He closed his notepad. "For the record, they're not nightmares. What you're experiencing are classified as night terrors, a sleep disorder common among individuals suffering post-traumatic stress. It's your mind's way of dealing with what happened. I once treated a group of patients who just made it out of the Twin Towers before they collapsed. Many of them experienced these same intense dreams of death. While nightmares can occur anytime during REM sleep, night terrors take place only during stage four of sleep, which is the deepest, most difficult stage to awaken from. Patients bolt upright in bed, screaming, paralyzed in fear, their hearts beating at upwards of 170 beats per minute. Even after awakening, many patients remain in a state of confusion for twenty minutes or more."

"Yeah, I've experienced all that."

"Hopefully, our sessions will help, but I have to warn you, it could take years."

"Years? And until then?"

"Until then, we'll do what we can." Reaching into his desk drawer, he pulled out a prescription pad. "I'm going to prescribe an antidepressant. Take it once a day before bedtime. As for the night terrors and your sudden fear of water, sometimes the best therapy is to deal with their causes head-on."

"And how do I do that?"

"That, only you can figure out."

* * *

I left his office, convinced the only way to salvage my career and "remove the Wallace curse" was to return to the Sargasso Sea and "face my dragon." That meant resolving the mystery of the Bloops, no easy task, even without my psychological condition. Returning to the Sargasso meant raising money to fund another expedition. David had deserted me, and few companies would want to risk men and machinery in the wake of my recent disaster at sea.

Still, I had to try.

My mother and Charlie were returning home that afternoon. Charlie not only had money, but connections with several networks. Maybe his production company would be my sponsor?

* * *

"Absolutely not!" My mother stalked the living room, enraged that I'd even broach the subject. "You nearly died out there, Zachary, and now you want to go back?"

My stepfather winced. "Take it easy, Andrea—"

"Charlie Mason, you lend Zachary one silver nickel for this expedition, and you and I are through!"

She stormed off, the slamming door punctuating her words. "Sorry, Charlie, I didn't mean to get you in any trouble."

Good ol' Charlie just shrugged it off. "As Will Rogers said, there are two theories to arguing with a woman, and neither of 'em works. Your mom's just worried about you. Let me work on her a while."

* * *

But heart-stopping screams in the middle of the night were not exactly what my mother or Charlie had in mind when they invited me to stay with them. After the third straight night of listening to my mother threaten to send me to a sanitarium, I decided it would be best if I checked into a motel.