Pansy-Ass Zombies
The second zombie dream. Similes abound.
Well, the first thing I remember, there were zombies all over and we couldn't leave the house. Pop said that the zombies would get mad and try to come in if we boarded up the doors, so we just kept quiet and turned most of the lights off. We tiptoed around, and were nervous. The zombies outside just milled about. They couldn't smell us.
Other people we knew and didn't know showed up, said "I'm not a zombie," and came in the door. They would just walk in. They'd open the door and the zombies would start lurching towards the door, then they'd close it and the zombies would wander off. These guys were really stupid, even for zombies.
Unlike the afro/anorak zombies in my last zombie dream, who were more like a robot army, these guys looked really dead. They had shreds of flesh hanging down, and their skin was patchy and torn. They shambled like proper zombies, and their eyes were dull and milky. These were definitely the walking dead.
Pop and I went outside to see if we could get the zombies out of the yard. In the dream, a tall stone fence surrounded the house and if we could kill the zombies and shut the gates, we'd have the yard back.
We weren't too worried about the zombies when we went out. We could move a lot faster than they could, and I knew that zombie bites weren't infectious. They were better than dog bites, actually, because zombies tended to just gum you. In this dream, zombies were real pansies.
We had a big box of machetes by the door. These were mediocre machetes, the kind that are about $5 at a surplus store. We had a big box of them.
(I saw a big box of machetes at a surplus store once, and it made quite an impression. It was a big box of economical sharpness. I would have bought one, but Mom looked nervous when I brought it up. Also, we had two nice old wooden handled machetes in the shed. The ones for sale had nasty black plastic handles.)
I had a machete in each hand, and Pop had a scythe. We weren't trying to kill the zombies, necessarily. We were just trying to chase them out the gate. Pop whirled the scythe around, yelling things like "Shoo! Go away, zombies!" As I said before, these were really pathetic zombies. Rather than see Pop's movement as FOOD, they cringed and slouched away from him. Zombies aren't supposed to care about self-defense!
I made threatening motions with the machetes, but I was actually hitting zombies most of the time, rather than just scaring them. They weren't as afraid of me as they were of Pop. Perhaps it was because the scythe's movement was in huge arcs, but the machetes were closer. I did manage to herd zombies, but most of them were much the worse for wear. Hands and chunks of flesh littered the ground.
Oddly, they weren't attacking me, even though they weren't very afraid of me. They just shuffled sheepishly away.
We had almost dispatched all of the backyard zombies when one charged in through the gate. This zombie had spunk, and started chasing me. I hit him in the head repeatedly with the machetes, each time cutting smoothly through the skull, about 5 inches into the head. It slowed him down a little. Pop came over to help. He got a good look at the zombie, and then he laughed. "That's not a zombie. That's just Sam."
[Sam is an old dude Pop knows. This zombie didn't actually look like him. If this zombie looked like ANYONE, it was Rip Torn.]
Anyway, Sam started to feel the effects the massive brain damage I'd inflicted. His head wounds oozed blood, and he stumbled into the compost heap, vomiting violently. His body shuddered and was still.
Pop wasn't mad at me, but he said that I'd have to drag the body out if it didn't re-animate soon. Luckily, it did, and I had no trouble herding it out of the yard.
After we'd cleared the zombies out of the yard and locked the gates, we went inside and started planning with all the folks in the house. We all sat on the floor in the living room and discussed our options. We could either hole up here and scavenge for canned food, or try to find some deserted mountain or valley and farm.
I felt a bit frustrated. Even in the dream, I realized these zombies were pussies. We could just go on with our lives normally, if we armed ourselves and kept an eye on small children. It wasn't like we were the only humans left alive. Probably 80% of the town was still okay. Sheesh.
I went to look out the window again, but the outside looked different. Now our house was in a storefront at the mall, and the window looked out into a food court, an escalator, and several other stores.
Since the house was suddenly not really a house, people started to drift out of it. Most of them didn't even arm themselves. I did, though. I was getting disgusted at this zombie thing. You know how you can really like a computer game, then you get to a point where it just becomes repetitive and you're only finishing it so you can delete it and be done? It was like that. I was fine with the whole zombie thing, and now it was just getting annoying.
