Dream XXXIII

I was driving along the Blue Ridge Parkway during a slightly overcast afternoon.

On a low, grassy hillside were many people holding signs which read “Lock Your Doors and Keep Your Windows Rolled Up” and variations on those instructions. They were arranged all over the hillside, slowly waving these signs.

I asked one of them near the road what was going on. He explained that many of the rangers and other personnel who worked on the Parkway had been taken over by The Thing, from John Carpenter’s film of the same name. I thanked him for the information, but I had to drive on anyway and did so, promising to be watchful.

Shortly after crossing over a mountain, I had to stop at a checkpoint and I was worried I might be taken over. I rolled my window down when the guard approached me, ready to roll it back up in an instant if need be. He checked my license through his sunglasses, then waved me to drive on without looking at me or speaking. I wondered if I should be more worried.

Then I somehow discovered that salt water destroyed the infected people. Using placards written in marker, I was able to convey this information to the people on the hillside. I even demonstrated with one of the Parkway guards. He dissolved without a word of protest.

The hillside people got the information to the authorities, and after a while helicopters appeared, spraying salt water over the guard compounds and over the hillsides as well. I wondered, briefly, if I was incorrect, and it was actually the hillside people who were the infected ones, but I decided that if they had bad intentions they might inadvertently be contributing to a good cause.

After all, I told myself, real people don’t dissolve like that in salt water.