#51 Zombie Lab: Let’s All Go to the Museum!

Hi! Yes! I’ve been away for a while. I don’t want to go into details, but it turns out there was a completely unrelated apocalypse that coincidentally was due to happen on the same date as the supposed “Mayan” apocalypse. The only person who knew how to avert it was Bing Crosby, who concealed clues to the only hope to mankind’s salvation in the lyrics of several of his biggest hits.

Anyway, long story short, I managed to avert the rise of the Spider Clowns, but then I was stranded in Reykjavik and it took me three months to hitch hike back to somewhere with Internet access. It wasn’t that far to travel, I’m just very unappealing to drivers.

But I’m not here to talk about that, there are much more interesting things for us to discuss.

So let’s talk about museums. I love a good museum. Whenever friends come to visit me in Norwich I’m always keen to recommend that they visit our famous Teapot Museum, then they ask if I’m being sarcastic and I say “No, I’m not being sarcastic. Why?”

One place that has a lot of museums is London, and among my favourite museums there in the Science Museum because, frankly, it has lots of planes and a lunar module and I think that’s cool. (Also cool: Novelty teapots).

This week the science museum is combing two things I love (Science. Museums.) with something else I love (Zombies) to bring about the Science Museum Zombie Lab. The Zombie Lab is going to take place over this Wednesday evening (January 30^th, 6:45pm to 10pm) and Saturday and Sunday afternoons (February 2^nd/3^rd, 12pm to 5pm).

I’m going to be there, and all of you should be there too. Here are a few of things you ought to expect:

Games and Activities

Zombie Costume Competition

Exactly what it says on the tin. Come dressed as a zombie on Wednesday evening, and if people are convinced enough that you’re a shambling corpse they’ll give you a prize. Or hit you in the head with a shovel. It depends.

Quarantine

This one looks fun- the idea is that the zombie safe house doors will be slamming shut in ten minutes, and you have to prove you aren’t a zombie by completing a number of tasks.

Horde
Remember that bit in Shaun of the Dead where they try and navigate through a horde of zombies by groaning and shuffling? Zombie LARP regulars among our readers may remember this account of why we’re not longer allowed to do that in game.

Well collective behaviour experts Edd Codling and Nikolai Bode of the University of Essex will be looking to test just how good a zombie you can be in what they’re describing as a “predator-prey” game.

The Trial

This is my personal favourite activity at the event, purely on the grounds that I helped write some of the support materials for it. Yep, Mary and Grant (or Serious Business to give them their official name) the minds behind Zombie LARP and the Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter live game we reported on last year, have come up with a new creation. Since, sadly, the Science Museum was apparently unwilling to let us charge headlong around the museum firing Nerf guns at one another, they have instead constructed a post-post-apocalyptic world, where the tide is just beginning to turn against the zombies, a cure for the disease has been discovered and society is beginning to rebuild.

People will be asked to take part in the Community Jury Initiative to answer two fundamental questions- are the cured zombies legally responsible for all those people they ate? And should those who didn’t get infected be held responsible for all those zombies they killed? The answers may not be as straight-forward as you think...

UPDATE: You can find out much more about The Trial here.

Talks

I’ve written about the zombie apocalypse being used to examine real life issues so many times here you’re probably bored of reading about it, but the Zombie Lab will feature a number of talks that do just that. Daniel Bor (University of Sussex), David Papineau (Kings College London) and author and games writer Naomi Alderman will be talking over whether zombies are conscious as a way of examining what consciousness is. Another talk will look at possible causes of a zombie apocalypse, because there aren’t enough things to be terrified of in the world.

Films

There will also be a special showing of the zombie romance Warm Bodies, which we’ll probably have to get round to reviewing for this site sooner or later.

And that is just scratching the surface (which I’m sure could be worked into a zombie pun, but it’s late and I’ve got some other stuff to write, so you’ll have to come up with that one yourselves). Have a look here to see the full list of stuff the Science Museum is going to have on over the festival, and I’ll see you there!http://zombielarp.co.uk/

#50 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: Vampire Hunter Club Live

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably been drooling in anticipation at the release of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter on DVD, the movie of the book written by that guy who thought of taking public domain works of literature and making money by inserting the word “zombie” into every other sentence.

You may even have heard of the press event launched to promote the DVD, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter: Vampire Hunter Club Live, a game put together by the minds behind our favourite Zombie LARP. Regular readers will be familiar with my previous zombie LARP adventures, from my heroic death during the tragic tale of Team Scavenger, to our first doomed foray into Station Zero at the Friar’s Walk Mall, to the Zombie LARP Christmas Carol, where we learned that Morris dancers are apparently way more badass than any of us thought likely, in such a way that some narrow-minded people may believe, ahem, completely broke the game.

But that was all a long time ago. This time, rather than assembling yet another team of doomed comrades and leading them to their death, I joined the staff at the event, playing one of the evil vampires that were being hunted. As a result I was given food and travel expenses that were ultimately paid for by Fox, so I’ve finally sold out and everything I say from here on in is probably suspect.

Grant Howitt, one of the game designers behind this and Zombie LARP, has already written an excellent blog post on the things he learned designing and running the game. And Alex Hern has already written an article for the New Statesman on his experiences playing a vampire hunter, and we have no wish here to duplicate content already provided by that fine publication.

So today I’m going to tell you some of the things I learned as a vampire, intermingled with a couple of player stories we’ve received from some LARP virgins.

Vampire Lesson One: Talking With Fangs Is Really Hard (And A Bit Racist)

The whole point in being a vampire is that you receive eternal life, superior strength and otherworldly beauty, but that it comes at a terrible cost. Many vampire stories are vague about just what that cost is (Do you really believe in a soul anyway?). Well, having walked in a vampire’s shoes I can tell you what that cost is, and it’s not worth it.

