Recurring nightmare: Skinrider

This is one that I had recently, but because my schedule has been so messed up, I couldn't tell you when. It's a recurring dream, one I usually have when I'm tired, and in a lot of pain. I was really little the first time I had it, with the dream taking place in the first house where my family lived. We moved from that house when I was four, so it's likely the first time I dreamed about this monster, I was close to that age.

I'm in my room, putting laundry away. I'm home alone right now, but where the rest of my family has gone is not on my mind. I'm thinking about what I can get done before they get back, knowing that I have a couple of hours.

I turn to go down the stairs, and hear a noise down by the door. It sounds like there is someone moving around in my living room. At first, I don't panic about this, because when the neighbors in the next apartment go down the stairs, it sounds like there's someone hitting the wall. I think that maybe it's just one of them. Then, I remember that last week, an old lady opened our door and walked into our apartment looking for our neighbors. My husband had to argue with her for several minutes before she would accept that our apartment was just an apartment, not the landing at the bottom of the stairs to the one-bedroom next door. Maybe she is back, and that was what I have been hearing. She was pretty adamant last time... I am afraid this time she might get violent.

I decide to sneak to the edge of the stairs and peek around the wall, to see if I can see anything at the bottom of the stairway. The point of view won't give me much - it's a pretty narrow space - but from the right angle, if someone is standing down there, I'll be able to see feet and legs, and the person won't be able to see me. I carefully and slowly sneak over to the spot where I'm going to peek, listening the whole time to make sure I still hear the noises. I figure if it gets quiet, I've been heard, but the whole time, I can still hear movement.

I inch around the wall, carefully keeping my body obscured while I peek down the stairs. There, at the bottom, I can see a pair of bare feet and legs, extending on up beyond my vision. My stomach clenches in fear as I see them.

It's obvious that there is no skin on them.

Instead, I see gelatinous looking red flesh, glistening in the light so that I know it's moist. I can see blood vessels and tendons. As I'm reeling from the shock of what I've seen, the creature suddenly bends down faster than I can move, and stares up at me with huge, bulbous black eyes. Its whole body is just like its feet... skinless, moist, and glistening. I can see that it has a knife in one hand.

As soon as it spots me, it starts climbing up the stairs, growling and snarling, showing jagged, uneven rows of teeth in its over-sized mouth. It moves quickly, getting halfway up the stairs before I can even move. The only thing I can think of to do is run to the bathroom, where I shut and lock the door. I don't know how I know, but I know that this thing is here to steal my skin so it has something to hide inside of while it does terrible things that I would never do. It's not only going to kill me, it's going to kill me in a torturous way, and then afterward, it's going to make me look like some kind of monster.

In the bathroom, I look around for a weapon. I realize I'm not going to accomplish much with the safety razors. I dig in the cupboard and find Epsom salts.

The phrase "salt on an open wound" occurs to me. I start thinking of a plan, as I hear the creature shuffle down the hallway to the bathroom. I have a big cup in there that I use for rinsing the tub when I wash it out. I grab that, dump in some salts, and run water over them. I keep the bag of salts open.

Having not been able to run the water enough for it to get hot, I am not seeing the salts melt very fast, but enough has dissolved to do what I want. I stand back and let the creature break open the door. As soon as it steps into the bathroom, I throw the salt water on it. The creature screams, sounding like a colony of angry bats. I grab for the knife, but the creature pulls its hand away from me. It looks furious, using its free hand to try to wipe the salt water off of its skin. As it lurches toward me again, I throw a handful of dry salt, hitting it right in the face and chest. It screams again, and I take the opportunity to push it into the tub, so that its head smacks hard against the tiles. I dump the salt onto it as it continues to thrash and scream in the tub, then I run down the stairs to try to get out of the apartment. As I get to the bottom, I realize I forgot to disarm the creature. Turning, I see that it's all ready at the top of the stairs, crawling across the carpet, heading for the first step down. I've slowed it down a bit, but it is still determined to get me.

I open the door and run down to the street, where I start screaming for help, but no one seems to be around. I turn and head for the corner, leaving my door open, hoping to find traffic so that if the thing attacks me, I'll be seen. I don't want to run too far, because the thing might still be there when my husband and son get home, and I can't let it hurt them, either.

When I get to where there is traffic, the creature is right behind me, stumbling along with that knife. Now, people can see what is happening, but no one is stopping to help. I stop and turn around, realizing that I'm going to have to fight. The creature slashes at me with the knife, and I try to dodge, but it catches me on the arm, leaving a long gash. I kick at it, and it jumps back away from me. I grab a rock and throw it, just missing the creature. It lunges at me, and I grab it by the arms. Its flesh is warm, wet, and squishy, and I have trouble holding on.

It tries to stab at me with the knife, and I throw it to the side, out into traffic, right in front of a city bus. The bus driver slams on the breaks, but still ends up hitting the creature. Blood splatters everywhere, and the knife goes clattering down the street, landing yards away. People come running now, yelling and pointing. I'm grabbed by two men, who seem to think I've assaulted an innocent person, despite my protests that he was attacking me with a knife, and the fact that his weird face is clearly visible. As the crowd gathers around me, I can see through some of the spaces between them that the creature is still moving.

It's starting to get back up.


This is one of those nightmares, after which, it just starts out feeling like my whole day is going to be bad, you know?

Most mundane zombie nightmare I've ever had

We've walled off an entire neighborhood on the street of a friend's house. All of the other houses on that street were abandoned for various reasons, but the basic reason behind everything is a zombie outbreak. The only family of "original" residents which remained on that street is my friend's family. Several of us have moved into the walled-off area with them, and we've built a compound to protect ourselves. All of the houses are connected one way or another, except some at one end, which were in less stable shape than the other houses. We've dismantled them for parts, and are using the land for farming.

People have arrived recently, and I am sort of giving them a quick "orientation" tour with a rundown on how we are handling our new circumstances.

At the other end, our compound is divided by a high, chain-link fence that was there prior to the outbreak. We've altered it so that there is now a gate big enough to drive through when it is open.
On the other side if it is a what used to be a church and a parochial school. We included that property in our wall because we felt that the buildings may prove useful to us eventually, but at the moment the only thing we are using is the lot. In the lot, there are two buses. We plan to do something with them, but haven't started yet because we are working on other projects. However, we are using the lot space.

On one side of the lot, we have built a huge still, where we are brewing not beverages, but vehicle fuel. On the other side, we have a huge cistern which catches rain water. There are smaller cisterns around the compound, which also hold water, but this one is taller and more broad, and is attached to our makeshift water filtering and purification system. The final step currently uses a commercially sold reverse-osmosis filter, but members of our group are figuring out how to make our own so that when we run out of our supply of those, we'll still have a way to purify our water.

We have vehicles we would not normally have, as well. Parked on the street are a fire truck, an armored cash-delivery truck, and a semi with a tanker-trailer from a gas company, in addition to several cars. My husband and a few of the guys have been working on these to expand the range of fuels we can use to run them. Right now, the fire truck and and the armored truck can both run on just about any liquid that burns. We're working on the semi next. We plan to use it to take gas from neighborhood fueling stations until the alteration of our vehicles is finished, and we no longer have to use that for the cars.

The guys have set up the fire truck so that water can be pumped from a pooled source like a lake or stream, in through the hose to the tank, and then back out when we reach the cistern. The fuel we make in the still is used in the fire truck when we don't get enough rain, so that we can get water from other sources. We use it in the armored truck when we need to make a run for other supplies.

We've established a food and water supply sufficient to serve the complex if every house were populated. We've established food and water preservation methods to ensure a supply through the cold months, and to last us a few months if unforeseen issues arise. We have transportation and have located a few department stores, pharmacies, and hardware stores which, though not totally safe, we can safely enter and exit with tools and non-food supplies, and have "raided" them several times to get things we need.

We have built wind turbines on several houses to power refrigerators and freezers, and have stored a good supply of a refrigerant used in automotive air systems that one of the guys says he can use to restore the units as they go down. We don't plan on depending on those units forever, but we want to keep them going until we don't need them any more. Once we have non-refrigerated food preservation down better, we'll power those down and reserve our electricity for other uses. One of the new arrivals tells me she had a hobby of growing and preserving herbs for later use, and would like to help with that. I make a note. It would be great to be able to add our combined knowledge in that area.

In addition, we've created attachments for several houses to passively use solar heating, so that we don't have to use electricity for much heat. We have obtained a large supply of rolled plastic to help seal off windows and unused rooms in winter, as well. Since winter is coming, we're working on that project right now. I let the new people know that this is probably what they'll be helping with at first, until that project is completed, because it's vital to our winter survival.

Among our number is one chemist. I explain that she has a medical lab up and running and is working on establishing treatments for the most common life-threatening ailments. I don't tell them everything: She has established the manufacture of a couple of different antibiotic substances, a substance to use to treat flare-ups of asthma, two substances to aid in controlling blood sugar fluctuations, a substance that works like epinephrine in case of heart and breathing emergency (but we are told would hurt "pretty effin' bad" if used in a non-emergency), a substance to control blood pressure, two anti-histamines, and a still-in-the-testing phase narcotic pain killer. We don't want anyone but the core group to know about those yet, because of the possibility of abuse.

We have plans to set up an infirmary in a portion of the school, but have not started yet. Along with that, there are plans to set up a radio broadcast from inside the church steeple to try to connect with more people. A teen in the group kind of hesitantly tries to speak up, but keeps himself in check as if he's not permitted to speak. An adult next to him reminds him that he's not in school any more, and he is allowed to talk. He tells me he was in his school's broadcasting class, and that he learned how to set up the equipment. Broadcasting equipment is an interest of his, and he's built radio sets and CBs during the last few years. He can help set up our radio tower, get it up and running, and operate it.

