Tales and trials of a zombie playing a zombie
I have a confession. When I first explored Ithaca College’s campus as a young undead adult, I accidentally tried to gnaw on one of the fellow prospective students. Okay, so it wasn’t entirely accidental. I was hungry and didn’t have a chance to try the complimentary cookies and lemonade. I just thought I’d get that off my chest before my chest falls off.
My first couple of weeks at the college were pretty rough. I didn’t really meet many people until going to the school’s club fair. There were a couple of yo-yo and hacky sack clubs, but my limbs would break if I ever tried that. Also there was a baking club, but my stomach rots from the inside so anything I baked would taste like mud. Except for humans, yum. After searching the room, I finally saw it. There, in shining colors, was a sign that read “Humans Vs. Zombies”. Everyone there was smiling and full of life. They were the cool kids on campus with their sleek orange and blue Nerf Guns and matching bandanas. Nobody messed with them. They ushered me over and offered for me to be the first ever zombie to join their club. I thought that was strange considering the name of the club, but either way, I immediately signed up.
On the first day they made teams. I was the last one picked. In fact, I was the only one not picked to participate on the other team, which all coincidentally had humans. I guess it makes sense based on the small sample size of zombies found on campus (one), but I wish some of the humans pretended to be zombies at least to just make it a fair fight.
No one gave me a Nerf gun. They yelled “Go!” and immediately pelted me with Nerf bullets. It was torture. I yelled in pain, since our kind is unusually susceptible to foam bullets, but they would not let up. One kid started screaming at me. His breath was worse than mine. Another started throwing socks at me. Very rude.
After what felt like 20 minutes, but was probably 18 minutes, of constant Nerf bullets, they let up and said I had to wait half an hour before I could attack any of them. They quickly scattered, and I was left to game plan.
Half an hour later, I went searching for the humans. I realized I didn’t catch any of their names, but I knew it was just a matter of finding the ones with a bandana around their arm. I was forced to wear one tied around my head, just to be clear that I was indeed an undead. After turning around a building, I found one. But I have to make another confession. The person I found was not partaking in Humans Vs. Zombies, he was just a hipster student wearing a bandana on his arm.
One last confession. I didn’t realize I only had to tag the guy to turn him into a zombie. Burp.
Chris Thomas is a junior television-radio major who doesn’t want to be in your stupid club anyway. Email him at [email protected].