Eternal life, eternal beauty is great, but trying to do that with two massive prosthetic fangs crowding the front of your mouth completely ruins the whole thing. After I’d had my make-up applied and my teeth glued in I discovered to my horror that becoming a dark creature of the night meant I could no longer pronounce my Rs or my Ss. My speech had taken a form that was hideous, and yet somehow familiar. Before long it dawned on me. In my efforts to speak clearly with those fangs in my mouth, I was apparently doing some sort of weird Fu Manchu style Chinese accent.

I spent the remainder of my preparation time before the game saying “The rain in Spain falls mostly on the plains” in a desperate attempt to learn how to speak normally in case any Asians turned up to the game.

Interlude: The story of Ryan Sullivan

I had a great time at the Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter Live Vampire Hunt (ALVHLVH).

I had no idea what to expect when I arrived. All I knew was I wanted to get my hands on a weapon and head out on the first expedition. I didn't have to wait long until a shotgun was put in my hands and a brave doctor - discernible by his white lab coat - was leading an exploratory mission out into the dark.

After checking the several small rooms we passed, didn't want to fall victim to a simple ambush on the first outing, we arrived on the Dancefloor; which would become one of the bloodiest battlefields of the evening. Here we found a solitary vampire who retreated before our awe-inspiring awesomeness. So we gave chase to the little hellspawn!

This is when I had my first lesson in "don't underestimate a vampire." He'd lured us right back to the nest of vampires. One had turned to eight. We beat a hasty retreat to the Dancefloor and the battle began. I quickly ran out of ammo and had to abandon my team-mates temporarily to reload. This action was noticed by a bystander and my bravery, or lack thereof, was quickly pointed out to me.

Once I was rearmed I returned to the fight and helped to save a fallen comrade and dispense of the undead horrors. We returned to the safe house as heroes, laying waste to four of the vampire scorn. That was only the beginning.

A plan was forged by Leo, the maker of plans. We were to plant a bomb in the heart of the vampire nest and cleanse this place of their foul stench once and for all. My ammunition had long been spent and I went onto the battlefield armed with nothing but a single bandage to aid any injured companions. It was terrifying, the feeling of complete vulnerability.

Soon a brawl broke out and I pulled a man from the front lines to administer the aid I could, lest he fall to the dark host and become one of them. My comrade had dropped his weapon in the commotion and the demons were close to swiping it. I wrestled it away from their cold dead hands and looked in awe upon the Axe of Abraham Lincoln. It was glorious.

With our forefather's axe in hand and Leo's excellent plan, victory was assured. Our group was separated by a last ditch ambush from the vampires but they were too late and they knew it. We closed the door on the safehouse to hear the explosion boom above us. It was over. The night was safe once more.

Vampire Lesson Two: People Don’t Object To Being Sent Into Certain Death As Much As You’d Think

The Vampire Hunter game took place in two sessions, with two very different and distinct feels. The first game could be best described as, well, a total and utter blood bath. The players swarmed out into the abandoned nightclub, armed with NERF shotguns or, as Zombie LARP veterans call them “No way are you sending me out there with one of those, I want to try and make it through this game alive!”

We did our best to give them a fighting chance, but before long the vampires found ourselves surrounded by Thralls, the unwilling, brainwashed slaves we’d made of murdered vampire hunters. Thralls are discernible by several qualities. First, the red bandage wrapped around their arm to signify their allegiance to the undead. Two, that they are totally useless in a fight unless you can procure a weapon for them. Three, that although they’ve fallen in battle, they’re still paying to be here, so despite being your army of obedient minions, you also have to make sure they’re having fun.

With so many dead, many vampires soon found themselves with far too many thralls under their command, and it was hard to give them all fascinating and engaging tasks to do. So when in doubt it wasn’t uncommon to tell them to just charge head on into a front line of axe wielding survivors. What was quite spooky though, was the sheer enthusiasm the thralls seemed to have for what would inevitably turn out to be a short and sticky death (especially given the fact that seriously, players never, ever, ever learn to pull their blows).

Interlude: The Tale of Rebecca Cosgriff of Books Becca Buys

Having never before attended a 'livegame', I wasn't quite sure what to expect when me and my (coerced) friend turned up to Islington Metal Works. I wasn’t massively reassured when I was ushered inside amongst some leather-clad compatriots to sign a liability waver.

Only slightly deterred, we congregated inside the main room of the metalworks (furnished with a rather fetching faux train carriage/burger van) to hear the welcoming speech from our hosts, Serious Business. Promptly informed that we were not to expect mere immersive theatre but a live action horror game to solve and participate in (cue clammy hands), we were let loose with strict instructions to hit only from the chest down and try not to seriously maim anyone.

What followed was at least 30 minutes of general standing about feeling confused and, if I’m honest, a bit left out. Some people had obviously attended similar events before and got straight down to de-coding baffling messages strewn around, and volunteering to take the limited weapons on a scouting mission. Those of us not so sure of ourselves were left behind with nothing to do and no weapons to brandish for quite some time. I understand that this sort of game involves proactivity but it would have been nice if some of the cast members had engaged with those of us obviously standing around looking baffled, and ensured that everyone had a turn being led through the labyrinthal metalworks on an mission (my group were selected to get nuked up and taken out into the field, only to get forgotten about and left, tempted to give up the ghost and just order a burger).

With only about 30 minutes to go my friend and a couple of other lost souls decided to just go for it, grabbed a weapon from a cast member and got involved. I have to say it was a lot of fun, despite stubbing my toe and screaming, in a way that would have made Buffy turn in her grave (before being hastily resurrected), trying to run away from the hissing, prosthetic-clad un-dead. We managed to merge with a more experienced group and I was soon responding to frantic calls for “MEDIC” and bashing away at some poor(presumably) underpaid actresses with a foam axe. Bliss.

The whole thing struck me as a terrifying medium between Secret Cinema and the London Bridge Experience, and all in all I had a good laugh and met some nice people. But my experience would have been much more positive with a bit better organisation, a few more (working) weapons and some effort to include people not so sure of themselves, or at least introduce some ‘getting to know you’ activities before things kick off so the n00bs can team up with the pros.

I can’t say I’m a live action simulation convert, but I definitely would consider giving it another bash (literally) when the Serious Business has a bit more experience.