He says he just needs us to let him know what we want him to do. I realize we could put this kid in charge of the project. As long as he knows what we intend to achieve, he has the capability to make it happen. We just need to make sure he has the confidence in himself to take charge, because it looks like he's still in the mindset that anyone older than him has authority over him. I resolve to discuss this with the people in our group who were school teachers prior to the outbreak, and tell the kid we're definitely going to need his help. We have people with sound system knowledge, but no one with broadcasting experience. His chest puffs out, and he seems about two inches taller than before.

Finally, I show them one house we have almost totally boarded up. It's not connected to the other houses at the ground level. Entry is possible from the ground, but it's designed to be sealed once people are inside. There is roof access from the roof of one neighboring house, also designed to be sealed from the inside. That is our safe house. In case of a breach of our complex by zombies, we've designed this as a protected area from which we can fight back. Inside are a host of projectile weapons and a supply of dried rations and water. We don't want to have to use the safe house, but we've set it up as a means of protecting ourselves and fighting off a horde or internal outbreak.

As I finish leading the group through the area, I tell them there are still enough empty houses that they can pick one instead of being assigned. I tell them which ones have more bedrooms, because there are a couple of families who seem to want to stay in the same house. I think they may all be related and have been traveling together through some harrowing experiences. They begin discussing possibilities. At that moment, we hear a commotion at the other end of the complex.

There is shouting, and I hear gunfire. We run that way, and several kids accompanied by three elderly women pass us heading toward the safe house. They tell me that a mass of zombies has attacked the outer wall, and they were told to go into the safe house. Residents are holding off the zombies pretty well, but as a precaution the children and those unable to run fast are sent ahead to prepare the safe house. That will mean setting up the weapons and preparing to seal off  the house. The teen asks which way I want him to go. I ask if he can fire a gun, and he says yes. I hand him one of mine. It's hard for me to send him that direction, but he's older than my son, and my son is fighting there right now. The teen gets it. He looks proud, but very serious and properly scared.

I break into a run toward the commotion. The group follows me, everyone yelling. I see where the wall is starting to split under the assault, and shout orders to my group. Three people split off into a house, where they can fire from upstairs, down over the wall and into the mass of zombies. Through the cracks, it looks like there are about 50 of them (enough to fill two elementary classrooms, basically) but they are pounding the crap out of our wall, so there could be more. I get find my husband and kids, and we form kind of a family wall. We're ready to shoot whatever comes through as two men work on shoring up the wall, and others work on firing over it. In my head, I'm praying hard that no one gets bitten.

There is a loud crack, and part of the wall splits open. Zombies come in, kind of single-file, but rather quickly, considering. They don't care if they tear their flesh on the wall. We start shooting. I hear guns going off around me. I can see through the wall that there maybe are more like 70 or 80 of them, but several are falling outside the wall, and I think we can handle this with what we've got. The fight is going to be just a bit more than a two zombie to one human ratio, and that ratio is getting tighter with every shot. I'm still scared, but not as badly as before the wall broke. Now, I'm more determined than anything.
I'm not letting these mindless, flesh-eating monsters tear apart my friends and family. I move forward and begin firing into the oncoming mass of decaying bodies.

Chased! (with GIF)

She has me trapped in the basement of an apartment building. She's been making me do all of the cooking and cleaning, and especially lots of heavy lifting, but she's been feeding me really well, too. I've become fairly strong, and kind of buff. Oddly, I rarely see her eat what I've been cooking, though she isn't losing any weight.

I don't remember how I got here, but I remember her acting really weird. She hugs me from behind a lot, and sometimes just feels my arms or pinches my butt. She also spends a lot of time just standing around and staring at nothing. She gets annoyed if she thinks I am not eating enough.

Her voice is raspy, and she speaks carefully but with a bit of a lisp and a slur, like a stroke survivor with speech difficulty. Her movements are kind of drunken-clumsy, too.

I don't know what exactly is on her mind, but I've got to get out of here. I have such a bad feeling. Aside from the obvious - I've been kidnapped and am being held against my will - there is something more about her that really, REALLY creeps me out.

I realize what it is when she decides I've reached peak muscle mass.

I'm in the middle of preparing a stew when she comes lurching into the room looking agitated. I know I haven't done anything to make her angry, but I instinctively back away from her anyway. She comes after me, arms outstretched, and grabs at me. She is drooling. Her eyes are red, like she hasn't slept for a week, and as her grasping hands latch onto my arms, she tries to bite me.

I pull away from her and run for the door. She has forgotten to close it. A half growl, half moan of anger comes from her as she shuffles after me. I slam the door in her face and lock it just as she used to lock me in. I hear her pounding on the other side of it, then she stops and I hear a key rattling in the lock . She can escape. I have to get out of here!

I am in a hallway. I run to the other end, where there is a door. Opening it, I find stairs. I run up those, and find myself in a dimly lit room. There are huge picture windows there. I can hear her shuffling down the hallway. I slam the stairway door, and try the windows, and they are locked. I grab a small wooden table, and smash it into the window. The table breaks, but the window remains in one piece.

She is on the stairs. I run from this room into another room, where there is another stairway. I run up those stairs. They go up much further than the ones from the basement. I go up several floors, turning between each flight of stairs and running up the next without thinking, until I come to another door. I can hear her on the stairs far below me.

I go out this latest door and find myself on the roof of a tall building. If she comes out that door, and I don't get off of this roof, I'm going to be trapped. I run to the edge. It's really high off of the ground.

I jump into the air. I think about moving up and forward. I have to move my arms and legs like I'm swimming to get it started, but it happens. I'm flying away from the building. I look back, and she is coming out the door. I hear a scream of rage and frustration coming from her as she runs to the edge of the roof. She jumps and falls to the sidewalk below with a loud splat. At first, I think I've escaped, but then I see her running along the ground beneath me, looking up.

I'm going to have to find something to fly over that she can't cross. I get an idea of where I am. I can see familiar landmarks. I turn and head east. Maybe I can lose her in the mountains.

My zombie nightmares aren't usually quite this one-on-one, but then again, the zombies in them aren't normally this tenacious, either. I can usually get away by getting on the other side of a closed door, or into a different location than the beginning of the dream. I'm usually not alone, and when I am, I'm usually coming from or heading back to a group. This dream really creeped me out, because I didn't have any kind of feeling related to who might still be left unscathed and ok. What if we were the only two people left in the world? What if I could never get away from her?

Bitten! Another zombie nightmare

Zombie mom is always prepared

My husband and I are home alone, as my son is visiting my parents out of town.

I wake in the morning to find that he is all ready out of bed. I get up and go down the stairs into the living room. The whole apartment is dark. I look to see if he has fallen asleep on the couch, but he is not there. Maybe he is in the kitchen.

As I turn toward the kitchen, I can see him just standing in the little hallway that T-intersects between the living room, bathroom, and kitchen. I think that maybe he's sleepwalking, though I've never known him to do that before.

I approach and gently say his name. If he is sleepwalking, I don't want to startle him. If he reacts badly, he's in the one spot in the downstairs where he is most likely to impact a corner.

He turns toward me when I say his name. He holds his hands out to me, and I think maybe he is upset about something. I put my arms around him.

That's when he bites me. He sinks his teeth into my shoulder, not like a cute little love-nibble, but hard. He draws blood. The act startles me into jumping back away from him. I switch on the light and he shies away from it, looking at me and growling. His skin is pasty and pale, his eyes red-rimmed. He is drooling like a baby, and there is blood running down his chin. There is a huge, festering bite mark on his arm.

As I am backing away, I see a mangled body on the kitchen floor, and boxes stacked high in front of the sliding door. He sort of zones out a minute. I run for the door. As I reach it, I hear his feet pounding behind me. I open the door, turn the button lock, and practically throw myself outside, pulling it shut behind me. It's locked now. I don't know if he can get out, but no one will get in.

I hear the rattle of the handle as he tries to open the door. It rattles two or three more times, then stops. There is nothing after that. The lock appears to have flummoxed him long enough to forget what he was doing.

It's starting to get light outside. I look around quickly, but I don't see any other people. What has happened begins to dawn on me. My husband must have come downstairs after hearing a noise, fought an intruder who turned out to be a zombie, and been bitten in the process. Now, I've been bitten. I have to warn my friends, before they are taken by surprise.

I realize my phone is in the apartment, but I'm sure he is probably just inside the door. There is no way for me to get in there and get it. I look around. There is a lady with a bunch of kids coming out of the building next to mine. A little bus comes and they all get on it. The side of the bus says something about evacuation. The driver motions for me to get on and I shake my head. He looks at me like I'm nuts, until I show him the bite on my shoulder. His eyes widen, and he nods, quickly shuts the door, and drives away.

I know I don't have time to walk or drive to my friends' houses. Instead, I jump up into the air and think about remaining up. It works, and I am able to rise above the trees. I know that as long as I have the cognitive ability to do this, I'm not dangerous yet. I fly straight over the nearest friends' back yard, over their house, and land on the sidewalk. The front seems more like a store front than a house, with a big display window.

I run up the front steps and knock on the door. The youngest lets me in. I tell her I have to talk to her parents right now and to go get them immediately. She brings her mom, who has been my friend since college.

I tell the kids to go play. I don't want them to hear what I have to say. My friend notices my serious look, and sends them both out of the room.

I show her the bite. I tell her what happened, and that there is an evacuation in progress. She asks how long I have, and I tell her, "Until you shoot me."

We have an agreement about this. It's something we talked about one night years ago, when we were staying up late and just gabbing. It was just a dumb conversation between kids with ridiculous what-if questions about impossible scenarios, but it was also kind of serious, and I had made my thoughts pretty clear.

If I ever became irreversibly dangerous, and especially deadly, to others, and I would be unable to control my behavior, I would rather be killed than contained. In my right mind, the most horrifying thing that could happen to me would be if I were to lose control and hurt someone. I would never want there to be any risk of that. I'm scared, and I don't want to die. There is a feeling of dread weighing heavily in my gut. But I want even less to hurt anyone, and to me the choice is clear. I can't let myself become a monster.

