My husband and I are very close to my sister and brother-in-law; we get together on a weekly basis. But my husband and my sister have rarely spent any time together, so last weekend, they decided that on Saturday they would grab a beer, maybe play some pool or ping-pong, and my brother-in-law and I would be left to find something to do.

“We could watch a movie,” said Alex. “You know what movie I’ve wanted to watch that Julia would never want to?”

“World War Z?” I asked.

“Yes! World War Z! How ‘bout it?”

Let’s back up a second. Even people who know me only moderately well know this one thing: I’m the biggest scaredy cat around. My students know this and constantly make fun of me by asking if I want to hear the plot of The Human Centipede.

I’ve gotten slightly braver over the years, but my childhood is riddled with terrifying nights where I was so sure there was some demented clown hovering over my bed. My mantra growing up was “Anything bad that can happen will, without a doubt, happen to me.” Seriously, guys, I can’t handle scary things.

So it wasn’t the most natural thing that I agreed to watch this movie. But I rationalized to myself that zombies were, in fact, stupid, and our culture’s obsession with them is nothing short of perplexing. The undead are not frightening; they amble around, moaning for brainsssss, while anyone with half a leg can just jump out of the way. I just wanted to see the movie because the thought of hundreds of zombies pile up to attack a helicopter sounded epic.

So I went to their house on Saturday. Alex and I made popcorn, got situated, and put in the DVD.

Within the first ten minutes of the movie, I turned to Alex and said, “We’ve made a horrible mistake.”

We spent the rest of the movie huddled in a corner of the couch, jumping at every loud noise or sudden movement.

I’m not saying that this movie was particularly scary. I mean, it’s no Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver. I mean that this is how incredibly chicken I am.

I do stand by my original statement: Zombies are stupid. But anyone that jumps on a car and bashes their head into your windshield in order to kill you and your family would freak you out. And opening a closet door only to have an undead human jump out at you would get your adrenaline pumping. But zombies are still stupid.

I know this. I can say it rationally and believe myself. But when my husband goes to CMU for half the week and I’m left alone in my apartment and I want to take a shower but I’m afraid a person will jump out at me and I can’t wash my face because when I open my eyes there will be a face behind me and I keep checking the peephole on the apartment door to make sure there is no one there but I don’t want to look too long because a scary face might jump at the peephole and scare me and I don’t want to take out the trash because someone will jump down from the roof and attack me… Well, then I start to lose it.

Sarah (VanderMolen) Sundt

A born-and-and-raised Grand Rapidian, Sarah (’12) is now a seventh grade language arts teacher in the Seattle area. She has been living there since the summer of 2015 with her music teacher husband, Mike. She loves reading, watching Netflix, playing games, watercolor, and walking at the off-leash dog park (even though she does not have a dog).