Vampire Lesson Three: It Is Mankind That Is The Real Monster

The second game had fewer players, but more alarmingly, they got organised. Where’s in the last game if Grant and Mary wanted to shit the players up they just had to send a couple of us running and screaming into the safe room to watch them scatter and panic, this time we’d run into the safe room to meet a barrage of NERF darts and axe-blows.

Listening to the referees and the human NPCs we kept hearing how terrified the players were, but as a vampire you would see only death. Instant, violent death.

And then came my moment to shine.

One of the elements Grant and Mary had added to Vampire Hunter to differentiate it from Zombie LARP was the introduction of Interrogations. A vampire would be dragged kicking and screaming into the safe room, tied to a chair and questioned for valuable information that the players would need to progress. As a vampire you were given two pieces of information, and a “trigger” that would cause you to spill everything.

My compatriot in previous LARPs, Alina, for instance, played an agile, parkour-esque vampire who would tell you everything if you threatened to damage her legs. Within seconds of being taken into the room someone had chopped off one of her legs and she sang like a canary.

We assumed the players had done their research, and so I was looking forward to seeing what would happen when I went in. The interrogator dragged me into the safe room, and before I was even tied to the chair... they started hacking my legs off. Now this wasn’t my trigger, so I just had to limp over to the chair and continue the interrogation, and throughout I was slashed at, had things chopped off, and threatened.

But worst of all was the look in their eyes. People who I’m sure I’d love to meet socially were clearly really, really enjoying the torture. Like, a lot.

When they finally got all the information they could from me, I was brutally killed and tossed back out into the corridor, and I don’t mind admitting it was something of a relief.

When this blog started we used to play a regular drinking game of apocalyptic movie tropes, one of which was “mankind is the real monster”.

It is my friends. It definitely is.

Thanks to Lynsey Smith for letting me use her photos of the event. See the whole gallery here.

#33 A Christmas Zombie LARP Carol

Yes, it's time for yet another Zombie LARP blog! You can read about my previous LARPing adventures  here and here. Also, thanks go to Oliver Facey who took a lot of the photos you see here and Thomas Greenwood, who took our Morris dancer's team photo. You can also read my guest blog What I Learned by Actually Role-Playing at Zombie LARP over at the zombie LARP website.

It was a cold winter night and I was ready for a peaceful night’s sleep. I had put on my Super Ted pyjamas, and had read a bedtime story to Mr Fluffy Duck. The two of us were spooning up, waiting for slumber to take us, when suddenly the windows blew open and I noticed a gaunt and terrifyingly pale figure looming over the foot of my bed.

The figure, a sallow waste of a human being, raised a single, quavering finger towards me and intoned “Christopher! MEND YOUR WAAAAAYS!”

“Tom?” I asked, started. “Is that you? The Hello Bear bassist plus regular punching bag and butt monkey for my apocalyptic fiction blog?”

“Indeed, it is I, back from the grave with a terrible warning!” Tom groaned. “Also, I really wish you’d stop introducing me like that. I mean, I thought we were friends dude.”

“You’re not dead. I mean, at all. How did you get into my room?” I asked. “Is this about that photo of you looking like a chimp that I keep trying to get to the top of your Google results?”

This picture.

“Question me not!” Tom boomed. “Tonight you will be visited by three spirits. Mend your ways! Mend your ways! Mend yoooouur waaaaaaays...” he said, drifting back through the curtains.

I sat, alone in the darkness except for Mr Fluffy Duck.

“Are you still behind the curtains?” I asked the darkness.

“No,” said Tom.

I lay back in bed, trying to get some sleep and ignore Tom’s mouth breathing from behind the curtain. And that was when the first ghost visited me...
Later that evening I was woken by a sinister looking black man standing at the foot of my bed.

“I am the Ghost of Zombie Christmas Past!” declared the apparition.

I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes and said, “Really? I mean without even beginning to dissect the phrase “Ghost of Zombie Christmas”- That’s what you decided to go with? Not its origins in vampire myths, or the fear of the great plagues, but plantation owners worries about Haitian Vodou?”

The sinister looking black man said nothing. He simply waved a hand, and the vision began...

Jingle All the Way

By the head of the Friar’s Mall Morris Men
The 34^th annual performance of the Friar’s Mall Morris Men was, on balance, not the most successful of our annual performances. The turnout was lower than it had been in previous years, several of our number had unfortunately passed away in the days leading up to the dance, and an attempt by some company called BioFlex to introduce a new holiday had unfortunately the mall had been taken over by a vicious horde of undead cannibals.

We found ourselves allied with a band of heavily armed survivalists. Now the Friar’s Mall Morris Men have played some pretty tough crowds in our time, but these guys seemed particularly reluctant to be saddled with a people dressed in ribbons and bells who made a habit of shouting “Hey Nonny Nonny!” at inappropriate moments.

Talking amongst ourselves we decided that, despite our best intentions, Morris dancing was not actually ideally suited to a combat situation. All we could do was wait until the right moment, then draw the horde towards us with our highly choreographed pagan fertility rituals.

The plan to nobly sacrifice ourselves to save our fellow men failed however, due to one crucial flaw.

It turns out Morris dancing is fucking badass.

This

Bad

Ass.

Somehow the four of us made it out alive, and went on to have a very merry Christmas...

As the image wobbled and faded away, I looked up at the Ghost of Zombie Christmas Past and said “I really don’t get the point in that... Why were they Morris dancing at Christmas? Isn’t that more of a May Day thing? I really don’t see what I’m supposed to be learning here. It’s almost as if this is some sort of poorly constructed framing device your using to crowbar in a bunch of Zombie LARP stories...”

But the Ghost of Zombie Christmas Past was already gone.

I tried to return to sleep, but as I turned over in bed I was disturbed by wafting smoke crawling across the room, I coughed and sat up, to see the smoke begin to clear. In the midst of it sat a kindly looking old man with a white beard and a greying ponytail.

“George A. Romero? You’re the Ghost of Zombie Christmas present?”