She asks me if I'm hungry yet, and I say no. I'm not even feeling it yet. The bite is a little red, but it doesn't look bad. I tell her it would be best to do it now, and get it over with, before I have the chance to hurt anyone. I ask her to call my mom when she makes her calls, to give my family a chance to make themselves safe. She says she will. Everything about her is calm except her eyes. She's not crying, but if I say the wrong thing, like anything emotional or mention of my son, I can see that she will.
I don't. I need her to do this for me, and I mustn't do anything to make it harder than it has to be.

This is the part of the conversation that her husband walks in on. We've been buddies since they got together. He has kind of adopted me as a kid sister, which is funny, because I am older than he is. He is a good guy, but he's a bit more sentimental than she is. She's the disciplinarian in the house. He looks tough, and would kill to protect his kids, but when it comes to his loved ones, he's a big softie. He is appalled that his wife is going to shoot me just because I asked her to. He brings up the possibility of a cure, and says I should come with them so they can get me medical attention.

She and I exchange a look. I know they have an escape setup in the basement. They will be safe. I didn't come here to be rescued. I came to warn them. If they aren't going to stop me from becoming a mindless, ravenous, cannibalistic beast, I'll go back out the front door and try to find some other way to prevent it. If I can still focus enough to fly, it should be easy. I dread the thought of dropping myself, though. That might hurt a lot. Shooting would be quicker and less painful.

She tries to explain to him what is going to happen to me. I chip in with how horribly I fear hurting anyone, especially my loved ones. I tell him that denying me a quick end would force me to live out one of my worst nightmares. He argues, "not if we can get you to a doctor so you can be cured."

There is no arguing with him. He has put his foot down. I prepare to leave, but when I look out the window, I realize that there is a huge crowd outside now. They are all walking in the same direction, moving as if still asleep. These are not evacuees... they are zombies. I can't open the door, or some of them might try to come in here. They could get my friends.

I tell my friends, "You have to go now. They're everywhere." I know that their escape setup will take them out of the neighborhood, and anyone entering the house will not be able to find how they got out.

My buddy insists on taking me with them. I am not going, but I have to let him believe that I will, or he won't go until it's too late. My friend grabs her bug-out bag, her purse, with her cell in it, and a gun. My buddy grabs his phone and another bag that sounds like it has medicines in it. I follow them all down the stairs to the basement, where there is a huge boiler with pipes going all over the place. It takes up most of the area near the stairs. We have to go around it to get to the rest of the basement, where there is odd living room furniture made of layers of big square cushions.

The escape route is behind the bottom of the couch. There is a tunnel that leads out. I don't know were it goes, but I know that once they get out, they'll be ok. We raise the front cushion, remove the cushions from under the "seat" cushion, and send their dogs crawling in, and the kids behind them. My buddy goes next, followed by my friend. I quietly tell her I'll find a way to deal with this, and that I'm not coming. She nods, and we exchange a sad look. I tell her to go. She gets moving, and I put all of the cushions back into place, making sure no one can tell the difference. Had I been going with them, there would have been a way to do that from the inside, but since I didn't, it's not necessary.

I go back upstairs and get the key to the house. Then, I make a 911 call from their phone. A recording tells me about the evacuation. From the message, it sounds like the infection is mostly in the Virginias, southern Ohio and northern Kentucky. That is followed by a list of phone numbers to call under various circumstances. I write all of them down. I call my husband's ex. She does not believe me. I give her numbers to call, then call my older stepdaughter and tell her the same thing. She agrees to call the numbers. Even if the ex doesn't take care of things, my daughter will. She is smart.
I hang up and call my parents. I tell my mother what is going on, and give her the list of numbers. I call my husband's parents, and tell them the same. I tell both sets of parents, if you think I'm nuts, call the numbers. Everything will be explained. I tell them that then, they need to call the rest of the family.
I call a couple of other friends, give them the list, and charge them with calling as many of our other friends as they can.

In my family calls, I get teary disbelief from the other end of the line, but I don't have time to be human about it. I'm not hungry yet, but I'm really scared, and just a tiny little bit hopeful. The last number is to call if you are infected. There is mention that the military is working on a cure and is close. They need volunteers.

When I hang up with the third friend, I decide that is enough. I call the military number. I am asked a series of questions, including how long it has been since I've been bitten, how the bite looks, whether or not I am hungry, am I having to swallow more frequently than normal, and am I starting to feel any confusion or "brain fog."

Looking at the clock, I realize it's been nearly half an hour since I was bitten. The bite is an angry red, but it's not swollen up like my husband's bite was, and it hasn't produced any pus, like his had. I'm still not hungry, and I'm not drooling. My thoughts are flowing just fine. The person I am speaking to seems surprised that after the amount of time it has been, I'm not showing any symptoms. He tells me that the virus has been acting faster than that on most people. He asks for a description of how my husband looked, and I give it.

I am asked about our health history, and I give that, too. I am asked the address where I am, and I give that. I tell him that I came in here to warn my friends, but they were all ready gone. I used my key to get in and double check, but the house is empty. They must have left with the evacuation. The agent I'm talking to seems to buy that.

He tells me to wait there, and an ambulance will come to pick me up. He says my condition is unique, and I may be able to speed the process of creating a drug that eliminates the condition. I am momentarily happy about that, but then I wonder what will happen if it doesn't work.

I ask, "They won't just let me exist as a zombie if they can't cure me, right? I don't want to be like the people outside." The agent assures me that the cure is at hand, but in the "unlikely" even that it does not work, the back up plan is "termination." I won't be forced to live as a flesh-eating zombie. Relief floods over me. Whatever testing they are going to do might hurt, but at least I will be helping to solve the problem. In the process I will likely be cured, and find the cure that can save everyone else. I just have tough out whatever comes next.

I give the agent a rundown on the neighborhood situation. The street is populated by moving zombies, but they all seem to be headed toward the downtown area. There are not as many now as there were before, but there are still some. Behind the house is an alley, and there doesn't seem to be anything out there. There is a six foot chain link fence around the back yard, with a big gate. The gate is broken, so it only looks locked. They can come in that way, close the gate, pick me up, and get out quickly without confronting a horde.

By the time I hang up with him, there is a big truck outside. It has ambulance lights and markings, but it looks more like a moving truck. Some men in military gear get out. They have a straight jacket and a mask like the one worn by Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. I step outside, lay on the ground, and put my hands behind my head. I tell them to hurry, and to keep quiet so the zombies won't come around the back, but they've been attracted by the sound of the truck and are rushing the fence. I say that I'm not hungry yet and will comply with any instructions I'm given.

The guys grab me and quickly drag me into the truck, where I put my arms into the sleeves and let them wrap me up. I tell them to go ahead and put on the mask just in case it happens on the ride "there." I don't know where there is. They are treating me with caution, but they don't seem scared. One says, "you're really not hungry yet?" I'm still not, but I can feel that I have a fever, and I tell him that. I see hope in their eyes. The truck starts moving, and I feel myself falling. A pair of hands catches me from behind. I hear someone say, "This might be the one. She's infected, but she's fighting it."

As I wake, the thought occurs to me that maybe I am fighting the virus better than others because my immune system was changed by my experience with a predecessor of West Nile from a mosquito bite in 1985. Then, I wonder if maybe I got a weakened version of it because my husband's white cell count has been elevated by a gout attack . I want to ask the men, but I'm surfacing from the dream, and I can see my room. I realize that I have been dreaming. I'm not infected with anything.

I laid in bed for a moment, thinking about the dream. The buildings and topography didn't match reality, but that is pretty common for my dreams. The apartment doesn't border directly on a street. We face the parking lot. It has a street name, but it isn't really a street. It's private property. 
There is no alley behind my friends' house, and there is no escape tunnel in the basement, and their backyard fence is nowhere near as tall as the one in the dream. It's just a fence. There isn't even a couch like that. Then again, the layout of their house was also different. The building was almost like a downtown store instead of a house. The window was huge. Were the situation real, the zombies outside most certainly would have seen us and attacked. Also, it's Monday, a school day. My son is at home, not at my parents' house.

The people kind of matched, but not totally. My husband would have defended against an intruder, and when he discovered there were zombies, he would have blocked off the sliding door, but he would not have stayed in the apartment after being bitten. He would have left to avoid infecting me. The kids never would have just willingly let themselves be left out of the conversation, either. The would have hidden in the hallway and eavesdropped.

The memory of the conversation where my friend and I promised to not let each other live as unthinking, cannibalistic or otherwise deadly monsters was a real memory. It is also true that her husband, my buddy, wouldn't have the heart to follow my wishes before I started showing symptoms. However, my friend is protective enough of her family and caring enough of my wishes that she wouldn't have argued with him. She just would have shot me as I asked her to, and faced the consequences later. We have a pact. I would do the same for her under the same circumstances.

He doesn't have all of his meds in a bag he can just grab and go, either. On waking, I thought, what if there is some kind of natural disaster we all have to get away from? I'm going to point that out to him and suggest he put them in a bag to take into the basement with him if there is a tornado, or to to take away with him if there's ever any other kind of area threat that causes an evacuation.

Flying is something that happens in a lot of my dreams. It's so frequent that it no longer even clues me in to the fact that I'm dreaming. Most of the time it happens in good dreams, but like this time, it also happens during nightmares. It usually involves an escape, though.

The dream was disturbing, but it didn't leave me with quite the bad feeling that some of my zombie nightmares have caused. I woke feeling hope that not only I, but all of the infected could be saved from the disease. I felt that the process could be reversed. I was expecting painful tests (biopsies, blood tests, and tests with drugs or serum to see if it kills the virus) but I felt that it would be worth it. As I woke, I was in the process of calling on my willpower and inner strength to psyche myself up and steel myself against the coming experience, not dreading it. As a result, I feel really ready to face whatever comes along today, despite being exhausted and in pain from an extra long and challenging work shift yesterday. 


