You get out of your car in the Target parking lot, hoping to procure some new clothes. Suddenly, a group of people spring out of the bushes and sprint straight towards you, laughing at your naivety, that you thought you could go about your day as normal without being attacked. Your adrenaline jolts as you fumble for your swim floaties. It doesn’t matter how ridiculous you’ll look, you need to be safe from their water guns. But you’re too slow. They get to you first.
“It’s a tradition that Vandegrift and a lot of other schools have done for a while,” senior class president Joe Geraci said. “It’s gone pretty good. We had a lot of funny kills in the first round. [The second round] has been a little slower.”
In senior assassins, groups of four seniors form groups and get another team to target. They have access to their targeted team’s location, and can employ any means necessary to shoot them with a water gun.
“It was fun for the most part, kind of stressful,” senior Caroline Doss said. “There was one day when I got hunted, and it was probably one of the most exhilarating things I’ve ever experienced, just the fear of death being put within me.”
Using a tracker app, groups go to great lengths to find and eliminate their targets, chasing them down to their houses, gyms, and finding them eating at restaurants.
“[People waited] outside my house in the morning,” Doss said. “Someone followed me to my haircut.”
There are rules in place, of course. If participants show up at their target’s house, they have to respect the wishes of the parents there.
“I got permission from one of my target’s moms to hide in their backyard,” Doss said. “And one of my hunters showed up and [asked where I was]. That was super scary. So I jumped the fence and ran to their car, and he chased us.”
Also, each team had to come up with a water-themed name.
“Our original team name idea was Squzz,” Doss said. “But we all agreed that was really unfunny. So that’s when we came up with Squirt on Them.”
According to the rules on weekdays, when participants are wearing goggles or swim floaties, they are immune to getting out.
“[The craziest thing I’ve done],” senior Ben Evans said. “Is probably just wearing goggles whenever I go shopping. I was just walking through H-E-B and I felt a little weird.”
The end goal is to be the last team left standing. The $10 registration fee from each participant was pooled for the prize amount, which is currently sitting at well over $3000. This has led to a very competitive environment.
“Me and my friend Seb set up a camouflage fort in the trees next to the basketball court at John Simpson,” Evans said. “We were gonna wait for our target to walk up in front of us, and we would snipe them with a powerful water gun that we have.”
As of April 18th, 37 teams remain standing.
“We hope that everyone’s having a blast with the game, because it’s pretty fun running it,” Geraci said.
