crows to burnaby

Yesterday I joined the ranks of the living dead at the Vancouver zombie walk. I heard about it the night before from some friends, and thought, "oh, that'll be fun. Maybe there'll be a dozen people there. What the hell."

Try three hundred.

The Art Gallery was swarming with the reanimated in every state of decomposition. There were some fantastic, elaborate makeup jobs, and others who just joined up as we went along, slapping enough makeup on to avoid getting their brains eaten. We staggered around there for a little while and then went to wreak terror on the city (well... nice, peaceful, harmless zombie terror).

First, a trip through the mall. The first few shoppers seemed determined to pretend that 300 zombies were not stumbling past their favourite stores, moaning "Brrraaaaaaaiiiiiiins". An upscale jewelry store locked their doors as we passed by. We bottlenecked at the escalators and a crowd gathered to stare at us at the bottom.

What I found most fascinating about the whole thing was how people react. When you're in a small group of two or three zombies, people try very hard to pretend they haven't seen you, probably because they think you're a junkie. Once the crowd gets bigger, they look uncomfortable, or stare. A few people laugh and get into it. And the only people who actually speak up almost invariably ask: "What's this for?" Is it a protest? A festival? A club? Everyone comes to the conclusion that it must be for something. It doesn't occur to most people that 300 people would just dress up as zombies and stomp around town for the hell of it.

From the mall we weaved our way to the Skytrain, where we dutifully validated our FareSavers and mingled with the unsuspecting live people. (The moan turned to "Trrrrraaaiiiiiins.") While waiting at the base of Main Street, a tourist trolley ambled by; it was instantly mobbed by zombies, reaching at the windows and staring hungrily at the astonished tourists.

Finally, we began the long, slow walk uphill. The plan was to meet at a park at 15th and Scotia where another group of zombies were waiting. Then I'd heard two conflicting plans: one where we would go cavort in a park on 8th, another where we would go to the cemetery on 32nd. I'd heard the latter plan was abandoned because it was awfully far, but lo and behold, that's where we went: an hour-long "death march" to the cemetery.

Along the way, everyone stopped to gawk from the safety of their store windows. Brains were eaten. Buses were swarmed at from the ground. Small dogs were made very nervous. A police escort helped direct traffic so that the walking dead were not made even deader. The only real complaint I heard was an angry woman saying to her friend "I didn't appreciate that one grabbing my breast" as the crowd passed her by - unfortunately I guess one zombie got a little out of hand. Not cool.

Once we got to the cemetery everyone either collapsed, or wandered the paths, or both. There didn't seem to be anything planned, so we hung out for a bit and then walked back home, stopping at Hawker's Delight along the way for some excellent Malaysian food and noticing how carefully everyone avoided staring at the three zombies chowing down in the middle of the room.

There was a party afterwards, too... but the place was totally dead. *slaps knee*

Here's a group of photos on Flickr if you're interested. And there's a terrific photo gallery here.