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.”

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #202 – Driving Sideways

(Male, 40’s) Unbelievable dream, maybe not a nightmare but a dark dream. Really dark.

“…if I stopped I’d likely be hit by another car and end up like the bits of wreckage….”

I was driving down a gravel road, a familiar gravel road, one that’s kept in pretty good condition usually. I know this road. I was in my car, the familiar car that I drive every day. It was night and it was raining. Visibility was horrible but as I said this was all pretty familiar territory. But the road started to get extremely bad. Not icy or slippery but there was junk on the road. Bits of cars and things. Like something that looked like the entire undercarriage of a car that had just dropped off. I could swerve around them because they just kept popping up in my headlights. But every time I ran over one of these things, the alignment on my car would go just a little bit more skewed. By skewed, I mean that the car was pointing a good 20 degrees to the right different from where the car was actually heading. I couldn’t see where I was going very well because the windsheild wipers only cleared the glass in front and I was headed in a much different direction. I kept running over things, on one side then the other. By the end of the dream, the car was facing exactly perpendicular to the road, a full 90 degrees. I was still somehow able to control it by turning the steering wheel. Don’t ask how the wheels must have been moving. All I knew was that I had to keep going, that if I stopped I’d likely be hit by another car and end up like the bits of wreckage. And I knew that there were pretty steep ditches on both sides of the road so I had to be careful not to go into them. But I really couldn’t slow down either because I had to get somewhere. But I couldn’t see anything. I had to look out through my side window because that was the direction the car was heading. I finally decided to roll down the window but all that did was let in the stinging spray of icy rain. It bit into my face and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. So I closed them. And I woke up.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #201 – a Scissor Murder Escape

(Female, 40’s) This dream was so weird– so strange and violent– that I really don’t know what to make of it.

“…I saw nothing that I could use to kill the man…”

It started out that I was hiding with another woman in a closet-like space. There was a panel near the floor that opened into a hallway. We were being very quiet, cowering in the corner, as far as possible away from the opening. We could hear running in the hallway, men in boots, like soldiers maybe, the clank of guns. When it quieted down, we tried to peek out, but we were seen. We scrambled back into the dark corners of the little room while men hustled to the opening and started reaching in with their arms, trying to grab at us. There was cart coming down the hall so they had to move back. Then they were called away, so they left us.

We looked out again and saw two of our friends, sneaking down the now-empty hallway. We scurried out and joined them, sliding along the walls, eyes darting around. We came to a room, with two glass doors, so we went in, locking the doors behind us. This area appeared to be a sound studio or something like that. We thought we were safe because the doors were locked, but we were wrong.

We went down the hallway and found that the room opened up into a large warehouse. A line of soldiers were pointing guns at me, as a large man advanced toward me. I knew that in order to escape, I had to kill him. He grabbed at me and I ran behind him, jumping up on his back and trying to strangle him. I needed a knife. I looked over at a table top, which was covered with the contents of someone’s junk drawer (which looked much like my junk drawer in the kitchen)– rubber bands, twistie ties, batteries, a bent spoon, shoe laces, an odd cheese knife– and saw nothing that I could use to kill the man.

Then I saw a pair of sheers with an orange plastic handle, much like the sheers we own. I could slit his throat with the sheers, I knew. I couldn’t watch what I was about to do– in fact, I think I closed my eyes in my dream! I opened the sheers and drew the edge of the blade across the man’s throat. I knew it would take several strokes to kill him. With my eyes shut tight, I could feel the blood leaking from his neck. My hands were covered with warm sticky blood. It was awful, but I knew it was my only way out.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare # 200 – Sewers

(Female, 30’s) This dream probably reveals too much about the things that disturb and scare ME!

In my dream, I was scrubbing a shiny white toilet with a cheap little brush, a flimsy stick with a blue and white ball of netting on the end. (A dream about cleaning a toilet– how totally WEIRD is that??) As I finished and tapped the brush on the edge of the bowl, I flushed at the same time– and then the cheap little brush came apart, and the cleaning part started to get sucked down the drain! I didn’t want the toilet to get clogged, but I didn’t really want to stick my hand in the water either.

I worried about deadly fumes– I didn’t smell anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous to my health.

Then I remembered that we had access to something like the water exit chamber (??) of the house, so I could get the broken brush ball out of there! I walked into a utility room where there was a small white door with a strong spring hinge that opened to a sort of chamber where all the drains in the house emptied. (I have no idea where this image came from! Completely imaginary view of plumbing!) The chamber was stark white, very clean and with a big cone-shaped impression in the bottom where all of the waste water drained. It was so clean and smooth and shiny in there. I could see the blue cleaning ball a little way inside, just out of reach. So I got a broom handle and tried to hold the spring door open with one hand while reaching for the ball with the stick with the other hand. I worried about deadly fumes– I didn’t smell anything but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous to my health.

