Sunday, November 14, 2010

Werewolves of the Ozarks

I had a long convoluted dream last night. A male friend of mine had gotten a divorce and had not fought for custody of his little four-year-old boy even though his wife was a rather well known crazy woman. She was known to be especially cruel to dogs and had been reported tormenting them in public numerous times. I saw some visuals of this in the dream.

My friend wouldn't talk to me about why he didn't fight for custody, but Lana kind of fell in love with the little child and was determined to save him from the awful mother. Lana found out that the woman had grown up in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and she decided to travel up there to find the family and see what she could learn. Naturally, I went along.

We drove deep into the mountains and at one point drove over this small wooden bridge above a deep green pool of water. I saw two different women swimming in the pool, swimming under the water in long graceful strokes. One had blond hair in a braid all the way to her feet. The other was older and was wearing a pink bathing cap.

We continued on our way as it began to rain and the road turned to mud. Dark green woods grew on either side of us, with limbs at times brushing the car. We knew the family we sought lived near the highest point of the mountain. Finally, the road became impassible through a combination of narrowing, mud, and fallen trees and we stopped. It was growing dark and neither of us was very comfortable with spending the night in the woods here.

Then three children showed up. There were two boys and a little girl. All were around the age of 8 or 9. The rain had stopped temporarily and they set out to guide us the rest of the way to the family's house. We reached it and went inside just as the rain came again and a storm wind began to blow. I'd expected a kind of hovel but the house was very nice on the inside and they even had internet service. However, the parents were away. The kids just told us to make ourselves to home and wait.

Lana got on the internet and began researching some stuff. The kids were in and out and the little girl seemed to have taken a fancy to us. She hung around quite a bit. She told us the adults were all in the village getting ready for the ritual, which I assumed was some relgious festival.

The two young boys came in at one point and were whispering with the girl and it was while I was overhearing stuff they said that I put the whole thing together. We had stumbled into a clan of werewolves. I went quickly to Lana and told her that we needed to leave. But we'd come to the house through a convoluted path through the trees and didn't know if we could find our way back. Lana tried to contact 911 through the internet but right about then the electricity failed. I turned at at the sound of whispers and saw dark blotches against the wall that I knew to be the two little boys. Their eyes glowed green, like cat's eyes. Or those of werewolves.

I realized then why my friend had not fought for custody of his child. He must have known the boy would be a werewolf too. And I was kind of wishing he would have told us.

I woke up then, and regretted that. I wanted to see how in the world we were going to get out of this mess, and I wanted to find out more. I guess I'll have to write the story to see how it turns out.
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38 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I was just going to say it sounds like the makings of a good story!

Ron Scheer said...

Holy Toledo, you have incredible dreams. Were there credits at the beginning?

nephite blood spartan heart said...

That's great. Keep going with it. I want to see how this turns out.

I keep a journal specifically for dreams that could become stories-typically they would all be classified under horror with psuedo-science fiction leanings, but these days I am armed with a sword more than a gun.

Sphinx Ink said...

How wonderful that you can remember your dreams so clearly and in such detail. And it does have the makings of a great story.

I regret I rarely remember any of mine.

Sidney said...

Good to see a weird dream become an opportunity. Sounds like a cool idea!

Deka Black said...

Now i want to know how ends the story. That's a classic cliffhanger!

Werewolves are the forgotten of classic monsters. I like them more than vampires.

Lana Gramlich said...

No worries, baby. I'm not likely to ever be that interested in kids. *L*

ArtSparker said...

Wow...how about that cruise control!

Steve Malley said...

I wish I dreamed like that. What's your secret? ;)

Charles Gramlich said...

Alex, reminds me a bit of one of the "Howling" movies.

Ron, there were a few strange details I left out. One scene in the trip to the house involved us crawlign through a tunnel in the sand. I don't know who directed this one, though.

David J. West, I wish the dream hadn't ended as soon as it did.

Sphinx ink, I don't think you sleep enough. More rest helps one remember dreams.

Sidney, it is almost too close to "the Howling," although I could fix it up a bit to make it different.

Deka Black, me too. I like them quite a lot and always felt if I were a monster I'd rather be a werewolf.

Lana, maybe you were pissed at the woman for tormenting dogs. That would make more sense. :)

Artsparker, it was fun.

Steve Malley, actually, taking vitamin B and cutting back on colas with caffiene helps me.

laughingwolf said...

waiting, on tenterhooks, for the complete tale, bud! :)

Deka Black said...

Me too, Charle, me too ;)

Charles Gramlich said...

laughing wolf, I wish I could write a lot faster, or at least not be so lazy about writing.

Deka, :)

jodi said...

Charles, Please! Write it!

Scott said...

Charles,

I hope you write something based on this dream!

Charles Gramlich said...

Jodi, wow, pretty good incentive.

