[Stingy Jack]

I don't understand it ... I'll watch horror films and read horror novels like they were candy, and hardly ever get a shiver. Then I'll have some dumb-assed nightmare, like I had last night, and be totally creeped out for a couple of hours. And it WAS a stupid nightmare: not worth going into much detail. I was a character in a survival-horror video game, being chased by zombies. And it wasn't even a GOOD video game! The graphics were like old NES technology. But here's a cool nightmare I had once (which typifies my usual dreams):

I'm renting a home in a neglected neighborhood. The houses, including my own, are VERY shabby ... walls crumbling, no glass left in the windows, weeds growing up through the floor. The house next to mine has been abandoned for a long time, but I notice new people moving in one day. However, my new neighbors are members of some violent cult (I know this because of the clothes they are wearing ... pure white suits and black shoes. Doesn't sound like a real cult, but it my dream it was common knowledge.) I'm spying on them through one of my windows as they move in, and notice that they have a body stuffed in with their stuff.

I run from the house to get a friend of mine to show him the new fucked up neighbors; but when we return, the new neighbors are nowhere to be found. We decide to investigate the house.

The neighbors' front porch has been decorated with all sorts of ceremonial crap -- dead birds hanging by their feet, animal skulls laid out in a pattern, symbols drawn on the walls. The front door is locked, so we decide to go around back.

The backyard is littered with trash. Old car parts, used tires, rusted metal poles and wire among other things. At the edge of the yard begins a vast cornfield that borders us on all sides. In the middle of the yard sits a picnic table covered with piles of food.

As we investigate, the back door bangs open and a HUGE guy storms out, coming straight for us ... Fast. My friend and I know that if we run, we'll get caught. So, we decide to stand our ground. We run to the picnic table and begin throwing the food at the guy. Our efforts are in vain, for he merely catches everything we throw in his mouth and eats it. My friend is about to give up when we throw the last piece of food, until I ball up a napkin and hurl it at the guy. Again, he catches it in his mouth, but this time he chokes on it and dies.

As my friend and I are about to celebrate, ANOTHER guy comes out the back door. This time, my friend tries to coax me into running into the cornfield. I tell him calmly to step back, then I whip out my pee-pee and wield it like a firehose (which is actually an appropriate simile for what is coming next). As the guy closes in, a violent stream of flames shoots from the end of my johnson, and englufs him. He falls, dead.

That's all I remember of that one. It was creepy at the time, but now I just tell it for a laugh.