Hoosier Horrors

Nightmare 2/27/2017

     I'm investigating dark histories of Indiana with Steven Crowder. We find urban legends attributed to certain towns in the Hoosier state. Then we get on Google Earth and get a close up view of the towns. Each town with a dark urban legend that we view causes our computer screen to immediately go black. We have a feeling that the government is behind this, so we decide to investigate these mysterious legends in person.

     One local legend leads us to a small, rural trailer park in which everything has been burned to a charred ruin. The fire had something to do with a satanic ritual gone awry. The legend seems to still be alive and well. The feeling I get from this place is pure fear.

     We travel to another town in southern Indiana to investigate a story where a mother sacrificed her two children, boiled their bodies in large barrels of water and then had a cannibal feast. This happened in another trailer park, however this time, it wasn't abandoned due to fire. This park was still in use, in fact, we believe the mother is still here. We place a small camera in a hidden location inside a trailer in which we suspect the mother lives. We watch on a separate screen as an old man and his wife walk around their kitchen and living room. It's rather dull. Nothing interesting happens.

     Back at Stevens house, I walk from the back room to the front room. One part of his house is very messy but the front is clean. Steven and another person are sitting watching TV. At one point, a few girls show up to his house and one of the girls gives a tour of Stevens property. We all join the tour. I have a crush on a blonde girl. I repeatedly shoot her glances throughout the tour. Dream ends.

I wake up.

Pass The Tardy Sauce

Dream 2/25/2017

     I'm in the boys bathroom at Liberty Christian High School. While sitting on the toilet I watch a movie on my smartphone. The stall doesn't have a door but rather a curtain. When a student walks in, I show him the movie that I'm watching. Straight ahead, outside the stall is the wall of urinals. For some reason, there is a TV on the urinal directly in front of me. I switch video from my phone onto the TV and watch it that way. In the end, I finish up and leave the bathroom.

     I walk down to the communications/praise and worship classroom where I find my friend Aaron. We talk for a moment when I look at the clock and see that it is 9:42 AM. All of a sudden, anxiety hits my stomach like a train. I was in the bathroom for way too long. I ask him what class period it is. He tells me that it's Mr. Feeny's class. I stress out. He tells me just go out to the hallway. When I do, I see that it is between class periods. Straightaway I lose most of the anxiety in my stomach but I'll still have some explaining to do. Dream ends.

I wake up.

Prom Nightmare

Nightmare 2/25/2017

     A large gathering of students is taking place at the local high school. I believe it's prom although nobody is dressed up. A group of guys from my class (some of which are friends) pull guns from their coats and start firing at the students. I run to a stairwell and hide myself while I call 911. After I get off the phone I make a run for the entrance of the school but for some reason make my way down into the basement instead. I walk through a maze of hallways in the dank, dusty under-structure of the school. Behind me I can hear the shooters, they're all walking down the stairs. I hide in a dark alcove and hope they don't find me.

     They do. But they don't seem to mind me being there. Perhaps it's because I am friends with many of them. Screech Powers, from "Saved By The Bell," is the leader of their group.

     I pull out a guitar and start to play. I listen to their plans. They have rigged bombs in the basement to blow. The whole school will collapse on itself. They're going for the Eric and Dylan bombs in the Columbine cafeteria strategy, however, this time it may work. They plan on dying, all of them. I don't. After playing the guitar for a while, I make up an excuse to leave. I say, "I'll be right back, I need to go get a pick, my thumb is starting to hurt from strumming." They don't seem to mind at first, but as I make my way through the maze of tunnels and hallways of the basement, I suddenly hear them behind me. I run back up the stairs to the entrance of the school.

     The police are here, but before I can tell them what the killers plan to do, the bombs start to blow. I run as fast as my body will allow, as far as I can away from the school. When I look back I see the whole building in a blaze of fire. I don't see anybody outside of the building. I must be the only one who made it.

     I run to a nearby neighbors house to call the police again. He takes me into his cellar where I meet a friend who I haven't seen for years. Eventually, we leave the cellar and go about our business. Dream ends.

I wake up.

Junkyard Memories

Dream 2/24/2017

     I walk down a road. I come to a house with boarded up windows. I can see slightly through the slats of the boards. Nobody appears to be in the house but I feel something evil here, so I move on.

     Just past the evil home is a warehouse. Jesus is standing in the entrance of the warehouse where a large pile of shrimp, slugs and other creatures lay on the floor. He starts to eat a slug. The taste is salty.