George nodded sagely.

“But you’ve not made a decent zombie movie since 2005... and haven’t made a truly great one since 1985...”

“You shut up!” George Romero said, and blew of a cloud full of cigar smoke into my face.

Thus begun the second vision...
A Very Corporate Christmas
By the CEO of Organiflex

Organiflex is one of the leading companies in the applications biochemical, genetic, nanotechnological and occult technology in the fields of military, industry, cosmetics and nutrition, matched only by the Bioflex corporation in terms of market penetration and Presidential campaign contributions. Often, our two firms have worked well together.

Following notable outbreaks of so-called “zombie” outbreaks, we collaborated to put forward the case that the best way to avoiding apocalyptic pandemics of undead cannibals is to reduce the restrictive regulations on the industry and let the invisible hand of the market prevent the total collapse of all human civilisation.

That said however, we have often objected to the non-competitive practices BioFlex has engaged with, in terms of the subsidies it has received from several governments and world religions, and have lobbied heavily against them while encouraging prudent investment in Organiflex products.

This approach has seen an impressive payoff, and so I saw fit to reward my top staff with a weekend of corporate team building at the Friar’s Walk Mall. Among my staff was Alina Sandu, my Resource Utilization Consultant, Matthew Barnes, our Envisioneer, and the new office boy and corporate butt monkey whose name I can’t remember off the top of my head.

This picture won't make it into his google results

No sooner had we arrived at the mall and begun some healthy bonding exercises based around the murder of zombies, when we discovered our long-established rivals, BioFlex, still had a recruitment office operating in the mall.

I took a unilateral decision and decided that the Christmas team-building exercise should experience and paradigm shift into more a hostile takeover exercise. We headed straight over to the recruitment office, carrying a heavy machine gun, and explained how the optimum use of BioFlex resources would be in the realisation of core Organiflex directives.

Unfortunately our utilisation of heavy firepower was disrupted by a band of boy scouts trying to get something called a “pacifism” badge. I explained that Alina had killed boy scouts before, but the scouts were pretty resolute.

As it turned out, there was no need to take out the BioFlex representative, he willingly told us about their project to give over a set of three “White Knights” (products highly derivative of Organiflex’s own “Bright Nite” project) to an apparition known as a “Nightmare” that had taken up residence on the top floor of the Mall.

By Matt Barnes, Organiflex’s “Envisioneer”
"When we've delivered the 'toys', what's to stop these nightmares just eating us?" I asked

"Erm, nothing really." the recruiter cheerfully told us.

Well at least that was now out in the open.

Taking down the White Knight was actually easier than I'd expected, largely thanks to Alina's fully automatic machine gun which she could barely lift, but couldn't half tear through zombie flesh (for a few seconds at least, before it ran out of ammo). We then confiscated his axe and began dragging him upstairs to the nightmares' lair.

I'd now like to introduce you to the most terrifying monsters I've ever had the pleasure to encounter. They're dressed all in red, have horrible bloody masks on, and they DON'T DO ANYTHING. We arrived with our prize, and they stood there, leaving us alone, and cheerfully beckoning us in through a child-sized gap into the murky playpen. Call me paranoid, but there was no way in a million years I was going to go through that gap.

By the CEO of Organiflex
After surveying the situation and observing the overall emotional climate, it was decided a tactical market withdrawal was the best way forward. By this point many of the undead were beginning to gather and I regret to say my staff didn’t rise as well to this occasion as I would have liked- I was forced to kill three zombies with my own gun. The zombies on the other hand, performed admirably, and I left my business card with one of them.

We continued into the bowels of the mall, but soon found ourselves circling around to the children’s play area where the Nightmares were still in residence.


By Matt Barnes
My next encounter with one came a few minutes later, as I came down the main stairwell and suddenly found myself face-to-face with that familiar smiling mask. After warily circling each other a couple of times, it intoned, "Do you like games? What's your favourite game?"

Too nervous to summon a clever, witty, or indeed any answer, I waited for his next move. He stepped slightly towards me.

"Do you like... RUNNING AND SCREAMING??"

I didn't need any more encouragement than that, and I set off as fast as my little legs could carry me into the main hallway and past several zombies too slow-moving to come near me at this point. Just when I thought it might be safe to check behind me and slow down, I could suddenly hear running footsteps behind me and the cry of "Yay! Running and screaming!"

By the CEO of Organiflex
As Matthew ran screaming into the darkness, I reflected up on the fact that I’d always been a little unsure of him as employee. He didn’t adhere to the dress code as well as I’d have liked, and didn’t really seem to “Feel the win” as I always encouraged my team to do.

I turned to Alina and suggested that OrganiFlex had been in need of some downsizing for a while now. We turned around and calmly walked away in the other direction.

Rather surprisingly we found Matthew alive and well later. I reluctantly rehired him, and we headed back to the BioFlex recruitment centre. I arrived in, I will admit, an aggravated state. I pulled my pistol on the BioFlex employee, asked why he hadn’t warned us just what the Nightmares were like. At this point, I decided the time for collaboration had ended. I took his desk, and providing what I like to think was the calm, confidence-inspiring leadership that has always been my hallmark.

As I surveyed the room, I noticed a certain young go-getter who reminded me of a young me.
 
By Dave the Plumber (Of The Zombie Shop)
I switched on the camera we use for the drainage an' that and point it at Jimmy.

"How you feelin' about this?" I ask.

He shifts, all agitated like.  "A bit nervous to be honest with you Dave. I've had easier jobs." He looks worried. "To tell you the truth, the blockage in the basement is gonna be a bit of a bugger to clear."

"Too right!" I says, as one of them groaning freaks comes barrelling at us.

We sprint, ending up in a crowd in one the HR geezer's offices.

A posh bloke in a suit trots up and gives me his card.

"I think I like you son,” he told me.

"Alright fella." I tells him. "You need anything sorted; you give Jimmy an' me a shout mate."

All of a sudden things go mental. People runnin' and scream' all over the shop, well messy.

