I have a cold. The reason I have a cold is because I decided to walk for two miles in chilly air with zombie make-up and a bunch of people I didn’t know for a charity event. And do you know what? SO WORTH IT!
Saturday evening I attended the annual Jackson, MI Zombie Walk for the first time. Of course I expected to see a fair amount of people walking around as zombies, and who was I to miss out on the fun? Thank goodness I happened to stumble upon the dreads wig the night before, they kept my head warm.
Anyway, I got to the starting point around 5 p.m. to register for the walk. In case you don’t know, a Zombie walk is essentially a large group of people getting together to walk across a town dressed as zombies, generally for the benefit of a charity. In our case, it was the March of Dimes.
Now, I expected to see zombies. What I didn’t expect was the sheer level of creativity in recreating the dead. I saw everything from a zombie bride to zombie children, and the whole gambit in between. Pregnant zombie? Check. Zombie prom? Check. Zombie family? Check.
Yes, there was even a Zombie Elvis.
When the walk finally started around 6 p.m., we were led by police escort south on Wisner, and all the way down town to the Michigan Theater. There was plenty of groaning and moaning on our parts, while drivers passing by had a great time taking pictures of us. There was the occasional annoyed driver who just wanted us out of the way, but plenty of thrilled and chilled families watching along the route made up for it! The kids were the most fun, squealing and hiding behind their parents.
When we finally made it to the theater, there were prizes to hand out for best zombie group, best zombie kid, scariest zombie, and best overall zombie. Me and my motley crew of strangers-turned-friends went up for the group prize, but no surprise that the Zombie Wenches won that round. The group contest was originally a funniest zombie contest, which I think my new friend would have won, had it gone ahead:
The best overall zombie went to “Falling to Pieces” Zombie (left). Boy did he deserve it, talk about freakish!
But the biggest winner was, of course, the March of Dimes, which received a check written in zombie blood for a whopping $3,304.00, from a combination of our group of Zombie Walkers and the Zombie Fun Run participants. Overall the night was a huge success on all counts.
The MC of the event told everyone to be sure to attend next year, as we would be having a Zombie Olympics! Events like brain-eating contests and shuffling races are sure to draw the crowds, and you can certainly count me in as a now-annual participant. See you next year!
Cara Maib is the zombie-loving product specialist at Discount Party Supplies, who crawled out of her cave to write this guest blog. She is 27 and, when not underground, lives at home with her boyfriend and 2 cats.
