My Life as a Zombie

Looking down the forest trail I can see packs of the living headed my way.  Taking a glance at my fellow zombies in the area we know immediately we need to converge together on the living to find success.  We hide, they come closer, and finally we pounce.  Drats, no success they sprinted away from us in a group and were much harder to catch than I anticipated.  Guess we will just have to improve our tactics for the next bunch headed our way.  I catch my breath after the all-out sprint and prepare.  Hide myself within the deep forest and wait.  Life among the walking dead is harder than I thought.

Not on the movie set of the hit TV show the Walking Dead, I was playing a zombie for the Cross Roads Events 5k Zombie Survival Run this past weekend.  Playing along as zombies were my wife Sherrie, sister in-law Lori, brother in-law Jim, my niece Olivia, her boyfriend Zach, and all of the Page family.   In total we were among 30 zombies trying to catch flags off the belts of participants crazy enough to challenge us. 

The day started at 8:30 AM when we all arrived at Harold’s Beauty Academy for make-up.  It took roughly an hour for the transformation from the living to being a zombie.  Can’t tell you how much fun it was to walk out the door in mass with the full zombie look.  My sister in-law Lori made it a point to roll down the window, stick her head out and yell at strangers as we headed to the start.  Okay, I did it too.  It was just too much fun not to.

When we arrived at the Wabashiki Trail we all walked out together to take our positions.  You should have heard the dogs barking.  Well, until we got close in the group and the tails went between the legs and they walked off.  Some of us zombies took cover in the ditches where the participants had to divert to.  Some were next to multiple obstacles so that if you skipped the obstacle you went head long into a zombie.  The rest of us hid in the forest where they had to find “the cure” to take back to the finish.  If you obtained the cure, and had at least one remaining flag on your belt, you were a survivor. 

After the event I walked back to the parking lot and had a number of participants stop me and asked to have their picture taken with me.  That doesn't happen every day.  The drive home after the event was just as fun as the drive out.  All in all it was so much fun I can’t begin to describe it.  Count me in for next year’s event.
 




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