Zombie walk a ghoulish gag full of gore and grins
Published Sunday, June 22, 2008
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FAIRBANKS — A Fairbanks tour guide met her untimely demise last week at the hands of a group of unruly zombie sightseers, but not before uttering an ominous announcement.
“There will be snack time at the cemetery,” Tarah Sickels told the group of about 20 zombies, who proceeded to moan for brains and clamor slowly toward the Golden Heart Plaza. The tour guide did her best to wrangle some semblance into the flesh-seeking group. Fake blood and open wounds attracted wide-eyed stares and picture-taking from actual downtown tourists, who looked up in confusion and wonder at the motley crew of the undead. “I don't think we’ve had any heckling from people. It’s more shock and awe,” Sickels said. “Sometimes people look like they're starting to run, but then they turn around and smile.”
A zombie walk, like Saturday’s ostentatious affair, is an organized public gathering of people dressed like zombies, which often includes ripped clothing, bloody lesions and ghastly makeup.
“It's part guerilla theater, part charity,” said Marcus Mooers, who paraded around as the zombie pope in bloody robes, an oversized cross necklace and the signature pope hat, which accentuated his nearly detached eyeball. Mooers, founder of Alaska Zombie Walks, is also known as “The Head of the Undead” by his friends, who help organize the walks and other zombie-related events. The small group simply loves zombie movies and other forms of living dead culture, and brought that enthusiasm to Fairbanks.
“Everybody loves Halloween, and there's really no reason why we can’t have fun like this year-round,” Mooers said.
In February, they held a benefit zombie dance that brought in 350 zombies and about $1,000 for their charity, Homeward Bound, a no-kill animal shelter that helps find foster homes for animals. The group pays for vaccinations, spaying and neutering.
“The zombie walks are certainly a lot of fun, but we want to also do things to help the community,” Mooers said.
WALK OF THE DEAD
The June 14 walk started as a tailgating party of sorts, as Shawn Colburn took the role of makeup artist and applied fake wounds and blood to anyone who wanted a little extra authenticity.
“My personal favorite is when it’s coming out of the ears,” said Colburn, as he applied a mixture of corn syrup, Hershey’s chocolate syrup and red food coloring to a zombie in a wheelchair. At about 1 p.m., the group started stumbling toward the Golden Heart Plaza, with one zombie munching on a severed arm, and others moaning for “Braaaaaains.”
Kristina Johnson pushed her 19-month-old daughter Vanessa in a stroller throughout the walk.
“I say she’s the kid I abducted,” Johnson said with a laugh.
Colburn told her about the walk and got her to come out for the sunny Saturday afternoon. The Jeffords found the Alaska Zombie Walks group on MySpace.com. “We're kind of dorks, and we like any reason to dress up,” said Jolene Jeffords, who dressed like an “Alaska redneck” with her husband, Josh. “You gotta have a good bloody redneck in the zombie walk.”
After causing a stir in the Golden Heart Plaza, the group headed to Cowles Street, then from Fifth Street to the downtown cemetery, where Sickels, who donned whistles and a squirt gun to keep the flesh-eaters at bay, could no longer fight them off. “When someone is reanimated from the dead, its only thought is to consume human flesh,” Mooers explained. “You tend to have people who get too close to the zombies and they basically become dinner.”
The zombies swarmed and then snacked on the tour guide, who quickly reanimated and become a member of the living dead. They spent a fair amount of time staggering around the cemetery — “We asked people to respect the graves in the cemetery,” Mooers said — held a costume contest and then headed back up Lacey Street and walked by the courthouse, then back to First Street to the Cushman Street bridge.
ZOMBIE THEORY
Mooers said his lifelong love for zombies, starting with “Return of the Living Dead,” inspired him to create Alaska Zombie Walks. “The premise that most people go with is that there’s no real explanation of why people are coming back to life, but that the main higher brain function has been shut down, so the basic functions, to kill and consume flesh, are the only things left," he said. “As soon as it reanimates, it acts with extreme, hostile behavior.”
The zombie virus can be passed through bodily fluids, so a scratch or bite from a zombie is enough to do it.
