Dream #21863

So, it's like this, I'm in the grocery store right, and I'm checking out the yam section. Now, this store, has a ridiculous yam section, yams of all shapes and sizes from all over the world, yam chips, yam coffee, yam hair plugs, you name it. There's even one of those little free food thingys where you can try a slice of fresh yam, which naturally I do. For one reason or another Dan is also at this store, but I can't remember if I came there with him or not, but whatever, we start arguing about these yam slices. "Court, this yam is just another Idaho fatty-yam."
"Uh, I'm not so sure about that, I heard that they outsource now."
"Outsource?! Outsource what?! The dirt?"
"Sure, they fucking fly that shit to other countries and make them do the farming."
"Bullshit."
So that sort of banter is going on, I don't really recall exactly what happens, but Dan leaves and all of a sudden it's just me in this place, which for some reason is now a Yam-Only store, and has shrunk to about the size of a single, dusty, wooden floored room with burlap sacks of yams draped all over it. The woman behind the counter reminds me of someone, she is pretty tall, brown hair, long plain dress, not sure where I've seen her before but I try not to really stare at her and place her face because there's nobody else here, and I wasn't really planning on paying money for any fucking yams anyway. I think she looks like some woman from a dream I had a long time ago and there's no way I'm going to remember it, so I just give up.
As soon as I stop thinking about it, there's a loud yell from somewhere in the back of the store, like back where employees are only supposed to go and the woman looks around nervously and then rushes back there. I start heading for the door, which is not one of those automated doors, but a wooden screen door. It's shining like fuck outside and as I move toward the door I can hear birds and tires on gravel; some kind of fourlegged animal is swinging its tail around next to a fence across the street and I'm feeling pretty good about that. Then I hear another scream, this one slightly quieter and distinctly more feminine. I turn away from the door and look back behind the counter where the woman rushed off. I can't see any movement, and there's still just the sounds of a summer day outside, so I'm thinking to myself "Jesus fucking christ, you've gotta be fucking kidding me right? What the fuck is this shit, fucking yam store is fucking flipping out."
So I hold my breath and listen, and I can hear some rustling sounds and some low voices, so I yell back there "Hey, what's going on, can I leave?"
Some man says "Naw, yew betta cuhm back 'ere"
I cautiously go around behind the counter and into the back of the store thinking "For the love of fuck, lemme fucking guess, fucking hillbilly with a slingblade 'dun gawn pluhm loe-coe,' oh fucking no, I hope I don't get a milk pail to the back of the head, honestly, what the fuck is this shit." It's actually nice and cool back there, there are some fans whirring somewhere, and I come around a corner to see three people, the woman sitting in a chair that's propping open a door, an older man, maybe forty wearing just a pair of overalls and a young man, early twenties, t-shirt jeans. At their feet are two other people, very dead looking, the three of them watch me as I move closer and sort of peek down at the two on the floor. It's two young men, their faces are all swollen up and dark violet blotches have broken out in places, fading in between black down to a light blue. The fingers on their hands look like they've been straining really hard, the joints are all flexed out with these taught muscles grasping around their necks.
"Damn. Well... uh, what the fuck's goin on?"
The older man speaks up, "Nawt shuhr, I jus fownem 'ere"
"Well, uh, I'm just gonna step outside, they're kinda buggin me."
I go back the way I came and go out the screen door. The front of the store is a gravel turnaround off a wide stretch of road that slowly loops off into some hills on the right, and goes into town on the left. It's still a real nice day, I have to squint just to look at the little rocks. I hear the screen door open and fast footsteps on the gravel behind me and I turn around only to have the young man hook a noose-like length of rope around my neck and give a hard yank on it, pulling me down to the ground. He starts dragging me back inside the store and I'm struggling like hell, but there's not much I can do because if I don't keep my hands on the rope around my neck, I won't be able to breathe.
He hauls me across the floor and back behind the counter, but into a different room than the bodies. The older man and the woman are in this small, windowless room, seated at a round wooden table. The young guy starts tying my arms to my sides and I give up struggling. So I'm sitting there on the floor all tied up, and my assailant leaves the room again so I look up at the other two, "Yo, what is the deal here, I'm not the murderer unless all three of you are or something, what the fuck is goin on."
The woman looks down at me, ashing her cigarette onto the table, "We don't know who killed them, but it coulda been you and we aren't gonna let you just walk away."
"Oh come on, I was in the front room the whole time, you SAW ME! Any of you could be a killer too, we should all be tied up. By the way, that kid seems like he's pretty good at wrapping ropes around people's necks, it was probably him, how do you think I killed them? With my fucking shoelaces? This is lame as hell."
"Yuh know, heas gawtta poyhnt, I cuddentuh dun that tuh tew yung men, and yew and yoar cunts atda cownnuh."
They look at each other and leave the room. So I'm just sitting there on the floor thinking, "Man, some of those yam chips were pretty tasty, I wonder how they keep them crisp on the outside and soft on the inside like that. Heh, I need to get the fuck out of here, fucking yams are invading my brains." There is the sound of a scuffle outside and something heavy slams into the wall, a couple moments later the woman comes back in and unties me.
"So... what? Am I free to go?"
"Sometimes you have to wonder, when someone meets you in a hard-to-reach place, how well they know you and whether they're looking for the same thing."
"Yeah, I guess so, why? ...are you gonna strangle me?"
"Don't you REMEMBER?!?"
"Sort of, but not really, I don't think you're supposed to, thats probably part of it."
She sighs, staring along the planks in the floor, "You can go then I guess, but I did kill them."
This is somehow very obvious to me as well, "Yeah, thanks, well... I'll see you around." I got up and walked out to the front door as she got back behind the counter. A car pulled up and parked and somebody wearing a baseball hat got out, I think it was a man. I held the door for him on my way out and started walking back into town, trying to wipe the dust on my palms off onto my pant-legs.