     I walk beyond the warehouse into a junkyard and find a large creature. I believe he guards the area. I fight him to the death and win.

     My sister, our friend and me are at a play in an auditorium. A lady on stage asks for volunteers but walks out to the crowd and picks specific people. She walks to my row and points to my sister and friend. I feel left out. She calls up all of the chosen ones. They stand in a line on a catwalk that's suspended two stories above the stage. All those in the line start to sing. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

American Life

Dream 2/23/2017

     I'm in an arcade in the mall. I step into a photo booth and snap a picture of myself. I reach into the drop box where the picture should appear and find several photos of previous picture takers along with napkins and an envelope. I take the envelope. Inside I find a load of money. I fold the envelope in half and slide it into my pocket with the full intention of taking it to the mall security office so it can be returned to its rightful owners.

I leave the mall.

     I'm exploring the barn at my Middletown, Indiana house. I walk over to a shelf and inside a box find stacks of home videos. I am ecstatic because I thought they had been destroyed.

     Walking down a street, I come across a dark, Gothic mansion. Locals call it Thorn Mansion. Somehow I find myself inside the large house. I find no one except for a wax statue of a man. The house hold lots of interesting artifacts but nothing to keep me here, so I leave.

     Someone plays a video game that I used to know. It looks so familiar. It is called "American Life." I used to play it at my cousin's house in Illinois. The game consists of the player creating towns and watching them grow and interacting with people and houses.

     My jeans lay on the floor. Inside one of the pockets I find the envelope full of money. I start looking through the bills and notice that much of the money is foreign. I don't recognize the currency at all.

     Some friends and I search for a restaurant to eat. The driver and I agree that we should eat at either Arbys or Jimmy Johns. My friend Adam says that he's craving Taco Bell. Also he is broke so I need to pay for his food. We decide to eat at Taco Bell. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

Escape

Dream 2/21/2017

     I'm running through an uptown high rise trying to escape the men chasing me. I make it to the roof. The bad guys are right on my heals. If I don't hide quick, they will see me so I slowly start to shimmy down the side of the building. The bad guys catch up and one of them points me out. They start shooting. The next floor down has a strange walkway on the side of the building. I make it to the walkway where they can't see me. I hear one of them say to the other, "I think he fell.".

I run.

     The walkway wraps around the building so I run all the way to the other side. I climb back up onto the roof from the other side. One of the goons sees me and pulls his gun. I pull a revolver and shoot faster. He falls to the ground. Dead. The men on the other side must've heard the shot so in a panic I find my way to the escape.

     I meet up with my group of people. We try to make it out of the building together. I see one of my friends halfway down a hallway. Behind her appears a girl who is bad. I aim my gun the best I can and shoot. My friend falls to the ground. I shot her in the stomach. The bad girl gets away. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

Timber

Dream 2/16/2017

        It's Easter holiday. A large group of friends and family gather at my old house in Middletown, Indiana. Much of our stuff is still here.

        I walk to the family room, which used to be the garage. I look out the french doors to the large backyard. I see a truck. Whose truck is that? I see two men chopping down a tree. It's one of our favorite trees that holds a tire swing that was hung by my dad. I walk to the front room and ask my sister if she hired lumberjacks to cut down the tree. She didn't. We run to the backyard and call the men inside. We ask them why they're cutting down our tree. They said they were hired to do it. My sister jumps in and says, "no, I didn't hire anyone to cut it down." They suddenly change their story and say the previous owner hired them. I ask them what the previous owners name is. One of the men looks at me and smiles as if to say you caught me, Chief. "You slick piece of shit," I say to him. We tell them to get out of our home.

        I'm having a serious craving for something sweet. I grab a bowl of caramel ice cream. When I'm finished, I join the rest of the group in the kitchen but I'm still hungry. I start hunting through the refrigerator and freezer. I find another box of caramel ice cream. I look for my bowl and see it on the table next to my grandpa. It still has remnants of ice cream coating the inside. I reach to grab it when grandpa starts joking and says, "no, it's my bowl. It's my ice cream," he says. I let out a snicker and take the bowl. I enjoy my second round of the frozen dessert. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

Swell Timing

A Dream from My Past

I'm walking through a large, empty mall with my mom. We sit down at the food court and talk. We decide to leave the mall. We walk and walk and walk and walk. When we get to the entrance, she remembers that we parked at the other entrance. I decide to wait while she gets the car.

