Month: May 2012

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #334 – Corpse in the Trunk

(Male, 40’s) This might not sound like it, but this is definitely a work-related stress nightmare. I was at work – well, not exactly the place where I work. It was a different building located right downtown Detroit near one of the old auto plants. I was working so much overtime that I hadn’t gone home at all for two nights. So, in the logic of the dream, I had loaned my car to a few coworkers so they could all carpool home in it.

It was morning and I was still in my pajamas, at work, remember. And my car arrives and a half dozen of my coworkers get out. The normal stupidity of work starts up and then I get a phone call from someone who is staying home that day. And my manager basically tells me I have to do his work for him in addition to mine. This is more than I can take.

I go out to my car and find it is in a sorry state. First of all the door locks are broken so the lock is just a metal rod flopping uselessly in the driver’s side door. The car has been broken into but I never have anything in it so nothing was stolen. The door panel on the driver’s side back door was torn off, revealing the inner workings of the door. It made sense to me that was how the thieves had broken in, by dismantling the door. Then I walk around the car and find an addict crouching by my car. He says “I didn’t do any of that stuff” but I notice that he’s stuck a used syringe into my rear car tire. He mentions that I might not want to look in the trunk.

At which point, I realize that someone has stashed a dead body in the trunk of my car. Next thing I know the cops are there, writing up a report. But the report doesn’t seem to have anything to do with my car. One cop says “The gorilla is still missing. That’s why we recovered the jaguar.” At first I thought he meant a stolen car, a Jaguar. But then I noticed an actual jaguar prowling around the parking lot. I panicked and ran toward the door of my office. The police yelled “Don’t run. It’ll chase you.” Sure enough the jaguar started running after me, obviously ready to pounce and kill me.

Categories
Games

“Haunts: Danse Macabre” – a turn-based haunted house game on Kickstarter

Micro-funding of niche projects like creepy video games just warms my heart. Amp up that warmth when the project is Creative Commons licensed and even available for linux. So dig “Haunts” a turn-based haunted house game currently soliciting funds for finishing on Kickstarter. Every $5 gets a download code for the game; larger donations get more codes plus the typical silly perks. The game itself looks fun with a style reminiscent of Gorey. Readers of The DailyNightmare might note that players can select portraying the human adventurers who discover the house OR the creepy denizens who would rather just be left alone.

The company, Mob Rules Games, operates with a radically transparent business model and is documenting the development of the game rather publically with lots of behind the scenes bits and pieces. To be brutally frank, it’s good to know that they have a business model since some of the projects on micro-funding sites seem devised without a speck of realistic financial savvy. Since Haunts has been in development for several months already, they appear to be on track to ship an actual product. Donations for these kind of projects work out to be more pre-orders than risky venture capital investments.

So send ’em a few bucks. $5 is barely what a double-mocha-cappu-frappa coffee costs these days.

Categories
Games

“Zombies, Run” iPhone app – UPDATE

It’s official: this game still rocks. When I first dl’ed it a few weeks ago, I half expected “Zombies, Run” to be a clever idea that didn’t quite deliver more than a one hit spin on exercise motivation. And that was going to be fine with me. I already knew I needed to get more exercise and if “Zombies, Run” just gave me the initial kick to get started, it would have done enough.

It’s done more. The little app has maintained my interest and actually spurred me to exercise longer and more frequently than I’d originally planned. I planned to be doing a “mission” that is 30:00 or so three times a week. Last week for instance, I exerecised six times. I’m also exercising for longer than my original plan. Today, I’m recovering from 46:00 minutes.

In particular the app helps in two key areas. The first problem area for me is that first 5 minutes. The drudgery is in full effect while none of the endorphins have kicked in. Pre-Zombies, this was a time when I frequently would stop. Now there is a thread of narrative interest that keeps me htting the pedals. (OK, so I “cheat” — I’m using an indoor stationary bike instead of actual running.) The other problem area occurs at the end of the workout. There’s an option in the app to select workouts of about 30 minutes or about an hour. 30 minutes are getting a bit too easy for me and though there’s a clear sense of closure when the “mission” in complete, the app switches seamlessly into “radio mode” where I can continue running while listening to DJs from my beloved zombie-ridden town. And most important, I can continue to gather supplies for this beleaguered encampment. That supply-gathering aspect is the game part of the app. Every tin of food or discarded mobile phone that I retrieve helps contribute to my town’s vitality.

And there continues to be some nice serendipitous corelations between the songs in my playlist and the zombie menace. A few that come to mind are:

• “Those are People who Died” by Jim Carroll
• “Be My Frankenstein” by Otis Taylor (the refrain is “Just wanna live another day”)
• “Can’t Get You Out of my Head” by Kylie Minogue (a guilty pleasure — don’t judge me! — but given the zombie context I imagine the undead trying to crack into ones skull to feast on the goo inside.)
• “Crawling from the Wreckage” by Dave Edmunds (especially for the beginning where “Runner 5” emerges from a crashed helicopter)
• “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” by Johnny Cash (the zombie tie-in is that it was used in the remake of “Dawn of the Dead” as the opening credit sequence, as I recall.)
• “It’s the End of the World as We Know it” by R.E.M.
• “Nemesis” by Shreikback
• “Run to the Hills” by Iron Maiden
• “Survivalism” by Nine Inch Nails

etc.