On a side note, this is the second time I have had this dream.

Recurring nightmare: Ravenous

I'm in a darkened room, sitting on a hard cement or stone floor. I'm extremely hungry, like to that point where I feel weak and shaky. All around me, in the dark, there is meat. I am grabbing big chunks of it and eating with my hands, letting the juices run down my chin and onto my clothes, barely chewing before I swallow. No matter how much I stuff my face, I'm still famished, still feeling shaky and weak, as though I haven't eaten in a few days.
I can hear the sound of my own munching, the smacking and ripping sounds as I tear chunks off of the meat with my teeth, chew, and gulp it down. I am disgusted with myself for eating this way, but I feel like I am starving. If I slow down, I'll never catch up to this hunger. It's so strong, it hurts.

I get to the point where I've eaten everything within reach. I crawl around looking for more. There is a feeling of desperation. What if there is no more food here? Quickly, I come to a wall. I'm momentarily distracted by that, and feel my way along it. It's made of stone blocks or huge, smooth bricks. It's curved around enough that after feeling my way along for a while, I realize the room is round, with no doors. I can't find a ceiling, even if I jump, but I do come across more meat. I sit down and begin gobbling it up.

Soon, I've eaten everything around me again, and I crawl along the wall looking for more. I continue to seek out more meat and cram it in for a long time. There always seems to be more, but I always seem to be starving.

Suddenly, there is light. Way up above me, there is a crescent shaped crack in the darkness, and I see something falling. It hits the floor with a thud. In the dim glow from the light above me, I can finally see what I've been eating. On the floor all around me are human corpses and human body parts. The object that just fell is the corpse of a large man. Looking up, I can see the silhouettes of two people. I hear them talking.

"Is she eating them?"

"Looks like it."

I can see that my hands are stained with blood. It's caked under my fingernails. My clothing is soaked in it. Huge segments of flesh have been torn off of the bodies, and I'm surrounded by bones. It's not just meat. I've been eating human flesh. I've been ripping their bodies apart and cramming wads of human flesh down my throat like some kind of carnivorous beast.

I am shocked. I think I should feel nauseated and ashamed, but I don't.
Even now that I know what I've been eating, I'm ravenous, and I'm thrilled that there is fresh meat in front of me. To not grab and devour it takes an immense amount of restraint. The only reason I am able to make myself wait is that the people above me are watching me. There is nothing out of the ordinary about their appearance, but something about them terrifies me.

I hear myself growling at the people above me, and though I'm horrified at how animalistic I sound, I can't stop. Though my logical mind tells me otherwise, I am emotionally convinced that they are going to take my food. I can't stop thinking of the bodies as food.

The silhouettes face each other. One nods, and the crescent of light shrinks to nothing, once again returning me to darkness. Unseen, I lunge at the fresh body and begin tearing into it. I can't stop. I am so hungry!

Oddly, in these dreams, as long as there is "food," I don't have the sense of being trapped in the little room, which seems to only be about 12 feet in diameter. I have no desire to escape, only a desperate need to eat. Only when I think there is no more to eat do I think about getting out.

In worse versions of this dream, when there is light and I look around, I can see that the faces on the bodies are people I recognize. On a few occasions, some of them have been moving. The worst time I ever had this dream, some of the bodies were my loved ones. That time, I woke screaming.

Most of the time, when I wake from this dream, I can feel that I've gotten hungry in the night, and I think that maybe I was feeling the hunger pangs and they made me have the dream. Other times, though, I don't have that, and I have no clue why I'm dreaming of having a crazed, starved, feeding frenzy on human flesh. I never feel guilty about it during the dream. 

When I wake I'm momentarily baffled, grossed out, and upset about my activity in the dream and my attitude toward it. The feeling mostly fades quickly, as I am able to look at this as just a dream, but I do remain really disgusted by the thought of it. Even when I am hungry, having had this dream makes it hard for me to eat breakfast.

Recurring nightmare: Doppelganger

When I was really young, I started having dreams about running into an exact or nearly exact, but wholly evil copy of myself. There are a few specific ones I remember, but I also remember that the theme was a frequent occurrence. I still have doppelganger dreams now, but they are much more rare than back then.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I am in the kitchen with my Mom. She sends me to get something from my room. I go down the hall past the bathroom, turn, and go down the hall to my room. The door is closed. That's odd, because normally I don't keep it closed, but I dismiss it. I open it to go in and get what I am after.

When I open the door, I see myself sitting on the bed across the room from me. Sitting with my other self is my mother. My other self looks upset, as if she's been crying, and she is snuggled up to my mother. I realize that can't be Mom, either, because she's out in the kitchen. The realization of that actually is scarier to me than the sight of my double. Then, my double gets off of the bed and begins slowly walking toward me, her jaws working hungrily. I back out of the room and shut the door. I run back down the hallway. I hear the door open as I near the end of the hall. I turn to see the doppelganger standing right behind me, mouth opened further than it should be. One physical difference between us is that her teeth are like shark's teeth; there are rows and rows of them, and they all come to a point. I try to push her away and she grabs my hand and bites my finger.

The pain woke me. I am pretty sure that the cause for this dream was the pain of a broken finger, which I remember happened when I was in the second grade. By the time I was in high school, that finger was starting to show signs of osteoarthritis. My other fingers are doing the same now that I'm almost 40, but that one got a 20 year head start. I'm guessing the head start is was caused by the injury.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I'm in my room. I've been sitting and reading, and I'm getting kind of hungry. I think I'll go get a bite to eat. I get up out of the beanbag I'm sitting in, and turn to leave my room. As I turn, my eyes catch the tall mirror on the dressing table at the other end of my room, near the door. My reflection looks wrong. It takes a moment to realize that it's because the hair color is wrong. I have dark brown hair, and the girl in the mirror is blond. I move closer, and notice that she also has really, really pink eyes... and sharp teeth. She's baring them at me.

I bolt toward the door, which takes me right past that mirror. As I run, the doppelganger runs toward me in the mirror. I'm terrified. I run out the door. As I cross the threshold, I feel something tug at the back of my shirt, but it lets go. I slam the door, hard, and there is a thud on the other side.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It's mostly a normal day. I have errands to run. I have things to deliver, things to pick up, and people to check on. I go about my normal routine, write down my list, and lay it on the kitchen table. I get my breakfast together and grab something to read while I'm eating.

When I'm done with breakfast, I reach for the list, but it's gone. It's not just not where I put it. It's also not on the floor nearby, not on any of the chairs, not in the trash, and not in my pocket. It occurs to me that maybe, without thinking, I used it as a bookmark . I can see myself telling my friends about that later and laughing. However, it's not there, either. The paper has just vanished.

I'm frustrated by the loss, but I guess it's no big deal. I decide that I don't have time to write the list again, but writing it the first time kind of fixed the stops in my memory.

The first place I'm going is to pick up a check at the newspaper. I have to cash it before I can run my other errands, or I won't be able to cash it until tomorrow. When I get there, the secretary tells me I was all ready there earlier, and picked it up then. I know that I wasn't, and think that maybe my Mom picked it up. We look a lot alike.

I head home, but she's not there. My brother is up, though. He tells me I'm too late to apologize for what I said earlier, that I'll have to wait until she comes home. I don't know what the heck he's talking about, but I don't have time to deal with it right now. I have to deliver something to a friend for a school related project, and she's only going to be at home for a couple of hours between activities today. I head to her house.

When I get there, my friend is unhappy with me. She says we're done talking about it, and not to try  to fix things. When I ask what she's talking about, she tells me I was just there and told her I don't have the item for her project. I tell her that's impossible, that I just came from home, and I have the object right here. I hand it to her. She acts like I'm either crazy, or trying to make her feel like she is. We part on kind of edgy terms, but agree to just call the situation weird.

This continues for all of my errands; every place I go, I'm told that I was just there a few moments earlier, and had done or said something to upset the person or people involved in the errand. If I was supposed to pick something up, it's been taken. If I was supposed to deliver something, it's no longer expected. Everyone on my list looks at me like I'm an absolute nut.

The whole day, I am a step behind my double, never running into her, always running into the fallout from whatever it is she did. At the end of the list, I go home. When I walk in the door, my whole family is in the kitchen, talking worriedly. They all turn to look at me with surprise. I ask what's wrong, and my brother asks me how I got there. When all I can do is give him a confused look, he tells me we all just had a huge fight, and I locked myself in the bathroom. I hear the bathroom door slam open, and everyone jumps and stares in that direction. I get chills, worrying about what I'm going to see come down the hallway from there.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The second one first happened when I was in about the 5th grade. We'd just moved me into an upstairs bedroom, and I wasn't used to sleeping up there. The third one started when I was in high school. There were more, but those three are dreams I had more than once, and which have stuck with me for a long time.

Zombies that talk

Over the years, my nightmare zombies have kind of evolved. Unlike movie zombies, they have no problem eating each other, but they'll go after the weakest first, and since the living are more vulnerable to pain and injury, we're preferable. Sometimes the zombies move like athletes. Sometimes they have magical powers. Sometimes they are slow to lose their intelligence, and sometimes they talk. Last night, I had talkers and smart zombies. I think those are the scariest, because they can really take you by surprise.

I'm in a house that is not mine. The room I am in has bunk beds. I have run into this room to get away from five zombies who are chasing me. They are pounding on the door and screaming obscenities.

I turn around to see if I can get out a window, and am shocked by the rest of the contents of the room. Lined up along the walls are a bunch of makeshift weapons, various knives and other sharp objects fastened to long sticks, broom handles, and the like. Then, I see the window. It's too small for me to fit through. There is no way out of this room.

I grab an armload of the makeshift weapons, and climb up to the top bunk. The ceiling in this room is really high. I don't have room to stand, but I do have room to get up on my knees.

