Month: March 2009

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #177 – A Town in Panic

(Male, 30’s) I want to start off saying that I don’t usually have nightmare and I don’t find zombie movies to be at all scary but after this dream, well, maybe.

“… I’m pretty sure things won’t be fine, even though I don’t know exactly what’s wrong at this point…

I was in the car with my family and we were driving home, back into town and there’s something not right. There are walls of tall chain link on either side of the road. There are folks trying to head away from us, out of town. They keep telling us it’s the wrong way, but we’re pretty sure that if we get back to our house we’ll be OK. Eventually we get to a place where the traffic is just entirely stopped so we have to abandon our car.

We start walking and walking with all our kids too and still there are people rushing off OUT of town. They’re all on the other side of this chain link fence. For some reason we get convinced that that’s the right side to be on so we get through the fence somehow. We try to make our way to our house but we can’t.

My wife just wants to sit down on a park bench. She thinks every thing will just be fine but I’m pretty sure things won’t be fine, even though I don’t know exactly what’s wrong at this point. I can’t make her come along but my son follows me and we start heading, I think, we’re still heading back to our house. The plan is that we can hole up there and be safe. She says she’ll meet us there in a little while.

We just get a little bit further away, not noticeably closer to safety, when I hear this sound. It’s like a concrete dragging along concrete but lower, much lower in pitch. Then I realize it’s a groan. We look around the next corner and there is a tidal wave of zombies. Slow moving but as far as the eye can see. I know I won’t be safe at home. And I don’t think we can even out run them. I pick up my boy and I start to run and that’s when I wake up.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #205 – Baby napper

…I found a ransom note, however, and I recognized the handwriting

(Female, 50’s) My 2 year old granddaughter was missing, and I knew she’d been kidnapped. Her parents were doubtful– why would anyone kidnap their child since they would be unable to pay any ransom demand? They seemed to think she was around the house, and if they kept looking they’d find her.

I found a ransom note, however, and I recognized the handwriting: it was my next-door neighbor’s. The note requested 2 million dollars for the return of the child. I knew now that he had the girl next-door in the basement, and that he was playing with her and keeping her occupied, and I knew he wouldn’t hurt her because our neighbors really want to have a child.

I showed my son and his wife the note and told them, “You see? She’s been kidnapped.”

My daughter in law said, “Do you think it’s serious?”

I replied, “Kidnapping is a federal felony.” (Which was really funny when I woke up and thought about the dream!)

All day long they tried to get enough money to pay the ransom. They called all their friends and relatives.

Finally, in the evening, I called my neighbors’ house. When he answered the phone, I said, “Doug, I know you have her. We want you to bring her back and we won’t press charges.”

“What about the ransom?” he asked.

“They cannot afford to pay the ransom.”

There was a pause. Then he spoke.

“Well, then. What do you think is reasonable?” He wanted them at least to pay him for watching her all day.

Categories
"What We Fear" Other Haunts

Japan’s Mummified Monsters

You’re probably thinking something along the line of Gojira-jerky or freeze-dried Gamera but these little darlings, found over at Pinktentacle.com are 10,000 times cooler.

Monster Mummies of Japan

Those familiar with cryptozoological frauds like the fiji-mermaid know the drill. Many of these wonders are fabricated from various parts of various critters. Others have a more obscure provenance and some, like the “living mummy” tradition of certain monastic orders are even weirder. All in all this is a post you’ve got to read — though it left me feeling oddly thirsty.

Categories
Other Haunts

Fashion Disasters from Outer Space

Over at Forgetomori, dig this lovingly in-depth investigation of a dozen of the worst dressed space aliens:

Poorly Dressed Aliens

Categories
"What We Fear"

Electronic “Ghost Repellant”

I wish this retailer had an affiliate program because this is a product I can really stand behind: an electronic ghost repellant.

Ghost Repellant

Rest assured that this device uses complicated electronics, ones that can distinguish good spirits from bad spirits — which is good because you wouldn’t want it accidentally emptying your liquor cabinet, right?

