Compared to the campus parking crisis, the zombie outbreak is just a migraine.
The forecast of the zombie outbreak came true around 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Fortunately, the Student Program Board kept the zombies (mostly) under control, and even improvised a campus tag game—Survive UH—out of the plague. Students flocked to the front of the Student Center to sign waivers, so the SPB could be absolved of any responsibility, should human participants mutate into the living dead. What’s refreshing is that the “Survive” in Survive UH does not refer to midterms or finals studies. It actually refers to the excitement of mortal danger.
The problem is arguably benign. SPB organizer Hayley Barnes, marketing sophomore, assured that the zombies would be properly relocated.
“I think (by midnight) we’re going to get like a dump truck and scoop (the zombies) up and dump them over at Rice University,” Barnes said.
No one knows for sure where exactly the zombies popped out of.
“They kinda just showed up,” Barnes said. “We need to contain them into certain areas (across the campus).”
There were conspiracies about the zombies’ origins. A hypothesis could be that a group of ambitious chemistry majors might have contaminated the air with their experiments. Or, UH grounds were apparently constructed on a mystical obscure burial site.
An SPB volunteer Valentin Perez, a finance junior, theorized where on campus they might have originated.
“They come from underneath the old University Center building,” Perez said. “They’re angry because the old UC is gone and they want to reclaim it. While they were demolishing (the old UC) building, some people didn’t hear the demolition so they ended up trapped (beneath) the old UC building.”
When Barnes was informed about Perez’s “UC disgruntlement theory,” she could not argue with that logic.
“That would explain all the gravel-y areas (at the new Student Center),” she said.
One student gave his own theory as to the advent of the undead.
“I think they came from a secret lab beneath UH,” laboratory studies sophomore Kevin Johnson said.
He clutched a stick, not as a weapon, but as a tool for intimidation. A gathering of hungry zombies chilled around campus, awaiting a flock of human victims. Davis Darusman, a communications freshman, is one of these famished zombies.
He believed that he popped out of a burial site beneath the fountain—he doesn’t really recall which fountain. When asked whether he eats brains, he said, “IIIII’m on a diiieeeet.” When interrogated about his opinion about the human race, he grunted and blew a raspberry.
One thing for sure, the UH population really don’t feel that inconvenienced by the epidemic. Everyone, zombies included, seemed to be really content.
Could this be a preliminary step toward peace between zombies and humans?
“They possibly could (get along),” Barnes said. “As with anything, one group is going to want to rule to the other. (But) we’re a democracy, we got to get that harmony built overnight.”
Opinion columnist Caroline Cao is a creative writing and media production senior and may be reached at [email protected]