The zombies break through the door. One points at the bed and slurs "Zzhere ssshee izzzz!" Some of the others talk better, but this one is missing part of the flesh on his jaw, and a few teeth. He kind of sounds like Sid the Sloth from the movie Ice Age, but with a deeper voice.

I am rushed by the group, all of them grabbing for me at once. They don't see the weapons on the bed. Kicking and stabbing at them, I fight like crazy to keep from being bitten. Normally in a situation like this, I would be screaming, but I'm actually trying to avoid attracting more of them, so I'm not. The zombies have no such goal. They are all snarling at me and shoving at each other. I keep hearing the word "mine" and "hungry."

The first one I kick falls over, and has a hard time getting back up. The second one isn't phased by my foot at all. Instead, he grabs my leg with both hands and tries to bite through my boot. I shove a knife on the end of a broom handle in through his eye, all the way through until I feel the blade hit bone. Then, I shove harder, flipping his head back. I kick his jaw, and he lets go of my leg as I pull the blade back out. His eye comes with it. He shouts obscenities at me and claws at the knife, grabbing the eye as if he can put it back and still use it. As he does, his elbow hits the arm of a third zombie reaching for me. At the same time, I can see a fourth and fifth moving around the other side of the bed.

I stab the eye guy in the throat and kick the one next to him so that he stumbles backward. The ones behind me are trying to climb up. I hit one in the chest with the handle of the weapon I'm holding, and knock him into the other one. They both fall. I know one will get up fast, because he looks relatively undamaged. The other is so decayed that he stinks badly. He's down for a few minutes, so my immediate threats have been reduced to three, and one is half blind.

I take a second weapon in my left hand, and begin slashing and stabbing at the zombies. The eye guy seems to be having some difficulty, and his buddy has fallen backward over the first one I knocked down. I focus on the one behind me, and catch him climbing back up the bed. I hit him in the head with both sticks, then give him a hard kick to the chest. I hear bone break, and he lets go of the bed with his hands. He falls on the other climber, knocking him down. I turn back toward the others just in time to see the eye guy fall over with some kind of black goo coming out of the wounds I've left behind in his eye and throat.

The other two zombies immediately start eating him. I take the opportunity to run for the door, jumping down from the bed and bolting. The two zombies feeding on the eye guy ignore me, but the ones on the other side of the bed come scrambling around the corner of it. Beside the door is a metal baseball bat. I grab that, and whack the nearest one in the head as hard as I can. I hear the crunch of bone breaking. The zombie falls, and the one behind him pounces on his back and begins tearing into him.

I run from the house. Outside, I see kids toys, a bicycle, and an odd shaped mechanical device. Upon closer inspection, I recognize it and realize it's meant for personal flying. It straps onto the back, with controls on the front. I put it on and hope it works. When I operate the controls, hot air shoots out of the bottom of it and I fly up into the air. I get just about ten feet off of the ground when the zombies come running out of the house. They are yelling at me to come back, that they aren't done with me yet, and so on. I push another button and air comes out of the side of the pack, moving me away from the yard.

* * * * * *

I'm leading a woman and two small kids to the safe house that my friends and family have set up. We've fortified the place so that it's nearly impossible to enter unless you are let in from the inside. I'm pretty sure the woman is not the kids' mother. She doesn't look anything like them.

The kids are fully aware of the danger, but the woman has convinced herself that it's not as bad as it seems. We're going through a residential neighborhood that has been pretty torn up. Wrecked cars are all over the place. There is visible damage to most of the houses. Bones lay in plain sight on the ground where zombies have eaten every scrap off of them. We're being as quiet as we can. We only have to get past about a block of this before we reach the guarded area around the safe house. Once we get there, I have a flag that I'm supposed to wave, so they don't shoot us.

We're nearly through when we hear a man's voice behind us. "Hey... hey you guys! Wait up!"
I can tell from the sound of the voice that there's something wrong with the speaker's mouth. That isn't always a guarantee that it's a zombie speaking, but it's a warning of probability. I look back, and size up the guy behind us, as well as his buddy. Both are much the worse for wear; clothing hanging in rags, blood on their arms, and no shoes. Their hair is matted. I can't see the details of their faces from this distance, but they're not walking very well. I quietly tell the woman with me, "Those are zombies. Don't respond."

She doesn't believe me. She thinks they might need our help, and she wants a closer look. I argue, but I can't stop her. We're in trouble if she gets something started here. We've lost our weapons, and the kids are both really small. There's no way I can protect all three people if these two draw a crowd. I know what's going to happen, and there's nothing I can do about it. She gives me a dirty look, turns, and takes several steps back toward the zombies, asking if they're ok . As soon as she's a few feet away from us, the zombies start running toward her. Instead of figuring it out and running away from them, she just stands there waiting for an answer.

I grab the kids and activate the jet pack from before. It's hard to control while I'm holding them, but I get it to move us in the direction we were going. The only thing I can do is cover their ears so they don't have to hear her screaming. I turn their faces toward each other, so that each has one ear against my chest, and cover the two exposed ears with the palms of my hands. It means I can't cover my own ears, though, and that is how I hear her telling them, "You idiots! I was almost in!"

I look back, and see her berating the zombies like she's one of them, and thin it hits me... she is one of them. I take my hands off of the kids' ears and look at them. They are not zombies. Their skin is warm and they're crying. I ask how long they were with the woman, and they tell me that she found them only a few seconds before I did. I get chills, and as they look where we're going, I look over their necks and arms for bite marks. I see none.

We land, and I wave the flag. A guard comes out to talk to me, and I tell him we need a doctor to examine these kids before bringing them in. I explain about the woman. The doctor comes out and examines the kids. There are no marks on them, and they're able to remember everything from when the zombies broke into their school until when I found them. The woman had told them she was a teacher from another school, where she was the only survivor. The doctor decides we should keep the kids isolated for a day before integrating them in with everyone else, but he's pretty sure they're not infected. I leave the kids with the doctor, and go in to report to the others what I have found out. From now on, we're going to have to be really careful who we rescue.


There are other parts of this dream, but a lot of it is fuzzy. I do remember being in a building with a lot of stairs, and as I looked down from the floor I was on, I could see that someone had destroyed the lower sets of stairs to the basement. There was a kid down there, and she kept telling me how hungry she was. She just wanted a finger or toe, and if I would just throw one down to her, she promised to be quiet. She sounded so normal and so pitiful that I honestly started thinking, why do I need all ten toes?  In another part, I was arguing with a guy in a jail. He was in a cell, and I was outside of it. He was telling me that he was uninfected and I should let him out, even though I could see him and it was obvious that he was a zombie. He didn't realize that he was missing some flesh, so he thought he could fool me.


That was the creepiest part of this nightmare, that the zombies could talk, and think . It was really hard to sleep after that dream. This morning before my alarm went off, I spent quite a bit of time in a cycle of dreaming that something was grabbing my feet, being jolted awake by that, and then dozing back off only to be "grabbed" again. It happened so much that when I finally woke all the way up, the blanket was pushed up to my waist.

Zombies that are not zombies

I am living in a big, fortified building with all of my family and friends. We've holed up there because there are people outside with some kind of cannibalism-inducing illness. We're referring to them as zombies, but they're not. They just have a major compulsion to eat other people, dead or alive.

Whatever the illness is, it causes a reduction in the ability to process tactile sensory input, and a loss of ability to feel complex emotions, especially guilt or compassion. The infected have reduced senses of hot, cold, pain, and even touch. This makes it tough to use physical force to stop them without killing them, but it also makes it difficult for them to maintain a grip on anything with their hands.

They can feel various levels of happiness and anger ranging from contentment to ecstasy, and from annoyance to blind rage, but that is mostly the extent of their apparent emotional experience. They know that emotions like aversion, guilt, fear, sadness, and horror exist, and can vaguely remember experiencing them, but are no longer susceptible to them. They are aware of others' experiences, but unconcerned, so while they do not experience negative emotional feedback from anything they do, they have no aversion to causing it in others and therefore do not have any moral compunctions about eating us alive.

They can talk, and even have enough cognitive reasoning capability to try to trick people. They are not dead, or even dying. Rigor mortis is not setting in. There is no physical decay. It's hard to tell them from regular people from a distance.

Up close, you can see the change in a few different ways. The infected don't care about their looks, and become increasingly disheveled and dirty. They will also have abandoned all other self-care, so when they show their teeth, if you haven't figured out something is wrong, you will. Some of them have even taken to filing them into points. There are changes in the blood that cause their skin to take on a bluish tint around the lips. It looks like they have a severe case of pink-eye. In later stages, they develop some signs of jaundice, but it doesn't seem related to a dysfunction which is life-threatening to them. The yellowing can be seen in the eyes, and on and around the fingernails. It's hard to tell with the rest of the skin because by that time they are usually filthy.

I was one of the first to encounter one of the infected. I was at work when the first few of them began to attack . I am describing the experience to a group of people gathered around me in a room full of makeshift armor and various kinds of weapons. Some weapons, we had before the infection hit (the divider between before and after, we refer to as "the change.") A lot of these were things the nerds among us, myself included, had once purchased for decoration purposes, like the swords we have hung up on the walls. A few people have shotguns. Shotguns are preferable to pistols because we've found it easier to make more ammunition for them. We also have some things we've made that fire other projectiles, and we have made explosive devices, though I am still leery of having anyone use them, as prior to The Change, none of us had made anything like what is sitting in the room. For some reason, others have listened to my objections, and we've reserved those for emergencies until we have a chance to safely (or at least mostly safely) test them.

