Primal Fear by Brad Boucher

to terms before his father had died, but an effort now—particularly one of such importance—would at least alleviate some of John’s guilt over how he’d let things go so far between them.
    He wondered if that was the meaning behind the vision of his father’s face, the one he’d had under Mahuk’s influence.  Had it only been his own subconscious, breaking through the barriers of the hold that the P’oh Tarhei had had over him?  Or was there more to it than that, some connection he couldn’t quite put together yet?
    There were so many questions, so much left to ponder.  And for each piece of the puzzle that was revealed to him, he felt three more going unanswered.
    Now, slinging his bag over his shoulder, John thought he could sense the dark power of the artifact, packed safely away in one of the bag’s many zippered pockets.  And though he tried to convince himself it was only a bad case of nerves, the sense of dread he’d felt ever since going over the old man’s story wouldn’t go away.  It gnawed at him like a rabid animal, tearing at his thoughts, chipping away at his confidence.
    But what Mahuk had told him about the P’oh Tarhei rose again in his thoughts, and he kept it in mind as he locked his apartment door behind him and set out for the airport.
    “ The thing that is most evil is also the most protection against it .”
    He considered the words, hunching his shoulders against the frigid winter air.  Surely the shaman wouldn’t have implied the necessity of bringing the artifact along on his journey if it could not serve some practical purpose.  But what if including it in his luggage proved to only make a potentially dangerous situation even more deadly?
    He stopped himself, shaking his head.
    It would be easier if he could treat the expedition as just another field study.  A search for facts.  An examination of cultural artifacts and their place in the beliefs of his people.  If he could look at the situation in those terms, then he felt sure he could see this thing through.
    Despite the clinical approach, however, he still couldn’t dispel the sense of foreboding that hung over him like a shroud.  Whether he believed in what the shaman had said or not scarcely mattered. 
    Because truth was immune to belief. 
    And belief was not immune to danger.
     
     

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Six
     
    The closing of the Stratham Granite Quarry two years earlier had devastated the town of Glen Forest.  Its population of 2700—over half of which had been dependent on the quarry in one way or another as a means of employment—had found themselves in the grip of a regional recession that rendered their township virtually powerless to overcome.
    Those residents industrious and financially secure enough to invest in a small business operation of their own managed to thrive for a short while in the wake of the closing, but soon they too began to feel the bite of economic collapse.  Their newly opened hair salons and diners soon suffered a loss in clientele as even their most faithful customers were forced to tighten their belts.  Only the town’s outdated video store enjoyed a semblance of success, providing the only media of entertainment still readily affordable to a steady flow of customers.  This alone could be seen as a tell-tale sign that the town’s people, for many years quite active as a community, were being forced into an attitude of disassociation with one another, forsaking social gatherings to remain in the relative security of their own homes.
    Even the normally profitable owners of Glen Forest’s single grocery store were not beyond feeling the present financial crunch, having to cut both their inventory and their employees by a third as more and more of their loyal customers learned to stretch their food dollars more effectively.
    Dozens of families, many of which had called Glen Forest their home for generations, were forced to pull up their roots and search for greener