Name That Trauma :: Diana L.C. on a Post-Apocalyptic Storybook and More

Hi, yes, I am relatively new fan of your site and I just love the Name That Trauma section. It's just fun to read all the different descriptions and imagine what it was like to see such things as a kid. Well, I have a few entries for you, though they aren't exactly traumas, but they are obscure memories about odd things.

The first one's from my mother:

1. It's a book that she read in elementary school about a boy and his experience in a forbidden area near his village. When he went into the forbidden zone, he ate and drank certain things and experienced flashbacks of how life used to be in this area. He uses terms such as "a horseless chariot" to describe a moving vessel that he witnessed. He also described a similar vessel that moved through the sky. There were also several references to other things that he had never imagined possible. Upon finishing the book, her teacher revealed that the forbidden area was actually ground zero of a nuclear war, and this story was taking place many generations afterward. All the technology (and knowledge of it) of that era was left behind. Throughout the generations, the concept that the area was deadly persisted (after all, it was radioactive), and the people were banned from ever returning. Oh, by the way, the book was written in a way that made it seem like the story was written in the past.

The next ones are from me:

2. There are these scenes from some move or show that I saw as a young one. The first one shows a woman at a beach-like area at nighttime as she is chest deep in a sand pit, screaming and struggling to get out. The next seems to be of the same woman on a boat or something with wind blowing at her. Very vague, I know, but hopefully someone can get something out of it.

3. There was this movie that my second grade teacher showed us. It was about a brother and sister who were home alone when their house gets washed away in a flood. When they wake up, they find the house full of water and a cougar in the closet. Essentially, it's about them trying to survive with a cougar in the house and two thieves that are in the area. If anybody can find it, especially a place where I can watch it, then I will be very grateful.

4. There was a trailer for a low-budget '70s horror movie that featured a young guy who murdered people with an axe. There was this one distinct scene where he murders a black housekeeper in a kitchen stating that "he needs the house." Also, I think the tagline that kept coming up was "Scream Bloody Murder" (that was not the movie's title). Kind of vague, I suppose.