I describe to the group how one day at work, a guy came in who was acting suspicious. My boss thought he was a shoplifter, and was keeping a close eye on him. He also seemed to be watching her, but he wasn't acting like a normal shoplifter. He wasn't hovering around stuff, and he didn't look like he was waiting for an opportunity to hide something. He did have kind of a sneaky expression on his face, but he wasn't doing anything. He just wandered around the store, watching my boss out of the corner of his eye. I didn't get the same vibe she did, but couldn't tell her because he'd hear me. Instead, I handed her a note, saying that I'd found it on the floor by the prep table, and it had the regional manager's name on it (so she'd look at it right away instead of setting it aside.) I'd written that the guy looked like a nut, not a thief, and I thought he might be planning to attack someone. She looked at me like I was stupid, shook her head, and motioned for me to get back to work .

Still worried, I kept an eye on the situation, creating a pretense to clean up around the tea when she followed the guy into the beer cave and began putting up cans. Sure enough, he waited until her guard was down, and attacked her from behind, grabbing at her ineffectively, then bashing at her with his feet. Without thinking, I grabbed the nearly empty sweet tea urn, rushed into the beer cave, and slammed it into the guy's face. He fell over backward, and I grabbed my boss's arm and pulled her out of the room. I shut the door and put my weight onto the handle as the guy got up and tried to open it. When he couldn't push hard enough on his side, he rushed the glass, hit it with his body, bounced off, and fell on his butt.

My boss yelled for co-workers to call the cops, and I watched as the crazy guy looked around the door trying to decide how to get out. He hit it with a 40 ounce beer bottle. The bottle exploded, but the glass door only cracked. Shards of the bottle hit him in the face and arms, drawing blood. He seemed totally unconcerned about it, and began beating the door with his fists hard enough to make the glass come out of his skin as his frustration with the situation quickly became anger and then rage. My boss yelled at me to let him out, and I yelled back that I couldn't, or he'd attack someone. It was obvious that hurting someone was what he came here to do. She had to agree.

I explain to my listeners that at that point, I'd noticed a number of things about him that convinced me that he was high. His eyes looked horribly bloodshot. He wasn't clumsy, but he didn't seem very aware of what was touching him. He couldn't maintain a good grip on anything that took effort. When the bottle blew up, he didn't even flinch. He hit the door with glass embedded in his fists, driving some pieces further into his skin, and didn't seem to notice. It was like he didn't feel pain. Also, though he was sparsely dressed and had just spent more than ten minutes in a room where the temperature was barely above freezing, he wasn't shivering.

A few people ask questions about my actions, including whether or not I was scared. I remember being terrified over a number of things, the first one being that if he was on something like PCP, he was going to come out of there and beat me to a quivering pulp on the floor because nothing I could do would make him hurt enough to not want to continue hurting me. I was also worried that, being an apparent drug user, he might be carrying a bloodborne pathogen, and since he was bleeding, he might share that with anyone he touched. Aside from that, I was afraid he'd get past me and hurt one of the single moms I work with, all three of whom have very young kids and no one to help at home if they were hurt. I couldn't abandon the fight because I needed to protect them. In the background I could hear the younger one yelling into the phone, "Hurry! He's breaking the door and he's crazy!" I could also see one of my older co-workers coming around the side of the shelves with a broom.

When the glass broke, it didn't make a big opening. The guy began kicking out broken pieces, not caring that huge, still-attached shards of glass were slicing up his leg. I tell the group, that is when I thought I knew for sure that they guy was on PCP, and nothing I was going to do would stop him. Terrified, I looked behind me to see that my boss had grabbed a fire extinguisher. I let go of the door and stepped back . The guy crashed through it and rushed at her. She slammed the butt of the extinguisher into his face and my other co-worker whacked him in the back of the head with the broom handle, all just as police came into the building. As he turned with the force of the impact from the fire extinguisher, I kicked the crazy guy in the back of the knee, causing his leg to fold under him. He went down like a sack of sand. Bleeding heavily and sporting two head wounds, he seemed a bit disoriented as the cops pounced and tazed him. After that, it was all over. He passed out, and the accompanying EMTs were able to get him out of there.

I use the experience to explain to my team that while the infected aren't susceptible to pain, they aren't invulnerable. They can be brought down in many of the same ways as a healthy person; by interrupting the body's "scaffolding" (causing a joint to temporarily collapse,) by knockout, or by blood loss. They will die the same as anyone from the same injuries. They just won't alter their movement to cater to pain the way a healthy person would, because they don't feel it. I advise my team that if needed, they must fight back with deadly force. It would be cruel to disable and leave, because these people will eat each other, and trapping them would simply ensure death by starvation, the only pain they do still seem able to experience. The hope that a cure will be found is not sufficient reason to extend mercy beyond the bounds of sensible caution and risk one's life and one's charges to save a zombie who is trying to eat you.

I explain that the contagion is a bloodborne pathogen, that we don't even know yet whether it is a virus, bacteria, or some new, unknown infectious agent. It does not seem to survive contact with the air, but it's better to not take chances. It can also apparently be passed through saliva, because people who are bitten do become infected if the bite draws blood. The incubation period seems to range between five days and two weeks, so we're isolating anyone bitten for up to three weeks.

So far we've been lucky. There have been no infections in our compound, which (being nerds) we are referring to as our "keep."

We're headed out for three things. We need medicine, medical supplies, and first aid supplies. We are going to raid a pharmacy that seems to be untouched. We've scoped it out using a remote-controlled car with a device created by one of the guys. It's a webcam hooked up to a smart phone, and it uses the phone's web capabilities to send video to a computer we've got hooked up to a landline in the keep. Society has totally broken down, and no one is running anything, but there are engineers, programmers, mechanics, and chemists among our residents.  On previous raids we've shored up the source of area land phone lines, and two cell phone towers. They're now powered by a combination of windmills and solar panels. If one fails, the other will keep them going.

Our keep also has power, including a direct hook-up to a room full of freezers where we have stored meat salvaged from local groceries before it could go bad. We've created a water system which filters rain water and draws from a local reservoir. We're working on a plan to increase our access to clean water, but today the priority is getting those supplies. We intend to ride out the wave of infection until the zombies whittle down their numbers through infighting, and we're able to either cure or take out those remaining in our area.

We finish discussing the methods we're going to use, and head out. Most of us have bladed weapons, with only those who are good at hitting moving targets carrying guns. One of my family members is using a modern crossbow. Others are concerned that his ammunition might not stop the infected, but he is a deadly marksman, and I remind the doubters that the heart is vulnerable regardless of pain.

We pile into my husband's and my 1989 Ford Econoline, which we have armored using parts from other cars and adapted to running on just about any flammable liquid. Right now, it's running on a formula mixed by some of our residents. It's not as efficient as gas, but it's something we can make when we can't get gas. However, if there are zombies within a few hundred yards of us, they'll smell us coming. They won't be able to get into the van, but we'll be vulnerable once we exit it. We're wearing makeshift armor of various types. All of us have all skin except for the face covered with at least some padding, protecting us from stray bites, but allowing pretty normal freedom of movement. We're too warm, but we don't care.

We check our security system and find that there is nothing moving or out of the ordinary in the vicinity of the exit. We've built a tall wall around the keep, and there's a motorized garage door which we have to open to get out. The person operating the door is inside the keep, but we still don't want any zombies in our yard. We don't want to kill anyone if we don't have to.

The door is raised, and we drive out. As soon as we exit, the door drops like a stone. The engineers designed it so that it could be raised and dropped at controlled speeds, but if the operator chooses, the door can be shut quickly to keep out intruders.

I  drive through the neighborhood kind of slowly because cars have been abandoned in the street. I am able to push them out of the way with the front end of the van, but while the armor will withstand the impact, the people inside will still feel a jolt if I'm moving too fast when I do it. There aren't seat belts for all of us, so I have to be careful.

The third time I have to push a car out of the way, a man comes running out of the bushes, screaming obscenities at us. His long, dirt-caked hair sticks out all over like a lion's mane, and his clothing is so shredded that it's no longer functional. He bull-rushes the back of the van, runs into it, and slams his fists into the bars across the back window. His hands are terribly bruised, and there is blood around his fingernails. He is missing several teeth, and there is a huge gash along the side of his face. Blood is smeared all around his mouth. It looks like he's been in a fight with a wild animal, but my guess is that he wrestled and subdued a weaker zombie and probably has been surviving by eating that person's flesh.

I hit the gas a little as we come to an area with no cars in the street, and we are able to pull away from the zombie. He runs after us, screaming. His screams draw other infected, and we leave behind us a grizzly parody of a barroom brawl.

We drive for about a mile, maybe two. The odometer in the van is broken, but the fuel gauge works, so I'm guessing based on a combination of memory and fuel usage. We approach the strip mall where the pharmacy is housed, and stop in the parking lot. There are a few cars left in the lot. We drive around and look into them, making sure there is no one hiding inside. We don't see anyone. That's pretty consistent with what the remotes found. This place is pretty deserted. The camera didn't encounter a single zombie. It is possible that some are hiding inside, though, and we didn't get the camera in there, so we're going to have to be careful entering. After much debate, we had decided prior to leaving that we were going to shine light into the building to see if anyone was in there, because it wouldn't be worth taking them by surprise if we risked being taken by surprise as a result. Getting a good look would limit the areas from which they could attack without us seeing them first, and we could be ready for that.

We drive up in front of the store, and we follow the plan. Our fears turn out to be misplaced, because we are able to raid the store without incident. It goes so well that in addition to the needed medications and first aid supplies, we manage to secure toiletries, cleaning supplies, birth control devices, snack items, and a lot of candy. Upon returning to the vehicle, we dump our packs inside and decide to go for a second trip into the store, returning with cooking utensils, tools, more snack items and candy, and other items which aren't totally necessary, but which will make life easier for us.

Big mistake. We shouldn't have been greedy.

As we near the store's exit for the second time, we spot several zombies investigating our van. It's sealed up tight, and they can't get in. We are able to remotely lock and unlock it, but we can't remotely get inside. We're now stuck with limited options. We could wait them out and see if they leave, but they're pretty persistent right now, and we have no idea how long they'll stay. There is also the risk that if we do that, they could discover us hiding inside the building and attack .

