September 8, 2001: Was an ordinary Saturday. I worked on my truck. I grilled some burgers and had some friends over for supper.

My next door neighbor Lori and I sat on her front porch and talked about nothing until midnight.

I went to bed and had one of the worst f*ing nightmares of my life. I still remember fragments of it.

I saw a face I can only describe as cruel and hateful. His eyes were dark and the face was angry. I could see the eyes as two pinpoints of red light.

Then I was with a crowd of people- I don't know where. I was surrounded by shining glass and people. Suddenly there was fire and breaking glass everywhere.

There was blood and screaming and people were ripped to shreds.

I woke up in a cold sweat at a quarter to five fighting the sheet that had wrapped itself around me. There was no going back to sleep after that.

It was like no dream that I've ever had experienced.

Later in the day I called Aunt Mae and went out to see her. She was still alive at the time but very old and wise in the ways of things that modern people such as myself like to think of as superstition.

I told her about the dream and she closed her eyes and shook her head. She had it too.

I asked her what it meant and she told me that the four horsemen were about to ride. War is coming.

Things like this don't happen to me. I am a scientist. I believe in what I can see, hear touch and quantify.

I told myself that it was just a stupid dream and that I should forget about it but that face gave me a cold chill. I had seen evil.

I went about that Sunday in a daze. I couldn't concentrate. I tried to rest but every time I closed my eyes there was that face.

When I went to bed that night I was scared. I didn't want to know jack about the horsemen or the maniac that I kept seeing. I drank Canadian Club until I passed out.

Monday came and I was able to throw myself into the work. I had hardly a thought of what I had seen.

Until Tuesday morning Sept. 11, 2001. I knew exactly what I had seen. When the face of Mohammad Atta was put on the screen of the television set in our office I nearly shit myself. That was the face that had been haunting me.

I went home about 2:00 because I was so shaken I was afraid that I would make mistakes. I went home and drank myself into a stupor.

I never talked about it. I locked it away in the back of my mind. It was something that I didn't want to know about. A nameless fear that sits waiting somewhere on the verge of your subconscious.

There it has stayed for all of these years.

Until a few minutes ago. The nightmare is back.