"Jimmy... what we gonna do?" I ask.

Jimmy swings a sawn-off and yells. "We'll give 'em both barrels. Wallop. Sorted!"

"Effing wallop mate." I agree, hefting a crowbar.

"Like you an' me sister last night," adds Jimmy "I heard you mate..." He winks. "I was on yer Mum."

"Cheeky slapper!" I says. "Let's get out of here. Anyone seen Mr Farnell?"

By the CEO of Organiflex
As news that an escape route had opened up spread through the office, people began to flee, including several members of staff I’d thought better of. I realised it was time for me to leave as well, but before I left there was one, crucial task remaining. I turned to the Bioflex representative and asked. “So, we don’t really need you anymore?”

“Well, I don’t know about that...” he prevaricated, as the zombies began to close in on the door of the office.

I drew my pistol and shot him in the stomach, before turning and running. Sadly, in taking the time to eliminate my company’s competition, I had given the zombies too much time to get close. A swipe to my shoulder knocked me to the ground, and the horde enveloped me entirely.

“Wait! Stop!” I cried out, and for a moment, they actually did. I pulled a cigar out of my pocket and popped into my mouth, savouring the taste. “There,” I said, satisfied. “Bring it.”

The image faded as the corporate CEO was ripped apart by slathering monsters, I turned to George A. Romero, confused, and asked, “Was that supposed to be satire?... I mean, it wasn’t exactly subtle was it? It made Land of the Dead look underplayed...

George Romero blew another puff of cigar smoke into my face, and disappeared in a sulk.

I stood, alone in my room, waiting for the final ghost to appear. When nothing happened I climbed into bed... when suddenly a Rage infected zombie leapt through the curtains and ran at me. I jumped from the bed and legged it down the landing, the running zombie hot on my tail, only just making it as far as my apartment building’s lift, as the door shut on the zombies greasy, gore stained fingers, the third and final vision began...

The (slightly less than) 12 Deaths of Christmas
As I watched I saw many a heroic demise as an evil looking creature stalked the halls of Friar’s Walk Mall. I tall, dark figure, dressed in black and white and carrying knifes as long as your arm. Bullets simply bounced off him as if they were made of foam, many a poor soul died at his blades.

I myself on two occasions was so overcome by fear that I fled my own team mates to hide in silence in the dark corners of the mall, praying for the creature to pass. Meanwhile, elsewhere there were players in the dark for an entirely different reason...

 

By Matt Barnes
I had a special event for this run - when I (inevitably) died, I was to come back to life with my eyes gouged out and completely unable to see. Tying a blindfold around my head for verisimilitude, I crept through one of the dark corridors, hoping the first thing I came across was still alive.

As luck would have it, he was, and I clung onto his arm. "Don't worry, I'll guide you through", the disembodied voice assured me. He led me along a bit, and I could tell from the light coming through by blindfold that we must be moving back out into the main hallway.

"Sorry about this", the man mumbled to me under his breath.

"Sorry about what?" I was about to ask, when he shoved me forwards, shouted "Everyone eat him, he's blind!" and ran off into the distance.

As it happened, I miraculously stumbled all the way into a safe room, and in the hope of finding a slightly more reliable guide, asked "is there anyone alive in here?"

There was a few seconds of silence, and then a very emphatic:

"Nope."

"Not us."

"Definitely no-one alive round here."

I didn't survive that run. Can't think why.

By Tarnia Mears
“Well, Father Flexmas doesn't have any concept of good or bad, you see,” chirped the Bioflex employee, “just sort of, alive or dead.”

That's how it started, really. Twelve of us crowded into a small office, demanding to know the whereabouts of the nearest escape route from a man who - given the apocalyptic circumstances - seemed remarkably unperturbed. As it turns out, the exit was not only being blocked by a growing mass of shambling walking dead, but also by the nest of Father Flexmas, Bioflex's latest experimental psychopath. He'd set up camp by the main doors and, whilst he lived, we were trapped. To kill him, we were told, we would have to trick him into eating silver tinsel. Black is his favourite, but were we to mix it with enough silver, he would become poisoned and die.

We searched the complex. One piece of silver tinsel found its way to Flexmas' lair, but we needed more. After nearly an hour of searching, all we had to show for it was a string of black. “If you give that to Father Flexmas,” someone had told me previously, “he will spare your life.”

“If Father Flexmas kills you while you have it,” someone else told me, “he will destroy your soul.”

I don't know who was with me when we left the basement. I had the black tinsel in one hand and led the group into the dim light of the first floor. Father Flexmas was waiting. A tall, round, masked man wearing black robes and a bloody apron, dual-wielding butchers knives. The party split, screaming, and the only thing I could do was throw the black tinsel at his feet. He stopped. “Ah ha ha HA!” He picked it up, and began to walk away in the direction of the main exit – in the direction of his lair.

“We need to kill him, we need to kill him now.” No-one heard me. They were all running in the opposite direction. I might have followed, had I not then seen, leaving C&A, a zombie grasping two long strands of silver tinsel. I beat the creature to the floor and tugged the tinsel from its arms. There were more of them behind me. A White Knight joined them. I was alone. I dodged its axe and hit it back with a hammer, which gave me enough time to sprint towards the still-retreating Flexmas. Near his nest, littered with Christmas lights, was another ball of silver tinsel, a remnant of some other brave soul who didn't quite make it. I picked it up and began to yell. Father Flexmas had reached his nest, but before he could turn around, I grabbed him by the neck, and forced the wads of tinsel down his throat.

“EAT IT, FLEXMAS,” I screamed, “EAT IT!”

He struggled, and wailed – a terrifying, echoing sound – but soon, he was silent. The zombies were upon me, then. I tried to fight, but the White Knight was back, and I knew then that I was finished.

Still, I had done it. I had killed Father Flexmas. When I fell, I landed on his corpse. The tannoy was playing Silent Night as my eyes closed for the final time. Sleep, in heavenly peace... rest in heavenly peace.

I watched as Tarnia lay dying on the floor of the mall. Then, miraculously, I was back in bed again.