We can fight, but we're outnumbered. There are about ten of us, and judging by what we can see, there are at least thirty of them. They all appear to have recently fed, because there is blood on their faces, and they aren't attacking each other. Instead, they're operating with the curiosity of a bunch of monkeys investigating a foreign object.

The van isn't equipped with a lot of weapons, but it has a few surprises. One is what I have nicknamed the zap factor. It's hooked up with more than one battery, so that we can power a system that turns the outside of it into a giant taser that will electrocute whoever is touching it. It works best on fewer bodies, but even a large group will be momentarily stunned, and afterward will have difficulty moving at will.

We back into a darker portion of the store and quietly plan our attack . We can activate a chirping noise to go off just once. It is audible for several yards, but not incredibly far away. My archer suggests that we do that, to further attract the zombies we can see, and maximize the number of them touching the van. Then, we can activate the electric charge and zap all of them, after which those with projectile weapons can open fire and take out the ones in front and maybe the second wave. That will reduce the number we have to fight up close. Another of my cohorts has located a few breaks in the front window where those with guns can stand and shoot right after the zap. The only problem is that the shooters have to be on the other side of the front counter.

We decide to go with that plan, so we crawl up to the window. I peek over the edge and see that the zombies are still trying to find a way into the van. I activate the chirp, and they all momentarily perk up. Then, they start pounding on it. I activate the zap. They all jump and shake when the electricity hits them. Immediately after, they throw a huge temper tantrum, shouting and jumping around, attacking each other as if their fellow zombies were responsible for the momentary paralysis. Though they are not as clumsy and disoriented as we had hoped, this is still good for us, as the shooters are able to at first act without being noticed. They take out fully half of the zombies as those of us with hand weapons rush to the door. The remaining zombies rush the building, and for a moment there is a pause in the fighting as they shove it closed while trying to get in. We back away and prepare to let them come at us down the short, narrow hall between the outer and inner doors. The shooters take aim, and when the first zombie breaks through the glass, they take out that one and the next three before the remaining dozen or so push through their bodies to the front.

There is a short fight between us and them. I find myself attacked by two burly looking men, one pounding on me with closed fists, the other trying and failing to grab me with both hands. Using the tactics I've taught my team, I stab the grabby one in the chest with the really long knife I'm carrying, and slam my foot into the other's left knee hard enough that I hear it break . The knee guy goes mostly down, but keeps pounding on my leg with his fists. The knife gets momentarily stuck in the other guy's chest, until he backs up a bit to look down at the wound. From somewhere off to my right, a bullet hits the knee guy in the head. He growls at me like an animal before falling face down in front of me as the other guy, bleeding heavily, lurches at me. He's disoriented enough that I can just step out of the way, grab his arm, and throw him to the ground. As I do, another zombie tries to grab me from behind and ends up under my attacker, who immediately bites her in the throat. Not sure how well I've disabled the one on top, I stick the knife up through the back of his head. It's an awful feeling, both halfway familiar and really alien. It feels and sounds like I've stuck the knife into a baked squash, but I have the full knowledge that I've just ended someone's life.

I feel sick, but there is still a lot of danger. There are still some zombies outside, and some of my team are still fighting. I hear the gun go off again, and another zombie drops. I turn and slash the muscles and tendons on the back of another zombie's knees. She falls, and I recognize her as a regular customer at my store. She always comes in and gets a large coffee cup, fills it halfway with regular coffee, then adds a little each of all of the flavors in the cappuccino machine, and tops it off with a handful of ice cubes. She always pays with change, but she saves her quarters for the vending machines at work, so she leaves the cashier with a handful of dimes, nickles, and much needed pennies. I remember that she's always tidy and polite when she's shopping.

Now, she's on her back on the floor, growling obscenities and grabbing at my ankles with bloody, dirty hands. Her once professional looking outfit is hanging on her in filthy rags. Her face, always wearing a pleasant smile when she shopped in my store, is contorted with fury. She accuses me of stealing her kill. My teammate shoots her, grabs my arm, and drags me toward the door, telling me that we have to get to the van before others hear the fighting and come to investigate. The rest of the team are all ready running.

I unlock the doors as we run the short distance to the vehicle. We throw them open and start piling inside. As I climb in, I glance to the side and see a whole hoard of them running across the other end of the lot toward us. They will reach us in a matter of seconds. I climb in behind the wheel as the guys slam shut the door. The engine is all ready started. I throw the van into gear and turn it away from the building to see that we are surrounded. With us as a common target, the zombies will act as a mob, all of them focusing their attacks on us. If we make it through and escape, they'll attack each other and fight to the death, until the dead outnumber the living. Those left will gorge themselves on the corpses of the fallen, and there's nothing we can do to stop this from happening.

There is no way to go without running over infected people to get out of here. My heart sinks. I look at the front seat passenger. He has opened the glove box and is accessing the controls for the few guns we've put onto the vehicle. We are going to have to shoot and bludgeon our way out. Gritting my teeth, I face the mob. As he fires the first shots, I floor the pedal, and the van lurches forward harder than expected, momentarily throwing my head back against the seat.

The feeling of the van lurching forward was enough to wake me. That's something that happens all the time. While sensory input that doesn't make sense or is really uncomfortable doesn't seem to affect me, strong vivid sensations felt in the head seem to force me into consciousness. In fact, when in the course of a nightmare I figure out that I'm dreaming, I use the act of shaking my head really hard to wake myself up.

On waking, I felt a combination of relief and urgency to get back to the dream. Though waking brought an awareness that the experience was not real, I still felt responsible for getting the supplies back to the friends and family waiting for us at the compound we'd built and fortified. For a few moments, I could still hear the tires squealing, and I felt like if I was awake, the van must be moving forward with no driver, and of all things, my mind went through the process of realizing that the guy sitting on the floor between myself and the other front passenger would likely jump into my seat under the circumstances and take over.

I think the sound of tires squealing may have actually been real, floating in from the somewhat busy street that intersects with the street outside my apartment. It sounded so real, and didn't disappear, but faded like the driver was moving away from my vantage point before coming to a stop.

Rules that make this dream different from zombie movies and many of my zombie nightmares:
1) The "zombies" are living, not undead, and can be killed the same as any other person.
2) The infection does not animate dead bodies
3) The infection is not a totally mentally disabling disease, nor is it terminal. They can talk and appear to be able to reason. However, emotions seem to trump logic in their thought processes.
4) The "zombies" get full just like they would have prior to infection. When that happens, they're still violent, but they stop eating until they get hungry again.
5) The "zombies" will eat any human flesh, not just the flesh of healthy people, so they are as willing to attack each other as they are to attack us.

The infected are coming

Another recurring theme in my dreams, one that has haunted me since early childhood, long before my first zombie movie, is dreams of cannibalistic monster humans. Sometimes they are the walking dead. Sometimes they are not. Last night, it was kind of a mix. 
There is some background necessary for this one: In life, we aren't where we want to be. We live across the state from the rest of our family. Some, we get to visit somewhat often. Others we are fortunate to see once or twice a year. The dream began with a change in that circumstance. We had recently moved back to my husband's home town.

It starts out so good. We have been living in the new house for a few months, a nice big place with enough rooms that in addition to having a bedroom each for all three kids, there were two to spare for our hobbies. It even has a huge basement. It isn't a finished basement, but it is dry, and we are making it more of a living space. It is a work in progress. The yard is even big. In it, we have built a nice club house, and planted gardens. Best of all, it was really affordable to purchase, and the circumstances under which that came about had not brought harm or loss to anyone. We feel good about the place.

I am working in the kitchen garden, which is adjacent to the house, just outside the back door. The plants consist mostly of herbs and loose-leaf salad greens. There are also bunching lettuces and cabbages, and some brussels sprouts, but those are not ready to pick.. I am using careful harvesting techniques to encourage further growth, by pinching back leaves where it will cause the plant to branch out. I am fairly engrossed in my work when the smell hits me, and I realize that there is a dead animal very near to where I am working.

I look around and do not see anything in the yard, or the brush by the fence. It must be in my garden.
Carefully pulling leaves and stalks aside to look more closely, I find the corpse, a little rabbit. Its head is partially ripped off. It looks like it was picked up by something without sharp pointy parts, and pulled apart. It isn't chewed up all over. It's crushed, and the flesh around the torn area is really ragged, like something chewed just there. Whatever did it had such a good grip that it tore through the neck instead of just tearing off the skin, and in the process it broke every bone in the little animal's body. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of blood.

At this realization, I cease to be clinical about the investigation of the dead animal, and gag at the smell and the thought of how it died. All I can picture is a person picking it up, wringing its neck, trying to tear its head off, gnawing it and drinking the blood, then throwing it in my garden. I am hit with the horrifying notion that there is someone in my neighborhood right now who would do something like this, and I don't know who it is.

I look around at the houses on either side of ours. Could we have moved in next door to a psychopath? This kind of animal abuse is characteristic of the childhood behavior of people who go on to become serial killers.

That is when I notice that one of my neighbors is watching me through the edge of a mostly curtained side window on the second story of his house. I can see half of his face. An evil grin covers it when he sees me start as I notice him. I grab the basket of greens and herbs and turn to enter the house. In the time it takes me to take the two steps that place me beside the door, he is out of his house and climbing over the fence to my yard.

His behavior is totally weird. Normally a very nice man with whom we get along well, he appears to have lost his mind. His expression is kind of a cross between hunger, lechery, and labored determination. He doesn't talk. His movements are slightly uncontrolled, and appear to require a concentrated effort, as if he has damage to the part of his nervous system that allows him to control his muscles.
He has red smears on his shirt and hands. Beyond him, I can see others around his house. They have the same stilted, sloppy kind of movement, and the same look on their faces. Some of them are fighting, but not with their fists, like most people. The are grabbing and swinging at each other like cats, and trying to bite. They are growling and grunting like animals.

