"Here's Johnny"

The last thing Jonathan remembered before regaining consciousness was the pilot yelling into the radio. Jonathan instinctively grabbed his bag and as they reached an altitude that looked doable, he jumped from the side of the Blackhawk Helicopter, missing the shallow water and ending up in the rapids. He nearly drowned several times, clutching his gear bag as his body was bounced off the rocky bedrock that lined the river. Finally, the waters calmed, after several minutes of desperation and he floated into a shallower area, able to grasp onto some rocks to pull himself to shore. He lay there for several minutes, sore, soaked, and disorientated before nearly passing out from the shock of it all. The simplest of missions had nearly brought about his demise before they even touched down on the ground.

"What in the bloody hell," Jonathan sighed as he pulled his gear bag from the side of the river.

Johnathan breathed heavily, a trickle of blood running from his temple, down the side of his face. His sandy beard was matted to his face and his hair had bits of the river and dirt throughout his head. He knew that he needed medical attention, but where they were inserting was as far away from a qualified hospital as he remembered being in his life. Jonathan sat up, looking up and down the river, praying to see one of his team members. It was a prayer that would go unanswered.

He started digging through the black duffel, finding what he expected, that the sensitive equipment was in bad shape. Jonathan tried getting a signal out on the radio but nobody was listening. Considering their last transmissions, nobody would be. The pilot reported they'd been hit and were going down. They would have put the receivers on a loop and avoided calling the team.

"This is whiskey, foxtrot, 9," he gritted his teeth in pain as he spoke. "Mayday, mayday, mayday," he repeated. "This is whiskey, foxtrot, 9. I need an immediate extraction, my whole team is down..."

He knew he was wasting his time. During the mission briefing, they were warned that this was an off-the-books assignment. Until such time as he was broadcasting from the other side of the border, he was on his own.

"Great, that's just bloody great," his body ached as he looked up into the skies as if someone was going to answer him.

Fortunately for Jonathan, the rest of his gear was intact. There was still a map, a compass, a rifle, extra ammunition, and a first aid kit. He found everything he needed to stay alive, even proceed forward with the mission if he so chose. Jonathan was a soldier, well an ex-soldier, hired on with a group to go into a secret location and recon a possible stronghold being operated by some very bad people. He specialized in very bad people.

Going it alone, however, was far more high risk than he signed up for. Besides, with his team being taken out on approach, he expected that someone had given them up. How else would a bunch of backwoods, jungle natives, get their hands on shoulder-fired missile systems? Someone involved with the mission had taken a payoff, and that was something that Jonathan planned on handling when he made it back to civilization.

Setting out, it was nearly twenty clicks to the border. From there he could make radio contact and arrange an extraction if the team hadn't been completely burned. Jonathan walked for nearly two miles, through some of the thickest jungle he'd seen. From southeast Asia to Africa, from the Australian Outback to South America, he'd been in nearly every jungle location on the globe. This was admittedly the worst of the bunch.

As he watched the light of day start to diminish through the thick overhead growth, the sound of monkeys screaming in the night, and all walks of jungle life starting to howl, he remembered what his first operations commander taught him. In the jungle, there's very little that doesn't want to kill you, and even fewer things that won't.

Before it got too dark, he needed to make camp, and start a fire. Fire was still one of those things that animals feared as much as humans. While he needed to rest after a few hours of trekking through such impossible terrain, he'd be sleeping with his finger on the trigger and one eye completely open.

As the light disappeared Jonathan started a small fire near a tree. He found a small clearing to make camp. Jonathan rested his rifle against the tree and closed his eyes briefly. It was while his eyes were closed that he heard a noise coming from the distance. It sounded like there were people close by.

"What the hell is that?" he wondered, looking around.

Jonathan detected the smell of smoke, smoke mixed with a pleasant herb smell. Was someone cooking something? He got up and gathered his rifle, his flashlight, and his compass as he headed toward the sound.

As Jonathan went to explore, he started to notice a light from the distance. He was only two miles from where he set up camp. There were definitely people there. He killed his light and slowly approached. Then, before he made it past the thicket, he knew that they were closer to their target than expected or that he'd washed further down the river than he knew. He could recon the compound and report back to his employer when he made it across the border.

