Free Primal Fear by Brad Boucher Page B

his duffel bag and cast a final glance around his apartment, hoping he’d remembered everything. 
    He thought about calling Dr. Morris again, but how could he explain why he had to leave so suddenly?  In the end, he understood that Morris would never believe him, not completely.  Hell, he’d barely come to terms with it himself.
    Could he even really call it belief, if it was founded on the dreams he’d had the night before, dreams he was convinced had been somehow planted in his thoughts by Mahuk?  He wished he could be certain that the dreams had really been revelations, confirmations of the facts Mahuk had told him the day before.  Because if he was wrong, and this leap of faith he was taking turned out to be a wild-goose chase . . .
    Well, then so be it. 
    He would slink back to the university with his tail between his legs, looking like a fool.  But the chance to find out the truth about the old legends, to know for sure whether they were real or not . . . that was something John could not afford to pass up.
    He hadn’t told Morris all of the things the old man had said in their second conversation, despite his promise to share everything he learned.  Holding back hadn’t been an intentional attempt at deception, but rather a cautious decision to protect Morris from danger.  Because if the legend did come to pass, if the prophetic sequence of events that the old man had shared with him had truly occurred, then the less people involved, the better. 
    And of course there was still a nagging doubt—even now—after all he’d seen and felt, both at Mahuk’s bedside and in the dreams he’d had.  It was the same stubborn skepticism that had made him question the beliefs of his people for so many years at college.  He supposed it would always be a part of him, a part of his nature.  He’d always wanted to believe in himself and his modern knowledge, to deny the possibility that his father had been right all along.
    But it had all come back to him with the arrival of the old man at the hospital.  All of the guilt, all of the uncertainty.  Worst of all, all of the same questions that had first arisen to challenge his own faith.
    In the cold sterility of the hospital room, John had listened intently to a story that hadn’t been told in generations, a tale only an Eskimo shaman could know.  His own studies had never revealed the second legend to him, making only vague references to its existence, and he’d never placed any credence in it.  But now, after hearing the old man whisper fearfully of those same beliefs, John understood he could no longer sit idly by and let his own faith slip away to die forever.
    It hadn’t only been the words themselves, though.
    It had been later, when Dr. Morris had convinced him to talk to the old man again, that he’d truly begun to see the importance of their meeting.  And it was only then that he’d begun to feel the cold bite of fear come to life in his belly.
    What he’d seen and felt in the visions he’d suffered at Mahuk’s bedside still echoed vividly in his thoughts.  But who could say whether any or all of it could truly be considered prophetic? 
    Either way, whether he could believe in what he’d seen or not, those images had served a vital purpose for him.  He’d used their strength to push him through his final lingering doubts.
    He’d called the airport immediately, placing his trust in the shaman’s words, booking a seat on the next flight out to New Hampshire.  The closest they could get him was Logan Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, just thirty miles south of the New Hampshire border.  Unwilling to risk a longer delay, John had agreed and bought the ticket.
    It was the only way to know for sure, to satisfy the sudden need to complete the shaman’s quest.  A part of him knew he would also be doing it for his father, to somehow repair the rift he’d created in their relationship so many years before.  They’d never been able to come