Zombies vs. Humans group holds first event at UCF Sunday

Rashon Hogan was being chased past the Student Union when a bloody hand reached up and grabbed his shoulder.

He was now infected. He was now a zombie.

This isn't a scene from a horror movie though.

When the game ends, Hogan goes back to being a human being.

Hogan, a junior electrical engineering major, participated in the Zombies vs. Humans event held Sunday evening at UCF.

"It's pretty intense when you're running for you life," Hogan said. "You don't know whether to shoot forward or backward."

Outside of Parking Garage H, about 200 people were gathered holding dart guns and wearing rolled-up socks and colored bandanas. This was the first event put on by the Zombies vs. Humans group at UCF.

"There were more people than we signed in," said Dane Pierce, a senior psychology major and supervisor for the game. "We signed in 180, but there was at least 20 or 30 people tacked on."

The game was essentially tag with a lot of fake blood.

The objective was to survive the zombie horde and make it from the front of the UCF Arena to the top of Parking Garage H in less than an hour. The zombies had to tag and "feed" on a human every 15 minutes or they starved to death and were kicked out of the game. Either the humans won by making it to the top of the garage or the zombies won by tagging all of the human players and turning them into zombies.

It was designed to last an hour, unlike other Zombies vs. Humans games played on college campuses, which could go on for days. Sara DeAvilla, president of the group, explained that modifying the game made it "more dramatic."

"I heard a lot about it from friends at Emory and it sounded absolutely amazing," said Derek Martin, a freshman digital media major who participated in the event. "I'm just sad I wasn't more prepared."

DeAvilla was inspired to bring the event to UCF by watching zombie movies with her brother and reading about the game on MyLifeIsAverage.com.

Since the group is not an official club, the Urban Gaming Club at UCF helped them plan and organize the event on campus. Logan Kriete, president of Urban Gaming, was one of the supervisors for the game.

"We saw this group on Facebook, Zombies vs. Humans UCF, and we talked to them," Kriete said. "We decided it would be a great idea for a partnership because it would kind of be like the first game that we're running on campus."

At the end of the game, only five humans were able to survive. They were each given medals and Twinkies in honor of the film "Zombieland." In addition, one randomly chosen player received a prize from the local retail store, A Comic Shop, for a trip to a gun range for headshot practice on zombie targets. It will be part of an event put on by Zombie Emergency Defense, an Orlando zombie survival group.