S.G. Browne

Seattle Zombie Walk Wrap-Up

4000 zombies showed up in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, WA, on Friday, July 3rd to break the Guinness Book of World Records. And yours truly was there to be a part of it.

The event, officially titled the Red, White, & Dead Zombie Party, was put together by Ryan Reiter and his team from the Fremont Outdoor Cinema, who provide “almost” free outdoor movies every summer in Seattle complete with pre-movie entertainment that capitalizes on the theme of that week’s film. An ABBA sing along for Mama Mia. A styling contest for Edward Scissorhands. And with Shaun of the Dead being the third film on this year’s schedule, Ryan decided to do up something big and shoot for the largest zombie walk in the record books.

My part in the event kicked off at Fremont Place Books for a reading and signing of Breathers, which was attended by fifteen or so friends, fans, and local authors, including Seattle scribes Mark Henry and Cherie Priest, who were decked out in their zombie finest. Also attending were surprise guests, Andy and Rita, who stopped by to show their support for zombie rights.

After the reading, I shambled down the street to the set of parking lots where Ryan and the crew from Fremont Outdoor Cinema were in full countdown mode, taking care of final preparations as the horde of zombies waiting to get in stretched down the street and wrapped around the block. When 6pm rolled around, the doors opened and the zombies flooded in, bloodied and rotting and sporting screwdrivers and knives that protruded from chest wounds.

Of course, the problem with having several thousand zombies staggering around waiting for direction is that they can tend to get bored and hungry, so to distract them until they were able to begin their walk, they were treated to a Zombie Fashion Show and the musical offerings from Kyle Stevens of Kirby Krackle Music, who sang such hits as “Naked Wii” and “Zombie Apocalypse.” And for those who wanted to shake their rotting booties, there was a mass “Thriller” tribute dance that was shuffled to by 2000 zombies strong.

There was also a booth set up at the event, courtesy of Fremont Place Books, which sold copies of World War Z, The Zombie Survival Guide, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, and Breathers. Fortunately, quite a number of zombies still have enough brain function to read, so I had the pleasure of meeting some fans and signing their books. Though I did have a couple of people tell me how much they loved World War Z and wanted me to sign it for them. I had to explain that unfortunately, Max Brooks wasn’t able to attend the event.

Finally, around 10pm, once the record-breaking zombie walk had taken place through the streets of the Fremont Street neighborhood, all the remaining zombies pulled out their chairs and blankets and sat down for the screening of Shaun of the Dead. At which point, this zombie went out for a drink with some local friends and then climbed back into my coffin to get some sleep.

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Filed under: Breathers,Travel — Tags: , , — S.G. Browne @ 11:29 am