Primal Fear
Page 31
“He offered himself to open the portal. He gave up his soul, gave up his passage through to his reward.” A tear slipped from John’s good eye. “That was the sacrifice he made for us, to banish Wyh-heah Qui Waq. Instead of letting one of us give up a living soul, he gave up his own ascension. He’ll never join his ancestors, never reach his state of perfection. Instead he’ll always remain in here, with me.”
John smiled. “It’s amazing, knowing what he knew. Understanding so much more about him, about his ways.”
“He’s granted you an amazing gift,” Laurie said. “You can’t forget that.”
“I won’t. Believe me. This is . . . this is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me.”
John tried to sit up straight, but couldn’t, his expression twisting into a sudden grimace of pain. “I guess I won’t be trying that again anytime soon.”
“You got the worst of it. For a little while there, I didn’t think you’d make it.”
“Well, I’m glad to prove you wrong. And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you don’t look so good yourself.”
Harry laughed, pleased to even be capable of such an act after all they’d been through.
Now, turning his attention back to himself for a moment, he took the time to consider his own condition. His injuries were all superficial, a few cuts and bruises that would undoubtedly heal with time. Only the cut along his jaw line was bound to leave a scar, a permanent reminder of what had transpired in the caves beneath the quarry.
All in all, he supposed he’d been quite lucky. But then it occurred to him that not all of his injuries had been physical. He’d lost a good friend today, a young man cut down in the prime of his life.
“You two should try to rest,” Laurie told him. “It’ll be a couple of hours before anyone reaches us. Dana says the roads are almost impassable, but she’ll find a way to get someone out here.”
He let his eyes linger on Laurie’s face, let them study the beauty he’d always seen there. A thousand stray thoughts came to mind, all of them stemming from the tension that had grown between them recently, so insignificant now in this moment of deliverance. He would never let her down again, he decided.
“Hey,” he whispered, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Just rest, Harry. Think tomorrow, okay?”
“No, just hear me out. Just for a minute.”
She relented and he pressed on.
“I mean, we just blew up our house.”
“I realize that.”
“But I’ve been thinking . . . when we start rebuilding, we should probably scale down a bit. We really don’t need such a big house.”
She frowned. “Look, don’t worry about that right now. Let’s just worry about getting you and John to the hospital.”
“A bigger deck out back, though, that’d be nice.”
“Harry—”
“But you know, whatever we end up doing, I just want to make sure we have enough room for an extra room. Upstairs, right next to ours, you know? Like a nursery or something.”
Laurie froze, her eyes taking in every detail of his expression. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
“I think I am.”
“But why?” she asked. “Why now?”
From the corner, John was watching him in silence, a tiny smile rising on his lips.
“It’s something John said to me before, about the importance of family, the strength of your heritage. I think I’ve been a little blind to that. I guess sometimes I can get so caught up in what’s going on from day to day that I forget what really matters. Or what’s really important, when you get right down to it.” He leaned back, looked into her face. “So, does that about cover it?”
She broke into a wide grin, her eyes brimming with tears. Finally, unable to hold back, she threw her arms around him, pulling him close. “I love you,” she whispered, the tears falling freely now.
“I love you back,” he told her. He closed his arms around her, laid his head on her shoulder as exhaustion began to steal over him once again. He let his thoughts drift towards their future together, towards the notion of fatherhood and all the added responsibility it would inevitably bring.
Most of all, he thought about what they’d been through in the past few days, of how close he’d come to losing everything that had ever mattered to him. They’d managed to pull through it somehow, to pool their strengths and fight for survival.
But another thought nagged at him, one he hadn’t shared with Laurie, and one he knew John would understand completely. He had a new responsibility now, the same one that Jha-Laman and Mahuk had held. As the man whose body had served as the vessel for the powers that had defeated the demon of the wind, now his own bloodline was a part of the equation.
Now his own children and his children’s children would have to maintain the same beliefs that John had himself tried to deny but had ultimately come to embrace. Harry would have to learn the old legends, and find the strength to believe them. And he would have to instill them in his children as well.
Laurie was watching him closely, and must have read his expression. “What’s the matter?”
He looked back at her, knowing he couldn’t tell her exactly what he was thinking. Not yet anyway. He could tell her in time, and knew he would, but for now . . . for now she already had enough to worry about.
“The wind . . .” he said at last.
“What about it?”
“Listen to it. It’s died down out there.”
And it had. The house no longer shook under the assault of the storm, the howl of the wind all but gone from the windows and doorways.
He managed a weak smile. “Better late than never.”
He closed his eyes and slept.
About the Author
Brad J. Boucher lives on New Hampshire’s Seacoast with his two daughters in a house in which every day feels a bit like Halloween. His novels of horror and suspense—all coming soon in paperback editions—include The Shoals, Diviner, Vessels, Curnow’s Crossing and Primal Fear. He is also the author of three collections of short horror stories: The Dead Hours, Readings from the Book of Pain and In the House of Sin. He can be found on Facebook at Brad J. Boucher – A Writer’s Madhouse, where he hosts daily genre trivia and posts—from time to time—free fiction.
Recent studies by high-ranking members of an elite team of fact and statistic gathering scientists at a famous university conclude that only 1 person out of 10 will take the time to read information written in a font smaller than the print on the rest of the page. That translates, of course, to only ten percent of the readers who have purchase, borrowed or stolen this book. Nine out of ten of them will close the book after the final page of the story, place it on their bookshelf, and never open it again. If you, however, are one of that small percentage of people who read beyond the story itself, stand proud, and hold your head up high. Because that means the words you are reading right now, at this very moment, are words that ninety percent of readers missed out on. In a way, it’s sort of like winning a very small lottery, or being struck by a very cozy and polite bolt of lightning. Think about that. While those other readers are moving on to whatever it was that drew their attention away from this book, whatever thing they have going on that makes them too busy to read this final page, you, the dedicated reader, get these words almost completely to yourself. It’s almost like they’re here just for you, as if I’ve written them exclusively for you to absorb and enjoy. And so, as a reward for your tenacity and your loyalty, and your obvious love for the written word (as if all these bonus words aren’t enough), I will hereby—space permitting, of course—reveal the deepest secrets of the universe, and of life itself. So here goes. Are you ready? Good. I am too. The truth of the secret of the universe, as I see it, is this: the reason you are here and I am here and everybody else is here on this beautiful blue planet of ours, spinning through the ever-expanding cosmos into the distant, unknown future, is quite simply that
each one of us is meant to—oh, I’ve managed to run out of space. Crap.
He is currently at work on his next novel and a new collection of short fiction.
(The author would love to hear from you. He will welcome your feedback, comments, questions, suggestions, reviews—negative or positive—and queries with open arms. And yes, it’s true, he’ll actually respond to them. He urges you to visit his website at www.bradjboucher.com, and he is looking forward to reading e-mails sent to him at bradjboucher@gmail.com. Thank you.)