Zombie

I am up way, way too late. Check the timestamp at the bottom: it's nearly 5 am. I'm not on good terms with 5 am, but tonight's just been one of those nights.

I actually went to bed earlier. I had a slow, solo sort of day, and everyone else had plans tonight except me. I got to feeling kind of lonely so I opted to go on to bed and not dwell on it. At about 2:30 am, my phone rings.

Me: Mmmph ... 'llo?
Julie: Megan! Zombies in the park! It's like magic! You have to get up!
Me: .... but--
Julie: Okay-great-I'll-see-you-here-in-ten-minutes-bye!!
*click*

Now while that may seem like gibberish, I speak Julie. I knew exactly what she was trying to tell me.

Zombie is a concoction our group of friends developed during Night Games (actually proposed by the ragged, shambling guy in the picture there). It's sort of like tag - one person's it, the rest run from them. Except when whoever's it catches someone, they bite them (we're a close-knit group, but bites are generally restricted to arms and shoulders). Boom. Two zombies.

These two keep going, chasing down and biting the non-zombies. It becomes exponential after a while, and the last man standing wins and gets to be the starting zombie next round. It can be kind of scary - you see someone once, and they're running and hiding besides you, then a few minutes later they've been turned and they're coming after you. It's got a nice horror-movie sort of twist to it.

Also, zombies have to shamble around and groan a lot. You can be slow, Night-of-the-Living-Dead zombies or Dawn-of-the-Dead sprinting zombies. It must look really strange to anyone passing by, but it's late. No one frequents parks at that time of night, save for us.

Anyway, it has been awhile since we had Night Games, and I hadn't been sleeping that well anyway. I got up, got dressed, and met the group at our usual spot. And then proceeded to chase and bite people for three hours straight.

It really is fun, no one just goes out and plays like that at our age. I really hope to make a habit of it.

But in the meantime, it's 5 am. And I am wiiiiiide awake. This does not bode well for my sleep schedule, but it's so worth it. Night Games make my weekends great.