07/27/2006
“Fallen Prey”

Wow….
My earliest memory of this dream was being at this lakeside campsite at night. There was about 8-10 of my friends and family with me, and I do remember that my 5 year old daughter, Cierra, was a teenager in this dream. I know that there was a whole lot of back-story to this dream, but my memory kicks in after all of the strange shit started happening, of course.
Apparently there was this really weird guy staying in a trailer that was really close to our campsite. I take it the camp was in a state park or something. Anyway, over time we could tell that something just wasn’t right about this guy. I’m not sure what led to it but, sooner or later, I was inside this guy’s trailer while he was out doing something. I think I was just snooping around to find out more about him or something, because he was giving all of us the creeps.
It was dark as hell inside the trailer, but I eventually stumbled onto his secret: He was a serial killer and hidden away in a number of pantries and closets in his trailer were the corpses of other campers.
I looked out through the translucent curtains and could see the man’s silhouette. He was on his way back. I don’t know how, but I made it out of the trailer. But I guess he knew I was there because he was eventually stalking us all. There was one point where we were trying to escape on this really shitty piece of broken-up raft that was in the lake. There were about eight of us trying to fit on this one raft that was falling apart beneath us. What’s worse is that the murky lake water was alligator infested. So much so that we were having to actually step over them while we waded out into thigh-deep water, trying frantically to make the broken raft work to our advantage.
A few of the gators began snapping at us, some of them taking large chunks out of the raft. As we were fighting them off, one of the people in my group (dunno who it was) was suddenly shot in the heart from out of nowhere.
More shots streamed in. The killer was sniping at us from near his trailer, and we couldn’t see him at all because it was night time, and the trailer was about 50 yards back in the woods. As our attention went more to the bullets than the gators, another friend of mine fell victim to one of the gators and was dragged under water.
This raft idea was not working. Even if we did keep the damn thing afloat, we’d be sitting ducks, on the water.
We pulled it back ashore and I told everyone to sit tight. I sprinted back toward the campsites, zig-zagging as I could see the sniper-fire sinking into the dirt around me, following me as I went to grab the car, which had a handgun inside. I vaguely remember having a fire-fight with this guy while picking up the rest of my group by the lake.
Woke up shortly after this.

Was up for about 15 mins and fell back asleep into a continuation of the same dream.

Trying not to make this a novel, (too late) so the gist of this second part is that we’d all gotten back home and were shacked up in my old neighborhood in Texas. It wasn’t long, though, before we realized the house was haunted. (I swear I can never get a break :l) It started off first as a few strange occurrences, but then full-bodied apparitions began appearing. I was the only one that noticed, but these ghosts were familiar. They were the victims of the camp-killer that I’d stumbled upon the bodies of when I raided his trailer.
Not taking the time to stick around we all hauled ass out of the house. More and more ghosts were appearing. There were about 6 of us in all now, and we ran to the car. Cierra, still a teenager in the dream, jumped into the driver’s seat. I jumped in passenger and everyone else in back. She was a HORRIBLE driver (which is hilarious because whenever she’s playing my Need 4 Speed game, IRL, she’s always crashing and referring to herself as the “worst driver in the world.” Haha.) Anyway, we eventually get far enough away from the house to come to a stop sign and for me to say “Alright. Chinese Fire Drill. Get out, Cierra, I’m driving!”
As we switched places, I could see these people coming slowly down the street. There were too many to count. The ghosts were still following us.
I drove off and we went some place downtown, trying to stay somewhere in public.
There was this bar/pool hall/rec center place that we took up shelter in, but something seemed really strange about this place from the get-go.
I was recognizing a lot of the people in this bar. One guy, in particular, was following me around through the crowd. I vaguely noticed there was a glowing, 2-digit number etched into his forehead. (Ever see the movie The Frighteners with Michael J. Fox?) He was a victim of the serial killer, and much of the crowd was the ghosts that we’d been running away from.
I was about to gather up everyone to get out, but realized that there was suddenly no way out. No way to leave. The doors had disappeared and everyone inside was trapped inside.
Then it all began to make sense.
The puzzle was beginning to piece itself together.
These “ghosts” weren’t threatening to us, they never were. They were trying to communicate with us, to tell us what I’ve been beginning to figure out on my own.
I stopped at the bar and looked at the bartender. He looked back at me, as if he knew what I was thinking, by the look on my face. Not quite sure of the words I was looking for, I simply asked him. “I’m…..we’re……supposed to be here…aren’t we? I mean…we’re not supposed to leave….are we?”
He shook his head with a sense of pity. “No….you’re not.”
My hunch was right.
None of us had even made it out of the damn campsite. We were all dead – either killed by the psycho or eaten by gators. I have no idea which. Everything we’d experienced since I’d fallen back asleep (the haunted house, driving, this club) was a representation of Purgatory. We were able to see the ghosts because we were on their plane, and their fascination with us was simply that we were the newcomers.
Feeling about sick to my stomach, I sulked around the place, pondering over how I was going to tell the rest of my friends and family.

To try to wrap this damn entry up;
I let everyone in on what happened and, over time, we came to accept this Purgatory, each finding our own little niche. I found this room where a bunch of guys were sparring on this huge elevated mat, and I started taking on a few guys. One guy pulled out a pair of those foam-rubber practice nunchaku and started tearing opponents up with them. I think it was a point system or something because it was all light-contact. Some other guy then threw me two pairs of them and I jumped in, whirling them around like a professional and completely dominating just about everyone else that stepped up on the mat.
There was also a huge gym somewhere else in the building where I was playing volleyball. I sucked Really Bad at that, though, and some girl that looked a Lot like Ame kept giving me shit every time I cost our team a point. Haha.

That’s about all I remember, though. But damn, what a dream.