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.