If I keep this up, I’ll be ready for 5K season in no time. And I’ll have honed a survival skill for the zombie apocalypse.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #318 – Torture in the Basement

(Male, 30’s) I was dragged down a flight of wooden stairs. My shoes made a thump thump thump as they hit each stair, like a drum. I was supported somehow under both arms but the stairs were too narrow to have someone walking on either side. When I realized where I was, I was in my basement, or at least what what supposed to be the basement of my house. We’ve just finished remodeling it into a kind of rec room but this wasn’t cozy. It was more like a workshop, one that had been turned into a torture chamber.

I stood on top of a small box, like a milk crate. I think I may have been tied. Underneath my throat was a hacksaw blade. I think the idea was that if I relaxed, it would start to cut into my throat.

But as I “woke up” in the dream, the blade was less tight. I think I was supposed to be forced to stand on my tip toes, but I was able to stand flat footed.

My torturer turned to look at me. I was supposed to recognize him, I had that sense, but he was no one I knew. I told him that I’d tell him whatever he wanted to know. He said he knew that was true. But that didn’t seem to be of interest. He was more afraid that I’d say what I already knew, that I already knew some horrible secret that shouldn’t be revealed.

I let my mind wander so as not to add to the torture. I knew this wasn’t the first day that I’d faced him. But was it the second? The third? I tried to come up with a technique to remember, to keep myself from going crazy. I looked at the walls. They were covered in shelves of junk. There were two metal cans, like one would use for paint. I told myself to remember that those two cans meant it was the second day or the second session. The next time I was brought before him, I’d look for three of a kind. I kept focused on that idea. The knots around me gradually grew looser.

Eventually, I was just in my bed, awake.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #317 – Insane and Toxic


(Male, 50’s) This was an epic length anxiety dream which at some point turned into a full bore nightmare.

I was on vacation somewhere at a retreat center in a rural setting during off-peak season. There may have only been one or two other people there. Simple setting, plain rooms but generally quiet. Except a construction team was building a new parking lot in the back of the building on what used to be a swamp. It wasn’t going well. There was angry yelling, machinery grinding and squealing then silence. The team had discovered something that was supposed to stay buried. The subcontractors who were supposed to fill in the swamp and raise the grade to where it could get asphalt had sunken a half dozen or so 55 gallon drums into the still mucky wet soil. Water or some liquid oozed all around these drums that gave off an oily, rainbow colored sheen. The people who drank from wells fed by this swamp might all have been poisoned.

That would explain all the birth defects that had been occurring in the area… Somehow I knew that there’d been birth defects even though I was just vacationing in the area.

It was getting dark but word spread fast about the poison. Rumors spread about possible weird side effects. Not quite zombies but people out of control, like feral beasts. I decided to turn off all the lights and brave it through the night rather than be trapped out on unfamiliar dirt roads in the dark.

At some point I heard the sound of music. Next door to the retreat center where I stayed was some kind of music camp. They were practicing. I went over to warn them, in case they hadn’t heard that crazed ex-humans were on their way. It was a music camp for orchestra players roughly aged 8 or so. They played pretty well for their age, not concert quality but not painfully bad. There were less than a half dozen adults. “The children have been practicing for weeks and since martial law has been declared, we don’t know when they’ll be able to play their instruments again. We wanted to let them have one last concert before they put their instruments down, possibly forever.” I couldn’t convince them of the danger they were putting themselves in. And in fact, they convinced me to stay for the concert. There were all sorts of foods, intricate pastries and hard boiled eggs. I didn’t know when I’d get to eat again, what with the mass of crazies headed our way.

The music was pleasant enough but in the middle of the first piece, one of the adults stands up. He’s clearly gone crazy if for no other reason than he’s got a full beard — I remember thinking that in the dream! He must be crazy because he has a full beard, which is odd because I have whiskers myself– He’s foaming at the mouth and his hair is frazzled. He pulls out a gun and aims it at one of the other adults. Bam! He shoots her in the heart and she’s dead. He aims again. Bam! Another adult shot dead right through the heart. The third bullet was meant for me but I simply decided that I was not going to be shot. Time slowed greatly. I leaped from my chair, grabbed a broom handle and swatted the gun from the lunatic’s hand.

At that instant I woke up, my heart just racing.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #335 – Zombie Demolition

(Male, 20’s) I came home one night, around twilight. The actual house resembled the house that belonged to my grandmother, by the way. But there was something wrong, really wrong. The entire first floor of the building had been ripped apart, pretty much torn down to studs. There were people I didn’t know living there. They were frantic and quite suspicious of me at least at first. It was difficult to explain to them that I actually lived there, that this was my house.

Evidentally they lived there too, somewhere upstairs. I asked what happened. Zombies attacked and started tearing off the siding and drywall. It was like the zombies were cracking the shell of a peanut in order to eat what was inside. But then, evidently the zombies wandered off when dawn came.

The inhabitants of the building were insane with fear because they thought the zombies would return because it was nearing dark. They were useless. I tried to get them to work, to re-arrange some of the rubble into a small defendable structure but they were shell shock, totally gone.

I picked up a piece of metal and stapled it to a joist. There, I thought, at least I’ve started.