Well, more of a shamble. Regardless, across the country, a new form of gathering has started to become more and more common: Zombie Walks. That’s right, the undead just get up and start moving around town. Well, alright, it isn’t the undead, but instead fans of the undead (or people just trying to blend in?) putting on their best corpse makeup and making a stand for what they want.
So, um, yeah, brains. But not just brains. One will often times see people walking around with signs promoting Equal Rights for Zombies or claiming that “Zombies are people, too.” The mob shambles along a pre-determined path, sometimes corralled by zombie hunters and sometimes even eating “victims” along the way. I had to figure out what this was about, so at Dragon*Con, I went to see for myself.
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The Zombie Walk at Dragon*Con is hosted by the “Apocalypse Rising” track, and I think the pictures can give you some idea of how well received this was. We had zombies from all walks of life, from engineers to socialites to grunge chicks. But above all else, we had a lot of them. Then there were the zombie hunters, from pseudo-steampunk priests to post-apocalyptic raider-gangs. I want to say there was even a soldier from Umbrella Corp. floating around somewhere, although whether he was a zombie or a hunter, I can’t remember.
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Before the walk began, I spoke to the one of the track organizers, Shannon Chesnut. When I asked her “Why, why are you unleashing the undead on the unsuspecting catgirls?” she replied “Why not?” Zombies, it seems, don’t need a reason beyond “Its fun.” What can I say, there is a thrill to getting people looking at a large mass of us geeks doing something geeky and having a great time doing it.
Of course, Zombie Walking isn’t all fun and games. No, there are rules, and Shannon made sure that everyone was well aware of them: don’t zombie on anyone who is obviously not interested, obey traffic laws when crossing streets so that there wouldn’t be any not-walking-actually-dead, and while you are shambling, try not to be too slow: it was a long walk and there was a Zombie Prom to get to.
Yeah… a Zombie Prom. I, alas, did not make it to that as I had to get back to the Wheel of Time room so that Brandon could kick my butt in Magic: The Gathering and laugh manically all the while. But that is a story for another time. Or, at least it would have been, if I hadn’t been eaten by a zombie.
Richard Fife is a writer, blogger, and apparently now a member of the walking dead. You can read more of his ramblings and some of his short stories at http://RichardFife.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