The mall was also sort of a school. I guess the school was on one side of the mall, perhaps built there by some enterprising soul who wanted to have a target audience RIGHT THERE to play with. Instead of an anchor store, like Pennys or Mervyns, there was an elementary school. Kids were all over the mall's courtyards, some zombified and some not.
Most of the kids seemed to be having a good time with the zombies. The mall was dimly lit, with spots of brightness in the form of Xmas lights and small spotlights. Dark green jungle plants lurked in huge terra cotta pots. There were benches and displays and the stores' anti-burglary curtains were all rolled up. The zombies seemed just as non-threatening as the previous ones, but they were dressed better. Although they were still the rotting, shambling dead, they had rich satin bodysuits and hats, resembling an enormous company of jesters from some well-funded renaissance faire.
The kids danced and played, and the zombies followed them, unable to catch up. This was beginning to worry me.
It reminded me of babysitting 5 young boys in a big house. I could never keep track of them all, and I'd always find the missing ones about to tip something heavy onto themselves, or to throw the radio into the toilet, or something else destructive and apt to get me in trouble.
I rushed around the mall, decapitating zombies. The kids got mad at me for spoiling their fun, but I knew I was helping them, in the long run. Some of the zombies looked at me like puppies about to be gassed. They held still.
As I rushed around, I became disoriented and the atmosphere changed again. The mall was lit by torches, and was darker. Teachers and administrators were supervising the children, and they were all dressed medievally. There were more children. I got the impression that I was in some kind of supervised Lord of the Flies world.
At least there weren't any zombies. Wearing plain clothes and well armed in this brightly-colored, picturesque world, I felt like an AD&D adventurer coming into a peaceful village. I was happy that the zombies were gone, but I didn't feel that I'd be welcomed here.
One of the adults struck me as familiar, a pudgy man with a comical mustache. He was outfitted as a peddler, with an open box of trinkets suspended from his shoulders, but he wielded more power. I could tell he was in charge. As I went to talk to him, I noticed some zombies in the near distance. The zombies had really degenerated, looking more like haunted house puppet/suits or maybe Lovecraftian ghouls. They pushed janitor's carts and were cleaning methodically.
"Good god! You can't have zombies here! They'll eat the kids!"
The man just grinned mischievously, then said, in a loud disapproving tone that belied his looks, "Don't give them ideas. We haven't had an accident yet."
I realize that the zombies in this dream are pretty harmless, but I was still dead set against allowing any to live, even if they were doing useful jobs. I protested again, and we got into an argument. As we got louder and angrier, the zombies suddenly stood up straight and dropped their cleaning supplies. By gosh! I was right! They should be killing!
The three remaining zombies started killing children, moving more like traditional zombies, and tearing the screaming kids apart with sharp teeth. Actually, they were even worse than Romero zombies. The fact that they were moving quickly, showing intelligence, and looked unearthly, not just dead, made them rather more like Evil Dead zombies. A bad thing.
I was about to go kill the zombies and any infected kids, when I noticed my machetes were gone. The man laughed at me as I grabbed a torch from the wall. I tried to set the zombies on fire, and they went up well. They went up as though they'd been soaked in lighter fluid, as did the children they'd bitten. Everyone else was immune.
Suddenly, it hit me. It was all the happy man's fault. Why? I guess because he was the only one happy about it. And for employing cheap zombie labor. I decided to set him on fire, but he didn't go up as easily. He wasn't a zombie, after all. I started trying to set other things on fire, like store displays or benches, but my torch just didn't seem to work. I'd put the flame under a rack of dresses, but they wouldn't burn or melt. I guess touching it to the smiling guy ruined it.
I tossed the torch aside and grabbed the smiling man. I think he reminded me most of my grade school's principal. Maybe that was why it was all his fault. I got a good hold and after a short struggle duck walked him over to the burning zombie ashes, which were still burning merrily. I tried to push him into the flames, but he repelled the flames as though they had the same charge. I threw him at the wall of fire, but he bounced back. Damn.
The children were crowding around. I didn't see any adults anymore, just the happy man and me. He lay on the floor, giggling, while the kids watched to see what I would do next.
