I’m working on a rewrite of the first “Dreamscape Conspiracy” novel in a 4-book series and am amazed at how powerful certain sections are, despite me being the author. It seems like I’ve forgotten what was written. I’ve pulled Chapter 25 to share with you all this morning despite not knowing who to blame.
This chapter was one of those that left a mark on Russell Carter, a former Marine Force Recon Scout Sniper. Oddly, the words left a mark on me, too, despite being pure fiction and made up by yours truly. Maybe the Relentless Wench Muse should shoulder the blame; after all, I’m a man, and we, as men, are not supposed to think deeply enough to feel emotions like this, much less write what this chapter reveals.
Chapter 25 – Wait for the Go
Russ tipped the longneck of his IPA to clink a toast with his best guy friend Evan Crenshaw to celebrate his acceptance into the research study. “It feels good to breathe out finally,” said Russ after taking a long pull on his beer. “Getting into this study was a do-or-die situation for me financially. It feels good to no longer worry over how to pay for this last semester.”
“Congrats again, brother!” said Evan, reaching to clink their bottles again. “Well done!”
“The major bonus is the woman who is running the research study. Buddy, she is hot and young. I’ll bet she is only a couple of years older than me,” explained Russ.
“That is a bonus,” agreed Evan, “so tell me about this study and this lady.”
“Sorry, I can’t,” apologized Russ, “I’m under non-disclosure, and if I talk about the study to anyone, even my best and most trusted friend, I’ll be yanked off the research. You know it’s a dream study because that’s what the ad described that I showed you before I applied. That’s going to have to be enough details for now.”
“I hear ya, man,” replied Evan. “I can respect that. I will, however, require updates on this hottie running the research. You’re not under non-disclosure in that area of research, are you?”
“Hah,” chirped Russ, “dude, homie don’t kiss and tell.”
“Right, so how come you’ve already given me the down-and-dirty-kiss-and-told-everything about little miss Carly before she kicked you to the curb for what…another woman?” Evan howled with laughter.
“Hey, dickweed, bite me!”
Evan continued to press, “Seriously, do you think you’re ready to risk the sanctity of your manliness by chumming around with another female? Sounds pretty risky to me, bud!”
“I’m not chumming with anybody, man. I just shared with you that she was hot, and that was an honest observation, not some lecherous craving to get into her pants.”
Russ did not share with Evan just how deeply Russ’s former girlfriend, Carly’s betrayal, hurt him; it was a betrayal in his mind because she slashed ruthlessly at his heartfelt affection for her. She was his “the one,” and they had even talked about a future as a couple, marriage, and kids.
There were never any indications that she was gay, or even bisexual, for that matter. Where did all that come from? Her age? Immaturity? What had he done to promote her change in such a radical way? Was it selfish of him to even think he had anything to do with her choices in the first place? Still, the scars were fresh, and it would likely be a while, if ever before he jumped back into the pool of eligible men.
“When does the study start?” asked Evan, changing the subject.
“Not sure; Dr. Williams or Marci will be in touch. I’ll let you know, but no details for your ears, so don’t even try to ask. Got it?”
Evan tilted his bottle for another clink, “I hear ya, bud!”
They finished another round of beers before his friend left for the night. Russ collected the empties for recycling and headed to his bathroom for a long, hot shower. Waiting for the hot water to arrive, Russ leaned over the sink and surveyed his face in the mirror. Was he a handsome, desirable man? He had some minor nicks you could see, and then there were deeper scars from combat, but none of those were visible. The wounds on his heart were not outwardly visible either, but his eyes told another story to anyone interested enough to look.
He turned his head to the left and right, checking the symmetry of his short beard. What had he missed that would cause a woman who talked about marriage and mothering children to abruptly change her direction? He searched his eyes and tried to see into his heart. Had this been a heart issue? Had he done or said something from the heart to poison their relationship? God, so many questions with so few answers, he thought. It was no wonder he felt like damaged goods.
And then there was the dream that haunted him more than losing Carly. Would there ever be a woman to accept him for who he was and what he had done? Had the fact that he had a strong faith in God been the catalyst to drive Carly away? Would his faith get in the way, or would his faith save him?
He never questioned Carly’s intentions, and even now, amidst the pain she inflicted, he held no animosity toward her. Who was he to judge anyone? He had not lived the life of a saint, and then there was the military and his being trained to kill, and he did kill. He killed without hesitation when faced with combat circumstances. Where are those lines of forgiveness drawn? There was a fine line between sanctioned killing and outright murder. How many times had he crossed it? Was he redeemable? Would this research study turn out to be a solution to the unknowns in his life and the PTSD that plagued him?
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Was he more broken than he realized? He knew doubts and fears were not things of God, but he also knew he had plenty to deal with and whispered a prayer for protection.
The shower had begun to steam the mirror when he finally opened his eyes and tried to shake off his reverie of self-doubt as he stepped into the shower stall. The hot water flowed over him as he bowed his head into the spray, placing both hands on the front wall of the shower, concentrating on the sensation and visualizing hot water washing away his demons.
He slowly turned 180 degrees and let the spray attempt to rinse away demons from the back side of his body. He soaped up a washcloth and hoped a good scrubbing would help cleanse him of doubts. After toweling dry, he felt the jury was still out on whether he had shed any of his self-doubts, but on a positive note, he certainly felt better.
The potent elixir that would swallow him into sleep was the act of slipping between fresh sheets right after a hot shower. As he closed his eyes, he thought about the dream study and wondered what dreams Dr. Williams would feed into his sleep. As blackness closed over him, his last waking thoughts were of Dr. Williams and the vibe he thought…he hoped… he’d picked up from her.
