Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies (32 page)

Don’t get me wrong. I love pretty much any zombie book I can get my hands on, no matter what the intention of the author was when writing it. I want to read anything and everything. But now that money is in the driver’s seat, there is a clear risk of losing sight of the love of the subgenre that led to so many impressive and inventive works in the first place.

O
n Saturday, April 2, 2011, hundreds of people dressed as zombies and took to the streets of Madison, Wisconsin, to protest Governor Scott Walker’s controversial move to eliminate the collective-bargaining rights of most state workers. Shuffling along, they voiced their frustration with what they saw as the stupidity of the state’s leadership by moaning a traditional zombie chant: “What do we want? BRAINS! When do we want them? BRAINS!”

One marching zombie said that he applied gray face paint and rubber peeling skin to make a statement that collective bargaining should be a fundamental labor right in the United States, noting that the fact that the protesters were all zombies worked to keep things civil:

This keeps the pressure on Walker while getting everybody smiling at the same time. It puts lightheartedness into a very serious situation.
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Sadly, the governor declined my request for comment about how it felt to be threatened by a zombie mob.

But why did the protesters choose to look like zombies rather than some other kind of monster? Many other creatures provide fabulous metaphors for the failures of political
leadership. Why not vampires because government action is sucking the life out of its citizens? Why not sharks because government is circling around its innocent employees? Why not werewolves because in Wisconsin it’s still chilly in early April, and the costume fur would be nice insulation? More importantly, why do hundreds of thousands of people across the globe dress up like zombies each year and march from one place to another for no reason other than to march from one place to another dressed like zombies?

Brendan Riley is a professor of new media and cultural studies at Columbia College in Chicago, where he teaches a class on zombies in popular media. His theory is that walking like a zombie with other zombies taps into a deep-seated desire to break social boundaries and occasionally act improperly. Plus, it’s just a really good time. As he puts it:

Zombie walks are really fun. They provide an excuse to get together with other zombie fans, to dress up and show off, but without the pressure of being a solitary performer.

Whatever the reason for their popularity, there is no question that zombie walks are an essential element in the cultural explosion of the modern zombie.

So where did it all start?

Thea Munster, a recent film-school graduate, wanted to do something a little different, so she asked her friends if they had any interest in painting their faces like corpses, throwing on some old rags, and walking through their suburban Toronto neighborhood with her. Unfortunately, they flatly
rejected the idea as stupid. Who would want to do something like that? What would be the point?

Munster didn’t really have a good answer for them, but she also couldn’t let the idea die. So she hung up posters around town for anyone who might want to join her on her morbid stroll. The next week, on a gray and rainy October day in 2003, seven strangers dressed like zombies met at Necropolis Cemetery near the University of Toronto campus and walked together.

Passing neighbors didn’t know what to make of the spectacle. As Munster explains, a young couple driving by screeched to a halt in the middle of the road in complete shock:

Another person came out of her house, saw us, and then turned around and scooted back inside. A man walking up the block ahead saw us and actually started running away. It was hard not to laugh. I guess no one had ever seen anything like it at the time.

Before Munster’s initiative, marketing firms had paraded zombie extras to publicize films and other events, but this was the first time anyone walked just for the sake of walking. They didn’t do it for profit or publicity or even charity. They just walked.

The following year, the undead gang of walkers in Toronto grew larger, and by year three, with more than a hundred expected participants, cemetery officials informed Munster that they had instituted a “no costume” policy and she would have to move elsewhere. She took the event to a more central location in Toronto, and the rest is history.

What started as a handful of oddballs grew into thousands of oddballs walking through the center of Toronto. At one point, the police tried to shut them down, calling the walk a
drain on resources. They even had a scare near a bus stop until an investigation into a mysterious pool of blood showed that it was corn syrup used by one of the marchers.

Eventually, the Toronto officials endorsed the walk as a benefit to the city. If you can’t beat them, join them—another enduring motto of the modern zombie. And now organized zombie walks can be found all across the world.

Since Guinness World Records first certified Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s zombie walk as the largest to date in 2006, many cities have aimed their sights on claiming that prize. From Toronto, Canada, to Brisbane, Australia, official and unofficial records are set and broken multiple times each year. Nottingham, England, earned the distinction in 2008. The following year the title changed hands three times before Herefordshire, England, took the top spot with a zombie horde over four thousand strong. Seattle, Washington, briefly claimed supremacy in 2010 before Asbury Park, New Jersey, was named the winner by Guinness after they completed their official tabulations in early April 2011. Dozens of cities are planning to make their run for the crown, ensuring that zombie walks will continue to grow in size and number for the foreseeable future.

Innovating on the standard walk model, zombie flash mobs have sprung up in recent years across the world, too. A zombie flash mob is an unannounced assemblage of people dressed as the undead that shamble about a public place like a mall or main city street. Regular flash mobs as a rule typically feature normally dressed pedestrians who suddenly begin performing a choreographed dance or some other creative action in unison to the delight of surprised onlookers, the classic example being the videotaped flash mob in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal.

