Undisclosed - Zach Bo1inger
Dream: The Drill
I am at a camp very similar to the one in Iraq where I live, with all the same people, but instead of being in the desert, we are in a forest. The trees are huge. It's probably the redwood forest or something. All I can think of is the Endor moon in Return of the Jedi. The security guys want to run a drill. They dream up a scenario and we have to react. We are told to expect a drill, but not when. We are not told what to expect. Could be fire, enemy attack, nuclear meltdown. Knowing security, it's probably some outrageous situation that will never occur.
Some time passes, and they announce the drill has started. For some reason, I panic about being able to contact somebody. I grabbed all the office phones and the switch they plug into. I'm running around in the woods with more electronics than I should be able to humanly carry. I find some abandoned RV and set up the equipment there. For some reason, it doesn't matter that I am nowhere near any phone lines or satellite uplink. I am able to set up the equipment and get communications up and running. That's the good news. The bad news is, I took all the phones, so I can't actually talk to anybody else in the drill. I realize how stupid my little plan is, and I say outloud, "Add that to the lessons learned. Don't hoard the comms."
So I'm sitting there in the RV. The roof has rotted and collapsed, so it doesn't offer much protection. At this point, I'm forgetting that this is just a drill and getting scared, even though I don't even know what is supposed to happen in the drill. There's just something about the rotting RV that tells me the civilized world is falling apart. In one of the more annoying aspects of my dreams, I dream the whole waiting around part. It's not like a movie where they convey that time has passed. I dream that I am waiting for about 20 minutes.
Then some woman comes bursting into the place, all hunched over. She gives me a wild eyed look, which grows into intent staring. It's kind of creepy. I ask her, "What's going on?" as if I was just passing a coworker in the hall. She says nothing, but she gives a throaty hiss. She keeps her intent stare locked on as she inches towards me. When she gets close enough, she lunges out at me. I give her the stiff arm and she falls to my side. She rolls over and grabs my legs. She fights to get her head up to my level while never letting go of me. She bites my should and then tells me in a soft voice, "You have to act like one of us, now. Find the others, and try to bite or scratch them. Once you have, tell them they are infected, too and they have to stalk the remaining people. Don't talk to them, just stare and hiss. Go out alone, we don't hunt in packs.
"Great," I think, "security wants us to act out 28 days later." I knew that I had heard that hiss somewhere before. So I play along. I find some other woman, jump out at her and grip her in a bear hug. "Scratch. Scratch. Scratch" I say, as I scratch her arm a little. I tell her the rules, and we go our separate ways.
The dream ends with us sharing our "lessons learned." I tell everybody how they shouldn't hoard the communications equipment and they are glad to be offered such insight.