by Tracey Ward
I rub his hand between both of mine and lean in close, so close our noses are almost touching and my hair falls around us. I expect him to stare blankly into the sky, but I gasp when his eyes latch onto mine. I’m stunned by how bright they are. How brilliantly green. How utterly alive.
I whisper one word to him, the only thing I can think to say.
“Breathe.”
He vanishes.
My coat is lying on wet stones, my hand holding cold air.
My heart stops beating. My breath freezes in my lungs. I clench my hands tightly, feeling them tingle and itch where my skin met his. He was real. I held his hand. I’m awake. I know that I’m awake. There’s no way that was a dream.
“What the hell?” I whisper, my voice quivering violently with cold and shock.
But part of me isn’t surprised. Not nearly as much as it should be. Part of me has been waiting for this moment for years.
This is insanity taking hold. This is me finally breaking from reality.
I’m losing my mind, though it never fully felt like mine to begin with.
Trembling with a growing fear, I grab my jacket to pull it on. I can’t get my hands to work right. The zipper feels painfully cold between my fingertips and I abandon any hope of closing it. Standing quickly, I run back across the rocks and up the bank to my sister’s car. By the time I get there I’m nearly hyperventilating. I’m barely breathing and my vision is fading around the edges.
Cara is standing in a halo of streetlight with her friends, clouds of warm breath rising around them in the frigid air. They look surreal in the haze. Unfocused and undefined. Less real than the half-naked boy dying by the riverside. The sight terrifies me. It leaves me disoriented, unsure if I’m waking or dreaming.
My anxiety must be written on my face because the second Cara sees me rushes over.
“What’s wrong? Were you sick?” she asks, touching my arm. She frowns, pulling her hand back. “Your coat is wet.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you throw up on your coat?” she asks, her face disgusted.
The image of the boy vomiting river water races across my eyes.
“Yeah,” I mumble.
“Gross.”
“Yeah.”
“I think you’re done for the night.”
“Me too,” I agree eagerly. I nod, but it’s more of a convulsion. I practically run for the car.
Cara says a hasty goodbye to her friends who laugh in understanding. Once inside, she cranks the heat and eyes me warily, watching me shake. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I just want to go to sleep.”
Cara tries to act casual but she’s on edge. On alert. Her movements are jerky and her eyes are on me, scanning me carefully.
I hate to sleep. She knows that. Sleeping brings on Slipping, and nothing scares me more than that.
Not until now.
“What’s that smell?” she asks suddenly.
“My dinner’s second coming.”
“No, you smell like a swimming pool.” She scrunches up her nose against the smell. “Like chlorine.”
This night is getting weirder by the second.
I vow to never drink again.
Chapter Two
Nick
It is my duty as a Pararescueman
to save life and to aid the injured.
I will be prepared at all times to perform
my assigned duties quickly and efficiently,
placing these duties before personal desires
and comforts.
These things I do, that others may live.
-United States Air Force Pararescueman Creed
It’s called Superman School for a reason. Some people call it the Pipeline or PJ Training. Some people think of it as Hell.
No matter what you call it, it’s hard. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve only just now gotten my foot in the door. I prepped for it before I even enlisted in the Air Force, and it’s still killing me. Basic Training was a cake walk compared to this. A vacation.
I went into it with my eyes wide open, though. I know what this job is. I watched my dad do it for eleven years before it killed him. He went in behind enemy lines to help an injured pilot. The pilot came out. My dad didn’t.
These things I do, that others may live.
This program takes seventeen months on top of eight weeks of Air Force Basic Training. I started prepping for it my freshman year of high school. To me, my grades were all about this. About getting accepted into this program. I passed on having a car and worked an after school job solely to pay for diving lessons. I skipped parties and girlfriends. Swim team and track; that was all prep work. My letterman jacket doesn’t mean anything compared to this. Compared to that maroon beret.
Texas is the first stop on a long list of checkpoints. Florida, Georgia, Washington, Arizona, and New Mexico, all to attend a series of prep schools. Then it’s forty-two weeks of special ops combat medic training and a course specifically on Pararescue recovery, at the end of which I will be a certified EMT and an unofficial bad ass. Every destination is a new test of how far I can push myself. A chance to find out how far I’m willing to go.
As far as it takes, that’s my answer.
Every time.
The Indoctrination course is long and brutal. Wash out rate is high. Higher than the Army Rangers, the Green Berets, or the Navy Seals. This is where they thin the herd. Only after finishing this first course can a man even be considered eligible for the rest of training. Eighty three of us were here on the first day. We’re in the last week and thirty-six have been sent packing. Been found wanting.
Every day the runs and swims get longer, the mental abuse more intense, and guys who could handle the pain can’t handle the pressure. This isn’t just about being physically fit. Not by a long shot. It’s the trainer’s job to find your weakness and break you down, because if you can’t handle it here, you’ll never handle it out there under fire with lives on the line. You’ll get yourself or someone else killed. You’ve gotta stay strong. Stay alert. Stay alive.
I’ve managed two out of three.
“You look alright for a dead man.”
