Whilst it is close to Halloween, I would remind the reader, and archer, that zombies, the undead, however you refer to them, are not a seasonal problem.
Just as much as a dog is just not for Christmas, a zombie not just for Halloween.
And at Lough Cuan Bowmen, the hunting season on reanimated corpses has opened!
Yep, their numbers have grown too wild, and it is time to cull them back.
Over the next few weeks, members are competing to be the top zombie slayer of the club. It is a simple set up, with paper targets plastered over the bosses to create what I believe is called a ‘target rich environment’. The only valid scoring zone is the brainpan (obviously), and archers can shoot as many ends as they want – within the timeframe given. Each zombie put down is worth a single point, and tallied up after each end, with tallies added together each week, until we have a winner, and a colossal total of undead slain by the club.
In the first week we had a mix of senior members and newer members, most of them juniors – is it just me, or are the juniors more often than not the most bloodthirsty of the club members?
For the starting week, there were five targets present, all… Well, they would have been human in their past lives. The more challenging zombie animals will appear this Friday. And wielded against the bastions of undead were barebow and traditional shooting styles – it was an evening of ingenuity and instincts, boldness and stalwartness.
Michael had his Asiatic recurve, slinging his wooden arrows down range, whilst two more recent members, Nadera and Tiana, were putting their newly acquired barebow talents to use.
And these are small targets. Shooting bunnies is one thing, and this is something else entirely. It does not matter how good you think you are with 10m bunnies, these mouldy-green and grey coloured blobs will raise your blood pressure and aggravate the more egocentric of archers – which I always think is fun to see.
Once the call to shoot went up, these zombie hunters were slow to score anything, and no surprise, as I have stated above. Yes, I could have given them a warm-up end or some such, but when the dead come battering through the barricades, and doorways, and windows, where will your warm-up be then?
Then again, Travis was present, and he for reasons I have yet to discern can focus in upon the head of a pin at any distance. He was, at the outset, on course to win the first week. Swiftly catching him up in later ends, however, were Grace and Daniel, who went arrow for arrow with one and other the whole time, keeping at a tie.
At one point Nadera decided to mercy kill the poor fella seen caught between two of the lurching undead. Given he was a lost cause, and she eliminated a potential zombie from rising up, I gave her a point for it. It’s a hard lesson – one she was concerningly at ease with – but a lesson these zombie hunters need to understand.
It was arrows galore, punching into zombies everywhere there was space. Many an eye was lost, and many a nose pierced, but alas not valid hits. By the final ends, Grace and Daniel were still tying with one and other, and when the last end was called, they found themselves in joint first place.
Week 1 of the Zombie hunt saw 25 zombies culled, Grace and Daniel in 1st place, Lucie in 2nd place, and Travis 3rd.
This Friday the hunt continues with many more zombies!
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