The annual Zombie Walk took place in downtown Vancouver on the weekend of September 5. People from all walks of life bust out their make-up kits and costumes, shambling around town as zombies from all walks of death (zing). With the start of the academic year just right around the corner, I took it upon myself to witness one last weird summer gimmick before I myself become a walking corpse due to classes and work.
Unfortunately, because I couldn’t find the time or money to invest in a makeup kit -- and because I’d rather not get my innards accidentally shot off -- I decided to stick to the sidelines and watch the undead apocalypse unfold before me. Or maybe I’m just a secretly boring person at heart.
Ground zero was the Vancouver Art Gallery, where the undead horde eventually assembled to unleash fear onto downtown commuters. Well, that and line up to the nearby hotdog stand for some cheap late-afternoon lunch.
Standing by the side-walk along Robson facing the gallery around 3 p.m., the living corpses eventually started pouring in. Most of them were the usual fare of undead ghouls with all sorts of gross physical trauma. Some were incredibly detailed -- one had her mouth shot out, teeth and tongue dangling from the face, while another was burnt to a crisp all over, flesh peeling off his body.
Of course, there were also those who just smacked some white make-up cream and fake blood all over them and called it a day -- not that I can complain, given my position.
More impressive, however, were those who spiced things up instead of coming in as your usual generic brain-eating fodder. There were zombie Nazis, zombie goths, zombie 90s grunge rockers, old school green zombies, zombie Fresh Slice delivery girls, zombie Mario, and even zombie ghosts, because there’s no such thing as being too dead. There were zombie BC Lions fans, zombie anime girls, zombie cheerleaders, zombie awkward nerd guy trying to woo said cheerleaders, zombie Spider-Men, zombie chefs, zombie forest spirits, zombie Jokers, cute adorable zombie children, and … some random guy wearing a giant panda head.
Just because it was a Zombie Walk though, did not mean the living dead have all the fun. Various military and survivor cosplayers joined in, keeping the horde in check -- from the STARS special forces of Resident Evil, to just Shaun, who’d rather be in the pub and wait for all this to blow over. Also, the grim reaper himself joined in on it, holding up a sign above everyone fittingly proclaiming that this was “the waiting list.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Zombie Walk without the actual -- erm -- walk, which started at around 4 p.m.. Now, if newcomers -- myself included -- were expecting something like a simulation of hordes of the walking dead overwhelming the streets of downtown in their wake, you’d be … surprisingly wrong.
In contrast to my expectations, the reality was that the walk was mostly a single file death march trotting down along Robson surrounded by the VPD. Not to say the participants weren’t having their fun -- they lurched, growled, even screamed at onlookers and shared some laughs as well. Still, there was some odd humour in the fact it was something as out-there as zombies to ground me into reality.
Speaking of onlookers, this is where it gets ironic. Whereas in most media it’s the zombies menacing the populace, here it was vice versa: tons of spectators overwhelmed the marchers, shooting with phone cameras and even spilling into the zombie crowd themselves. At some point, there so many watchers that it was difficult to see any of the zombies from a reasonable distance. This was already the situation at the Art Gallery too, prior to when the walk officially started.
Somewhere down the line as I walked with them, there were also a few faint heckles from frustrated drivers and street-goers. “Goddamn it, what is this?” and “Well, this is just stupid,” were among some of the negatives I heard in the crowd. But the dead persevered, their tormented wails and hisses drowning out anything else. Though I don’t think tormented is the right word -- more like just downright having fun.
However, as I took into account these external remarks, the amount people who’d rather snap an Instagram than actually take part, and finally, myself for not at least trying to let loose especially with summer coming to a close, a quote from popular fictional zombie killer Rick Grimes popped into my head.
“We are the walking dead.”