ZOMBIES

            Although, airsofting was dying down, our partying didn't  We refused to spend our weekends doing boring stuff like dating, haha we met up more often than I can even believe. This gang of ours consisted of all of the Mormons in my ward that were under the age of me. The only requirement to be there was to be able to participate. There were plenty of older boys in our ward but we all never could get along with them. We were about as segregated as possible but we will get into them later. What I want to focus on this week is the good memories with old friends. They consisted of Heath, Robert, Jared, Jaren, Jarom, Josh, Caleb and me. Heath was overweight and very thoughtful. Robert was the rebel. He was very good at creating a warm, casual environment. Jared was devious and very smart. Jaren was super laid back and naturally kind and loving. Jarom has to be my favorite character throughout all of my memories. He reacted to everything in hilarious ways, and could bring a smile or a frown to you, quicker than any other. Josh is still josh and is very conscious and keeps me tamed when I need to be. Caleb, like his older brother Jared, is smart and a good tag teamer when he wants to be. I am the one who kept all of these crazies together and defended them from the olders.

            For years we stuck to a common group deal. We all would meet at my house and then would head off towards are destination often by foot. Our house was in the middle of all of our friends’ houses. As airsofting died, ZOMBIES came to life! Ya, not for real. I don’t recall the origin of this game, but I do know that we played it in my back yard more than 100 times. No joke. We played “zombies” almost every weekend for like 2 years strait. It’s a game of tag infection. The designated zombie of the group had to count to a designated number and then hunted us all down in the designated boundaries. If the zombie touched you, or your clothes, you are now on his team, hunting the others till you win. My backyard was about a half-acre and even with the addition of the front yard, neighbor’s driveway, and our other neighbors front yard bushes, we still got the hang of most all of the hiding spots.

            I can still recall the first time I hopped over the wobbly gait that went around our pool. It was unheard of but I was so desperate because of Josh’s supremely coordinated strike against me. I am known in this game for always finding a way to escape. So when I was chased through the pool area full of bushes for cover and even a rock slide, I found myself blocked with posted zombies at both of the exits. I had to find my way back through the way I came but I was already too late and quickly surrounded. They knew my ability to juke around them without being touched so they all came slowly and very tauntingly. As I backed up closer and closer to the gait behind me with rose bushes just on the other half, I chose to take the risk. I smiled at Josh just before turning around and jumping. He knew, right about when I knew, what I was doing and bolted towards me but missed me by inches. With a scratch on my hand from the rose bush, I looked up at Josh’s outstretched hand through the thin gate. I laughed my evil laugh and ran back around to the front yard easily in the lead again.

            Sadly this wasn’t always the case with my wall hops. I always have been pretty good at it, but as I played zombies more, I learned even quicker ways to get to the other side. This involved me running jumping and kicking off the wall while grabbing, with both arms, the top of the wall and pulling up as hard as I could. While doing this I would tuck my legs in and then focus my pull more on my right arm. This allowed my right elbow to rest on top of the wall, and gave me another muscle to use. I would lift my legs around the right side with the help of that elbow and the kick off. This allowed me to roll over the wall. My landings for this act were never that beautiful but I got over it in less than a second and still had a pretty good head start.  

            One of my worst moments with this tactic had to have been with Jaren. I had just hopped a wall to get away from Jarom but found that Jaren was just coming around the corner to cut me off. I barely escaped but had been running out of energy since Jarom was sicked on me, so I had to find a good wall to hop over. One that wasn’t expected, even the tallest wall in the whole area: one that no one ever hopped, in an attempted escape. I had Jaren right on my tail, but I knew that I could at least get to that wall before he got to me and I was exactly right. He caught up to me and tagged me on the foot as I flipped over. I then found out why no one ever hops it from that side. We had firewood stacked up 5 feet high for Woodruff and I had completely forgotten about it! Just after rolling over the 6 and a half foot wall, I landed hard on uneven wood jutting out all over me. I never felt physically more defeated than at that moment. I had run out of sprint, gotten tagged and slammed myself into a bunch of misery.

