Written by Jonathan Wojcik

NIGHTMARE MENAGERIE 2021: PART V





SUBTRACTION ANTS!

Posted by Boss-frogg on Tumblr:

"I vividly recall a childhood dream where the focus kept shifting to different people in rooms, each one with a closet. They'd open the closet door and these THINGS would swing out, looked like organic bowling pins suspended from some kind of stretchy, gooey cord. They didn't *do* anything besides fall out of closets toward people, but the person would look at the "camera" and scream in a horrified tone: "SUBTRACTION ANTS!!!!" No idea why they were called that, or why they were so terrifying.. "





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FROG FUME
Posted by Cordyceps-Sapiens on Tumblr:

"So some weird animal monsters started showing up, and they were referred to as "Humanoid Creatures". I don't remember the first few I faced besides that they were medium-small animals, monstrous in some way, walked bipedally and were bloated as though dead and rotting.

There was a time jump of about a year, and they were still called "Creatures" but "Humaniod Creature" had been shortened to "fume" for definitely logical reasons. (I tried to say FUME, but in my memory of the dream it was a shortening of "Humanoid Creature", not an acronymn). Since I had helped with some of the earlier ones, I was brought, with a small group of other people, to the apparent epicenter of the "fume phenomenon". It was in the middle of a dark forest, with lots of what appeared to be dry undergrowth in every direction.

All of a sudden, I noticed some particular dry reed, and the frog revealed himself himself with his signature catchphrase. He was a toothless skull, more like Kermit's skull than that of a real frog, tacked in the middle of an extremely long and straight vertebral column. I did not see any of his limbs, but I think he had hands, because he lit a disdainful cigarette before saying

"Make some bleedin' sense for once in your life mon!"

in a bad Carribean accent.

Then, I looked around. In the light of the cigarette, I realized that what appeared to be dry undergrowth was hundreds and hundreds of skeletal animals, which had curled up on the ground for the ambush but began to rise and attack me from all sides. They walked on two legs, and creatures with sharp teeth were severely overrepresented. The sizes ranged from cat to fox, but the Frog was an apparent leader. As they rose up to attack me from all sides, he sang this mocking song:

"Take your order to Table Two
Don't you see they don't like you
Don't you see they're not your friends
You don't have any friends".

This happened like three or four times in a row, because my alarm went off and I was more afraid of waking up than of being attacked by hundreds of small predator skeletons while some asshole frog pinpointed my insecurities. "






Scary Mitten

Posted by Flowersforroadkill on Tumblr:

"One of my earliest memories is a nightmare I called the "Scary Mitten". It was a man-sized white glove (the size of a man, not sized to fit a man), kind of like a Mickey Mouse glove. It stood (floated?) in the doorway to my bedroom. It felt extremely malicious. The floor of my room was suddenly carpeted with white hands.

I must have fallen out of bed, because I woke up on the floor."






SCOOBY DOO

Posted by Queenofspoons

"A monstrous man eating version of Scooby Doo that was the size and girth of a hippo and wore a brown cloth sack like mask over part of his head to cover up a disfigurement Velma gave to him trying to escape being eaten by him."


Velma would be the only one with the guts. I'm sure the other three tried a lot longer to get through to whatever was left of Scooby's original mind...too much longer for their own good.

But how many more will disappear down that yawning, ever-starving gullet before she gets the chance to finish the job??



A Vaguely Anthropomorphic Thing

Posted by Informaturge on Tumblr:

"Recurring dreams about a vaguely anthropomorphic thing, but made out of slightly-translucent black tar, and covered in irregular patches of holes with white straw-like feelers in them. It would high-speed scramble/ooze after me, and whenever the spots with holes touched something, the feelers would stick out and cut holes in the surface, from which more little feelers would erupt."





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