That's when I spotted my machetes. They were on a bench over by the discarded janitor's carts. I went and got them, then returned to the gaggle of kids, intending to decapitate the smiling guy.
But he was gone. The kids all looked at me and shrugged. I decided to leave.
Other people we knew and didn't know showed up, said "I'm not a zombie," and came in the door. They would just walk in. They'd open the door and the zombies would start lurching towards the door, then they'd close it and the zombies would wander off. These guys were really stupid, even for zombies.
Unlike the afro/anorak zombies in my last zombie dream, who were more like a robot army, these guys looked really dead. They had shreds of flesh hanging down, and their skin was patchy and torn. They shambled like proper zombies, and their eyes were dull and milky. These were definitely the walking dead.
Pop and I went outside to see if we could get the zombies out of the yard. In the dream, a tall stone fence surrounded the house and if we could kill the zombies and shut the gates, we'd have the yard back.
We weren't too worried about the zombies when we went out. We could move a lot faster than they could, and I knew that zombie bites weren't infectious. They were better than dog bites, actually, because zombies tended to just gum you. In this dream, zombies were real pansies.
We had a big box of machetes by the door. These were mediocre machetes, the kind that are about $5 at a surplus store. We had a big box of them.
(I saw a big box of machetes at a surplus store once, and it made quite an impression. It was a big box of economical sharpness. I would have bought one, but Mom looked nervous when I brought it up. Also, we had two nice old wooden handled machetes in the shed. The ones for sale had nasty black plastic handles.)
I had a machete in each hand, and Pop had a scythe. We weren't trying to kill the zombies, necessarily. We were just trying to chase them out the gate. Pop whirled the scythe around, yelling things like "Shoo! Go away, zombies!" As I said before, these were really pathetic zombies. Rather than see Pop's movement as FOOD, they cringed and slouched away from him. Zombies aren't supposed to care about self-defense!
I made threatening motions with the machetes, but I was actually hitting zombies most of the time, rather than just scaring them. They weren't as afraid of me as they were of Pop. Perhaps it was because the scythe's movement was in huge arcs, but the machetes were closer. I did manage to herd zombies, but most of them were much the worse for wear. Hands and chunks of flesh littered the ground.
Oddly, they weren't attacking me, even though they weren't very afraid of me. They just shuffled sheepishly away.
We had almost dispatched all of the backyard zombies when one charged in through the gate. This zombie had spunk, and started chasing me. I hit him in the head repeatedly with the machetes, each time cutting smoothly through the skull, about 5 inches into the head. It slowed him down a little. Pop came over to help. He got a good look at the zombie, and then he laughed. "That's not a zombie. That's just Sam."
[Sam is an old dude Pop knows. This zombie didn't actually look like him. If this zombie looked like ANYONE, it was Rip Torn.]
Anyway, Sam started to feel the effects the massive brain damage I'd inflicted. His head wounds oozed blood, and he stumbled into the compost heap, vomiting violently. His body shuddered and was still.
Pop wasn't mad at me, but he said that I'd have to drag the body out if it didn't re-animate soon. Luckily, it did, and I had no trouble herding it out of the yard.
After we'd cleared the zombies out of the yard and locked the gates, we went inside and started planning with all the folks in the house. We all sat on the floor in the living room and discussed our options. We could either hole up here and scavenge for canned food, or try to find some deserted mountain or valley and farm.
I felt a bit frustrated. Even in the dream, I realized these zombies were pussies. We could just go on with our lives normally, if we armed ourselves and kept an eye on small children. It wasn't like we were the only humans left alive. Probably 80% of the town was still okay. Sheesh.
I went to look out the window again, but the outside looked different. Now our house was in a storefront at the mall, and the window looked out into a food court, an escalator, and several other stores.
Since the house was suddenly not really a house, people started to drift out of it. Most of them didn't even arm themselves. I did, though. I was getting disgusted at this zombie thing. You know how you can really like a computer game, then you get to a point where it just becomes repetitive and you're only finishing it so you can delete it and be done? It was like that. I was fine with the whole zombie thing, and now it was just getting annoying.
The mall was also sort of a school. I guess the school was on one side of the mall, perhaps built there by some enterprising soul who wanted to have a target audience RIGHT THERE to play with. Instead of an anchor store, like Pennys or Mervyns, there was an elementary school. Kids were all over the mall's courtyards, some zombified and some not.
