Zombieland

IU’s Health Center is a peculiar place.

Students flock to it every day, dragging along their various illnesses and ailments and eagerly anticipating a cured future. I was one of those students earlier this week.

No big deal, I thought. Just another visit to the only building on campus where being stabbed with needles is okay.

It was a Monday morning, the start to a long week of exams. Though I was worried about my well-being, I was more worried about the fact that I was unable to comprehend half of my assigned reading. Naturally, my thoughts drifted elsewhere as I climbed the steep staircase to the second floor, where everything that should be on the first floor is located.

But rather than drifting to a state of boredom as they normally do, my thoughts became panicked.

I realized I’d been trapped in a real-life Zombieland. Each way I turned, I saw nothing but adolescents decked out in drab sweatpants and blue facemasks, all wandering nomadically toward the pharmacy area.

Assuming there was another unbitten human trapped amidst the Sudafed, I darted toward the cashier desk (all under a curtain of pretend zombie-ness, of course).

But things didn’t improve there. An unsuspecting zombie reached the counter, unprepared for the wrath of the fast-talking and ironically germaphobic cashier. On my way up the stairs, I’d seen a half-dozen reminder signs about checking out. So, naturally, I assumed actually going to the desk was a rare occurrence.

Suddenly, I was hit with the scent of fresh antibiotic hand gel. The cashier glared at the zombie, vigorously pumping hand sanitizer into her hand. The zombie girl eyed the bottle, but was snapped back to reality by the cashier’s demand for her identification number.

“Silly zombie,” I thought, “hand sanitizer is for the unbitten.”

Now, getting nervous, I rushed to the elevator. Inside, I found a slightly more energetic zombie, talking on the phone with his mother. After listening to his slurred speech for a second, I scrambled to find my own telephone, eager to tell my parents Charlie Brown’s teacher was accompanying me to the next floor. But the doors opened, and a “No Cell Phones” sign was waiting for me.

Crap, I thought. I’ll never get out of here alive. Internally, I began practicing my British accent.

Hey, I thought, it worked for the guys in Shaun of the Dead.

I managed to make it through my appointment unscathed, and began counting down the moments until I could escape. The last minutes I spent in the building are a blur. I only remember being mocked by a flyer – “Stressed out? The Health Center can help!”
Finally, I reached safety. Campus was sprawling with live humans, unmasked and unafraid of H1N1.

“Hello, friends,” I thought as I walked up to a bus stop.

Popping my iPod in, I got so distracted I almost didn’t look up in time to see the zombie bus driver open the doors and greet me with a fresh wave of unnecessary panic.