2012 Asbury Park Zombie Walk

What better way to celebrate October and Halloween then dressing up as a zombie, right? Well that's exactly what we did at the 5th Annual Asbury Park Zombie Walk.

These shenanigans have been going on for the last few years ever since some suburban mom got fed up with boring Halloween costumes in her town every year. So, she decided to get a bunch of friends together, and really, really, really get into the spirit of Halloween by dressing up as the undead and terrorizing her family, friends and neighbors on Halloween night.

Of course, everyone thought it was a brilliant idea, and like...well, a zombie outbreak, thousands now get together in various places around the country every year to do their own Zombie Walk. Whether its the fact that most of Asbury Park already looks like the zombie apocalypse happened or because of the not-quite-right-in-the-head people who frequent the area, Asbury Park is the home of the largest (and possibly only) zombie walk in New Jersey. A few years ago they actually made it into the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest gathering of zombies in the country, and every year they manage to bring more and more people.

This year, we were 5 of 15,000 zombies.

Actually, its a pretty interesting experience. Keeping in mind that if it happens, you will become a zombie no matter what you are doing at the time, and this makes for quite the interesting cross section of the American zombie. Obviously we were the undead Boy Scout Troop, but there were also (in no particular order):

• Elvis
• Girl Scouts
• Ghostbusters
• police
• firemen
• K-9 search and rescue
• Bride & Groom
• American Gothic (the painting)
• chefs
• various characters from zombie and horror films
• mental patients (though I think some of these may have been actual escaped patients)
• Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Christina Aguilera

Well, you get the picture.

Believe it or not, we were the talk of the walk. Everyone wanted to take their picture with us, and I'm not sure if its because we were a complete, cohesive concept of a costume with more than two people, or if its because of the Scout that was with us.

Because what happens when you take the (at least this is the general consensus in the troop) best looking of us all and glue a giant fake bolt on his forehead and cover him in blood?

Apparently, the zombie girls swoon.

But the highlight for me was not the amount of attention we were getting (which I think was great for Scouting as well as the troop) but for the quote of the day: "Boy Scouts!? Awe man, I thought they were supposed to survive this thing!"

Pictures are here.