Zombie-Ness

Today Inverness hosted its first ever 'Zombie-Ness' zombie walk and zombie street game. This was run, it seems, by the city, and was a test-run for adding a zombie-walk to the yearly city summer festivals programme! I love dressing up, monsters and being ghoulish, so had to take part. Several of my friends went too, and I would estimate a couple of hundred people took part.

One of several photos taken by Raven

People seemed to be more amused than scared, and lots of Inverness citizens and visiting tourists alike wanted pictures of us, and with us. Lots of children took part, and quite a few children who weren't taking part and who spotted us thought we were great fun, and I didn't see any children getting scared; I think they understood it was all just fancy-dress. One little boy had a toy gun with a clicker that made a loud "clack" each time he pulled the trigger, so I completely over acted being 'shot' and collapsing in a heap only to lurch up again. The little boy seemed to think this was brilliant and I had to give up falling in heaps because I was going to scuff my knees!

Raven's Zombie selfie... note the "zombeard" and bullet-wound effects

The aim of the street game was to look for people designated as "zombie food" who registered, but were not in costume. People who were "zombie food" were given green wrist-bands and if they encountered a zombie, the zombie had to high-five them and that person was now 'infected' and had to go to the Zombie-Ness head-quarters where a team of theatrical make-up artistis from Eden Court would give them zombie make-up. I came as a zombie, but went to the Zombie-Ness make-up crew for a touch-up because my fake blood was faded, my make-up a bit tired from all the fun, and I also had room on me for more decay, so they fixed up my face with more fake blood and added rot and sores to my arms. Raven came as "zombie food" but got caught by a zombie, so got a zombie make-over, including bullet-wounds to the head - it seems that the usual means of zombie slaying ("aim for the head") does not work on Highland zombies! 

Raven's Photo of me in the cafe on our break from 'zombing'

B., whom I know from my previous job, made a wonderful platter with a plastic 'brain' under a scalp-cap, and was wandering around as a zombie waiter, which was brilliant. He is also a fan of dressing up, especially when it comes to spooky costumes (and always does something utterly amazing for Halloween) so I expected to see him there. My friend Victoria and her friend Lauren both came as zombie brides, and did rather fabulous costumes for those. Another friend came as a zombie school-girl (moaning "homework suuuuuuucks!" in the slurred growl of the undead) and I went as a zombie Goth (despite being more of a punky Goth than deathrocker today, I made plenty of 'deathrocker/deadrocker' and 'undeathrocker' puns. I just had to!) and I saw a zombie 'policeman' and a little boy zombie on a skateboard. 

We had a great day out, both with the street game and zombie walk, and with meeting up with good friends. I look forwards to more zombies next year, hopefully with even more participants! 

There are more photos from today that were taken, but I have not heard back from the other people in them as to whether I can post them on my blog yet. There may well be an edit of this post in the next few days with extra photographs!