Bandana Power

Continued from “First Sighting of Zombies”

Gonga stared at him in bewilderment.

The man with the orange bandana wrapped around his arm brandished his nerf gun impatiently. “Come on, hand over your ID so we can input you in the system. You’re dead, game over.”

I shifted uneasily inside my gorilla suit. ID? What did this strange nerf gun wielding college student want with my ID? I don’t care how big his gun is. He doesn’t need my ID unless he’s law enforcement of some sort.

“And what’s with the costume?” The gun wobbled menacingly. “Didn’t you read the rules? No face masks this time around. You’re not allowed to hide your identity.”

That was it. No college student was going to demand my ID and see it without showing some sort of badge to go along with his request. I lunged to my right, darting towards the columns, and the howling mass of people milling around Jesse Hall.

“Dude, come on! Seriously?”

I kept running.

One of the milling figures on the outskirts of the crowd pointed my direction and shouted.

Instantly, a horde of people wearing bandana’s tied around their heads charged surged away from the main group and came pouring towards me.

I froze for a second, unsure of where to turn. Then I realized they weren’t running at me; they were running towards something behind me. I turned and saw my nerf gun toting pursuers faltering. The leader took two more steps. Then he shouted something angrily, shaking his fist in my direction before turning and skittering away as the first of the horde reached me.

“Ha-ha, look at those stupid humans run!” someone in the crowd shouted in delight.

“Zombies rule, zombies rule!” someone else chanted.

“Cool costume.” A girl with a pink and black camo bandana tied around her head paused in front of me, hands on hips. “You look like a real zombie with that mask and everything. But you know they’ve changed the rules, right? You’re not supposed to wear masks. Don’t let the mods see you or they’ll get your ID and have you suspended.”

More talk of IDs! What was this crowd’s obsession with IDs? No one was going to get my ID. Nor would I get suspended for doing something I am paid to do. Namely, walk around in a gorilla costume advertising for a bookstore.

Of course, the T-shirt was turned inside out at the moment. And I wasn’t exactly “on-the-job.”

If you had to choose between a detour and a frolic, it would be hard to convince the courts that this was merely a detour from work and I should be compensated for any injuries received as part of my job.

I decided it was time to find a way out of the horde, away from the nerf toting bands that circled the perimeter of the horde, and go back home. Getting hurt on the job was one thing. Getting hurt because you were pretending to be on the job when you really weren’t was quite another.

I took off my bandana and stowed it inside my costume. That seemed to be the key. Now I was invisible.

Gonga strolled away from the Zombie horde circling Jessie Hall. He passed invisibly by the nerf gun toting Humans darting around the fringes and continued a blissfully uneventful walk back to his house. That was more than enough adventure for the night!