The origin of air-soft wars

Growing up in mesa I had the opportunity to befriend many school mates. One of which was Hunter McNeil. He showed me just how much fun using air-soft guns can be. After playing air-soft with him and a couple others in his neighborhood, I couldn't help getting one for myself. We started off with 2 pistols for Christmas and used them to death. These 2 pistols inspired the friends of my neighborhood to acquire their own. We soon had our own neighborhood of airsofters as well as hunter’s neighborhood. It would have been nice to have brought those 2 groups together but alas, things like that don’t work out as easily in a big city.

I still remember many of the wars we had in my backyard and in the park nearby. I recall the desires for better and bigger guns. Many of us had little pistols and one shot, shotguns but the accuracy of those weapons soon began to be frustrating as others acquired better weapons. When Christmas came around I couldn't help putting on my wish list an automatic air-soft gun. To my surprise, we got just that! My older brother Sam, Josh and I got to pick which one we wanted at a shop just for air-soft guns. Sam got a Thomson automatic and josh and I got the same MP5 automatic. They all ran on electricity. We used these guns like crazy and instantly became on the top of the teams pick list. Sam’s Thomson automatic, shot heavier bullets at 420 feet per second but only contained a forty round clip. Our MP5’s shot either heavy or light bullets at 385 feet per second but our clips had a 100 round clip with quick reload that allowed us to reload with the clip in the gun. Needless to say, we weren’t worried about our ammo in games. We had around 400 ready to go, but Sam walked around with 40 powerful shots. He had the strongest gun.

 This caused a chain reaction with all of the others. There were some who got automatics as well soon after our fame rose and they too became more lethal on the field. After a year went by, we all had worthy weapons and tactics for each type. Then my air-soft gun broke. A piece of plastic on the inside broke causing the gun to become a prop for some of the movies soon to come from our house. I couldn’t just drop down to a mere pistol in our never ending wars. I had to make a comeback. So for my birthday, I found myself with a very powerful, air-soft, bolt action sniper rifle. This rifle shot one bb at 475 feet per second. This bb was so accurate that I gave it a scope that is now being used for a real gun. I now was the most feared on the field even though I could only get off one shot every second or two.

I still can recall some of the games we played in the park. I remember the earlier games before people recognized the power of the sniper. I had Robert Bunnell run out of a bush and take down an ally of mine. He then began to run away and dodge my shots but I couldn't miss with this gun. I got him in the thigh the first shot and caused him to bleed a little in his jeans. Needless to say, it scared like many of the other welts that we gave each other.

Josh was always a witty player and made the smart decisions not necessarily the fun ones like me. I was the sniper who had one teammate with a pistol and one enemy with an automatic. But this was not just any enemy. This was Josh, who would later be known for his skills in games like this in the dark. He was in a corner full of condensed bushes and I felt confident enough to walk right into it, calling him out to battle. For by then I knew that my sniper instilled fear to any of those who were in my close range KO shots. Josh on the other hand used reason instead of fear. He sprinted past me with his automatic expressing itself all over me, right as I got to a turn in the bushes. I didn't have a chance and neither did my ally. He lit me up so bad and point blank range that I can still find some of the scars on my arms.

Sadly I fear that the games we played were dying down because of my sniper. So we had to begin testing out new games. This sprung up a game called “ZOMBIES”.  I still found uses for my sniper though. One of which was when our neighbors were having a massive “Girls Sleepover”. I noticed all of the racket outside and had josh check it out while I loaded my 20 shot clip for my bolt shot. I know it sounds bad but NO GIRLS WERE HURT IN THIS MEMORY. My room had a window that would open onto the top of our backyard balcony and made the perfect mounting spot to sight in all of the girls that were on a trampoline, gathered in a circle. Of course they were gossiping and talking about boys and crazy girl things. I had my fun eavesdropping but I couldn’t help have it all come to a quick conclusion. I let off a shot just above their heads. All of the chattering stopped at once for they all heard that whistling of my bb and thought it was a real bullet. Then after about 2 to 3 seconds of complete silence, I heard Jakelle scream, “SOMEONE SHOT AT US!!!” they all sprinted about as fast as I had ever seen them run into the house and closed the blinds. I couldn’t help keeping that one a secret in the neighborhood but I never knew just how many I would soon have to hold.