Humans Vs Zombies: First Half of the Week

Whew! This campus game has made the past week full of fun and energy. This is my second year participating in this complex game of tag. Players choose to be Humans or Zombies with blue or red headbands to indicate the two. Humans are allowed socks or NERF guns to hit the zombies with, which is able to stun them from tagging you for 15 minutes. The game is in play all day as long as you are outdoors and traveling to class; except when heading to work. This game has involved me having to do a lot of running and, since I started on the human side, it had me paranoid in the beginning. There are also daily missions that humans can optionally attend at 8 p.m. starting at the quad.

Day 1: My first class was at 12:40 and I had just finished eating lunch with my friends. Since they weren’t participating in the game, I asked them a favor to cover for me as I walk to class (I had to take safety precautions since I don’t want to be turned on the first day). Everything throughout the day went smoothly and I was able to head to class and back to my dorm safely. When the daily 8 p.m. mission started, zombies were the first to head out and find the red cooler that we humans are supposed to find and bring back into the Hewitt Union doors. It was then time for humans to head out to try and find the cooler. We split into even groups of ten. My group followed another into the area by Culkin Hall only to then spot some zombies trying to surround us after we went down the stairs in front of Culkin. When our group leader called out that zombies were spotted, we ran as fast as we could all the way around the way we came alongside Tyler Hall and straight to the back of Lanigan. With two zombies still lurking near us, we kept walking through the back of Penfield and towards the back of Campus Center. We spent a good amount of time having zombies spot us and chase after us as we run off. We kept doing this until we finally heard the call from one of the moderators that a group of humans have finally found the red cooler and brought it back. This calls for the end of the mission and grants the humans a 15 minute grace period from being tagged. Therefore, we had a successful mission and we ran home from those zombies!

Day 2: I felt safe going to class since it was an 8 a.m.. After that class I walked with a friend straight to lakeside since class ended early and I needed to stay a way from central campus since that is where the zombies  walk around. Then I walked down alongside east campus for my 9:35 class hoping I wouldn’t find a red headband anywhere in sight. We walked very fast to my class in Lanigan safely. Once that class ended, I just had to speed-walk straight to my dorm since it is home to many starter zombies. All went well as I showed off my blue headband during lunch. I didn’t worry too much since I didn’t have class until 2:20 in Lanigan, which worried me a little bit. Nevertheless, I arrived to class 20 minutes early since it is a huge lecture hall class. However, once that class was about to end, I left, and spotted someone with a red headband going down the stairs. I pointed him out to my friend who was walking me back to my dorm. So we walked back up the stairs and went to get out through another door. Once we stuck our bodies out the door, three zombies spotted me. To my failure to read the rules correctly, I ran to the wall of Penfield from the door of Lanigan, thinking I could be five feet from a building in general to be safe from being tagged. Apparently that was not the rule, which was to be outside 5 feet from a door not a building. That was when I got turned to a zombie. I was pretty disappointed not realizing that part of the rules, but at least they kindly welcomed me and I didn’t let them down. At least after this point, it was fun stressing out some humans whenever I pass by a blue head-banded person. Later that day I saw two humans sitting in the open field by the Campus Center. As a zombie I wanted to see how I could tag them without getting stunned, so when one of them approached me, I ran as he followed. I circled around the area as quickly as possible to then find another human nearby throwing socks. As I ran by, I swiftly dodged the sock throws and felt confident in trying to tag her, however I was too worried about getting stunned by the guy already chasing me. With that thought, I found myself running towards the other human who was sitting down in the first place and he shot me with his NERF gun, thus ending the chase. I felt like that was a lot of fun on my part just dodging darts and socks. The mission that night was quite a run as well. The humans had to protect a bucket all the way past Shineman Hall, in front of Rich Hall, in the middle of the field. The Zombies had a head start where me and my friends hid by the campus center entrance that leads to Shineman. I was hiding cautiously by a pillar until the group of humans came. A human said he should check the area by the entrance “just in case,” while a friend of his said “no don’t, you don’t know if they are there.” That is when I saw him pass by the pillar I was standing by and quickly ran up to him and tagged him! It was then when the guy’s friend hit me with a dart and stunned me for 60 seconds prior to the mission’s unique rules.   It was a humorous tag because after I tagged him, the humans all said “aww!” and he pretended to fall jokingly as a fallen victim. They continued their march and very few humans were tagged that night. They reached the destination point in front of Rich Hall and there were so many there who kept stunning all the zombies who tried going at them. The mission ended and humans succeeded with some added rain that had started to pour down on us, which made it feel awesome, like a real zombie apocalypse or something from a movie!

This concludes my first two days spent during Humans vs. Zombies! A lot happened and I’ve had so much fun in just the first two days. Some starter zombies were actually 5 year veterans who knew how to catch humans all too well.

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