I'm walking up a snowy trail in Middletown, Indiana. There is a house on my left but I don't know who lives there. I keep walking. I think about the movie Schindler's List.

I browse the shelves at a local, used bookstore hoping to find an interesting read. I pull one from the shelf. It's King Kong. I loved the movies but never knew there was a book. I buy it.

I'm in the basement of a youth pastors house. I'd say about forty teenagers are here listening to the pastor speak. Another kid insults me. I decide to leave. As I'm walking up the stairs, the whole group of teenagers erupt into a brawl. Swell timing. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

Paperback Writer

Dream 2/11/2017

     The town I am in is nearly empty. Dead. Nobody is here except for the ferry operators. The ferry is a hover ship. It hovers twenty feet above the ground. I take the ferry and tour the ghost city.

     In South Africa, I visit a library. Whenever I visit a bookstore or library, especially one in another part of the world, I like to check if they have any of my published books. I move down the last names of each book on the shelf until I get to "Laverty." Wow, they have one. All the way in South Africa. I grab it. It's my guitar tutorial book. It teaches beginning guitar students how to play chords and then songs with those chords. This particular book seems to have been used a lot. The pages are frazzled and there are papers left inside, probably from the last user.

     The clerk asks if I want to check that one out. I mention that I'm just looking at it because I wrote it. He is pleasantly surprised and tells me that I can just have it if I want. I tell him, "no, it looks like it's getting good use here." I put it back on the shelf. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP. 

Morning Glory, Evening Grace

Dream 2/7/2017

     Something strange starts to occur in the night time sky. Stars from all over start to get sucked to one point in the sky. Everything in the sky flies to it. This takes place until the morning. I walk outside and find several neighbors looking up. One neighbor is holding a video camera. I ask a couple what is going on? They tell me it's been happening all night. I wonder out loud if it is a black hole. They don't know. Nobody does.

     My mom is driving the car. She drives though a wooded area into a clearing where an iced over lake is found. It is the dead of winter. She drives onto the ice. We all command my mom's attention. "I think you are on the lake right now," one of us says. We coach her on how to get back to land without crashing through the ice. "Stay in the middle, mom, and go very slowly." She gets back to land without any problems.

     My sister, her kids and I take shelter in a small cabin in the woods by the lake, far from civilization. That night, we hear someone or something in our cabin. It breaks through our door. It's an Extra Terrestrial. We run but we cannot escape. The alien kills us all. 

     The next night my sister lies down along with her kids and go to sleep. I stay up. I know that aliens are going to attack like they did the night before when we died. I search the house for any weapons. I find a chainsaw. "That's a good one," a familiar voice reckons behind me. It's my brother-in-law, Chad. I look down and see another chainsaw, only smaller. I give the big chainsaw to Chad since he is over six feet tall. I take the little one. 

     We wait. Late at night, early in the morning, several aliens try to break into our cabin. Chad tells me that if we truly want to beat them, we need to become aliens ourselves. One of the aliens outside is not evil, so I ask him to make me an alien. He has me look into a little mirror-like object and I see my eyes change. The same happens with Chad. We start fighting the aliens one by one, killing them, protecting my sister and her kids. Most of the space beings are dead, but one gets by us and walks into the bedroom where my family sleeps. The alien is Gillian Anderson from the X-Files. She gets close to my sister ready to kill when I grab my buck knife and throw it. The knife stabs straight through Gillian's head and pins her to the headboard of the bed. Just so that I know she is dead and won't come back, I stab her multiple times in the face until her face looks like spaghetti sauce. 

     In the evening we weren't sure we would live until morning. But in the morning, we knew our victory by each breath that we took. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

Basketball Tryouts

Dream 2/6/2017

     I walk into Liberty's high school gymnasium ready to tryout for the basketball team.

     So many more people are here than just the ones trying out. The bleachers are full. The coach hands out practice jerseys to the first group for the scrimmage. I'm not in this scrimmage so I find a place in the bleachers to sit, next to some friends. The players start to scrimmage.

     Our team is the terminators. Several people in the stands hold terminator memorabilia from the movies to cheer for the players. A couple of girls walk up the bleachers wearing terminator cyborg masks. The students around them cheer while the girls find their seats. I'm sure they just bought those at Target or Walmart. I look down and see a girl watching a video on her phone. I can hear it as well. The video she is watching is of a dream that I had earlier this night.