I groan as Walters, another trainee, sits down next to me. “I wasn’t dead.”
“Yes, you were,” Campbell corrects from across the table, his head down over his plate.
I’m surprised he’s eating. He vomited in the pool from exhaustion. I wouldn’t be able to look food in the eye for a while. Then again, you’re required to eat every meal presented to you here, and I realize that this is just another endurance trial for him.
“What happened, man?” Walters asks me as he digs into his dinner. “Why’d you try and drink the pool?”
I shake my head silently, choosing not to answer. Choosing not to think about it.
Today is Black Thursday, the most feared day of Indoc. You’re in the water for hours in full combat dress, a weight belt, and a buoyancy vest. Earlier today I was trading a snorkel back and forth doing buddy breathing with another trainee, both of us just waiting for the harassment to start. Trainers try to steal your snorkel, separate you from your buddy, and hold you under without air. They want you to keep from panicking when the real thing goes down, something that shouldn’t have been a problem for me.
I can’t feel fear.
It’s not something I talk about. It’s something that no one here knows, partially because I don’t owe anyone anything but also because they’d call bull the second they heard it. It’s a rare condition, one some doctors don’t even believe in. Those who do believe in it call it Wiethe Disease. They say it’s a hardening of the tissue in the brain. Everyone has an amygdala that’s supposed to process emotional memories and fear, and it looks like mine is broken beyond repair. Some doctors warned that it could make me a monster. An unfeeling sociopath.
Some days I’m inclined to think they might be right.
What gets me through is the nightmare. I�
�ve had it since I was about five. It’s always the same. Scares the hell out of me every time. Even now. It’s the only time I ever know fear. I told a psychiatrist about it when I was a kid. I explained waking up in a cold sweat and hot tears, trembling with fear every time.
Weird thing is, it made him happy to hear.
Fear or no fear, I blacked out in that Pipeline pool today. If you want to get technical about it, I drowned. They had to drag me out of the water and resuscitate me, something I’m told wasn’t easy. Luckily I made it through without any damage other than to my ego. I passed a med eval, and as soon as they’d let me I was back in that water. I was back to business. If I wash out now I have to wait a year to start all over, and you only get two tries at the Pipeline.
My dad did it in two. I’m doing it in one.
“Come on, man,” Walters complains. “Give it up. Was your buddy hoggin’ the snorkel?”
“No, it was all me,” I reply irritably. “Can we drop it? It’s not a big deal.”
“Fine. But just so you know, the rest of us appreciate it.”
“Appreciate what exactly?”
He casts me a dopey, satisfied grin that fills his broad face. “The Golden Boy made a mistake. We’re all thrilled.”
“Thanks for that.”
“Your perfection was a little unnerving,” Campbell explains carelessly. “We’re happy you’re a human, not that you died.”
“I didn’t die,” I protest again.
“Your heart stopped. You were gone.”
“Well, now I’m back.”
“You’re like a zombie,” Walters whispers theatrically.
Something about the word ‘zombie’ stops me cold. I stare at my food, waiting for my brain to tell me why.
It never does.
“I don’t want to have to have this conversation with you again,” Campbell warns Walters severely.
“What conversation?”
“The one where I have to explain that just because someone rises from the dead, it doesn’t make them a zombie.”
“What else would it make them?”
“Only about a million things.”
I glare at Campbell. “I thought you said we weren’t talking about this again.”
“I’m trying not to!”
“You’re not trying very hard.”
“What million things could it make them?” Walters demands.
“Seriously, dude,” I moan unhappily.
“What?”
“A vampire, for one,” Campbell quips, getting wound up. “Or a resurrected, superior version of themselves.”
I point at Campbell, giving Walters a severe look. “This rant is on you, asshole.”
“How is this my fault?”
“Think Jean Grey turned Phoenix of the X-Men or Gandalf the Grey turned Gandalf the White in Lord of the Rings,” Campbell continues. “It’s interesting, isn’t it, that they both started out as Grey and then rose to greater power after their deaths, changing their names and casting aside the weakness or ordinary qualities implied by the word ‘grey’ to reflect their new identities.”
“Last warning!” someone calls from the doorway. “Finish up! Hit the sack!”
I leap away from the table and the topic, heading straight for bed, muttering, “Thank Christ.”
Walters is an idiot. Not a real idiot who can’t manage two plus two, even with a calculator. No one who gets anywhere near The Pipeline is a true idiot. More like the socially inept kind of idiot. He’s oblivious to social cues. He’s also oblivious to the fact that he’s oblivious which is why I think he’s an idiot. By now, at this age, you should know your short comings and adjust to them. Like knowing you don’t feel fear but your body still has limits, and not letting yourself drown.
I am also an idiot.
I’m friends with Walters because he won’t go away. That’s honestly the reason. He won’t pick up on the cues I’m putting down. I’m not enough of a jerk to pointblank tell him to get lost so it looks like he’s here to stay. There are worse people I could be stuck with. That’s what I tell myself.