When he opened his eyes, he heard Set whisper in his ear. “Hold, Spike. I can’t see her hand.”
“I can’t either,” he replied, “in another ten yards, she’ll be behind that cart, and I’ll lose the shot.”
“We’re looking at the same picture, dude. Hold! Wait for the go,” said Set, his Spotter.
Spike was Russell Carter’s call sign in Afghanistan. He was a Marine Force Recon Scout Sniper. His spotter, Peter “Set” Druthers, had been teamed with him for nearly two years in his second tour in the sandbox. They were a deadly team providing overwatch for the Force Recon platoons of six men on the ground below.
Pete set up the targets, and Russ spiked them with a single high-velocity NATO 7.62x51mm round from his M40A5 sniper rifle. To date, they have had 87 confirmed kills. Number 88 stood alone in the middle of the street and earned target status because she looked like she was wired with explosives.
Spike scanned his target through high magnification on his scope, trying to see the hand that was hidden. When he scanned upward to place the cross hairs on her face, he saw tear tracks staining and tracing through her dirty cheeks. The terror in her eyes froze his breath and his heart.
Spike gasped and whispered, “Oh God, no…I can’t. She’s a child…a fucking little girl.”
“Hold, Spike! Do your fuckin’ job. Be ready!” whispered Set. “Wait for the go. As soon as she pulls her hand out from behind that chadar, I’ll see what she’s holding.”
Spike had his eye glued to his scope’s eyepiece with his trigger finger outside the trigger guard. He blinked his eyes in a futile attempt to clear away the tears. What had not been said was a reality they both tried to ignore and push out of their minds. Wait for the go, and then murder that frightened little girl standing almost 300 yards away.
“Fire, fire, fire!” called Set. On the third utterance of fire, Spike followed sniper protocol and shot the little girl in the face a split second before she was blown into a million pieces by her suicide vest. Was it still murder if she planned to kill six Force Recon Marines? Was it a win because the Recon Team was out of range of the blast? Did the fact that she wore a suicide vest justify anything?
Russ had no answers and did not think he ever would. One thing he was confident of, however, was that the dream would never let him forget the tears he saw through his scope on that little girl’s face before he ended her. Even telling himself that he had saved her from who knows what else in her young life, his heart had a permanent scar to remind him of what he had done.
Russ awoke soaked in sweat courtesy of the dream. Would it ever end? He got out of bed and walked into the kitchen, rubbing the back of his neck to relieve the stress he always felt afterward.
He had only been asleep for thirty minutes, but it felt like he had progressed through most of the night. He filled a glass with cold water from the dispenser on the refrigerator, leaned back against the countertop, and waited for his heart rate to settle. The dream never varied. The guilt never lessened.
Two rounds of three struck Pete “Set” Druthers and ended his life just as they began to exfil to reposition to a new overwatch position. He reached up and touched the scar on his upper chest where one round of that random three-round burst of 7.62 x39mm round from a Taliban AK-47 found him about thirty minutes after killing the little girl that saved the Recon team. That wound on his chest always made him wonder if it was retribution for killing that child or a blessing that he’d been wounded and medically discharged, ending his career as a Marine Scout Sniper. Should the two rounds that found Set have been for him? Had the enemy just missed? Why did God spare him and take Pete instead?
He finished the water and hit the bathroom to pee before returning to bed to complete the night. On the bright side, he only ever experienced the dream once during an entire night. Once was enough. There were no guarantees that another nightmare would not be waiting to pounce so he had to consider that the night may hold more for him. His thoughts turned to Dr. Williams, and he wondered how his dreams would stack up in her research.
The bed was still warm, but he did not fall asleep immediately when he slipped back between the sheets. Instead, he drifted away to more thoughts of Dr. Williams and his role in the research. Something told him that the research study would be more involved, or maybe he had new hopes that it would be more complicated. The whole concept seemed to him to be too easy, but $2,500 in his pocket felt like a win regardless. He told himself only time would tell as he finally fell into a deep sleep.
The black SUV rounded the corner and sped toward Cara and Marci as they walked away from the Starbucks a block off campus across the commons from their Psych lab. Russ saw it coming, and his spider senses alerted when the window on the vehicle’s passenger side slid down, and the stubby nose of a Heckler & Koch MP5K protruded.
At 800-9mm rounds per minute, Russ knew neither woman stood a chance, and he broke into a sprint, shouting for the women to get down. Three 13-round bursts later, both women were down, and he was still fifty yards away and helpless to intervene.
The SUV swerved to speed away, but not before unleashing another parting burst, sending rounds buzzing over his head and leaving him sprawled flat on the ground. The SUV was gone, and he fought to get back to his feet when the zipping of bullets ripping overhead finally stopped.
His phone continued to buzz from his bedside table. The alarm had pulled him out of the line of fire and from the grips of a vivid dream. He quieted the phone’s alarm, noticing it was 5:30 a.m. and time to stop dreaming. What a relief to know he had survived another night and hoped the horrific reminders of his nightmare would someday depart.
Most disturbing was his last dream involving Dr. Williams and her research assistant. He did not even know the outcome of the attack, but it did not look good, and the message was clear to Russ that, at a minimum, Dr. Williams was in danger.
He did not know why, but dreams as vivid as he experienced felt too real to chalk up to an overactive imagination. There was something else there. What was he missing? He felt compelled to follow his gut instinct and gather more intel. He resolved to make it a priority to talk with Cara first thing.
Book #1 of 4
“Dreamscape Conspiracy”
https://bit.ly/3qjKNjd
Video Trailer for Book #1 – https://learningbyliving.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/WhatsApp-Video-2024-03-13-Dream-1.mp4