Zombie flash mobs don’t dance. They don’t pose together as an elaborate living art piece. They don’t do anything except be zombies, so they more closely mimic the experience of a real zombie outbreak with their uncoordinated movements and genuine spontaneity. They also don’t apply for permits or notify the proper authorities in advance, making their infestation seem sudden and organic.

Better even than zombie flash mobs, zombie pub crawls are another variation on the traditional walk that involves shambling from one bar to the next, drinking ever more along the way. The notion of being among a bunch of people dressed as zombies doesn’t sound fun to me—it sounds alarming—but if I were forced to do a zombie walk of some kind, a pub crawl would be my first choice. Though it makes no sense from a survival standpoint, the end of the world is a lot more palatable with a cold beer in hand.

W
ith the surge in popularity of the modern zombie in recent years, all manner of undead events may be happening near you. There’s San Francisco’s zombie drag queen roller derby, which features queens racing to the finish line while zombie queens try to eat them. There are zombie charity evenings, like the one in St. Louis that raised funds for Direct Relief International to benefit the victims of Japan’s 2011 earthquake, and zombie canned food drives, like the one held in conjunction with San Diego’s World Zombie Day in 2008. There’s the new zombie beach party in Asbury Park, New Jersey, which promises to be an annual event featuring a zombie kissing booth, dunk the zombie, and brain volleyball. You can even attend zombie plays. In the summer of 2011 the Bushwick Star in Brooklyn, New York, premiered
Death Valley: A Western Horror Play
. The cast included western stock character favorites—a con man, a whore, a doctor, and an Apache—who together face the biggest challenge that could befall anyone west of the Mississippi—a zombie infestation.

When it comes to zombie fun, nothing seems outside the bounds of the possible and popular. Just as actual zombies could appear at any time, zombie events are year-round opportunities for donning pancake makeup, fake blood, and your favorite shredded outfit to lurch around with friends and
friendly strangers. But there’s no better month to express your interest in the living dead than May, because May is Zombie Awareness Month.

Why is May Zombie Awareness Month instead of October? Because Halloween actually has nothing to do with zombies.

Celebrated annually at the end of October, Halloween seems primarily an excuse for kids to carve pumpkins, dress up in goofy costumes, and demand free candy from their neighbors. But this witching holiday, originally called All-Hallows’ Eve, meaning the evening before All Hallows’ Day, or All Saints Day, long held religious significance evolving from a blend of European pagan and folk traditions deeply rooted in myth and superstition.

Nicholas Rogers is a professor of history at York University and author of
Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night.
He explains that the holiday originally reflected fears about supernatural threats, and these motifs are still with us today. Rogers discusses dozens of traditional Halloween monsters in his work, but zombies are not mentioned once.

Witches, ghosts, and vampires, all staples of the season, are otherworldly creatures of old, filled with mysticism, unusual powers, or spiritual significance. The modern zombie, on the other hand, is a biologically based entity that reflects thoroughly modern fears. Grounded in empirical science and reflecting contemporary urban society, the modern zombie has nothing to do with Old World legends.

More importantly, the film that single-handedly created the modern zombie in 1968, George Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead
, is set in the month of May. What more fitting month could there be?

Since 2007, concerned citizens and zombie enthusiasts have donned gray ribbons in honor of Zombie Awareness Month and participated in a wide range of awareness-raising activities such as zombie walks, zombie theme parties, and zombie charity drives. The gray ribbon is meant to signify the undead menace that threatens our modern light of day, and the organized events are meant for fun. From May 1 through 31, people across the globe take this small step to acknowledge the coming danger that we may all soon face.

But you don’t have to wait until May to get involved in zombie mayhem, as events are taking place every day in countries around the world.

In 2005, Chris Weed and Brad Sappington of Goucher College started a modified game of tag they called Humans vs. Zombies (HvZ). With just thirty-two people playing the first fall, the game grew quickly and then spread virally across the Internet as dozens of Goucher students posted photos and videos online. Today, HvZ is played at hundreds of colleges and universities across the country, as well as at high schools, military bases, summer camps, and even public libraries.

Goucher is the only college in America that requires study abroad as a graduation requirement. As a result, Goucher students have spread the word of Humans vs. Zombies all
over the world, and the game is now played in countries such as Brazil, Denmark, Australia, England, and Canada. In fact, HvZ is active on every continent except Antarctica, although a team of South Pole researchers have expressed interest in setting up a game at their outpost.

In Humans vs. Zombies, a group of human players attempts to survive a “zombie outbreak” by outsmarting a growing number of zombie players. But the rules are fluid, and the game’s creators encourage each independent player group to modify them as they see fit.

Joe Sklover was among the first to play HvZ at Goucher, and he now manages the game, helping new schools set up their own versions:

We provide rules but want people to adapt them to the environment. For example, in some games, zombies don’t starve to death, while in others, they have to kill a certain number of humans per day to keep playing.