A Day and Night of the Paintball Sniper
by Scott Ugly

             As I put on my heavy, frayed , burlap, ghillie suit, my own team laughs as they walk by.  With only my old traccer pump and years of practice I walk, lonely onto the field.  The starting horn blasts and I know I have twenty-four hours to create a name for myself.  The guys carrying seven hundred balls and one thousand dollar guns, tell me not to get in their way as they sprint by.  I know soon shots will ring out and they won’t be running for long.  I run away from the shots up a mountain to were its calm, a slight breeze and no cover.  I crawl for two hours, without a noise, without a friend. Then I can finally see my prize. THE ENEMY’S TWO CAPTAINS. Their backs are turned towards me and with no rear protection.  I had to slow my heart, because I still had fifteen minutes of silent movement ahead of me. I slide under two fallen logs and get ready. POP! One dead Captain.  Wow I can only think to myself “it looks like I threw a rock at a bee’s nest.” The enemy runs around yelling and ducking. I know in a few minutes they will forget. Their first mistake.  POP! Two dead captains.  Two Shots Two Kills. The start of a fun game. FOR ME AT LEAST.       

            Finally after twenty or so kills the enemy got the idea. By then I was long gone.  I was back in the brush. Reloading, and looking for my next objective. POP! “What the hell was that,” I mumble.  Could it be, one of my own kind, here, now.  Oh crap, I see him. He has a beautiful suit, a tricked out 98 and a FLATLINE! He’s got me on distance, but I got him on skill. I know this because, he’s moving. I realize now I, like my team is in trouble. As the fighting starts moving in our direction, I put together a plan.  I crawl back towards the enemy base, hopping I can get behind the enemy, and put some distance between my new friend and I. As he climbs into a nice dry riverbed, he gives me a good luck waive. I return it, and I know now the fun just got intense. As the main fighting gets closer I see their base is under protected. I make some nice, smart shots and I realize I can collect some points before they get reinserted. I get my points, get out and go away from the fighting.  My first mistake of the day. I run head first into the enemy’s sniper. The only good thing is he was reloading. I was to startle to make a shot and I took off into the thick woods to get into a good hide. I try my best to slow down my berating. As my mask it starting to fog, I see a figure walking, slowly, like it was looking for something. That something was ME.  Then all of a sudden. WHAAAAAAAA, saved by the bell, well, saved by the dinner horn.  He looks me dead in the face and says, “hey , I could use someone to talk to over dinner.” I made a new friend.

            A nice cold M.R.E. and some conversation was nice, but we came here to play paintball. So after an hour it started to get dark and that would mean fun time. The start horn wails and I run off, this time to were the big guns were going. They gave me a weird look and a thumbs up, and we were off.  About thirty seconds later my team looked back to see were I was. I left them to get a better angle and some easy points. I saw the enemy flanking my team. I dropped down, got into a nice covered spot and hit all five of them before they knew it. Then all of a sudden WHAP!!! My goggles lit up with a bright green splat. My new friend hit me dead center. As I walked back to the dead zone, I looked back and I could tell he was going to have a good night, if I didn’t smarten up.

            After an embarrassing thirty minutes, the refs told us to go to the reinsertion point a play safe.  Safety is very important, but I had a certain evil sniper on my mined. I slipped up the same mountain as I did in the morning. As I slowed to a babies crawl I heard a voice, then another. One of them was the same voice I talked to at dinner. It was him, he had no idea I was there. But who was he talking to, another sniper, a spotter? I couldn’t tell it was to dark. I just had to sit a wait. They crisscrossed up and down the mountain, to hide their tracks and sound. I totally underestimated my new friend. That was my second mistake. I was here to make name for myself, A GOOD NAME.

             I waited for what seemed to be a life time, then Snap. They were twenty feet in front of me. A few more steps and they would be in the clear. POP!! , POP! Perfect shots. Two new players for the dead zone. As the passed I popped up and asked “two of you?” They said” ya, we were watching you from the time you jumped out of your car, knew no one likes snipers and made a plan to get you to think their was only one enemy sniper.” I told them I under estimated them and I hoped I could learn some stuff from them.

            The rest of the night was pretty quiet. Not a lot of kills but a lot of recon and points. I slipped away for about an hour of sleep, knowing I had one trick left.

            About 6a.m. I get a tapping on my window. My best friend showed up. He had a wedding the night before, and showed up for a little fun. Him and I have been a sniper – spotter combo for a long time. He carried a Tricked out Autococker with a scope. The other two snipers had no idea what was about to happen. My spotter led the way back up the mountain, he went ahead and got a nice visual of the other snipers. By the time I got up to him, he was already set up to take the shot. We got into two spots away from each other and made a few, loud shots. As the snipers walked back to the dead zone they yelled up to us, “I guess you have some tricks to teach us.” The rest of the day went a lot like that. With some few raids on the enemies base thrown in for fun.         

            WHAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! The closing horn blasts, and a lot of tired, happy players walked off the field. After about an hour of clean up time, all the players were called over to the stage for prizes and to announce the winner. A lot of great prizes were given out, Then I heard “MVP for the blue team goes to,     Scott Ugly?” As I walked up to receive my little trophy and prize, the same guys who laughed at me, patted me on the back. They voted for me. How cool was this.  A few minutes later we hear that the blue team won by a lot of points. 

            As we all walked back to our cars for the long ride home the other sniper team came up to my buddy and I wanting to exchange numbers.