Primal Fear

Primal

Fear

Also Available

By Brad J. Boucher

The Shoals

Diviner

11:11

Vessels

Curnow’s Crossing

Coming Soon

The Dead Hours

Readings from the Book of Pain

In the House of Sin

Primal Fear

Brad J. Boucher

Primal Fear

Brad J. Boucher

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First published as an eBook, August, 2013.

This new revised edition Copyright © 2015 Brad J. Boucher.

All Rights Reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the Author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or by the Author.

ISBN-13
:
 
978-1517208325

ISBN-10: 1517208327

Cover Layout and Design by Alyssa Boucher

Copyright © Brad J. Boucher.  All Rights Reserved.

(Have questions for the author?  Are you one of those people who enjoys offering feedback about something you loved or hated about the book?  Then step right up to your favorite computer or communications device and feel free to contact the author at
[email protected]
.  He’ll be happy to hear from you and, yes, he will reply.  You can also visit his website,
www.bradjboucher.com
and you can find him on Facebook at
Brad J. Boucher – A Writer’s Madhouse
, where he hosts daily genre trivia and often shares free fiction.  Thank you.)

They say you can’t become a successful writer

without doing a hell of a lot of reading, and I think that’s true.

And so this one is dedicated, with respect, gratitude

(and sometimes just open-jawed, wide-eyed awe),

to the writers who have

entertained, amazed, inspired, and influenced me throughout the years.

Ray Bradbury             Edgar Allan Poe

Stephen King             Joe R. Lansdale

Robert McCammon  Elmore Leonard

Jerzy Kosinski          Chuck Palahniuk

Brian Garfield            Arthur C. Clarke

Tom Franklin        George V. Higgins

Dennis Lehane           Peter Benchley

Clive Barker        William Peter Blatty 

And, of course, the man to whom

every writer of horror and suspense

owes a giant debt,

Graham Masterton.

Author’s Note

Part One: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to

Primal Fear

I would like, if I may, to bend your ear with a few words about choosing a title: it’s a process that can be as easy as falling off a chair (or a ladder, if you’re into that sort of thing), or as difficult as doing your taxes at the bottom of a swimming pool (don’t ask).  The right title can come along at the beginning of a new project and just demand to be used; it can inspire the work, bolster the plot, and even push the story in directions that might have remained unexplored had another title been chosen.

Sometimes a title can change halfway through, and sometimes (though I’ve only personally done it this way twice) the right one doesn’t come along until after the book or story has been completed.  That’s what is known as the dreaded “untitled” project, and to tell you the truth, it never feels real the entire time you’re working on it.

Think about it: a person asks you what you’re working on.  You tell them it’s a new book and you describe the plot in a few carefully crafted sentences, designed to set the hook and get them excited.  Then they ask the question, the one you hoped they wouldn’t ask, but knew they would:

“What’s it called?”

You answer with the truth, because if you could have thought of a good title, you certainly would have done so by this point.  “It’s untitled right now.”

“It’s
what
?”

“Untitled.”

Their eyes start to glaze over.  “What’s that mean?”

“It means untitled.  As in, there’s no title yet.”

Boredom is setting in.  “You mean you couldn’t
think
of one.”

“No, no, that’s not it at all.  It just means I haven’t chosen the right

one yet.”

But by this point, it’s too late.  It’s over.  Because any interest they may have had in your book or story or screenplay or recipe is gone.  Completely.  You might as well be talking about the proper scientific procedures for measuring the wear and tear on the bristles of a toothbrush.  Your project no longer exists in this person’s eyes, because without a title, it is a
non
-thing.  And that’s not meant to be insulting to the person who asked the question in the first place; it’s a sad fact of life.  Nobody likes something that doesn’t have a title.  Hell, I know I don’t. 

When Quentin Tarantino announces that filming has begun on his new UNTITLED feature, I have to fight off a yawn, and my reaction is usually a feeling of: huh, well, tell me again when you know what you’re going to call it.  But a few weeks later, when Tarantino says, yeah, it’s going to be called
Kill Bill
. . . well, then my reaction changes to: awesome, I’m there, when does it come out?

