Batch

06-13-2017 -- Shopping at Publix, and actually making a comment during the dream about 'where shopping is supposed to be a pleasure.' Wandering around the place quite a bit, though I can't fully remember why. What I can remember is going out to the car (white Corolla, for some odd reason) several times. One time, I was kind of being half-followed around the store by a couple of troublemakers who would literally bump into me now and then, and trying to cause trouble. Another time, while I was out at the car, I opened the trunk and found three black or dark blue ski masks that had a really creepy vibe to them.

Back into the store, and pushing around a shopping cart trying to find a place where I can take it in or out, grabbing food, and trying to check it out with one of the cashiers, then head back outside. This time I glance up to see a couple of T-Rex-like dinosaurs off in the distance, waving around machine guns and heading our way. People start screaming, including myself (no real surprise), and we try to run back into the store, but the dinosaurs are moving too quickly, and are firing at us. I act like I've been hit and drop to the ground, playing dead, but it doesn't seem to fool the dinosaur, because he walks right up to me and starts firing the gun directly at my head. I am getting quite a headache from this, but other than that, suffer no real harm.

So since the dinosaur is still shooting me and playing dead isn't doing much good, I hop to my feet, and just turn to walk in the store, which really freaks the dinosaur out. As I step inside, the place is a mess. There are wounded and blood everywhere. Some are sick (mentally) because of what they've seen, and are throwing up. There's a really dark, spooky, apocalyptic feel to the whole thing, with the slightest hint of zombies. I take the escalators up to the third floor, where I wander into a sort of a homeless shelter-style dorm room with bunk beds all around. One poor, deluded soul is painting scripture-sounding verses on the walls, but he's really messed up, and the verses are twisted, inaccurate, and foolish.

We're all just kind of standing around and talking, and I mention I've got some creepy ski masks if anybody needs them, though I say I have no idea where they came from, and nobody seems to much care. At one point, they open up a roll-up door in the northeast wall, and a whole bunch of people come marching in, four abreast, looking almost like they are on a stand-up roller coaster. Somehow they don't want to be here, and have volunteered to all be shot out of a giant slingshot ... and remember, we're on the third floor, here. It's really screwy. Anyway, once they've been shot out, we're all kind of congregating around the door into the dorm, discussing how that was wrong and freaky, and in just kind of shuffling around, I step through the door without even meaning to.

Lights start flashing and an alarm starts blaring, and I'm a little freaked out as everybody else steps back from me. It turns out I've now been here for something like three years or something, but I never realized that once we entered the dorm, we're not allowed to exit it unless they ask us to. Some guy dressed up in a sort of monk's habit walks up to me, and is kind of pushing me along, while asking if I thought I could just pretend the whole thing never happened, and I hopefully say something like "Well, I'd be glad to," but he's not allowing it. They open the roll-up door again, and are pushing me into a sort of parachute harness kind of thing, then I'm pushed out the door. I drop the three floors, but the harness keeps me safe, and when I hit the ground I take it off and drop it.

I'm in what used to be the open parking lot of the Publix, but it has now been converted into a covered parking structure with soldiers kind of wandering around. I glance around to see where the soldiers are and who else is around, and see a strange figure that I could swear I half-remember from some sort of movie or TV show, but can't remember what. The guy seems like a cross between Trick (the mayor's assistant from BtVS) and the Joker, or just some weird guy in a sort of jester costume, but he kind of tilts his head, gives me an odd look, and dances a few steps of an odd little jig that makes it look like he is a marionette or something. I know I should remember this, but I just can't place it.

Crouched down on the ground and muttering to himself is somebody I kind of recognize. It is mostly Tom Courtney, with just a hint of Miles O'Brien thrown in, and he's kind of muttering to himself, something about how God has told him to wait here, and he's trusted, and waited, and been left alone, and it seems he has probably been waiting for me. Meanwhile, there's this whole sort of Logan's Run kind of vibe going on, as all the soldiers and creepy people keep kind of starting to approach us, then back off, because the spot on Tom's hand is green, and the spot that was on my hand has kind of been painted over white, because I was thrown out of the dorms, but God protected me from the gun, and is still protecting me, and since neither of us have the red spot, they can't come after us, but they keep trying to start in our direction, anyway. Meanwhile, I am just looking around the parking lot, trying to find out where my white Corolla is. Strange! Very strange.