screen for the first time since he’d pushed the videotape into the player.  He’d known Morris for almost a year, ever since the doctor had attended one of his lectures at the university’s public auditorium.  Morris had taken quite an interest in the day’s topic, and had joined an informal discussion following the lecture.  Since then, they’d been in contact several times, but not once could John remember the doctor seeming so unsure of himself.

Until now.

Morris had contacted him an hour before, asking for assistance concerning a new patient on his ward at the hospital.  Even then he’d sounded confused, as though his own abilities to help the patient were suddenly in doubt.

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.