“It was all a dream!” I shouted gleefully jumping out of bed. “I’ve learned some sort of non-specific moral! I will change my ways!”

I ran to the window, throwing the curtains open, ready to give Christmas spirit everywhere. The Norwich skyline was burning, and screams could be heard as people ran through the street before being torn apart by half decomposed monsters. I went back to bed.


Merry Christmas Everybody!

#27 Zombie LARP II: Tales from Station Zero

Friar’s Walk, Reading, used to be a shopping mall. Harassed mothers would do their last minute Christmas shopping there, nervous graduates would shop around for their first Interview Suit, teenagers would shoplift from the Claire’s Accessories. Not anymore though. Now there is no Claire’s Accessories.

Because in Friar’s Walk, everybody died. Usually more than once. Now it is a dark place, a quiet place, a graveyard of empty shop fronts, disused kitchenettes, and a tragically unused jungle gym.

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

But as you stand there, in the dark, if you listen carefully you can hear whispers. Because is Friar’s Walk the walls tell stories.

Stories about the massive Zombie LARP game that went on there last weekend.

These are those stories.

Long-time readers will have already read about my last Zombie LARP adventure. There was one survivor.

This time around, most of the team was reunited. Myself, Alina Sandu and Matt Barnes were ready for action with a couple of important additions- One, Tom Harvey, Hello Bear bassist and our blog’s absolute favourite buttmonkey joined the team, as I felt it was important to have a red shirt character we could kill off easily and without remorse.

I'm not going to stop posting this picture until it's the top of Tom Harvey of Hello Bear's google results.

Secondly, and somewhat more impressively, we had Ninjas.

Somehow Alina is still the scariest person there.

Our team was assigned the moniker 2B, so we hilariously always referred to ourselves as Team 2B or Not 2B, because I insisted on it and never, ever got tired of that joke. I still haven’t.

The following game featured four hour-long runs. The rules were simple- Find eight batteries, plug them into the radio, then run for the roof where the “helicopter” would come and rescue us. Each run would begin with a quarter of the players as slow moving Romero zombies, and the rest as survivors. Personally, I thought this was stupid. One of the little suspension-of-disbelief tricks we always pull watching zombie movies, is accepting that groaning, slow-moving corpses are only that deadly in large numbers. Clearly a minority of these against an intelligent, fast moving and organised majority of humans would be quickly wiped out.

Run One

Our team was murdered pretty much instantly. I died screaming in the jungle gym.

This was a common story, but the human spirit prevails, and other teams fared better than hours, as survivor Anthony White’s video testimony proves:

Zombie LARP - Station Zero from Antony White on Vimeo.

Against adversity, the humans were able to unite, make a brave stand and escape, even though our team was completely... wait a second. What’s this?

Something isn't right here...

There, looking extremely cheerful considering that all his friends are dead, is Hello Bear bassist and blog buttmonkey Tom Harvey, right there among the people who made it out.

Outraged, I tracked down Tom Harvey, and made him account for his actions. His words, if you can believe them, are printed right here:


Testimony from Tom (Butt Monkey) Harvey

I soon found myself alone and bewildered, with no ammunition. Time passed, and the zombie hordes grew considerably. I was aimlessly wandering about, attempting to find other survivors, and to assist in collecting the precious batteries. I had been imformed that only one more was required in order to summon the helicopter. I casually strolled into a large room across from the childrens play area, and straight into the eyeline of a prowling white knight. This was not good. I had no ammunition, and no backup.

Okay, for those of you who don’t know, a White Knight is a cross between Rorschach from Watchmen, and Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining.

Believe it or not, he is an alcoholic author and house-sitter.

So ensued a small game of cat and mouse around the pillars. However, the white knight allowed me just enough time to sprint away, and to safety. Unfortunately, in my haste, I ran straight into a large puddle of water. Suddenly I was running without having any forward acceleration whatsoever. The White Knight was metres away from me when I somehow managed to find some purchase, the shock of which caused me to stumble. Using my now useless gun to steady myself, I ran to safety, at least, for the time being.


The time following this terrifying incident is mainly blurry, but I imagine it mainly involved cowering and whimpering. My memory kicks in back in that same room, this time escaping a large horde of the undead. For reasons unknown, I stopped in my tracks for the briefest of moments, which allowed me to spot and collect the final battery. This was brilliant, I had a chance of surviving! Oh wait, there's a fuck tonne of zombies bearing down on me....forgot about that. My days were surely numbered, there was no escape.

However, my knight in shining armour arrived, in the form of a skull adorned ninja. We were being backed into a corner, but the opportuniy to escape somehow arose - a gap had formed, I merely had to make a break for it. It was then that I bravely ran away, leaving my ninja companion to distract the zombies long enough for me to safely navigate my way out and into the dark stairwell. I would like to say that this was pre-agreed with my stealthy ally. In reality, I believe the conversation was somewhere along the lines of "Sorry mate, I'm gonna have to leg it.....good luck". Unfortunately, he did not survive, but I did, so all was well with the world. My next aim was to safely return the battery to the saferoom....but where the fuck was I?


I found a small band of survivors, and attempted to communicate, with clarity, that I had the final battery in my possession. Admittedly this mainly consisted of waving it (the battery, you dirty bastard) about and shouting. Amazingly, my informative speech was not fully understood initially, and we continued looking for the battery, until I reitirated my original message, to which the response was "well why didn't you mention that before?".

The safe room, with me in it. Before Tom left me to die.

We safely navigated our way to the saferoom, and called the helicopter. We now had to make it to the roof, fight off the hordes, and await salvation. By now we had a decent sized group, but we were woefully under equipped. In our rush up the narrow stairs, I was injured by a passing zombie. Limping, I bravely hid behind my fellow survivors, fighting off the neverending surges of the undead with nothing but melee weapons. Realising my importance in this scenario, I valiantly yelled "Look out there's a fucking zombie" when it seemed appropriate. I even attempted to hide under the air conditioning units, alas the zombies had the same idea. I was left, cowering next to a dead pigeon, although still not regretting my generally traitorous ways. After what seemed like an eternity, the doors to the roof were open. Our rescue had arrived, we had survived! The high priest, regrettably, was taken at the last second, sacrificing himself for the greater good. The doors were closed, and relief flooded through me like some insensitive simile to do with a tsunami. We had survived, we had not been taken. My team had been.....but screw them, I was alive!

