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For Dawson Cole, the hallucinations began after the explosion on the platform, on the day he should have died

In the fourteen years he'd worked on oil rigs, he thought he'd seen it all In 1997, he'd watched as a helicopter lost control as it was about to land It crashed onto the deck, erupting in a blistering fireball, and he'd received second-degree burns on his back as he'd attempted a rescue Thirteen people, most of them in the helicopter at the time, had died Four years later, after a crane on the platfor metal debris the size of a basketball nearly took his head off In 2004, he was one of the feorkers re when Hurricane Ivan sla over a hundred h tocollapsed But there were other dangers as well People slipped, parts snapped, and cuts and bruises were a way of life a the creson had seen ues of food poisoning that sickened the entire crew, and two years ago, in 2007, he'd watched a supply ship start to sink as it pulled away fro, only to be rescued at the last uard cutter

But the explosion was so different Because there was no oil leak--in this instance, the safety mechanisms and their backups prevented a major spill--the story barely otten within a few days But for those ere there, including hiht had been routine He'd been e tanks suddenly exploded Before he could even process what had happened, the i shed After that, fire was everywhere The entire platforrease and oil, quickly becae explosions rocked the rig evena few bodies farther froer than the others, launched hi toward the water, a fall that for all intents and purposes should have killed hi in the Gulf of Mexico, roughly ninety miles south of Vermilion Bay, Louisiana

Like most of the others, he hadn't had time to don his survival suit or reach for a flotation device, but in between swells he saw a dark-hairedDawson to swi the ocean waves, exhausted and dizzy His clothes and boots dragged hiive out he kneas going to die He thought he'd been getting close, though the swells made it impossible to know for sure At thatsoth, he latched on Later, he learned that he was in the water for al before being picked up by a supply ship that had rushed to the scene He was pulled on board, carried belowdecks, and reunited with other survivors Daas shivering froh his vision was blurred--he was later diagnosed with a nized how lucky he'd been He saw men with vicious burns on their ar fro broken bones He knew most of theo on the rig--it was essentially a se in the middle of the ocean--and everyone yuely fa at him from across the crowded room Dark-haired a

nda blue windbreaker that soht he looked out of place, hneck The ure he'd spotted earlier in the water--it was him--and all at once, Dawson felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise Before he could identify the source of his unease, a blanket was thrown over his shoulders and he was ushered to a spot in the corner where a medical officer waited to examine him

By the tione

Over the next hour, an to warm, Dawson started to wonder about the rest of the crew Men he'd worked with for years were nowhere to be seen Later, he would learn that twenty-four people were killed Most, but not all, of the bodies were eventually found While he recovered in the hospital, Dawson couldn't stop thinking about the fact that soood-bye

He'd had trouble sleeping since the explosion, not because of any night watched He felt haunted, as ridiculous as that sounded Day and night, he occasionally caught a glimpse of movement from the corner of his eye, but whenever he turned there was never anyone or anything there that could explain it He wondered if he was losing hisa posttraumatic reaction to the stress of the accident and that his brainfroical, but it didn't feel right to Dawson He nodded anyway The doctor gave hi pills, but Dawson never bothered to fill it

He was given a paid leave of absence for six rind Three weeks later, the coned the papers By then he'd already been contacted by a half-dozen attorneys, all of the to be the first to file a class action suit, but he didn't want the hassle He took the settlement offer and deposited the check on the day it arrived With enough money in his account to make some people think he was rich, he went to his bank and wired most of it to an account in the Cayman Islands From there, it was forwarded to a corporate account in Pana wired to its final destination The money, as always, was virtually impossible to trace

He'd kept only enough for the rent and a few other expenses He didn't need le-wide trailer at the end of a dirt road on the outskirts of New Orleans, and people who saw it probably assu feature was that it hadn't flooded during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 With plastic siding that was cracked and fading, the trailer squatted on stacked cinder blocks, a temporary foundation that had sole bedroo area, and a kitchen with barely enough rooerator Insulation was almost nonexistent, and hu it see on a slant The linoleu in the corners, the minimal carpet was threadbare, and he'd furnished the narrow space with itele photograph adorned the walls Though he'd lived there for almost fifteen years, it was less a home than a place where he happened to eat and sleep and take his showers

Despite its age, it was almost always as pristine as the homes in the Garden District Daas, and always had been, a bit of a neat freak Twice a year, he repaired cracks and caulked seams to keep rodents and insects at bay, and whenever he prepared to return to the rig, he scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors with disinfectant and eht spoil or enerally worked thirty days on, followed by thirty days off, and anything that wasn't in a can would go bad in less than a week, especially during the summer Upon his return, he scrubbed the place froet rid of the musty smell