Zombie Walk

Last year, Robin, Evan, Scott and your truly participated in the Portland Zombie Walk. However, it wasn't the first zombie walk ever. Living in Canada, people tend to get very bored and very cold. Their frost-bitten malaise needed a remedy and the only way the Kanuks figured it could be done was by braving the -20C weather and going on a walk dressed like zombies. Crazy though they are, those friendly neighbors to the north struck gold with that idea, eh?

Anyway. The 2006 zombie walk had an admirable turnout. I would say approximately 200 people showed up. We meandered through downtown Portland, the highlight being our walk up and down escalators in the Pioneer Place mall - a shopping center that takes itself very seriously. Shop keepers and their snobby patrons didn't know what to make of us, so they immediately whipped out their Motorola RAZRs and called their friends like, "OMG. WTF OMG WTF zombies LMAO WTF OMG."

This year was a spectacle. Eight of us showed up in Pioneer Square about 30 minutes early. Looking around, we saw small lumps of people dressed as zombies, but certainly nowhere near last year's numbers. Not that it mattered, but I silently hoped more zombies would show up. And then they did.

Ten minutes until 6:00 and dozens of zombies started filling Pioneer Square. More and more kept coming until all in all, I would estimate there were at least 500 zombies. There were zombie families, zombie dogs, zombie killers, zombie brides, zombie babies and zombie musicians. There wasn't one kind of zombie missed. My favorite part of the zombie walk, aside from all the people gawking at us lumbering down SW Yamhill, was a man dressed in plain clothes. He held out a stick and at the end tied to a string was a human brain, covered in fake blood. Occasionally, he would wave the stick over a pack of zombies, drawing the inevitable arm reaches and, "BRAAAAAAIIIIINNNNSSSS!!!", from all who were within twenty feet. I almost laughed until I cried.

The plan was to enter Pioneer Place mall once again. A rush of excitement poured over me as we approached the entrance, only to find that this year, they anticipated our arrival and locked the doors. I'm not kidding - they were telling "real" patrons to go to the other side. We could only let them know of our disapproval as zombies would, so we pounded on the doors and shouted, "BRAAAAIIINNSSS!", to those patrons gathered inside.

People played along nicely, too. Some went so far as to jump on the top of their cars and shake purses, cell phones and anything else they could find which could ward off a zombie attack. If it were a real zombie emergency, I'm happy to say that they would have been turned into zombies. We were a force of unnatural nature.

The walk continued on until we reached Burnside, at which time the eight of us decided to call it a day. Zombies get tired, after all.