CHAPTER 1

It was back again. The hideous nightmare slithered out of the darkness like a rapacious viper, wrapping, tightening its venomous coils around Clay's brain. The dream seemed to be reappearing more frequently these days. Though he was in a deep sleep, his subconscious mind sensed the rivulets of sweat coldly coursing down the sides of his body, beading up on his fevered forehead.

In the dream, Clay found he had just struggled out of a fetid, rotting, steaming jungle that lay behind him. The whole ordeal was the latest mental purgatory he had been forced to endure. The sweat really started coming as recognition came that he was back on that malodorous Philippine island. Yet, he knew in his heart he had left it behind so many years before.

Out of the humid mist to his front, the hideous apparition of the three men appeared, slowly moving toward him. He once again felt shock that he knew those battered faces as they had at one time been his best friends. Now as they seemed to glide over the ground, their bloodied hands reached out as if inviting him into their macabre group. He could see their mouths silently beseeching the words to come and join them in death. He struggled in vain to back away from them in a terror approaching outright panic. He tried to flee, but as they slowly moved closer to him, it was as though he were tied securely in place with ropes and chains. As hard as he struggled to escape, he could not move. Cemented in place as they closed in on him, he felt complete terror by the apparition. He just wanted to scream.

In immobilizing fear, he looked in every direction for any escape from this advancing horror. Glancing to his rear, he saw the dense, brooding, man-eating depths of the green jungle hell behind him. A solid, impenetrable wall. There would be no escape. The memory of the oppressive, cloying, moist heat cloaked him like a warm, wet blanket. He could actually smell those rotting jungle scents of decay all over again.

Why was this happening to him? The images were so real in his mind, he believed he was back there, yet he did not recognize this particular location. He instinctively knew that if he had ever been there, he would have recalled it immediately.

The three images of what passed for the remains of men, pressed closer. He was appalled in his dream world by the appearances of his friends. He could easily remember where once they had all been youthful, handsome with smiling faces. Now they were hideous apparitions, bullet riddled, and covered in blood. He could see the open, festering wounds from bayonets and machetes. Horrified beyond words at the images, he recoiled backward in abject fear.

In the next instant, they were all around him, reaching out, grabbing hold of him, pulling him into their cadaverous group. He opened his mouth in a voiceless, terror filled scream, shouting over and over again, "No! No! No! Please! Please! I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I couldn't help it!"

His voice trailed off as they circled him in a dance of death. His heart pounded harder as he shrank back in horror when they roughly grabbed hold of him, pulling and tugging. He tried vainly to jerk himself away from the horrid images, a silent scream on his lips. Guilt and overwhelming self-loathing washed over him like a dam bursting. He should have been with them; he should have been there to share their fate. He kept repeating this to himself over and over again.

Their bloodied hands were on him now, pulling him and jerking him into their horrid visages. Trying to tear away from their grip, he felt himself being roughly shaken and pulled forward into a strangely lit, mist- filled, tunnel to their rear. They had a good, solid hold on him now and were forcibly dragging him forward toward their hell. He gave one last terrifying scream and then the shouted words penetrated his consciousness.

"Clay! Wake up! Wake up! Damn it! Stop it! Stop! You're having that damn dream again! Stop it!"

Clay Dixon opened his eyes and squinted at the glare from the lamp on the nightstand. He was shocked to see that he was still in his bedroom and not in the steaming, green hell of the Philippine jungle island. Sitting up on the sweat soaked bed sheets, it became fully vivid in his mind all over again - that final night at the end of his tour of duty. He had been a short-timer with only a few days left and then back to the world, as they all liked to say. Remembering the wild party, they had all promised to stay in touch after returning to the states. He'd been with his favorite bar girl and as the night wore on, he became very drunk. She had taken him upstairs to her apartment and after making love, he had fallen into a deep sleep.

He awoke at dawn the next morning to find that his buddies were long gone and he was alone. In a panic, he threw on his clothes and virtually ran all the way back to his base. He had originally been assigned to go on one last scouting mission with his buddies before being reassigned stateside.

When he got to the flight line, he found that the chopper had left him behind. He felt stupid and disgusted with himself that he had been so drunk. He knew they would razz him unmercifully when they returned. Clay waited on the flight line until late that night, but they never came back. Several search missions came up empty handed; they had just literally disappeared into thin air, never to be seen or heard from again. No traces were ever found. He never forgave himself. In his heart he knew he should have been with them. Clay carried this anchor around his neck every waking day of his life.

His wife looked down at the pathetic, sweat-drenched figure of her husband. He looked up at her with guilt-ridden eyes. All pity she might have felt in the past was gone. Clarice felt herself cross an invisible line of her own making. There was no turning back. No one should have to constantly put up with this, she thought angrily. I should have done something about it a few years ago when those crazy nightmares began. Doctors didn't seem to be much help, she now acknowledged. Where could she go from here? She knew the answer in her heart, but didn't voice it, even to herself.

He was about to say something in useless apology, as usual, she knew. She quickly cut him off, raising her arm and facing her palm outward at him to stop.

"I don't want to hear it!" she said tersely. "I've heard it one hundred times before. It won't wash with me anymore!"

"I can't help it!" he said in anguish. "It just comes and goes. I have no control. It won't go away."

"How much do you expect me to endure? I just can't take it anymore. I've had it! Either you find some way of making it stop or we need to go our separate ways. That's final! Even the doctors have totally given up on you!"

Clay recalled his own doctor, a family practitioner, an old friend, had tried desperately to relieve him of the nightmares, but could not help. He had referred him to another physician he knew who had experience in dealing with these kind of matters, what he considered to be post-traumatic syndrome.

Sitting there on the bed, Clay remembered the sessions when the kindly, older physician had tried to help pry the demons out of him. After a number of visits, the doctor had strongly suggested that he suspected Clay was experiencing an unconscious and deep-seated guilt feeling, and that if he kept these feelings inside of him, they would...