And the only thing I dislike more than hearing that someone else’s project is untitled, is working on a project of my own that is (yeah, you guessed it) untitled.  It’s like having a baby and not choosing a name until the kid reaches high school.  Or cruising out of Hampton Harbor for a day of fishing in a charter boat that’s never been named.  Or sitting down at Las Olas with a freshly crafted burrito and scarfing it down without ever knowing its name.  (What?  Am I the only one who names my Las Olas burritos?  Come on, people, they’re works of art.)

So, to get to the point, the book you’re about to read (if I ever shut the hell up) had to have a title when I started it, or it wouldn’t have moved much further than the prologue.  And, because I’ve always loved the title of Tom Clancy’s on-the-brink-of-World-War-Three novel,
Red Storm Rising
, I decided to twist it to my horror-genre needs and named my project
Dark Winds Rising
.  At the time, I thought it was cool and thought it worked pretty well, and . . . well, to be honest, I thought it was “good enough”.  So that’s how I lived with the book while I was writing it, and that’s what I called the screenplay version when I wrote
that
later on, but truthfully, deep inside, I never really loved the title.

It never really made me want to hug it or take it out for a long romantic walk on the beach, and after a while, it started to sound stupid to me.  Even worse, it started to sound
purple
.  Know what I mean?  And

not only purple, but purple
velvet
.  I started to picture the book cover. 

The words
Dark Winds Rising
would be printed in lavender velvet, with yellow flowers around it.  An ancient sailing ship would be fighting a stormy sea, waves crashing over its bow, dark clouds pushing down from the skies.  And at the helm of this ship, a shirtless Fabio-ish model would be clutching the wheel, his golden locks blowing in the wind, his steely gaze centered on that nameless, distant spot it always seems to be centered on.  Beside him, a buxom woman in a tattered white, puffy blouse would be clinging to his arm, helpless, hopeless, her character dreadfully underdeveloped . . .

So you see my dilemma.  In my eyes, it began to feel like the title of a romance novel.  I kept writing.  I had to.  But I promised myself that if any of the familiar tropes of the romance novel started to pop up, if the title started to steer the book into areas of handsome farmhands or identical twins of different races born of two different mothers . . . well, then I would abandon the project completely.

And then something occurred to me, and another possible title popped up.  The book has a running theme—which wasn’t apparent to me at first—of an ancient family bloodline and the responsibilities of being a part of that bloodline.  So I deleted the title
Dark Winds Rising
(goodbye Fabio-ish dude) and typed in the title
Bloodlines
, and told myself I was very happy with the change.  And the
book
liked it too.  It was happier.  It started getting easier to write.  And that underlying theme of the family bloodline?  The fact that the book was
named
after it actually helped me focus on it and develop it.  The title was doing its job and helping to shape and improve the book. 
This
was the title I’d been looking for. 
This
was the perfect name for the story I wanted to tell. 
This
was the title that I wanted to take out to dinner, and maybe even a movie later, as I long as I could keep it cheap and maybe not see it in 3-D.

I was in love.

But I was a fool.  Whisper it with me, please, for emphasis: a
fool
.

Because when I finished the book, and when I was finally happy with it, the title started to cheat on me.  It started popping up on the covers of books by other guys.  It started to say subtle things about a short story I was working on and how it might be better off with
that
.  And then I found out it had been the title of a
really
bad slasher movie from 2007, and to me, that was the last straw.  I decided to kick
Bloodlines

to the curb.  Throw all its clothes and knick-knacks out onto the front

lawn and move on.

So I had a book I really liked, a
completed
manuscript that now only had one name that I could apply to it: UNTITLED.

What could I do?  It felt like going to a high school reunion with just a picture of your cats in your wallet.  How was I supposed to tell people about my new project, and generate excitement?  “Hey, everybody!  Come over here!  Jump up and down and yank out your credit card and run out and please please please buy my new book,
UNTITLED
!!!!”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.

