MU experiences zombie invasion

Students carrying Nerf guns on campus hope to fend off zombie attacks.

By Erin Kaplan

Published April 17, 2009

Fighting off an endless horde of zombies might sound like something out of a video game or movie, but for a group of MU students, it's become real.

A student organized game of Humans vs. Zombies started on campus Wednesday, unleashing a horde of bandana-clad students armed with Nerf guns and balled up socks on the unsuspecting campus.

The game, which functions as a complex version of tag, has brought nearly 300 students together in a mock recreation of the zombie apocalypse, a popular science fiction doomsday scenario.

The game has been played on college campuses across the nation, but this is its first time at MU.

Freshman Sarah Hirner said she first heard about the game from her cousin at Truman State University.

"A couple of my friends and I were just sitting around talking and we started talking about this game and thought it would be really fun to play," Hirner said.

Hirner is one of the students who have signed up to play the game, moderated by only five students.

To play, students signed up with a free game planning event service called DormWire, which outlined the rules to participants. Students are kept in contact with moderators and are informed of changes to the game through the service, Hirner said.

The group's Web site outlined the two different goals for the game. For humans, the goal is to avoid being tagged by the zombie players, while the goal for the zombies is to tag every human. Once a human is tagged, they become a zombie, allowing them to stay involved in the game. Zombies and humans are distinguished through wearing bandanas around their foreheads and arms or legs, respectively.

Freshman Ryan Kertz said the game's way to fend off zombies had big appeal to him.

"Something about it being OK to shoot people with Nerf guns was a plus," Kertz said. Kertz and a number of his friends from the third floor of Wolpers Hall organized themselves into the "third floor mafia." Each member of the gang had a large assortment of Nerf guns, ranging from tiny pistols to brightly-colored plastic mini-guns and toy Winchester rifles.

Matt Dauphin, another member of the gang, even put together a mask, made from cut up strips of a volleyball.

The members of the third floor mafia were confident in their chances against the rest of the participants.

"A lot of people think we're going to be screwed since there's already so many zombies," freshman Robert Wolfe said.

Of the seven members of the gang, none of them showed any apprehension. Lauren Miles, one of the co-heads of the five student moderating staff, said they cleared the event with the MU Police Department.

"We have a zero tolerance policy for people being dangerous and breaking the rules," she said.

MUPD Capt. Brian Weimer said he didn't have any safety concerns relating to the game.

The game has a number of mandatory "missions" throughout the week of play, in which both the humans and zombies are set out on a scavenger hunt. The first mission took place Thursday evening and pitted more than 150 humans against about 60 zombies, who eventually prevailed.

As both teams progressed from checkpoint to checkpoint, screams could be heard across Lowry Mall. A group of humans gathered in front of Ellis Library, surrounded by zombies, howling and screaming at one another threatening the other's existence. That confrontation ended in a stalemate for the day, but the war will continue until next Wednesday.

Miles said as one of the game's moderators, she's had to spend a lot of time working on the game.

"A lot of planning went into this," she said. "Much more planning than we imagined."

The game's time commitment has affected the players as well. Dan Karlin, a member of the "third floor mafia," let his classes fall by the wayside during the first day.

"I slept through three classes today," he said. "Maybe that's the best way to survive the zombie apocalypse."