Had a long zombie-apocalypse-themed dream last night. Not a nightmare, exactly, but not a good dream.
The world was flooded with zombies, in a typical Night of the Living Dead sceneario. I join up with a group of people travelling across the land, in a Mad Max-ish world.
It’s an epic, sprawling journey. At one point we find an alien craft. I accuse the aliens of starting the zombie epidemic, but they deny responsibility. “We were just vacationing here,” says the female alien. “Yeah,” says the male, “pity about what’s happened here, we really liked coming here.” The aliens look just like humans, except the female looks male, and the male looks female. “Well,” I say, “a bit of a coincidence that just as you show up, we have a zombie outbreak…”
“No,” says the female, “we’ve been coming here for years. Great planet.”
“If it wasn’t you, can you help us?” I ask. “No,” she replies, “there’s a strict no-intervention policy. In fact, every time we come here, we stop at Mars on the way home, and take some photos there, and tell our friends that’s where we spent our vacation. We’d get in trouble if people found out we went someplace with lifeforms.”
We travel on, leaving the aliens and eventually finding a military compound, which we clear of zombies and live in. I frequently complain that I wish I had a sword. I had one for a while, but it broke. A good sword can take off a zombie head with a slash or two, no fumbling for ammo. “Remember,” says one of the guys in the group, an ex-military guy, “if you are low on ammo, use your plasmids.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, “I keep forgetting about those.” [plasmids are from the game Bioshock I have been playing, abilities like shooting fire from your hands]
I notice there is a path near the compound, which goes up into the mountains. I follow it, and discover a walled city. It is a larger military compound, made of adobe, and carved into the mountain itself. As we are exploring, we notice some zombies there. But they are acting differently. They are all very white, like albinos, and have a society. They speak to one another, and have a leader. They still hunger for human flesh, but they have re-opened a mall there, and have a working food court, and restaurants. They eat this food, but it only slightly feeds their hunger. They still look at humans with a lean and hungry eye.
As the albino zombies come towards us, we run back along the path. The leader zombie is talking about a treaty, and I am shouting back that it’s a good idea, but they are still following us hungrily. They finally fall back, except for two, which we have to fight. They are tougher than regular zombies, strong and more solid, but we finally take them down.
I am about to go to a neighboring town, because I have heard they have swords, but around then my alarm clock wakes me up.