Run Two

Following our disastrous first run (I can’t believe Tom managed outlive me!) we agreed that we needed a more unified, organised approach. We would stick together, shouting our team name out if we became separated, and shoot Tom in the back if he tried to run.

Of course, this plan went to pot when the game started, and we realised Alina was nowhere to be found. Despite this, our team pushed on ahead, running and gunning our way through the mall. A many great acts of heroism occurred during this run. By people who weren’t on our team.

Testimony from Grant Hewitt

I'm playing the preacher in the Safe Room, and I hear an almighty scream from down the corridor on the main concourse. Two guys burst into view - one with a lead pipe, and one with a pistol, both running like mad. The lead pipe wielder draws too much attention from zombies and gets dragged down - the other guy, spooked, pushes past me into the safe room and collapses against a wall. I cry out to the man who didn't make it, saying that he'll "find solace in the peace of death" and then, just before he stops moving, he flings something at me. Hard. It hits me in the neck and I'm about to chew him out for it, but I look down and realise it's a powercell. What a guy. True warrior of Christ, he was.

Meanwhile, our stick together plan worked fine right until we passed through the jungle gym, where promptly I lost everyone on my team. Bravely carrying on alone (unlike Tom, who ruthlessly left his team mates to die) I moved onwards and upwards. I got to the roof of the mall, found it to be a dead end, and turned back. This was when I saw survivors charging up the stairs.

Testimony from Alina Sandu

Pictured: Apparently not dead.

My new team seemed well organised and competent (Editor’s Note: By now Alina had joined another team. She isn’t talking about 2B or Not 2B) and we made our way through the mall painlessly. I even found a gun I could use after starting unarmed.

We stopped in the safe room very briefly, and I hoped I'd meet up with 2B there but didn't. We carried on up and down for a while, until we heard the helicopter was on its way. It seemed a bit early in the run but everyone was going towards the exit so we followed.

That's when I ran into what was left of 2B. Matt wasn't with them, but nobody could confirm that he was dead, so I decided to think he was alright.

We made it to the top of the building and waited for the helicopter. And waited some more. A few zombies were getting close but it didn't seem much of a problem. We kept waiting.

After a while, I started feeling guilty that I hadn't managed to meet up with Matt. I imagined he was waiting for me around the safe house since that was supposed to be our meeting point.

As we waited, the zombies continued to mass, but we held them at bay. Alina started arguing that we should go back to save Matt, but I told her he was probably dead already, pointed out that he’d happily left her to die at the last Zombie LARP, and when that failed, slapped her hard about the face and told her to pull herself together (That last bit was a lie- hitting women hard around the face is wrong. Even LARP-safe hitting hard around the face).

Then, I turned around for one second and turned back to discover Alina had run off on her own, completely unarmed, to save her already dead boyfriend. Because that always works in the films.

Realising I was also about to do something incredibly stupid, I asked another survivor for his gun- a pistol with two bullets left, and was ready to set off after Alina, when the next bunch of zombies arrived. This time we were out of ammo, and the zombies had found ways to climb over and crawl under our defences. Soon we fell back to the door of the roof. I tracked down one of the people who had been shouting about the imminent helicopter, and he swore it was on its way.

It wasn’t on its way.

I was one of the last to die, and went down heroically hiding in a crack behind the big A/C unit on the roof, trying to shove another survivor out into the open so that he wouldn’t give away my position. I’d do it again in an instant.

Run 3- The Zombie Run

Team 2B or Not 2B were zombies for this round. I spent pretty much the entire round hiding behind a locker in the basement, waiting for someone to come and pick up a battery hidden in there.

That and working on the pitch for our movie "Twilight Only Gay and with Zombies"

Other zombies had better luck

Testimony from Zombie Matt Barnes

My most enduring (and endearing) memory from being a zombie is best presented, I think, in the form of an ASCII map:

              | H | 
|=============  H |
|   Z           H | 
|   ==------======
|
|     Z  Z  Z
|      Z   Z

The humans were heading down to the (pitch-dark, of course) basement through a corridor. They turned a corner, and were faced with a glass wall to their left and one Zed dead ahead. While that zombie was getting a pretty decent bashing, the humans had apparently failed to appreciate that the glass wall in question was not -entirely- glass. 

I say apparently because they didn't seem to be expecting four undead arms to suddenly burst through the gap and start groping for human flesh. The looks on their faces were pretty special.

Of course, not all the survivors were simply trying to call the helicopter and get out. Some players like to bring along a selection of NERF weapons so extravagant that they can only arm themselves with the benefit of an Evil Dead II style Bruce Campbell montage. Not wanting to break the game, the organisers offered these players the option of playing the Left Hand of God mission. While everyone else was running about like headless chickens, a team that accepted this mission would be allowed to take only their own guns- with nothing from the communal gun pool, and be assigned to kill a mysterious, deadly creature known as the Leech.

This is the story of one such team:

Testimony from Grant Hewitt

I'm on Leech duty. It's very quiet, and Liam saunters through the basement.

He's about to do something really badass isn't he? You can tell.

So I pop up to him and ask him quietly - "Oh, man, how did you die?" because I figure he's been taken out of action early on.

"Well," he says, "technically I didn't die." And RUNS. I've already given up the power cell I had after a team graciously gave me one of their number, so I figure - what the hell? I give chase. Liam flees through corridors and takes turns almost at random, searching for a staircase. I get shot a couple of times as we run past people, but whatever - I'm screaming "I CAN SMELL YOUR BLOOD! THIRSTY! THIRSTY! I CAN HEAR IT IN YOUR FUCKING VEINS!" and I'm going to get him and drink him dry.