The neighbor is over the fence by the time I look away from the scene. He begins to half-stumble, half run toward me. I quickly enter the house, slam the door shut, and lock it. I hear an angry, wordless yowl from outside as he bangs into the storm door, shattering the glass at the top. Then, I hear both of his fists pounding on the door. I yell for my family.

I know something is wrong with several of my neighbors, and we are in danger. My first thought is barricading the house to keep them out. I bark orders at everyone, and they just look at me like I've lost my mind. My younger daughter says, "No, that's just Mr. Jonas from next door. He probably needs help with something." I have to physically restrain her from opening it. I make her look out the window. In the meantime, my husband, disgusted with my nonsensical behavior, does open the inner door. Mr. Jonas reaches in through the broken glass, slicing a big gash along his arm. Howling in pain and frustration, he draws his arm back and throws himself around like an agitated toddler.

Simultaneously, three things happen. My husband realizes that something about Mr. Jonas is scary, and shuts the door.
My daughter sees one of the neighbors bite another in the throat, taking her down.
I realize that the combined behaviors of the neighbors add up to mean that they must be "zombies" of some kind. I don't think they are dead, just impaired in some way that I don't completely understand.

Finally, though, my family and I are on the same page. I bark orders again. My oldest daughter and my husband begin closing the aluminum storm shutters over our windows.
Our new house had a neat feature. Each window had a switch next to it, almost like ones you use for lights. When the switch is up, the shutters are open. To close the shutters, you flick the switch down. The shutters drop kind of like a cross between a garage door and a venetian blind.

The movement seems to draw the attention of the zombies, but not all of them are attracted to it, and the ones that are do not move fast enough to get in. Once closed, the shutters would be very difficult to open from the outside. A rational person might be able to get in, but someone with the level of impairment that the zombies displayed would attempt to use brute force, and that would not work.

The younger kids set about calling family and friends to warn them, beginning with the ones closest to where we are on the wild guess that the phenomenon had started in our neighborhood. I begin gathering and arranging things to make the house defensible, listening to the kids reporting back to me on who has or has not experienced zombie weirdness. I hear my younger daughter shouting at my sister, "Of course I have faith in God, but God doesn't expect you to sit on your butt and let Him do all of the work. Barricade your house, and pray to God that it holds. Just do it!" I know my sister at first did not believe her, but as adamant as my daughter sounds, my sister will take measures to protect her family pending further information. And she will pray.

My husband and oldest finish with the downstairs shutters. I have him help me move things so that we can stay in the kitchen and the dining room, which have the smallest windows, and are adjacent to the bathroom, also with small windows, and to the windowless pantry and the stairways. If needed, we can get to either the basement, or the upstairs quickly.

I have my oldest start calling people, too. By now, it has been almost ten minutes. We have barricaded the windows in the living room with book shelves. Then, we barricade the doorway between the living room and the dining room with another bookshelf, and the table. The kitchen door is barricaded by moving the refrigerator over in front of it. In the pantry, we put together a stash of weapons. It looks like these people can die the same way anyone can. That will be helpful if we have to defend ourselves.

I start helping with the phone calls. There are some people we are unable to reach, and we are worried about them. We ask others to call them. In the meantime, my parents ask if I have called 911. I have not, but I assure them that after I hang up, I will. I tell them to be ready. My kids have been told that there is zombie activity in our previous residence in the city, eighty miles away, and they live kind of between where we are and that location. I tell them to alert their local authorities too. I tell my brother to get his guns ready. I wish I still had mine.


Finally we have called all of the numbers stored in our phones, and in our minds. I call 911. There is no dispatcher, only a recorded message describing the emergency as an outbreak of some kind of reaction to spores from a new kind of fungus. We are advised to do basically what we are all ready doing.
I learn the following things from the message: The government believes that the fungus has been destroyed in its original habitat, which they do not say was a lab, but somehow I know it was. The bodies of the infected are the only thing left that carry the spores, and they seem to be the perfect growth medium. The fungus grows in the respiratory system, including the walls of the throat and the inside of the mouth. It releases a toxin into the blood that affects the central nervous system. It causes dementia, aggression, and extreme hunger, even when the stomach is full. The dementia includes forgetting what to eat. The infected will attack and attempt to consume anything that moves.

The spores from human victims are not airborn while the victim is alive. There just aren't enough of them. The recorded message states that it is suspected that victim zero may have mistakenly consumed the fungus. It occurs to me to suspect that the fungus was deliberately fed to someone, like a test subject.

The message goes on to say that the spores are spread through biting, and no one is immune. Once contracted, the fungus is terminal. Either the toxins eventually destroy the brain, the fungus causes suffocation, or the stomach ruptures from overeating. Either way, the host dies within days of contracting the fungus. The fungus continues to grow in deceased hosts. Eventually it causes the abdominal area to become bloated and distended, and will release spores if dead bodies are disturbed. At that time, infection is airborn. No known treatment is available at this time, and it does not appear that one will be forthcoming in the near future.

According to the message, we are advised to remain indoors until further notice. A number is given for us to call if we are under attack, and another if we are starving or without water. A third number is given for anyone bitten. The number is followed by a stark promise to provide medication and solitary confinement to preserve dignity and eliminate the pain of the illness, followed by the admonition that the bitten should think of the safety of loved ones, and call the number before they hurt someone. It strikes me that anyone calling that number will likely be carted away by authorities and quickly euthanize.

I call the number for help in an attack, but all I get is a busy signal. I give my daughter my phone, and have her keep speed-dialing to see if she can get through.

I explain to my family what is going on. We make more phone calls, first getting hold of people who did not believe us, and telling them what we have learned. I call to make sure my brother knows that zombie he shoots is all ready a dying person anyway. He breaks down and cries on the phone, and tells me he is glad to know that, because a neighbor broke into the house and attacked. The man was not a close friend, but was someone the family liked and trusted. No people were bitten, but the neighbor tore their dog apart, then turned on the family. My brother shot him in self defense. I don't get how upset he really is, until he tells me "he came over to borrow my weed cutter last Sunday, and we had a beer and talked about piddly normal stuff. I had a beer with him on Sunday, and I had to shoot him in the head just a few minutes ago. His blood is still wet on the floor."

There aren't any words of comfort I can offer, except to say how much pain the man was spared by that bullet. I tell my brother to throw the body outside, and why. He has calmed down, though he is still shaken. He is able to tell me that the body is in the garage, and they are in the house. I tell him what will happen to it, that once it's bloated with fungus, if they disturb it, it will release spores. I emphasize that if they end up forced to flee the house, they need to wear wet bandanas or other cloth over their mouths and noses until they get out of there, to avoid getting infected if they come into contact with the corpse. As he promises me that he will, I hear something break through part of the glass in the big picture window in the living room, and impact against a book shelf. I tell my brother that everything is ok here, but I have to hang up and work to make it stay that way. Before he hangs up, he tells me he loves me. My brother and my dad don't ever do that. It's kind of a guy thing with them. It hits home again how scared he is. I say it back.. I'm terrified, too.

I realize the shutter over that picture window did not go all the way down. They might be able to get that one open.

An inarticulate scream comes from that direction, and then we can hear the zombies fighting. I think maybe if we wait and let them congregate, the more aggressive ones will kill off the others, and we'll have less of them to defend against, but eventually they are going to get inside the living room. We have to better barricade the rooms we are using, and we have to be ready for a fight.

I think about which of the items we have gathered will be the most quickly lethal. It is a horribly mercenary thought, and I feel less human for it. I don't share the thought with my family because the people outside are our neighbors, both old and young, and I don't want the kids to think about them tearing each other apart, or us having to kill them. I realize they're going to have to face it when it happens. I wish they didn't. I ask them if they remember the things I've taught them about self defense. They nod.

They are crying. They can hear everything I can, and they know that some of their classmates are out there. I pull them into a hug. My husband puts his arms around us, and we try to block out the terrible noise from outside, but then we hear the wood splintering in the kitchen door as Mr. Jonas hits it with something solid. I think it must be one of the rocks that border my garden. It will take time, but if he is not stopped, he is going to get through that door.

My husband lets go of us. He goes to the closet under the stairs and gets his bowling ball. I realize he's going to take it up to the bedroom and drop it out of the window above the kitchen door, down on to Mr. Jonas's head. I hold the kids tighter as he starts up the stairs. My older daughter seems to know what is going to happen, as she starts talking to the younger ones, telling them it's going to be ok, and Dad won't let him in.

I think about the way Mr. Jonas welcomed us to the neighborhood with a pie he made at home, and how much fun my son had playing with his grandson when his kids came to visit during the last week before school. I am filled with a sense of dread as I realize my husband is going to have to kill our neighbor to save us. I understand how my brother felt about shooting his neighbor.

My insides feel frozen, and my heart hurts. I want to cry.  I'm pretty sure uncontrolled sobbing would at least feel appropriate in this situation, but if I do that the kids will freak out, too, so I have to hold it back.. I start telling them that it's going to be ok. I know they are thinking of what Mr. Jonas must be going through. I wonder if it hurts to have the fungus growing in your lungs. Maybe the bowling ball will give him a more peaceful and quick death than the ones described in the emergency message. I hope it will spare him more pain than it will cause.
Most importantly, we will be safe. I am blinking back tears and fighting to keep my voice steady so the kids won't be as afraid as I am. I pull away and start handing out knives. I tell them it's "just in case." I tell them to go for vulnerable spots, the eyes, and the throat, if they have to fight. I move us onto the stairway so that they can run away first. I grip a big kitchen knife tightly in my hand. My heart is pumping like mad as I hear the window open upstairs.

I wake up and realize that there is no Mr. Jonas. The memory of him was all part of the dream. We are still living in the city away from our family. We haven't yet seen our moving plan come to fruition, and we have another whole year before it will happen. There are no zombies. I've never been so happy to feel disappointed. It takes a while for the fear and the adrenalin to go away.