“One of my favorite theories comes from (writer, director, actor) George Romero, who says that we're such an evil species that hell has become full, so there’s no place to put the spirits of the dead,” Mooers said. “It’s a little more creepy and scary, rather than some faceless corporation manufacturing a virus, and it makes us all a little more responsible.”
The movie-loving crowd is far from the first culture to have a fascination with reanimated flesh.
“It’s the same sort of after-life as the New Testament, and you could theoretically say that Jesus was the first zombie. Even the Egyptians had a living-dead mythology, and it has been made more popular since the discovery of Haitian culture,” Mooers said. “It’s just a new take on an old theory. It’s the same cultural phenomenon from hundreds of old societies, since the beginning of time.”
UPCOMING EVENTS
This isn't the last Fairbanks has seen of the zombies.
“We're calling for people to dress up like zombies and run — well, probably walk — in The Midnight Sun Run,” Mooers said. “The idea is just to have fun and certainly represent the Alaska Zombie Walks.”
The group will also participate in World Zombie Day on Oct. 23.
“That's the day we'll be joining with cities around the world, Paris, Frankfurt, New York. Fairbanks has the farthest North zombie walk,” he said. “It's the Sunday before Halloween, and it'll probably be cold and snowy outside, so we'll probably walk outside for awhile and then head inside a strip mall or something.”
Fans of the walking dead cover a wide age range, and the interest is spreading like the T-virus. (For the non-zombiophile, that’s a common name for the virus that turns a human into a zombie.)
“At our first zombie walk, we had kids who were 9 and 10 and 11, and they had some of the most clever ideas. And they showed up with their grandmother who is 83 years old,” Mooers said. “We had a Christmas zombie walk, and we had a zombie Santa and zombie elves, and our youngest zombie was just 3 years old. He came with his mom and had a Christmas star stuck in his head."
The group has other plans in the works, including presenting prizes at the costume ball at The Marlin on Halloween night and trying to plan a summer zombie fest, featuring area bands, gore-inspired food and classic zombie flicks.
“In the process of all these things, people have stopped asking what a zombie walk is,” Mooers said. “Now people know what they are, and that's exciting.”
Michelle Peterson is a freelance writer for the News-Miner. Contact her at latitude@newsminer.com.
Community Discussion
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weirdos
Disturbing......... A lifelong Zombie fan? Help me understand this.
Just folks having some fun.
Hey, some of my closest friends are big time zombie fans. Myself, I don't get it. But if watching a good zombie flick soothes their savage souls, who am I to deny them their somewhat twisted kicks?
This sounds like a fun thing to watch, if not participate in. I'd have shown up and watched, especially the make up tailgate "party." And it's for a good cause. Not too sure I would have been down with "snacks at the cemetery" thing, though.
Better a Zombie than a Bible Baptist.
Yeah sure it seems harmless, and you're right, not as disturbing as some churches!
Sure it wasn't our interior delegation walking after seeing Palin's latest plan to help the people?
It's good to see these people focusing their energy on something fun than on doing something destructive.
It seems that a pre-requisite for being a zombie is about 60 extra pounds on your frame. They should be eating less brains and more salad.
Hmmmmm... Their next event sounds like a good place to host the Alice and Ash Williams masqurade ball. Could be lots of fun.
"Come get some! Damned Zombies"
If they're doing it for charity, then more power to them. Go Zombies!
Well....................to each their own. I would think they would have better things to do with their time. After all, pretending to be death is not my cup of tea. Or are Zombies really not dead. LOL
As usual, Dr. C, you hit the nail on the head!
*chuckle*
Go Zombies!
Okay, so maybe I'm not really seing the benefit in these gatherings. If the goal is to provide fun and raise money for their "worthy causes" how is it only $1000 was raised for Homeward bound and 350 zombies attended, that seems like they charged $3 at the door and kept the leftovers...aparently the living dead don't take visa.
Guess that's $1000 HB didn't have the day before...
LOL I knew there would be a bunch comments like this
Seriously though, that's kind of weird
alaskanlady, not all fundraisers require payment for access.
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