Scott, I've only done a couple of werewolf stories so maybe it's time for something longer.

Aimlesswriter said...

That was one vivid dream...could be a book there.

ivan said...

Very primal,somehow. Labyrinthine.

Lana on the internet acting like your Ariadne?

In quasi- Rock:

Let me tell you 'bout Theseus, the brother of Hercules.

X. Dell said...

Hmm. Did you really want to stay in that dream? The fact that you woke up makes me wonder if you wer in flight mode.

Anonymous said...

Charles this is so vivid it demands more. Evidence again of your multi-layered inventive talented and surreal mind.

the walking man said...

To answer your other question...I don't know why I don't enter REM sleep. They gave me some answer but I really had no interest in it because i wanted to go home and really sleep like I normally do not wired to their machine.

The dream of yours would make a great short, depending on the outcome but seriously isn't television and Hollywood making vampyres and werewolves passe these days? Zombies seem to be all the rage now.

BernardL said...

It seems an underlying theme flowing through the dream is 'mind your own business'. :)

Charles Gramlich said...

Travis Cody, you sound very Spockian there my friend.

X. Dell, I would have enjoyed staying. I'm sure the reason I woke up was just because the dream period was over. At the moment when the dream ended I felt a certain horrible realization, but there wasn't any stark terror.

Richard Godwin, thanks, man. I particularly like thinking of myself as surreal. Love that kind of language. Your stuff often has that quality.

Mark, what goes around comes around. Zombies are in now, but werewolves will be back around at some point. I don't think they've ever gotten as badly saturated as the vampires.

BernardL, yeah, curiosity killed the cat. Tis a theme one picks up in the Ozark Mountains at time. A don't ask, and we won't have to kill you sort of thing.

Barrie said...

Any chance you'll pick up the dream where you left off when you fall asleep tonight?

Charles Gramlich said...

Barrie, I tried, but tonight it was zombies. Sigh.

j said...

What a scary dream. It would make an awesome story. Of course, I would have been telling myself "Wake up! You have to wake up!" I wouldn't want to see how it ended if I were in it!

Something really awful happened at a school in another community. It literally haunted me. I wrote a story in my mind about the events and that enabled me to process the horror of it (it bothered me too much to put on paper). I gave the 'story' an ending so that I could move on. Your statement, "I'll have to write the story to see how it turns out." made me think of that.

Charles Gramlich said...

Jennifer, I think that's one reason I like fiction. For good or ill, the story comes to an end adn one can process it. IN real life that doesn't happen very often.

Cloudia said...

You have a rich, capable imagination fueled by a good mind and heart, Charles!





Aloha from Waikiki :)

Comfort Spiral

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Heather said...

What an awesome dream! Yes, you must write the ending :)

Rick said...

Fantastic story in the making, Charles. By the way, what were your other werewolf stories and where can I buy them? I just finished my werewolf novel and am now taken with the genre.

Mary Witzl said...

I don't know why, but this absolutely cracked me up. When you got to the part about wishing your friend had told you that his kids were werewolves, I lost it completely.

And yes, you've got incredible dreams! Have you noticed that the more you remember them and write them down, the better they get? I'm going to work hard on a good dream tonight...

Charles Gramlich said...

Cloudia, that's sweet of you to say.

Heather, thank you. I appreciate that.

Rick, one was called "Goodies" and was published in an anthology called Small bites. The other will be in my upcoming collection Midnight in Rosary.

Mary, yes, when you start practicing ar remembering you get better and better at it for sure.

cs harris said...

I do not usually have dreams like this, Charles, either in terms of clarity or reality. My dreams are unpleasant but boring.

I think dreams are more frightening than stories because when we read or watch a movie, we know it's simply made up. But in the grip of a dream, it's our reality.

Heff said...

Hell dude, all you have to do to come up with a story is GO TO SLEEP !

My dreams aren't anywhere NEAR that detailed !

Charles Gramlich said...

Candy, that's why I enjoy my dreams so much. They are far more real than any secondhand story I could ever experience.

Heff, I've got a few dozen stories set up to write from dreams. I've done a few already but have plenty more to get to one of these days.

Jessica Ferguson said...

You've been dreaming a lot lately, it seems. Or maybe just posting more about your dreams. This was very detailed. Do you think there's something wrong with people who don't dream? My mother says there's something unhealthy about not dreaming.

Erik Donald France said...

Holy moly, it's like a ready made story from the dream well ~ now everyone wants to know how it will end . . .

Charles Gramlich said...

Jess, I've been cutting back on caffiene and taking more vitamin B, which works to increase dreaming. Most everybody dreams, although many don't remember them. I don't know of any evidence indicating that people are more mentally healthy if they dream, but dreaming is correlated with the storage of memories.

Erik, I'm gonna have to come up with an ending and it looks like I'm not gonna dream it.