As I leaned in further, I could see the edge of a storage box, just around a corner. How the heck did that get in here? Did someone accidentally flush that down the toilet? As I was reaching and looking, I was slowly climbing inside that chamber. I crawled in far enough to see around the corner, where I found a stack of 6 or 8 storage boxes. We must have put them in here; what had we been thinking? Were we that desperate for storage space?!? I was getting a little panicky at this point, but I looked up and noticed that the ceiling opened to the sky. I could stand up in one spot, and I could put my head and shoulders through the opening. It was sunny and bright outside, and I drew a deep breath of fresh air and felt an enormous relief. Then I started to worry about how I was going to get out of there!

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #199 – Deadly Eavesdropping

(Female, 80’s) I’ve been on some pretty serious medication recently. The injections just make me feel so light, like I’m floating. It takes a couple days until I come back to myself.

I tried to tell her I wasn’t dead

In this dream, I was laying in my recliner, rocking back and forth. Since I got sick I have been sleeping in my recliner because it’s easier for me to get up out of it than out of a bed. I gradually realized that I could hear voices. The voices were loud enough that I could make out what they were saying. I was very curious. One of the voices was one of the preachers from my church. She was talking about someone who had passed away. “She was just sitting there rocking away in her recliner.” I felt sorry for this person and then I realized that the preacher was talking about me. I tried to speak, tried to tell her I wasn’t dead but I wasn’t in my recliner anymore. I was floating up by the ceiling. There was nothing I could do. I felt so powerless.

Categories
Movies Poe

Movies – Trailer for “Poe”

Are we getting excited yet? The 200th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe’s birth is coming up on the 19th. I suspect I’ll mark the occasion by relaxing with a nice Amantillado and perhaps page through some quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore. After of course I’ve entombed a love one or acquaintance beneath the floor boards.

Or I might track down the web premiere of this rather intriguing independent film “Poe: Last Days of the Raven.” Check out the trailer on Youtube:

Or check out the website for the film, Last Days of the Raven where they allege there will be a free web premiere of the film. Hope their servers can support the traffic.

Seriously, I really DO hope they pull this off because I really rather want to see this effort. The trailer looks nicely shot and for the most part tastefully assembled. Granted not all fan-produced features are as satisfying as their trailers… Ok no point being coy. I’ll come out and say it, the Call of Cthulu movie by the H.P.Lovecraft Historical Society was… well, rather embarrassing while the trailer was delightful. Sure the movie gets great credit for moxie and perseverance, heck even its art direction (those cultic statues are just SO COOL.) And probably it’s significant somehow in the history of low/no budget horror. But as a movie it’s only going to be intelligible let alone enjoyable to someone who’s already familiar with the story. It failed, I think, by being too reverent with the source material. Those nested flashbacks within flashbacks just did not work for me in the context of a relatively feature length movie. The trailer, however, remains a sparkling acheivement of mood and style. May their upcoming filmic projects better fulfill the promise of this little gem:

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #198 – Library Out of Time

(Male, 50’s) I don’t know if this qualifies as a nightmare but it was a deeply disturbing dream. I haven’t been in college in decades incidentally.

In the dream, I was in a college library. It was early Saturday morning and there were only a few students, the good students, the ones that were actually studying on the weekend and not sleeping in. I sat at one of the long wooden tables. I had a cloth backpack at my feet, just like the one I used to have many years ago and there were my class books on the table. I was looking through an art book, one of those huge coffee table volumes about some current artist. About this time, I fell asleep in the dream.

When I awoke, it was late in the weekend. It may have been Sunday but it didn’t feel like a Sunday. The students that were around me were the raucous type who’d probably been partying all weekend and now had to cram in some studying before classes started again. The books in front of me had been covered by newspapers like some one had been reading a Sunday paper. I looked for my books underneath them but they were all gone, the text books that I owned as well as the book I had been looking at. At my feet, my backpack had changed to a paper shopping bag filled with junk, literally scavenged junk. I was still disoriented from my nap.

“…At my feet, my backpack had changed to a paper shopping bag filled with junk, literally scavenged junk…”

I figured someone had just re-shelved the books since it appeared I wasn’t using them. I found the art book I was looking at but the name of the artist was actually the name of someone I know in real life, someone who IS an artist. I stumbled over to the line to check this book out. There were two very long lines of noisy students who looked at me oddly. A librarian gestured at me and said she’d open another window for me, even though I wasn’t the next person in line. At this point I realized that I had my daughter with me, though in the dream she was only 4 years old. She’s really grown up and living on her own. I followed the librarian. She went into an office that had a window facing the hallway but the window was about 2 feet off the ground. I had to sit down on the floor to be helped. I told her I wanted to check out that book and she looked at my card and said “This card expired in 1987.” I have no idea why that date would be significant, by the way. I didn’t understand. “Does that mean I can’t check out books?” “No you can’t” “How can I make it work again?” “You can’t” “Can I volunteer, perhaps tutor?” “No, you can’t” “But at least I can still come in the library and use the resources here, right?” “No, you can’t.” By this time the librarian was weeping, just sobbing so I didn’t continue my line of questioning though I still didn’t understand what had happened. I called for my daughter and we started making our way toward the exit. It was strange to be seeing the library for the last time. My daughter asked everyone we passed what time it was.

