Worth Saving(20)

Suddenly, Lieutenant Weston aims the pistol at his chest and pulls the trigger. The shot rocks his body backwards, but he stays on his feet. He stares down at the wound as blood pours out of it and pools on the floor beneath him.

“Oh my f*cking god!” I scream, but I still have to grip the controls tight to keep us in the air. “What the f*ck, Lieutenant? Oh my god. Hang in there, man. I’m gonna get you some help. I have to call this in.”

“There’s no point!” Weston yells. He screams it so hard the veins in his neck look like they’re going to explode. “Why call it in? It’s too late for you to save me! You had your chance and you f*cking blew it! You blew it!”

The next thing I know, Weston grips the pistol and brings it to his chest once again. He pulls the trigger, but this time he doesn’t stop shooting. He just keeps on firing, over and over again. Each shot jolting his body and splashing blood everywhere. The sound of the continuous shooting is all I can hear now. It’s too loud for me to hear anything else.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

I put my hands on my ears and squeeze my eyes shut. The sound from the gun is so loud, I’m sure I’ll go deaf soon. I squeeze me eyes shut so hard it starts to hurt. Then, suddenly, everything stops.

There’s no sound at all. There’s nothing but the wind. I hear it, and I feel it on my face and hands. It’s calm. It’s peaceful. So, I slowly open my eyes.

I open them just in time to see that the helicopter is plummeting to the ground because I let go of the controls, and the engines are all off. There’s no time to pull it back up.

The ground is fast approaching, and all I can do is hold on. With every second, the ground grows nearer, but just before impact, I see Lieutenant Weston’s body on the ground beneath me. He’s lying there, covered in his own blood as if he fell out of the helicopter, and I’m about to land on him. The chopper is going to land right on his body, and just as it does, his corpse opens his eyes and screams. The sound of his screaming is the last thing I hear as the helicopter hits the ground and explodes into a giant fireball.



“Fuck!” I yell as I jolt awake and sit up in my bed. My heart is beating so hard I’m sure I’m about to have a heart attack. I try to focus so I can catch my breath, and I look around the room to make sure I’m nowhere near a helicopter. When I realize I’m at home, I breathe a loud sigh of relief.

Another dream. Another sleepless night. They’re starting to pile up on me now, and I wonder if they’ll ever slow down or stop. The last thing I want is to be one of these people who goes to war as one person, but when they come back, they’re someone completely different. I want to keep being me, but what I saw over there is making it hard. Every day is a struggle, but the night is especially difficult. Maybe it’s because it all happened at night. It was night time when I saw Weston lying there bleeding out as we flew back to base, so maybe that’s why I feel tortured when the sun goes down. All I can do is hope this counseling with Major Nelson actually does me some good. So far though, no dice.

I look over at the clock and see it’s two-thirty in the morning. My heart’s still pounding and I know there’s no way I’ll be able to go back to sleep now. I’ve tried before. There’s even been nights where I managed to go back to sleep, only to have another terrifying dream about Lieutenant Weston. At this point, I’ve dreamt so many nightmares about him, he’s become my boogieman. The image of his face in my mind actually frightens me now, and I have to focus to make sure I don’t think about it. In the end, it never matters. His face still haunts my dreams, and it’s for that reason I don’t even try to go back to sleep. It’s only two-thirty, but I’m up now.

I climb out of bed and throw on some clothes. No need for anything fancy, just a wife-beater and some navy blue basketball shorts. I don’t even bother putting on shoes. I just slip on some flip flops and make my way into the garage. I start up my car and proceed to drive to nowhere.

It’s a weekday, so the streets are pretty empty, and they’ll stay that way as long as I avoid going near The Strip. So, I decide to keep this ride centered in Summerlin. It’s a beautiful place, very well-kept and clean. Something about it soothes me as I drive with the windows down and the night air hitting me in the face. It’s cold outside, but I don’t care. I woke up in a sweat, so I could use some cold air now to bring my body temperature back down.

I make a right down a residential area and reduce speed. I’m not in a rush. It’s only three o’clock now, and I’m off work for at least the next month, so I take it slow. I’ll get back home whenever I get there.

As I drive down a residential road called Lily Street, going a measly fifteen miles per hour, I see a figure in the dark up ahead. At first, I think it’s probably some teenager who snuck out the house and is trying to make their way back home. But, as I get closer, I see it’s a grown woman. It’s dark outside, obviously, but even in the dark I can see that she has beautiful, womanly curves. I get closer and see that she has long hair that reaches the middle of her back. She’s wearing a dress of some kind, but she’s covering most of it with a long sweater, but she’s obviously still cold because she has her arms folded across her chest as she walks down the quiet street. When I get close enough, I try to get a good look at her as I pass her, and I can barely see her face, but see enough to know that it’s Layla. What the hell is she doing out here, and especially at this hour?