I’m intrigued by the whole relationship between ghosts and technology. For awhile, there were many reports of “phone calls from the dead” which perhaps says much about how mysterious telephones were to some folks. Demons require exorcisms but ghosts… they can be dispelled with transistors. It reminds me a bit too much of a certain electronic mosquito repellant I saw at a friend’s house last summer.

Categories
Art

Dark Gallery – Metal Skeleton Sculpture

metalskeleton

A Tokyo art student created this haunting and poetic sculpture of a squatting human skeleton. Better photos of the piece and for that matter a beautifully succinct description of it are at:

“Jibetarian”

Categories
Art

Brightly Colored Bats

Another Colorful Bat
Another Colorful Bat

In honor of Friday the 13th, I wanted to treat all you trixodecaphobes to something kind of sweet. My son and grand-daughter were doodling the other day and happened to come up with some very happy bats. I thought they were delightful, especially for the colors they chose to depict these children of the night. Am I the only one who’s getting a little bored of scary things having a dreary color pallette? These are happy, cheery little bats who are smiling, perhaps because they’ve just feasted on the blood of some paisley-wearing hippy.

A Colorful Bat
A Colorful Bat
Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #204 – The Old Fake Death Embalming Enema

GrimGnome notes: “I always love to hear nightmares from this particular guy due to the overwhelming joy that these weird dreams give him. It’s obvious from the way he tells them. He’s always got a fantastic dream and he has absolutely no inhibition about sharing even the strangest ones. Like this one:

…the procedure was extremely painful… and cold!

(Male, 30’s) “For reasons unknown, I had to fake my own death. And things had gone pretty well up until the point where I had to prove I was dead. The proof, however, was that my wife had to give me an enema of embalming fluid in front of witnesses. The enema was delivered in his huge syringe. It must have held gallons and gallons of fluid and the embalming fluid itself was fluorescent blue like antifreeze. It was also freezing cold. The procedure was extremely painful and cold and I think I even was screaming at some points but somehow it convinced the witnesses that I was really dead.

Or at least mostly, because there was some lingering suspicion. So my wife and I figured that it would look more believable if she got married to someone else. We chose a guy I’ve known since childhood and who is also currently a co-worker of mine. So the dream ended with me dressing up in a disguise to go attend my own wife’s wedding.
How about THAT for a dream!”

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #203 – Accident at the Alien Incinerator

(Male, 30’s) It started off as a normal dream. I was being given a walk-through tour of a place like NASA or something. A large scientific facility and this was the tour for new employees. One of the things we were shown was the incinerator. I remember seeing a small pile of ashes in front of it. We were told to be very careful in cleaning the incinerator because this was where the bodies of the alien creatures were disposed of and if the incinerator wasn’t properly cleaned, we’d risk spreading some kind of alien infection. I made a special mental note to clean the incinerator really well. At the end of the tour, I told the guide that I knew it was all business as usual for them but that I was still finding it kind of hard to get my head around the idea that aliens were real!

“…It wasn’t clear actually whether it really was an accident or whether she did it on purpose….”

So I started working there and things went fine for a few weeks. Then a woman I worked with got careless with the incinerator. It wasn’t clear actually whether it really was an accident or whether she did it on purpose but some the alien virus got out and started infecting people. They turned into some kind of zombie monster. There were strict protocols for how to deal with virus in order to keep it contained.

But some how my 9 year old son got infected. We were locked in a room together. I knew that I had to contain the infection which meant I had to kill him. But he had just started to turn so most of the time I would look at him and he’d be normal. Only every every now and then he’d act very aggressive and throw me around the room. It was impossibly hard but I realized that I’d have to kill him. I got a knife. When he saw the knife he went crazy, so I hid it behind my back. He calmed down. I approached my son and I hugged him, and as I hugged him I sawed off his head with the knife. By that point it was clear that he was a monster but still somewhere inside he was my son. He died mercifully quickly. But his head didn’t fall off entirely. So I had to sort of twist it around and saw for awhile on the other side until it separated.”