Drop Zone

He ran in the darkness, diving into a body of water as it reached for him, holding his breath beneath the surface to get away. Sharp things pulled and tore at his body. Out of breath, he surfaced, but it stalked him still. Faster, he must swim faster. But the water dropped away and he saw them: faces and hands, fingers and claws. A scream caught in his throat as he was pulled under. His lungs constricted, filling with ... oh God, blood ... he was dying. "Oh shit, oh no, not again." Jason Johnson awoke with a start. Wrenching himself into consciousness, he opened his eyes and tried to shake off the effects of the dream. Would it always be this way? Was he going insane? Jason rubbed his head with both hands to wake up. He was okay. At home in his own bed. With a groan, he pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for his clock. It read 0600, Wednesday, January 4, 1995. Slowly his breathing eased. It was only a nightmare. Jason rolled out of bed and shuffled into the apartment's bathroom. He looked at the thermometer outside the bathroom window: sixty-five degrees, cold for Florida. The window overlooked the ocean where he could see the surf, which rolled in on gentle swells. Good. It will help. Any help would be welcomed today. Turning the shower on full blast and stepping under the spray, Jason remained motionless until the water warmed, then stretched and lathered up his six-foot body. Endless training kept his weight at 205 pounds with 5 percent body fat. Master Sergeant Johnson, thirty-five years old, was a fifteen-year Special Forces Pararescue Specialist stationed at Patrick Air Force Base on the Space Coast of Florida. Today he would lead his Blue team in a dog-and-pony show for some jerk-off bigwigs. Years of hard work had honed him into a valued military asset. His own reward for the last ten years of never-ending missions while stationed in the Orient was an assignment to the NASA Rescue Team. If the space shuttle astronauts had to bail out of their spaceship over the Atlantic Ocean, Jason and his pararescuemen were in place ready to rescue them, circling above in Lockheed HC-130 rescue airplanes and HH- 60G Blackhawk helicopters. The Air Force Pararescue teams were the backbone of Mode Eight Emergencies. PJs, as Pararescue Specialists are called, would reach the astronauts by skydiving to the ocean out of the C-130's, along with their air-dropped Zodiacs. Once they had their black rubber boats under way, the PJs would do whatever it took to keep an astronaut alive. Jason and his team were highly trained medical technicians who willingly went into any environment to save lives. They also were trained to take lives, if necessary. Today had nothing to do with wet astronauts, though. Jason eased the showerhead lower and slid down until the water stream was hitting him directly between the shoulder blades. Is it better to run, or stay and fight, and what's with the dead bodies? What? This was not the first time he had had the dream. In fact, this was the third time the dream had drenched him in a cold sweat and awakened him with an abrupt scream. The first time was in July 1990. A massive earthquake struck the mountain city of Baguio in the Philippines. Over one thousand people had been killed in the disaster. Hundreds more had been trapped under the rubble. He helicoptered in with the only rescue team available in the country. For three weeks he and his team crawled inside crushed buildings, pulling out casualties and only a few survivors. There was so much death and so little time that he ate lunch and dinner among the dead. The nightmare struck on his last night in Baguio. Its second appearance came during the winter of 1991, just after Desert Storm. He was in Iraq with thousands of Kurd refugees on another survival team, in a fight against dysentery and disease. The KurdishSalazar, Michael is the author of 'Drop Zone' with ISBN 9780553581331 and ISBN 0553581333.