HvZ 2011: Day 3

WEDNESDAY (Previous entry here):

Today, fortunately, was a great day for hunting humans. The sun was bright, the sky was clear, and humans and zombies alike were seen hunting and being hunted. But before I go on about today, let me give you a bit of background info...

Last night, I received a call from my friend (Brandon), saying that there were two possibilities for me to turn human again. One of them was finding a random stormtrooper and asking him the question "What does one snowman say to the other?", and the other was to find one of ten random bottles hidden all over campus (in case you didn't know, my campus is pretty big. So big, in fact, that you can't walk end to end of it in under an hour...OK, 45 minutes). Brandon mentioned that if I turned human again, he was going to loan me his good gun, because he couldn't play this semester due to time constraints.

Me with the scout trooper (not the most flattering pic of me,
but better than nothing. Pics, so it did happen :D)

I got up extra early this morning so I could get to campus as soon as possible. I looked around the bus stop, and didn't see any sign of a bottle or a stormtrooper (I park at literally the furthest end of campus, which is advantageous for providing the most opportunities for sighting bottles / humans / stormtroopers). I asked people sitting beside me on the bus, and fortunately, they were very understanding, and even pointed out the stormtrooper to me (I wouldn't have seen him otherwise). I got off at the next stop, ran balls to the walls to where the stormtrooper was, and asked him the enigmatic question. He responded with "I don't know, you tell me" and then told me the bad news: he was out of vaccines. I realized at that moment that I knew the person in the helmet. Turns out, my friend Brandon was the stormtrooper (well, scout trooper to be precise. Several jokes were made about how many bikes / scooters he'd crashed in the past week). He was very kind and agreed to help me hunt for my only hope at rebirth: the elusive bottles. Also, he was still in his stormtrooper gear, so he had an amazingly handy secondary role: zombie bait.

Brandon drinking his Sprite through his helmet.

I decided that being human was more important than German Cultural Studies (just this once), and decided to spend the afternoon looking around. We walked all across campus, looking in all the possible hidden places. Our biggest setback was Brandon's costume. We couldn't walk anywhere without several people stopping him and asking to take pictures with him. He was very gracious and took it all in stride. It made me miss Con Season so much. He even got a free drink from the cafe, because he was so awesome.

I think the helmet is the best part about this whole picture.
Epic Home Alone face!

At some point, it had to happen. A human, desperate for a free life, ran up to the stormtrooper to ask the magic question. As he was chatting, I hid, trying to sneak attack him. I was just about to pounce, when another zombie ran up and started trying to attack him. He started shooting at the zombie, and I thought I had my opportunity to still be able to sneak attack, but the other zombie got to him before I could tag him. Oh well, one less meal (not the first time I've skipped one :p). Fortunately, it wasn't too much later before another human tried to get a free life. She didn't even see me until after I'd tagged her (and I wasn't even hiding this time. In fact, I didn't notice her until she was asking about snowmen). She looked to Brandon, confident that she was still safe, because she got the question out before I tagged her. Brandon looked almost apologetic (if trooper masks can look apologetic) as he said "Sorry, I'm out of vaccines. Ummm...Welcome to the horde?". I finally got my first blood for the semester.

I did manage to stalk a human on my own without the aid of a costumed medic. Brandon needed to use the restroom (and you can imagine how long it takes to take off armor), and so I was just waiting outside, when I see a human pass by. I decided to follow him. I played the casual game, staying pretty far behind. Just as he was about to enter a building, I attacked. I only managed to dodge one dart before he shot a bullseye at me right in the boob. He seemed genuinely surprised when I handed him his ammo after he stunned me. That made me a little sad, and wondered about the people who are playing this game and taking it a bit too seriously...

My last class of the day has a mandatory attendance policy, so I had to take a break from human hunting. I said goodbye to Brandon and thanked him for his noble work. It was then I discovered that my friend Josh had fallen just before class started. 'Twas beauty and noble friendship that brought him down (his girlfriend and their friends were all chatting outside, and he joined them instead of going inside, and he got sneak attacked). We entered the class together, once again fighting on the same side. The class dragged by slower than usual. I couldn't focus very well on the allomorphs and the suppletion and vowel shifts...All I could think about was getting back outside and finding some humans to nom.

Finally, the class ended, and Josh and I made our way to the main exit...only to see a very large group of humans...and a larger group of zombies. They were all waiting for the other to leave first so the game could begin. Josh and I headed outside and waited for a few minutes, hoping to catch a stray human who wasn't part of the group. We then saw a large group of humans taking the passageway to the next building. We took a guess as to which door in the new building they would come out, and then waited by that door. Time passed, and no humans came. I went inside, and nobody had even seen them come through. I got a call from Josh, saying that the humans were back in the original building and the other zombies had them trapped. We met up with the horde. Half were inside, taunting the humans, and the other half were waiting outside (about 8 of us or so). After waiting for a few minutes, we got impatient and decided to find someone else to hunt.

Fortunately for us, a random human just happened to pass by right as we decided this. 6 of us split into groups of two, and we surrounded him. He was duel-wielding two semi-automatic guns, and had them trained on the original decoy. He saw us appear one by one, and you could see the "oh ch**z-*ts" look cross his face when he realized he was surrounded.

We tightened the circle, and one of us ran in for the attack. The game plan was to make him run out of ammo before we were all stunned for 15 minutes. The first zombie was good at dodging the darts, but he was taken out quickly. The next zombie who ran in got a nice head shot. The third zombie was brilliant. He used his jacket as a shield, and then threw it at the human. A lot of shots were wasted, but he was eventually taken out. I decided to go next. By this time he was down to one gun. He wasted a good 5 or 6 shots, but I miscalculated and he stunned me as I was running in to tag him. He ran out of darts on the next girl, and while his attention was focused on her, the final zombie swooped in and made the kill. As soon as he was turned, we all congratulated him on his epic demise, helped him pick up his darts, and invited him to hunt with us. He readily agreed.

Our horde grew steadily in size, and I somehow started being the one giving the orders for reconnaissance. We canvased the entire campus, but we didn't see another human for the rest of the afternoon (we did run into Brandon again, though, and took a picture of our horde with him and we were all doing the Thriller pose). By the time I got to Boyfriend's office, I was sore, tired, and sunburned beyond belief, but I was so happy. It's games like this where you realize how awesome people really are. You get to make new friends, and bond closely with old friends. Plus, it's combating obesity, one panic-attack-based chase scene after another, and getting hit with a dart is good moral fiber. Anyway, that's all I have to report for today. Until tomorrow!