And then, a funny thing happened: to my immense surprise, I was asked to speak about my books at the Lane Memorial Library in Hampton.  I felt honored and humbled and nervous and frightened, and extremely,
extremely
lucky, and then it occurred to me: not only could I speak about my previous books, I could also promote the new one.  And since it was UNTITLED, I could do something about it at the author’s talk.  And so I decided to have a contest to NAME MY NEXT BOOK!  My daughter Alyssa designed and printed up flyers; Darrell Eifert, Head of Public Services at the Lane Library, was kind enough to post a blog about it on the library website.

And the entries started coming in.  So many that I would never have to struggle for a title again in my life, no matter how many more books I might be blessed and lucky enough to write.  But when the deadline came, I realized I had another problem: I had to choose one.  I had to sit down and weigh every entry against the plot and figure out which fit best.  Which would look best on the book cover?  Which did I want to say 90,000 times as I talked the book up with everyone I met to try to get them interested in it?  And most of all, which one could I live happily ever-after with?

The answer (and winning title) came from Dick Brochu, a Hampton resident and new fan:
Primal Fear
.  It jumped out at me the first time I saw it, but still I dropped it into the file with all the other entries.  I wanted to forget about it, to be fair and unbiased, and to consider each new entry without comparing it to that one.  But it nagged at me.  It spoke to me.  And that, friends and readers (and I hope those two things are really one and the same) is what a good title does.

So, to drag a long story out to excruciating length, that became the title of the book that you’re (still) waiting to read.

Primal Fear
.

Beautiful.

(Yeah, I know there’s a movie called
Primal Fear
, but at least it’s a
good
movie, so I’m not bothered at all about it.)

For his troubles, participation, and winning entry, Dick received a gift card to Las Olas (what did you name
your
burrito, Dick?  Seriously, am I really the
only
one who does that?), my eternal gratitude, the focus of this special (and seemingly endless) Author’s Note, and—this is my favorite prize—I have named a character in the book after him.  And, because his wife Mary was kind enough to be the first non-family member in my entire writing career to
ever
ask me for my autograph . . . well, maybe there might be a little surprise somewhere in the book for her as well.  You never know.

Thank you to everyone who is taking the time to read this book.  Thank you to everyone who entered the contest and submitted a title.  Thank you to Darrell Eifert and the Lane Memorial Library staff for allowing me to speak in the Lane room and stage the contest in the first place (your support is more appreciated than you’ll ever know).

And thank you, Dick Brochu, for saving me from the scariest monster that any writer will ever have to face: the dreaded UNTITLED project.

On with the show.  Oh.  But wait . . .

Part Two: A Note About Proper Pronunciation

I know, I know.

Seriously?  This guy is
still
talking?  Where’s the damn book already?

(And you’re right, don’t worry.  I know you are.  But as I’ve said before, in previous, over-long Author’s Notes, look at it this way: all these words are
bonus
words.  When you buy one of my books, you get all these freebies.  These are like the Behind the Scenes extras on your favorite DVDs.  And, come on, how many of your other favorite writers

take care of you this way, really?  So sit back and relax and enjoy this

drivel.  Maybe someday I’ll even find a way to include out-takes or gag reels in my future books . . .)

The book is coming, don’t worry, it really is.  And so is Christmas.  (And wouldn’t it be funny if you were actually reading this right before Christmas?  That’d be wild.)

Okay, so here it is.  Not really an Author’s Note at all, but a sort of pronunciation key for you.  See, there are a ton of Eskimo Indian phrases and words in this book, the majority of which are made up and meaningless.  Those are the ones you can just fly over and don’t need to pay any attention to.  But a few of them are important, the ones you’ll be seeing over and over again and will need to pay attention to.  You’ll need to know how to say them properly, if for no other reason than to make the book move along a bit more smoothly for you, without the roadblock of having to stumble over these strange, unwieldy words.  Like that one.  Unwieldy.  Can’t believe I just used it, but it sure does describe what it means, doesn’t it?

Here are the important ones and how to say them (the italicized portion of each word is the syllable that should be stressed):

Tupilaq:  (
Too
-Pill-Ack)

Wyh-heah Qui-Waq:  (Y-
Hee
-Ah Key-
Wah
)

P’oh Tarhei:  (Po Tar-
Hey
)

Mahuk:  (Mah-
Hook
)

Jhe-rhatta:  (Jey Rah-
Tah
)