 "Photo: Ashley Inguanta")
 "Photo: Ashley Inguanta")
Last Saturday, the dead formed a bloody parade, marching through downtown Orlando's streets with one thing in mind: brains.
"Originally in the first 3 years, [the Zombie March] was a semi-political protest against the lack of brains in our government, local, city and state," said Robert A. Sandler, a regular participant and this year's event organizer. "Because who knows more about brains than zombies? But now that Bush is out of office, we're kind of just happy."
A self-proclaimed, hardcore zombie fanatic, Sandler set up the march's Facebook group and recruited many new participants.
Orlando is one of many locations around the world that holds a zombie walk. However, many other places wait until Halloween, Sandler said.
"Most zombie marches are nonprotests, just fun for the sake of zombies," Sandler said.
Now, that's what Orlando's zombie march is focused on: fun.
"It's just done for fun, a fun mock-protest for brains," Bart Jones, the original organizer, said.
Jones paraded the streets dressed in jail attire, bloody teeth and grainy green skin, peeling off to reveal layers of raw flesh. He hovered over a street-sign and moaned. The other zombies flooded the streets around him, grunting and stomping.
Jones, a graduate of Purdue University, started The Orlando Zombie Walk in 2006 when he saw Orlando's Rocky Horror Cast, The Rich Weirdoes, performing. He asked them to participate in this event and bring zombies to Central Florida. They agreed, and that's how it all began.
However, Jones moved to Virginia and gave Sandler the most leadership responsibility. "Jones is still our [group's] brains, so to speak," Sandler said. "He will still come down for the marches, which is very cool."
Michael Erwin, 22, is part of the Rich Weirdoes' cast and marches every year. "I'm just a big horror movie fan," he said. "When I heard the Rocky Horror cast was involved, I just did it."
Erwin wore an old T-shirt and jeans, ripped to shreds and soaked in fake blood. "Cutting out ugly clothes [is how] I get my frustrations out on bad fashion," he said. "My underwear is my favorite part of the costume," he said as he exposed the blood-soaked material.
Before invading Lake Eola, about 50 zombies swarmed the streets of Winter Park near Rollins College earlier that afternoon. Marching that day in Lake Eola were five survivors and ghost busters to keep the zombies in line, zombie dogs and even a zombie baby. Li Jones, who graduated UCF in 2006 with a psychology degree, was the zombie mommy.
"Mommy's a theater nerd and we like to play dress up," Jones said, holding her 3-and-a-half-month-old son Tristan. "This is our first zombie march."
Jones and her son had veins bulging from their foreheads and blood dripping from their mouths. She held Tristan close and he scrunched his nose and squinted his eyes. "Apparently he is a very angry zombie baby," Jones said.
Jenna Hellmuth, a fine arts student at Valencia, became fascinated with zombies three years ago when she got involved with the Rich Weirdoes' cast. She walked with a drag in her step and heavy strides. Her upper body hung limply, back hunched, arms dangling.
Blood dripped from her mouth; her shadowy eyes stared with determination.
"The reactions are the best part," Hellmuth said. "I had a family yell at me real bad, but when they get it, it's good, especially when you get a screamer."
Jessi Riese, a senior theater major at UCF, agreed. "When you get genuine fear from someone, that's the best part," she said.
With a confident, upright stride, Riese raised her eyebrow, exposed her gashed neck, and glared at passers-by. Stitches lined the skin below her yellow lips.
Don Dang, 25, saw the zombies when he came to Lake Eola after dinner for a stroll with his fiancee.
"There was this guy covered in blood in a jail suit, and I was freaked out," he said. "But then I was more intrigued."
One woman, Jeanie Hamilton of Cocoa, stopped her car mid-street to watch the zombies.
"What's going on?" she said. "Why is everyone all dressed?" Then after a few seconds passed, she said, "Everyone looks great!"
The zombies stared at her. Some broke character to explain the march, but most kept their gaze. One of those zombies clutched a blood-soaked floral-patterned dress pierced by a death ray; Itzel Rolan found costume inspiration from the Web-released musical, Dr. Horrible. "The main character kills his love interest, Penny," she said, pointing to her name tag.
"I put my heart and soul into the march," Sandler said. "Now it's just a regular, just for fun thing. We just dress up as zombies and stir up the people."
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9. If you don’t follow all the above rules you will get many many lashes of electrical wire.
10. If you disobey any points of my regulations you must get either ten lashes or five shocks of electrical discharge. They don’t say if you get to choose between lashes or shocks on menu number ten. I believe the question itself would get your order supersized. In any event, you’re not allowed to have any braaaains. Even if our ontological situation, that of living in time, dictates our experience is incomplete and that we will suffer, we can do something instead of nothing. In other words, even if you’re a zombie, be your own fiend. The Incredible Hulk is slave to his rage. Bruce Banner doesn’t want to hurt anybody. It is only after some is warned, “Angry? You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” that most traces of rationality become engulfed by rage. He also turns green. You can’t really know yourself all that well anyway, so make sure your engulfment doesn’t turn you into a rage monster. Remember that charming scarecrow who hung out with Dorothy? He only wanted a brain. The same can be said for Col. Harold E. Fischer, Jr. who died on April 30, 2009 in Las Vegas. Col. Fischer was tortured in a Chinese prison in 1953 and forced to confess to participating in germ warfare. His May 8, 2009 NY Times obituary quotes, “I will regret what I did in that cell the rest of my life. But let me say this: it was not really me – not Harold E. Fischer – who signed that paper. It was a mentality reduced to putty.” This is why we don’t torture people, why we don’t reduce humans to shadows, and why we use zombies to tell stories of our pain. You’re One of Us, You’re One of Us If we have first and third person zombies, what about second? The essence of tribalism is belonging, us-being-together. People all over the world get together for zombiecons, flash-mob-like parties where the living, which is synonymous with undead, get together to have fun pretending they’re zombies. Other people watch traffic at NASCAR rallies, buy Kate Spade bags, or attend klan meetings. (Has anyone noticed that the klan can’t even spell clan.) Environmentalism and recycling are popular now. Composting is the recycling of organic material to grow something new. Are you a part of that tribe? Making zombies, like teaching about being green, is earth-friendly. Why poison the ground with people’s remains? A second person zombie is a member of a tribe that rejects the living world for that of the undead, and they haven’t even been promised a specific number of virgins. Zombies are fun, profane and often sexy. Vampirella, call me; I’m full of blood. So what’s with all the brain-devouring, blood-splattered fiends? Zombie stories are our stories and that’s why they’re human.