On Friday, October 25th, students experienced their hearts racing with anticipation over something almost as scary as an incoming test grade: a zombie outbreak throughout the halls of MHS. Annually hosted by the Fine Arts Club (FAC), the Zombie Tag fundraiser combines the spirit of the spooky season with the ultimate test of stamina as students are tasked to run for their lives.
“It’s been a tradition for a while now; we usually do it annually because it’s pretty fun for everyone,” Nhi Nguyen, a senior FAC member, expressed.
The idea of racing around the school while screaming at the top of your lungs appealed to many students, resulting in a large number of participants this year. Tickets were sold for $5 at all lunches in the week leading up to the event and in total, and over 100 students joined in on the excitement.
Senior FAC president Erica Lu explained how zombie tag provides an outlet for students to decompress before Halloween, as the event “gets them sort of in that spirit. It also helps them destress from school. It brings us a lot of money, but not only that, a lot of people do enjoy zombie tag. It’s really a fun event.”
Participating students reported to Cafeteria B at 2:45 PM for a brief explanation of the rules and procedures used throughout the event. At this meeting, students learned that zombie tag is much more than an average game of hide and seek; it is a fight for survival. Every participant was handed a bandana to either tie around their wrist to signify them being a human, or to tie around their necks to signify being an infected zombie. Socks were also handed out to be used as protection against threatening zombies, a thrown sock resulted in a zombie needing to freeze for ten seconds.
At the start of each round, an initial trio of zombies were picked from volunteering students. Humans were then given a few-minute head start to begin roaming the hallways in search of their hiding spots before the zombies were released from the confines of the cafeteria. As soon as the FAC members unleashed the zombies and the intercom warned students that “this is not a drill, there has been a zombie outbreak at MHS,” it was every person for themselves.
FAC members watched the event through the school’s security cameras, assessing the surveillance footage to ensure the game is running smoothly. Senior member Manal Aboukhalil noted how they enjoyed “watching the kids scream and run” throughout the event.
The sounds heard across the school could only be described as apocalyptic. Humans had to utilize their sense of hearing in order to keep their hiding spots secret, listening for any footsteps or talking in the vicinity. Quiet hallways riddled with suspense erupted into fits of shrieks and stomps in a matter of seconds, the humans’ fear of becoming infected echoing through the stairways during their escapes.
The first half of the adrenaline-packed event went accordingly, and all participants reported back to the cafeteria after each round for the survivors to collect their prizes. Those who outran or successfully hid from the zombies and survived the round without becoming one of them won candy for their notable accomplishment.
Suddenly, the event shifted; what was once a lighthearted game became dangerous. “In the beginning, I had a lot of fun participating in zombie tag with my friends, running around the school. However, it got overwhelming towards the end when everything became chaotic and people started getting aggressive in their tactics trying to win,” sophomore Lilian Fang shared.
Unfortunately, some participants did not follow the rules of the event and their actions not only negatively impacted the students around them during the game, but also the future of zombie tag at MHS.
Foul play such as tying door handles together with socks to barricade doors, filling socks with hard objects, and physical incidents brought the event to a screeching halt. “I don’t exactly know what went wrong, but people were breaking a lot of rules and doing things that could be potentially dangerous, it was messy. I think it was unfair to everyone else that was following the rules. In previous years, we never had an issue with anyone hurting other players, no foul play or cheating, but this year it was such a huge issue,” Lu summarized.
After a brief ending to the event, the club stated in an announcement on their Instagram account, @themhsfac, “Throughout today’s game, we’ve seen multiple instances of people continuously not following the rules as well as displaying inappropriate, disrespectful, and hurtful behavior. As a result of this, the Fine Art Club has decided that Zombie Tag is a tradition we can no longer continue, nor is it an event that we can host.”
This sudden cancellation of the event seemed abrupt, but under the circumstances not shocking. Lu detailed how the rushed announcement was a product of how tired and disappointed the FAC members were. However, hope was not lost after all: “After thinking it over, we decided to give zombie tag one more chance and put more safety policies in place to ensure that people can still play but the game becomes safer. We want to see how that goes, if it goes well, next year we might continue doing zombie tag,” Lu concluded.
The FAC plans on hosting a second zombie tag event in the spring to test their new safety procedures and give this beloved fundraiser another chance. Students seem to agree with this approach. Sophomore Ian Ho described the foul play as “blatant disrespect towards the FAC, and I hope that students will obey the rules during the one in the spring.” and sophomore Ema Xhindi suggested that “they enforce the rules even more while giving out consequences to the people that ruined the event.”
Despite the rocky ending to the event, zombie tag fulfilled its purpose of providing a unique experience to students where they could live out their craziest imaginations while testing their physical endurance.