     During the scrimmage, the gymnasium lights start flickering on and off until finally the gym goes pitch black. The hallway lights on the second floor of the school are still on, so I don't know if a fuse blew or if a couple of students are in the hallway where the light switch resides, and they are just messing around. The players continue their game in the dark. I don't know how they can see at all, but I guess the tryouts must go on. Dream ends.

I wake up

Coward

Dream 2/4/2017

     I am in a small, western town, similar to the towns you would find in the 1800's wild west. My dad is here as well.

     A band of bad men storm our little town and start terrorizing the people here. I run to a shed far away from these evil men. I hide outside the shed, in between the shed wall and a barbed wire fence. I grab four or five blue and red milk crates and cover myself with them. I am hiding although I should be fighting for the safety of my townspeople. My dad comes and discovers my cowardice. Dream ends.

I WAKE UP

Pillow Fight

Dream 2/4/17

     After a high school basketball game, I decide to follow the team to a fast food restaurant. When we finish eating, the coaches stand up and announce that it's time to load up the buses. "Only the sports team members stand up and head toward the bus," they say. 97% of the restaurant stands up. Only two others and I am left alone. Once again I am left out of the action of the moment. Story of my life. Anyway, eventually I walk out to the parking lot. On the way to my Jeep, I see a pillow that I own lying on the ground. I walk over and pick it up. Right then, my neighbor Joe walks over to me and confronts me about taking his pillow. "uh.. no, this is my pillow," I say back to him. "no man, I had that pillow like ten years ago," Joe responds. I tell him that I had it most recently, I use it for dialysis every other day. Eventually we go our separate ways, me taking my pillow with me. Dream ends.

I wake up

Obstacle

Dream 2/2/17

     Today my class has taken a field trip to place with a bookstore inside a gymnasium. A friend of mine, who died several years ago, is back from the dead. I ask him what Heaven is like. He answers, "if you had muscles when you died, you will have those same muscles up there." I say, "What if you didn't have muscles?" He responds, "you can buy new ones." Right then, another friend comes to inform me that one of my stories has been published in a book. I go and buy it. I've spent so much money today on souvenirs. I open up the book and read my story. It's about a military commander during one of the great wars.

     Something else here is a giant obstacle course that reaches as high as the sky. It has so many levels to it and each level is different. There are several pathways to the top. Whoever gets to the top gets a prize. I start. I am determined to make it. I know I was never athletic but this is my chance to show my friends that I'm not a waste of skin. Different people go different ways. At one point I am with one group of people and at other points I'm with another. The obstacle course can trick you as well. It can make you think that a slide will take you downward, something that you wouldn't want, but then it could take you to a spot that has an easy access to the next level. The group I am in hits a dead end or a spot that we don't want to traverse. I take a slide that I think will take me back to the spot that I was just at, but instead, it takes me several levels down. I am so frustrated. But I am even more determined. I climb back up.

     I make it to the trickiest part of the course. It looks like one of those big slides you find at the fair but with the material of a bouncy house. The trick is that the people who have made it up faster are at one side of the slide with dodge balls. They throw the balls at the people coming down and if the sliders get hit, they have to return all the way to the ground to start again. The sliders have to slide on rafts. Several people can slide at once. If one makes it to the other side without getting hit, there is a conveyor belt that will take them up a few levels. It gives you time to rest and breathe. A girl from my class comes sliding from the other side to my side, I don't think she is looking, so I grab a ball and throw it at her. Right then, she turns and catches the ball. That means that I must go back down to the ground level. I am so disappointed that I want to cry. I feel the tears welling up in my eyes.

     There is a giant exit slide that takes you far down. I sit and slide. I pass some others on the way. It doesn't take me all the way to the bottom level, just a few levels above. So I explore those levels and take slides down. When I get to the second level, I find a hidden room with a hole in the floor. I look down the hole, at the bottom is a giant cushion. I jump down. I land on the ground level. I start heading over to the start once again. Everyone on the ground floor is playing a round of paint ball or dodge ball. There is a kid with a running chainsaw. He almost slices me with it on accident. I let a few expletives fly his way, telling him how stupid he is for using a running chainsaw so carelessly. I get to the start again. I remember thinking that It is going to take me hours before I get back to the point where I was eliminated. I begin. Dream ends.

I wake up