Humans vs Zombies

The game occurs every Saturday on Evergreen campus. This time we had around seventy people, which I assume is fairly normal when it isn't raining, but this Saturday was my first time playing. The rules are fairly simple. The Humans will try get the objectives back to the drop zone before time ends. The Zombies will try to tag the humans, if they do that human is down for 10 seconds in which they're encouraged to dramatically act out their death and reanimation before rising again as a Zombie. To prevent this the humans have boffers (padded toy weapons) and nerf guns. If a human tags a zombie, which includes shooting them, that zombie is down for 30 seconds. 90% of the crowd starts as humans, the rest as Zombies.

This means that at the start of the game there are only going to be a few zombies, and a huge number of people. We travel in large groups at first, but every time one of us goes down that's another zombie. And the number of Zombies is only going to get higher.

My team, which we called "The Mad Bane," in reference to the current storyline in our D&D game, consisted of Kevin, Adam, Niles, Monica and myself. We're a solid group. I've got a sword, Kevin has a good pistol and a sword as backup, Adam has a rapid fire gun and a dagger as backup, Niles has a sword and shield and Monica has a large bat.

It started with a lot of running. We were searching the dark abandoned library, looking for the prize, and knowing that out there, somewhere, they were looking for us. We were in the main floor lobby when they found us. Ten of them on the balcony overlooking us, and shouting to the entire building.

HUMANS!!!

At that point we ran. My team made it out, but not every human was so lucky. The next twenty minutes were tense. Every corner you pass your weapon goes around first. Every few seconds I would look back to make sure they weren't sneaking up behind us. We advanced through the building, clearing parts of it, knowing where the objectives aren't and not finding a thing. We had gone up and down a number of floors, and eventually had grouped up with a number of other humans. There were maybe twelve of us as a group, searching the darkened hallways of floor 1, when I turned around to see one of them. I yelled "Contact! Zeds on our Six." The group turned to fight, but from off the in the distance one of them yelled "Humans?" and you could hear a stampede heading our direction. I had inadvertently alerted the horde. There were too many of them. We fell back the freight elevator, holding the line as well as we could. Most of us made it. Adam didn't. Those of us who were still alive moved on.

We were moving through a hallway, Kevin headed with another group of humans up a flight of stairs. It wasn't long after we heard the sounds of screams and running coming from the floor above us, and we fell back to the elevator, which had become our own kind of safe zone, and moved to the fourth floor. There's nothing up there, we know that, but it's safe. We were shuffling around the main room when the elevator dinged behind us. With barely a word we're in position. Niles has his shield forward, I'm covering him with a pistol someone dropped as they went Zombie. The seconds are agonizing. The doors open and a padded spear sweeps the corners. No one steps out. I yell "Humans?" and they respond simply "Human." Their group is just as decimated as ours. With both of our groups combined we have six people.

We're forced out onto the roof. There's a stairwell down, and at this point we're moving low, slow and silent. There can't be more then twenty survivors at this point. There's a handful of Zombies below us. We're on the stairs when one of them sees us. We fight at the base of the stairs, but the horde is converging on us, and two more of us go down. We scatter.

At that point I was on my own, and out of ammo. I headed for a small area of benches, keeping my back to a wall. There are maybe 8 of them surrounding me. One of them lunges, my sword meets his side before he tags me. Another lunges when he sees the opening, but they didn't count on my experience with a boffer. More of them are forming around me, and I begin lashing out. I drop one then another, the rest go after my remaining team mates. Except for one, who I'm walking straight towards, sword raised high. He calls out for his friends and before long I'm surrounded again. I lash out again, preempting their attack. Two, then three, then six of them fall, but by this time the ones I took out before are back up, and more are coming. In that last stand I took down nearly twenty of them, but there were too many. Eventually I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I fall to my knees.

I look to the horde still gathered around me and yell into the night. "I'm not going to die a Zombie!" then lift my pistol to my head, and pull.

Ten seconds later I get up, tie on the red headband that signifies that I'm now a zombie, and take a deep breath. I spent a few minutes commiserating with my fellow zombies, many of which congratulate me on the success of my last stand. I remember someone walking away with his friends, and loudly saying "I love last stands." Before long I'm joined by Kevin, Adam, and Niles who have all been Zombies for a while now. I was one of the last survivors, and the humans are woefully short on objectives, so we head off to look for the last of them, and before long another round is started.

so yeah, all in all it's a really really fun game.