Then there’s Campbell. He’s off the charts genius smart. I’m not too shabby myself. I’m pretty intelligent. I made great grades in school. Graduated with a 4.0. I’m solid. But talking to Campbell can make me feel like a drunken monkey. The guy is annoyingly smart. Knows everything about everything because he reads constantly and remembers every word. I want to punch him, but I like him too much. He’s a colossal nerd and he’s not even sorry. Read every comic and graphic novel known to man. He’s made me a nerd by association because I actually listen to his ramblings about super heroes, villains, and Death Stars. I absorb all of it and I’m worried I know too much. Will his ramblings become mine? Will I develop unstoppable opinions about stupid shit? I’m scared I’ll never know the touch of a woman again.
∞
I open my eyes, surprised to find them closed. I don’t remember going to sleep.
And I definitely don’t remember leaving base.
Every morning for weeks I’ve woken up in a stuffy room crowded with bunks and Airmen. Now, however, I’m sitting at the end of a long, narrow dock with my feet hanging over a mirror calm lake, a place I absolutely should not be. In front of me are a series of low rolling hills lit by the glow of a setting sun. A sun that already set in Texas an hour ago.
“What is it with you and water?”
I turn, going on the defensive. I squint into a harsh light shining directly at me like a second sun. Against the brilliance I find the dark silhouette of a girl strolling slowly toward me. She’s tall, probably only a few inches under my six feet, and built to perfection. I see curves in places I’ve missed during the last couple of months surrounded by only men. As she takes on more definition I catch long auburn hair that glistens red in the light. Mysteriously dark in the shadows.
I know that hair. Even before she’s close enough for me to see her face, I know who she is.
It all comes crashing back to me in an instant, everything I tried to forget. The lazy black river, the desire to let it take me away. The warm hand holding me back. Her warm hand.
“It’s you,” I bark accusingly.
“You recognize me?” She sounds surprised.
“You were on the river. You brought me back.”
“I don’t know if that’s true. Can I sit?”
I study her for a moment longer, patting her down in a glance. She’s unarmed.
I nod stiffly as I slowly sit back down. The girl takes another step toward me, and as she does the light behind her goes out. The world is strangely warmer without it.
Pausing mid-crouch, she follows my eyes to where it had been. Nothing but hills now.
“Don’t worry about it.” she tells me flippantly as she sits. “Rule one of dreaming: don’t try to make sense of anything. Nobody has that kind of time.”
“Is that what this is? This is a dream?”
“Yep,” she confirms with a sharp bob of her head.
“When I saw you before, when you—"
“I didn’t save you.”
I pause, frowning. “I wasn’t going to say you did. I was going to ask, when you took my hand, was that a dream too?”
“To be honest with you,” she answers slowly, softly, “I don’t know what that was.”
I consider her closely. I consider my situation. What I went through today. How long was I without oxygen? Am I so sure no damage was done?
Right now, I’m not sure of anything.
“You’re a hallucination.”
She scowls at me, clearly offended. “No. I’m as real as you are.”
“This doesn’t feel very real.”
“That’s because it’s not.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Do you remember rule one?”
“Do you remember how you found me?”
She shivers lightly, her face falling to shadow where there’s nothing but light. “I’ll never forget. I�
��ve never been through something like tonight or last night before.” She shrugs nonchalantly, her face lightening. Brightening as she stows the dark thoughts that swirled behind her eyes. “Plus, I was drunk.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I don’t respond. I simply stare at her. I must be frowning again because it’s not long before she frowns back.
“Don’t judge,” she scolds. “It was my birthday. You naked crashed my birthday.”
“I wasn’t naked.”
Was I?
I don’t remember enough of the dream to back up that claim.
“Not entirely, but a Speedo doesn’t leave much to the imagination. Half-naked, half-dead right smack in the middle of my night. First buzz of my life and you killed it.”
“Unreal,” I mutter, looking away.
“Mind if I ask you what happened?” she asks, turning the tables on me. Sounding suspiciously like a therapist.
“Sure.”
That’s all the answer I give her, and not because I’m a jerk. Not entirely. It’s because I never give anything away for free.
As the silence drags out I’m surprised that instead of getting angry, she smiles knowingly. “What happened?”
“I drowned.”
“No shit.”
“Look at the mouth on you.”
“You don’t want to talk about this, do you?”
“No.”
“Then we won’t,” she replies amiably.
I glower at her, skeptical. “Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
I dislike her a little less.
“Where are we?” I ask, gesturing to the lake.
“I don’t know. You brought us here.”
“I did?”
“Well, I didn’t so it must have been you. I think I know it, though. Not as a place, but as a picture.”
“Like a painting?”
“No, like a photograph. It’s on inspirational posters. You know the ones you see at the dentist or the doctor or a guidance counselor. ‘Find inner peace.’ ‘Believe in yourself and center your chi.’ All that motivational hippy granola crap.”
She’s right. I remember it now. My recruiter had a poster in his office, this exact poster. This image. This lake. I had completely forgotten until now. I sat and stared at it, tuning him out while he rambled on about different career fields I could go into. He should have saved his breath. I knew exactly where I was going. I have for the last ten years.