Denver Zombie Crawl gets wild

Bad day at the office. Photo credit: Jess d'Arbonne

Once things really got going at yesterday's Denver Zombie Crawl, the zombie enthusiasts started staggering and moaning to Skyline Park in full character and costume. There were zombies of all imaginable ages and backgrounds, from robot zombies to alien zombies, cheerleader zombies to Super Mario zombies. Prom queen zombies, doctor zombies, Superhero zombies, zombies who'd had a bad day at work, Pope zombies, Otaku zombies, soldier zombies, baseball team zombies... all were welcome.

Not even the very young were safe, as proven when 8-month-old Kayden, in full zombie makeup, with a bone and an eyeball in her bottle, won the children's costume contest. 

But how did the tradition of the Denver Zombie Crawl begin? It all started four years ago when Zombie Crawl organizer, Daniel Newman, decided to do something different for his birthday. Thus the Zombie Crawl was born, with only about 50 zombies in attendance. But the next year it grew, and the third year there were almost 900 zombies, much to the authorities' dismay. This year, Newman decided to make things official. The zombie crawl was legit, complete with city permits and a friendly message from the Denver police: "Best of luck with the undead community. Just make sure there are no real weapons involved." The rest is history.

Stealing the show at this year's Crawl was performer George Peele, whose red leather jacket and pants, curly black wig, zombie makeup, and yellow contacts made him a dead ringer for Michael Jackson in the iconic "Thriller" music video. He was joined by Anthony Le as Ironman-turned-zombie and several other talented, dancing zombies when the music started. Songs like "Monster Mash", "Ghostbusters", "Beat It", and of course "Thriller" filled the air with the sound of zombie moans and the screams of unfortunate victims.

But the highlight of this Zombie Examiner's day was meeting a group of airmen from F.E. Warren Air Force base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. These intrepid airmen came dressed in body armor as zombie hunters, with an intent to kill "as many zombies as possible." Their weapons of choice: the M-16 and the Robocop gun. With so many hungry zombies roaming the downtown area, I was glad to meet a few brave men ready to handle the threat. Here's the portrait of A1C Fried, A1C Cox, Senior Airman LoScalzo, Airman Kauffman, A1C Crosser... and me.

After the "Thriller" dance, the zombies commenced their Crawl up the 16th Street Mall. And that's where the real trouble began...