I awoke horribly disoriented. In fact, I HAD overslept.

Categories
Book Fiction

Novels – The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale

Something roams the wild places down by the Sabine River, something mysterious, something murderous in Joe R. Landale’s novel The Bottoms. The book, a fictional memoir, is a joy to read, by turns suspenseful and horrific, wry and at times melancholic. It’s a well-crafted piece by an accomplished master every bit deserving of the Edgar Award it won in 2000.

In The Bottoms, Harry Collins recounts events that happened to him during his Depression-era boyhood in East Texas after he discovered the body of a woman murdered by a serial killer. One by one, more bodies are found, each bound and mutilated. Harry’s father is the constable to the area which allows him privileged access to information about the killer. Woven into this coming of age tale are local legends about a Goat Man who’s sold his soul, the curious wonders of sexuality as well as the dizzying terror of entrenched racial hatred.

The book is clearly the work of a craftsman. On every page there are one or two sentences that are simply and elegantly phrased. The pacing of the narrative is smooth and I was able to relax as I read, knowing that there would be no surface irritations to disturb the ride. If anything, the ride was a bit too smooth for my tastes, as if all the rough edges had been sanded flat even if some mysteries remain unsolved. This observation is hardly a criticism since the tone and scope perfectly fit the conceit that these are the well-considered reflections of a man late in life.

My only quibble really was a slight touch of what I’d call white-man’s-burden-ism. I’m a Yankee and we suffer from our own forms of entrenched racism so I don’t presume to speak from some morally superior position. I’m just left extremely curious about what the black community depicted in the novel would have done to protect itself from a serial killer. Lansdale does an admirable job of providing plausible insights into this world and granted, since Harry’s father is constable, the novel is weighted toward official (i.e. white) justice. Still, I’m left curious even though I realize that this curiosity is probably an unfair expectation to put on any memoir.

The Bottoms is well worth reading, especially if you enjoy tales of sex murders, satannic Goat men and hooded night riders. It deals rather intelligently with that time of life when we realize we’re living in a world of wonders and horrors and that people we respect sometimes respond to that world in less than respectable ways. Take it to the beach with you instead of that other cookie-cutter mystery novel.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #197 – Freed from Prison

(Female, 80’s) This was my Mom’s nightmare the other night. She’s just getting over some health problems so that’s what she thought it was about but it’s still a nightmare.

Mom was in jail, actually in a prison far far away from her home. Day after day went by in this horrible place but finally she was told that she would be released and sent home. What they didn’t tell her but what she knew somehow anyway was that she’d be sent home in a box, in a coffin, that’s she’d be dead.

Mom said she woke up in physical pain at least partly brought on by the nightmare.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #196 – Monster Hide, Monster Seek

(Male, 40’s) I wrenched my back the other day shoveling snow so I had the worst night of sleep ever. Every time I rolled over, the pain woke me up and as it happened, I always seemed to be in the middle of nightmare.

One of the nightmares involved a game, sort of. There were at least a couple dozen of us, all adults who were playing hide and seek. Sort of. There was a cluster of little buildings, like cottages, I guess, tiny one or two room living spaces with white cotton curtains on the windows. It was night time, fully dark and it seemed like summer, at least there wasn’t snow on the ground. Some of the people were monsters. I would almost call them zombies but they didn’t move particularly slow or strangely. But if they grabbed you, you died. The people who were hiding were very scared. There was a woman with very white blond hair who was particularly scared. She couldn’t seem to move even though it was not a good strategy to stay in one place. I stayed away from the monsters for most of the night. I was trying to make it over to a nearby barn that had a tall concrete silo. For some reason, I thought I’d be safe there. As I crawled out of a window, I was spotted simultaneously by three monsters. I said “Aha, I still have three bullets left.” I made my hand into the shape of a gun (?) and fired at each of the monsters (??) Each one of them stopped and looked down at their chest to see if I had really shot them. They were starting to realize that it was all just a big bluff when I woke up.

