Foreward: The following is a dream that I had last night. For the heck of it, I decided that I would try and write it more creatively than a typical dream report. As far as a personal background, which might provide some context to the dream (although I am not sure how yet), these past few weeks for me have been truly terrible. And this is not the "terrible" of a daily complaint, but the "terrible" of ruined college career and straitened circumstances of ongoing poverty. I have suffered some emotional setbacks which have stopped my school progress for this term, and I am not sure how to fix it. Now, the dream:
Confusion. Things stop working like they usually should. I am drive around aimlessly in my used station wagon trying to figure out what the hell is happening to everybody. There is the electric and unplaceable oddity one feels after a major national crisis, like a terrorist attack or declaration of war. But outwardly, other than a few more people walking out on the street, people who appear perfectly normal, not too much is different.
I am not sure what happened. Perhaps a meteor hit the east coast, or there was a biological experiment gone wrong. I remember that this is how it happens in the movies. But, now that it is actually happening in real life, I don't have no idea how it started, and I am pretty sure that I will never know. There isn't anything on the radio. In fact, all of the stations on radio are silent. I can't tune anything in. This is my first and biggest indicator that something is really wrong: the media, constantly present, has shut down.
My first impulse is to find and meet up with my family, but I can't find them. They aren't at home. I'm very worried and am desperately looking around. Driving around the suburban neighborhood, I pull out my cell phone and try to call them. The voice on the other end says, "I'm sorry. This phonecall will cost 12,450 dollars the first minute and 3,000 dollars for every additional minute." While it seems clear that society has very definitely fallen apart, I inwardly debate the cost of the call while staring blankly distressed at the phone. If the world is truly crumbling, it won't matter how much debt I incur now because no-one will ever be able to collect. Unfortunately, I'm so poor, I can't take the chance. I think, "Yet another indignity of being poor: having been beaten into submission by the exorbitant costs of things."
I have somehow found my way to the local hospital, three stories with the red brick facade. Stopping in the lot, I get out of the car and walk through the hospital corridors looking for someone normal to talk to. Someone leaps out of nearby examination room very angry and looking to bite someone, possibly me. I quickly back away and find another corridor to search, where I see an angry person biting someone else. This appears to be the only indication that someone has become a zombie: they are angry and upset. They want to bite. In another corridor, I come across zombie blocking my way, menacingly. But, oddly, I smile and give a little wave. It seems to work! The zombie stands up straighter, smiles and waves back and moves off to search for another potential victim. I discover that if I smile and act very pleasant, my zombie attackers become mollified and walk away.
Eventually, I find the E.R., where there is a nurse who, while having been bitten, is not yet a zombie. She is trying to treat other people who are not yet zombies. She explains that the zombie infection is spreading very fast and that my best bet is to leave and get out of town. Deciding that this is good advice, I go for the exit in the room beyond. There is a plate glass window between rooms so I can look back and still see the nurse treating people. Suddenly, I see that there are about eight zombies with her, circling around her as if to attack. I must be horrified, because an expression of shock and pain escapes onto my face. The zombies, surprised at my inadvertent expression, lunge at the window. I hit the fire alarm to cause momentary confusion, and turn for the exit. As I am rushing out, I see a baseball bat that someone has left by the door. I grab it and quickly get back in my car to speed away.
I am driving out onto the coast. Society has indeed fallen apart, and I have still not found my family. There aren't many zombies out here as it is too remote for them to find or survive for very long. I come across a giant coastal home that the rich people own, but are now abandoned. I decide to take residency here. I can see the lights of the nearby town in the distance from the back sliding glass doors.
- - - - - - -
I have now become an older man, perhaps about sixty. I found another normal person to be with, a woman, who has essentially become my wife. We are still avoiding zombies. It is late at night, and I am trying to shut off every light that is on so the zombies will not see that someone lives here. But, because of the odd shape of the house, with large cathedral ceilings in tall and narrow rooms, I sometimes have to use a ladder to shut them off. I have my bat nearby to fend off any potential attackers, and there are a couple more bats in the upstairs bedroom. I am trying my best to take care of my wife and reassure her that everything is all right. As I shut off the last light, the lights near the porch, I look out towards the lights burning in the nearby zombie city and worry if they will ever eventually find us.