Most of the kids seemed to be having a good time with the zombies. The mall was dimly lit, with spots of brightness in the form of Xmas lights and small spotlights. Dark green jungle plants lurked in huge terra cotta pots. There were benches and displays and the stores' anti-burglary curtains were all rolled up. The zombies seemed just as non-threatening as the previous ones, but they were dressed better. Although they were still the rotting, shambling dead, they had rich satin bodysuits and hats, resembling an enormous company of jesters from some well-funded renaissance faire.
The kids danced and played, and the zombies followed them, unable to catch up. This was beginning to worry me.
It reminded me of babysitting 5 young boys in a big house. I could never keep track of them all, and I'd always find the missing ones about to tip something heavy onto themselves, or to throw the radio into the toilet, or something else destructive and apt to get me in trouble.
I rushed around the mall, decapitating zombies. The kids got mad at me for spoiling their fun, but I knew I was helping them, in the long run. Some of the zombies looked at me like puppies about to be gassed. They held still.
As I rushed around, I became disoriented and the atmosphere changed again. The mall was lit by torches, and was darker. Teachers and administrators were supervising the children, and they were all dressed medievally. There were more children. I got the impression that I was in some kind of supervised Lord of the Flies world.
At least there weren't any zombies. Wearing plain clothes and well armed in this brightly-colored, picturesque world, I felt like an AD&D adventurer coming into a peaceful village. I was happy that the zombies were gone, but I didn't feel that I'd be welcomed here.
One of the adults struck me as familiar, a pudgy man with a comical mustache. He was outfitted as a peddler, with an open box of trinkets suspended from his shoulders, but he wielded more power. I could tell he was in charge. As I went to talk to him, I noticed some zombies in the near distance. The zombies had really degenerated, looking more like haunted house puppet/suits or maybe Lovecraftian ghouls. They pushed janitor's carts and were cleaning methodically.
"Good god! You can't have zombies here! They'll eat the kids!"
The man just grinned mischievously, then said, in a loud disapproving tone that belied his looks, "Don't give them ideas. We haven't had an accident yet."
I realize that the zombies in this dream are pretty harmless, but I was still dead set against allowing any to live, even if they were doing useful jobs. I protested again, and we got into an argument. As we got louder and angrier, the zombies suddenly stood up straight and dropped their cleaning supplies. By gosh! I was right! They should be killing!
The three remaining zombies started killing children, moving more like traditional zombies, and tearing the screaming kids apart with sharp teeth. Actually, they were even worse than Romero zombies. The fact that they were moving quickly, showing intelligence, and looked unearthly, not just dead, made them rather more like Evil Dead zombies. A bad thing.
I was about to go kill the zombies and any infected kids, when I noticed my machetes were gone. The man laughed at me as I grabbed a torch from the wall. I tried to set the zombies on fire, and they went up well. They went up as though they'd been soaked in lighter fluid, as did the children they'd bitten. Everyone else was immune.
Suddenly, it hit me. It was all the happy man's fault. Why? I guess because he was the only one happy about it. And for employing cheap zombie labor. I decided to set him on fire, but he didn't go up as easily. He wasn't a zombie, after all. I started trying to set other things on fire, like store displays or benches, but my torch just didn't seem to work. I'd put the flame under a rack of dresses, but they wouldn't burn or melt. I guess touching it to the smiling guy ruined it.
I tossed the torch aside and grabbed the smiling man. I think he reminded me most of my grade school's principal. Maybe that was why it was all his fault. I got a good hold and after a short struggle duck walked him over to the burning zombie ashes, which were still burning merrily. I tried to push him into the flames, but he repelled the flames as though they had the same charge. I threw him at the wall of fire, but he bounced back. Damn.
The children were crowding around. I didn't see any adults anymore, just the happy man and me. He lay on the floor, giggling, while the kids watched to see what I would do next.
That's when I spotted my machetes. They were on a bench over by the discarded janitor's carts. I went and got them, then returned to the gaggle of kids, intending to decapitate the smiling guy.
But he was gone. The kids all looked at me and shrugged. I decided to leave.