He knelt down, getting as close to the ground as he could, and crawled up to the edge of the bushes. There were two structures that he could make out. They were barracks. Looking around through his binoculars he found a third, then a fourth. They were all hidden beneath the blanketing of jungle growth. This was why satellites couldn't be more precise.

"Gotcha," he whispered to himself, lying hidden at the edge of the encampment.

There were men and women outside. They were drinking, dancing, and making the most of the night under the stars. Jonathan counted thirty or so men and fifteen or more women. All of them appeared to be indigenous to the area, except one. One of them looked American judging by his dress and his demeanor.

"What are we doing?" he wondered.

Then he heard the squeal. Like a hog or pig shrieking in the night, it pierced his ears with pure panic and fear. There was no mistaking it, he heard the ominous sound of death. Jonathan put the pieces of the puzzle together. The fire in the center of it all, the prepared spit roaster, the dancing, drinking, and general sense of revelry. They were having barbeque. They were about to cook a roast a beast over an open flame.

Jonathan had never witnessed anything like this before in his travels. The men carried the main course out to the fire already strapped to a large rod. Jonathan was in disbelief. These soldiers had lost their minds. They were drinking and partying like nothing was going to happen to them. Feasting, and creepily getting ready to cook the poor thing right there for everyone to watch. He'd heard stories about places that cooked and ate "long pig" but never knew that it was a real practice or custom.

As Jonathan started to snap out of the trance the scene left him in, realizing he wasn't himself, he remembered the strange odor that carried on the smokey wind. It was what brought him to the party, that odd smell, relaxing his inhibitions as it had. What were they burning, he wondered as he started looking through his pack for an antidote. Then it hit him, this part of the world was known for illicit drug manufacturing.

"Narcan," he told himself. Taking an inhale of the Narcan.

As his eyes cleared, and his senses returned, he looked on in horror as one of the soldiers walked over and filleted a piece of meat off dinner. Dinner, however, had begun looking less like a beast.

Jonathan started to cry uncontrollably, to sweat, and his heart began to race past the point of human capacity.

"And when I say three, you'll be awake, refreshed, and back in my office with only the memory of your last mission. One, two, three," Dr. Welles exclaimed.

Jonathan woke up in a chair at Walter Reid Hospital. He was in the psychiatrists' office, after what was a grueling session of trying to finally unlock the memories of his last mission.

"Well, commander Burns, how do you feel," asked the doctor as she brought around a glass of water.

"I feel..." Jonathan didn't know what to say.

He never wanted to face what he saw that night in Central America, much less to relive the gruesomeness of it all from a partially restrained seat in such a disinfected, brightly colored, office.

"It's been two years doc, did you get what you want out of this?"

Dr. Welles stood up, walking around to the table and sitting on the edge as he asked Jonathan, "Did you get what you wanted out of this? I know you haven't wanted to be here but this was a breakthrough."

Jonathan looked at the doctor, a smile on his face for the first time in months. The good doctor was finally satisfied with his progress enough to trust him. With the lightning quickness of a soldier, he quickly rammed his face down onto Dr. Welle's thigh, sinking in his teeth as he did.

"Help! Security! Help!" screamed Dr. Welles as Jonathan held on, dragging the doctor to the ground as he continued to chew into the doctor like a beast defending itself.

As two men in uniform rushed into the room, striking Jonathan with batons and kicks, trying to get the savage ex-operator off the doctor, Jonathan finally had bitten off the chunk of meat he aimed for, severing an artery in the process. He rolled off the doctor, his face on the ground, his hand still secured to the steel chair. The two security staff cuffed his other hand behind his back and picked him up to walk him out of the room as Dr. Welles had died.

As the drug Jonathan down the hall, back to the security of his locked cell, the two officers threw him inside with enough force to launch him halfway across the room.

Jonathan got up, walked over to the window of his door, looking out at the bewildered staff. Their faces were in shock, and some in horror, as they tried to reconcile what had just transpired. Then, he got their attention, knocking his head on the window. He only had one thing to say...

"Here's Johnny!"