Another dream also seemed to involve a barn though in stead of a hay mow, it had bookshelves, like a library with a huge gambrel roof. There was a dragon who was devouring the nearby town. Like in the last dream, I was trying to hide though it seemed easier to hide from a dragon than human sized monsters. Just when I thought I was perfectly safe, the dragon smashed through the stained glass windows … didn’t I mention? The “barn” also had huge stained glass windows like a medieval monastery or something… The dragon smashed through the window and spoke to me and the other people who were hiding with me. Someone yelled “Don’t run. He’ll have to kill you if you run.” as if it was part of the dragon’s code of honor, or something. I didn’t run but I also didn’t jump out of my hiding place either. The dragon was clearly going to burn down the barn if we didn’t surrender to be eaten. I decided to take my chances in the fire when I woke up.

There was another nightmare in there too, I think about a ghost but I can’t remember it very well.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare # 195 – Shopping Can be Murder

(Female, 40’s) I was shopping in this dream. But I was shopping in the weirdest place I’d ever seen. This “shopping district” was a winding darn alley that looked like a cross between a horror movie set and a Dickens novel. There was a dark and damp, curving pedestrian pathway between these irregularly shaped stores, sitting close together. I swear there were gas lamps.

I went into a shoe store and spent some time trying on shoes. It was like Payless– a self-serve place. I was in the back of the store trying on boots when a man came up behind me and knocked me down, so I was sprawled on my stomach with my arms and legs sticking out. Very graceful. He knelt on my back with one knee and held something sharp against my back. He said, “Don’t move or I’ll have to hurt you.” I said, “Go ahead, you can take all my money.” “Of course I can,” he replied.

I thought about pushing him up and knocking him off my back. And beating him up. I was pretty sure I could do that. But I was worried about the lone clerk in the store, up by the front counter. She might get hurt. So I didn’t do anything. The robber was getting heavy. I kept thinking about what I should do. Then I woke up.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #194 – My Aunt’s Wound

(Female, 40’s) This was a dream in two acts.

In the first part of the dream, I was with my natal family in a restaurant for breakfast. We were all very hungry. We sat at a big table in comfy captain’s chairs– my parents, my grown siblings, and I — and ordered breakfast for all of us. Something distracted me and I left the table for a few minutes. When I returned, the table was covered with the remains of a breakfast feast: big baskets, now almost empty of their contents. They were almost Easter-basket sized containers of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, biscuits, and pancakes. My family were still eating like they were starving, but they had nearly emptied the baskets of food. I had to ask and ask for things to be passed to me; they seemed entirely unaware that I had not had anything to eat.

In the second part, I went outside. I was walking down the street, and I ran into one of my old aunts, who I hadn’t seen in a long while. I asked her how she was doing, and she said, “Pretty well, all things considered. Well, I have to see a doctor about this…” She lifted up her shirt and showed me a long, shallow crack in her skin, that ran along the side of her torso– almost like a gash, but just in her skin. “I really don’t know what to make of it,” she explained. Then I noticed that the wound was leaking a very thick white substance, that reminded me of Elmer’s glue. “Wow, I don’t have any idea either,” I said. What the hell was that stuff? White blood cells? Something alien? She coughed and a lot of the white goo oozed out of her. “Yeah, you better see a doctor soon,” I assured her.

Categories
Nightmares

Nightmare #193 – Terrorized by Motorcycle Hooligans

(Male, 50’s) In the interests of full disclosure, I should admit that I bought a motorcycle a couple years back in the midst of mid-life crisis and that within the last week as it came time to winterize the thing, I’d been angry with myself that another season had passed and I hadn’t really gotten out on it.

I was with my wife and a female friend and we were crossing a parking lot, heading into a bar when this group of about a dozen motorcycle riders over took us. I started defending the women who were able to get away. This didn’t particularly make the hooligans mad. They just started messing with me instead.

This was a relatively outlandish group of motorcyclists really. Their bikes were all American made and chopped like very classic examples of the style. And by classic I mean original 40’s and 50’s era chopped bikes, simple, basic, with a few bits of chromed flair. And the guys themselves were straight out of a time capsule too, or at least they looked like they were trying to be. They had greased hair with big curls on the top. I bet there’s a word for that. They didn’t wear the bomber style jackets but rather something that looked more like a suit coat jacket that was made out of riding quality leather. They were a riding club – The Rockets – which actually, as I remember it now used to be a local band I really enjoyed back in the 70’s.

The Rockets pushed me around with a detached, ironic sort of torture, like a cat playing with a mouse, that bats it around between its paws. One of them had a package of metal “rockets” that sort of looked like those toys from back in the day that you could put a “cap” in and then toss up in the air and when it landed the cap would go off with a loud pop. Anyway, one of the gang members had a package of these, still on the cardboard like he’d bought it at a retro boutique or something. He took them off the card one by one and shoved them in my mouth til I was choking. I think this was some kind of a test of something to see if I’d choke or vomit. All the while they were laughing and joking while I was trying to keep from suffocating.