Sup3rnality: Paintballing Zombies

Friday, November 13, 2009

Paintballing Zombies

Possibly it was the overdose of horror movies from the Halloween specials some two weeks back. Or even my teammate Saiful's stories of how he and his wife often discuss escape strategies and safety measures in case of a zombie attack. And then, it could be the paintball tournaments I've been watching my Sayang play in til I almost collapsed cos of the intense heat.

I would definitely blame my intense zombie dream on all that.

My dream had the makings of a full-blown B-grade zombie horror flick. It had the signature humour, the sex -- oh yeah, there was the customary sex-scene gone wrong alright -- which was stunted by the zombie invasion, and of course the suspense, lame-ass scare-tactics and the mass hysteria, of course.

But come on, death by paintballs? This movie would have either joined the ranks of "The Dentist" and "The Candyman" (do you remember or have even heard of these movies? Well, if you had to look them up in IMDB, then these are obviously crap horror movies that don't even hold a special place in anyone's memory), or it would fall under the surprising cult-classic heading with the likes of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" (hey, they even made a gorram cartoon ok? I watched it way back in the day) and "Little Shop of Horrors".

Perhaps it was that time Ash and I were talking about why paintball pellets were so expensive. He was telling me that the whole paintball sport has yet to be picked up, so demand was low, hence the hefty price. Go figure lah. So this was possibly the main recipe of my dream.

My dream began like how a movie would. Here's a family in sleepy town in the middle of somewhere. The family featured is mine. Here's daddy and my other daddy, and my mommy and other mommy, and my brother and sister, and of course me and my boyfriend and these are our neighbours and friends. As soon as the characters were introduced, here comes in the invasion! From outta nowhere, the place is overrun with slow, dimwitted zombies; who walk at 10cm per minute. And while people are either being eaten or running off to hide -- and since what should kill them ain't working, ie shooting them in the head and decapitation -- Ash used a paintball marker to hit one and get it disoriented so we could run....but lo and behold, the zombie just dies :p

Hurrah, yay!

Now what? Well, people flocked all available paintball shops of course. Suddenly paintball markers and pellets were in demand. Even the softened, dissolving pellets were being sold. And the rejected ones which were irregularly shaped were sold at RM15 for 200 pieces. I know this, cos I bought 'em :p I bought a whole bag and got meself a gun.

And so we fought. It was war. I was one of those in the front lines as usual. Standing by and fighting when I can. And in between were of course, as mentioned, the sex (life or death situations always seem to bring this about) which was thwarted by the sudden arrival of more zombies and some family drama thrown in. At one point, while hiding in a dark bedroom, a bloody zombie sat on me without realizing it, and as soon as it occurred to the monster that he was sitting on a person, he attacked, but Ash shot it right at the back of the head, while I shot it right in the face.

See, these zombies could only die if the paintballs came into contact with their skin. And it takes about two shots to do the trick.

It was a weird dream indeed, scary and also very heart-pounding. But it ended abruptly, with us voluntary soldiers against zombies cornered and backed up against the wall of a place that looked like a warehouse with every zombie in the vicinity coming in through the doorway. It ended like that...hanging and unresolved. Possibly a sequel is in the works :P

You'd wonder where I get all these dreams. Well, when you constantly talk of zombies (and hey, I went to see Phobia 2) with your colleagues and watch your boyfriend and his friends play paintball, you're bound to get a mash up of such visuals sooner or later.