I had a crazy nightmare about two months ago, one of those very vivid dreams that sticks with you *long* after waking.
I was walking through a house that I'd just purchased in another city, showing it to a couple of friends of mine. As we left, I shut off all the lights, but when I turned back to look at the house from the car, the dining room light was still on. With a perplexed frown, I walked back to the house. My friends began shouting at me to stop, but I insisted that I had to turn the light off.
I unlocked the back door and entered the kitchen. Everything was dark, aside from the light in the dining room, which cast an eerie glow about the kitchen. The entire room was done in tacky 70’s wallpaper, mustard yellow Formica, and faded yellow linoleum. It was then I realized that this wasn’t my home at all. My friends, who had wisely stayed outside, said, “This is the crazy lady’s house.” I heard a strange kind of moaning, and looked to my right. Once my eyes focused in the half-light, and I saw Vinnie and Reenie seated in high chairs like little children. They seemed to be severely mentally handicapped, and were staring vacantly ahead and moaning, arms held up at awkward angles. It looked like they’d been attempting to eat porridge from the bowls set before them because they each held a massive spoon, and they were covered in food, much like a baby would be.
I looked across the kitchen and noticed that the basement door was wide open, the stairs leading down to it swallowed up by the darkness. I heard footsteps, felt a dark presence, and began to back toward the door. Suddenly the crazy lady was standing across from me with unkempt wiry, black hair and one milky eye. Without diverting her eerie stare or even blinking, she moved toward me dispassionately, hands tucked into the pockets of her corduroys. I managed to get out of the house, but then I froze completely on the lawn. She just kept coming slowly but determinedly. She was within inches of me, and I knew I was going to die, when I was suddenly shoved out of the way by my girlfriend, who grabbed the pursuer and said, “Oi, then, give us a kiss, luv.” The crazy lady looked somewhat taken aback, and then said, “Oh, okay.” I, of course, ran. My friend joined us (apparently the crazy lady was too stunned by the sudden snogging to give chase), and we drove off. I woke up immediately after our escape.
Like I said, it was one of those dreams that sticks with you. I woke up in broad daylight and just lay there for a few minutes staring wildly around, almost afraid to move. I rolled over and saw a bookshelf with my robe hanging from it and about had a heart attack thinking it was a zombie. Then I realized I couldn’t hear anything. It was deathly silent. I thought, “Is that a good sign? There are no screams, no mass hysteria. That’s good, right? Wait. What if everyone is dead?” That’s when I remembered I had earplugs in.
Now see, I’m a rational person. I *know* there are no such things as zombies. The problem is, in movies it’s always the person who scoffs at the idea that gets their face bitten off first. So I spent the first 20 minutes or so of my day peeping through the blinds, looking for signs of life outside, being completely creeped out.
It gets weirder.
The next day, I was at the bank, when my car battery died. While waiting for the tow truck, I was sitting on a low wall at the top of a small embankment overlooking the sidewalk. Turning around to look once again for the tow truck, I happened to notice a shaggy, dirty homeless man trudging down the sidewalk in my direction. I turned back around and continued to wait. When the vagrant reached the point below where I was sitting, he turned without warning, and uttering gibberish, ran up the hill straight for me with a crazy look in his eyes, like someone out of 28 Days Later. My first thought? “Zombiiiiiiiiiieeee!!!!!” I literally jumped up and ran across the parking lot. When I turned around, the man was nowhere to be seen.