Unfortunately, he managed to find a staircase - and the leech doesn't leave the basement, so I let him run, and turned around to go back to my lair. Behind me in a doorway is team Hand of God, who shoot me to pieces whilst chanting "The power of Christ compels you!" over and over, unloading what must have been around thirty or forty bullets into me at point blank range until I slumped against a wall, unmoving.

Now that is the stuff of legend people. That is the sort of thing that should only be taken on by heroes or fools.

Run 4- The Left Hand of God

After Run 3, our team were sat around, relaxing, planning our strategy for the next run. We’d come to affectionately know the ninjas as Darth Vader and Skull Face. As we chatted, one of the ninjas, I believe it was Darth Vader, said “We want to do the Hand of God mission.”

It took a split second for us to think this over and say “Nooooo! Nope. No. No way. Not doing that. Nadda.”

“For the Hand of God you can only take your own guns with you,” I pointed out. “None of us have brought any weapons.”

Then Darth Vader said something that would eventually doom us all. He looked at me and said, “We can kit you out.”

“We’ve got a massive box full of guns,” Skull Face added. “Plenty of weapons for everyone.”

There was a long, pregnant pause. On second thoughts, maybe it was what I said next that doomed us all.

I said, “Show us the box.”

That's a nice box.

We tooled up. Took as many guns as we could carry and crammed out pockets full of ammunition. This time we weren’t going to be a bunch of panicked civilians, fleeing for our lives. This time we would be a crack time of combat specialists, with a mission, and purpose.

Our mission was to kill the monster known as the Leech, a mysterious creature that could be harmed with acts of religious devotion- With Atheism not counting as a religion, Grant felt the need to point out to me for some reason.

In keeping with our new professional attitude, I said we should probably assign a leader, and it was unanimously agreed that this leader should be Skull Face, because nothing gives inspiring leadership like a man with a skull for a face.

I see no problem here.

Testimony from Matt Barnes

We were tooled up to the eyeballs. I had the biggest gun I'd ever picked up, and two pockets stuffed full of spare ammunition. Obviously not even any need for one of the swords I was offered. We had one objective: kill the Red Leech, described variously as "scared of religion" and "not as hard as the White Knights". No problem.

We first headed down to the basement where we had been reliably informed that the Leech always hung out. While one team member kept the handful of normal zombies at bay, the rest of us chanted piously while pummelling the target with more bullets than it could handle. When it fell to the ground, a couple more shots were enough to put it down for good, and we grabbed its energy cell and melee weapon before heading to the safe room.

Our general assistance was enough to ensure that everything else needed to escape was gathered in no time, and we headed to the exit. Like a well-oiled machine we cleared the path to the doors, stopping just before them, and holding the exit for the other survivors with our overwhelming firepower.

That was the plan, anyway. It was a good plan, as well.

This picture has nothing to do with this part of the story, but Christ it looks awesome.

Testimony from Darth Vader

We headed into the depths of the Mall, Theravadic chanting under masks and medics wielding glow stick crosses, we felt damned invincible. We joked about hanging a crucifix round the leech's neck. But in the dark, something drew the zombies to us like moths to a flame. Tap, pin. Tap, move. Tap, pin. Tap, move, but still they kept coming.

Testimony from Matt Barnes

It was actually all going pretty well when we met our first zombie. We all immediately opened fire, and six darts found their home, almost simultaneously, in the centre of its chest. One more once he was down to put him out of commission. We then advanced cautiously and slowly through the basement, double-checking behind every obstruction to make sure there was no possibility of a surprise.

In retrospect, this was an excellent plan for making sure we weren't ambushed, but a dreadful one for making sure that loads of other zombies didn't use this extra time to turn up hoping for tasty, tasty brains. Coming at us from all sides in the dark, we held them off for a short time but the inevitable happened soon enough. A couple of us (including one random survivor from another team, who I can only assume arrived at some time while we weren't paying attention) managed to clear a path long enough to escape upstairs... directly into the welcoming arms of a cheerful-looking White Knight.


So this was when things started to fall apart. Quickly, we realised our weapons were occasionally a bit more jammed than we’d like, and we were being completely outnumbered. I found our brave, skull-faced leader on the floor and ran over to heal him, only to turn round in time to see a White Knight bearing down on me with an axe.

Still somehow the team carried on without me. Darth Vader was somehow still alive.

Testimony from Darth Vader

Ahead, crouched by a pillar, I saw our leader. Armour still on, still armed, very still. I retreated back crouched down next to him, and asked "How'd you get through that?"

Alas, poor Skull Face. He loved the jungle gym, like all ninjas.

He turned slowly, and reached out towards me, groaning like the last escaping air of a corpse.

Sword across his chest, I forced him back across the floor and over (figuratively) the safety rail, but not before he'd swiped at my chest. I turned and ran, and ran, and ran, pumping a rifle I had no idea if worked, and swinging a sword at anything that moved. I got slashed at on the ribs, but momentum and a goal ahead of me kept me going...  An arm that I thought was going to swing just under me as I leapt suddenly shot up. With my armour gone, and nothing but momentum carrying me on bones that may have shattered, not thinking about the weapons, just managing the pain, and knowing, KNOWING the safe room was around the next corner... I ran.

Straight into practically every zombie in the field.

So, once more, the last remaining member of our team was Matt Barnes- who makes a habit of this sort of thing.

Testimony from Matt Barnes

I hung around in the safe room for a bit as it became apparent that not only was I now unarmed, but there were a quite terrifying number of "ambulant cadavers" outside each entrance. In the end all the survivors got together to make one final daring break for freedom (or "suicide run" as it might more accurately be termed). Most of us actually got quite a long way towards the other side of the mall before being brutally torn down by an assortment of zombies, White Knights, and one inexplicable mad woman with a shotgun.

The last I saw of Matt he was lying in a shop window, wounded, but not dead.

So I ate him.

Pictured: Not invincible.

Thanks to Alina Sandu and www.blackpapersky.co.uk's Anthony White for letting me use their pics and video footage for this blog.