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Night of the Living Dead

My eyes darted left then right, then left again. Darkness was slowly blanketing the park. Suddenly unrecognizable, guttural sounds reached my ears and I wondered what was lurking in the dark shadows.
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Rose-Anne Cardinal and Adam Kehoe made very convincing zombies at the Sudbury Zombie Walk. Photo by Janet Young.

My eyes darted left then right, then left again.

Darkness was slowly blanketing the park. Suddenly unrecognizable, guttural sounds reached my ears and I wondered what was lurking in the dark shadows. An unsettling feeling overcame me as the shapes slowly came into focus. There were flesh-dripping zombies everywhere and they wanted one thing — BRAINS.

This was the spooky scene on Saturday, Oct. 20 when Nickel City Roller Derby (NCRD) hosted their third annual Sudbury Zombie Walk. It was my first time attending, so I was very excited to take it in.

Prior to the walk, the zombies, in various stages of decomposition, assembled in the parking lot across from Bell Park and slowly lurched their way down Paris Street and over the bridge to Memorial Park, where a zombie festival took place.

As the zombies made their way downtown, I stood near the Bridge of Nations, camera in hand. What I saw next was like a scene from a horror movie. Slow moving, brain-starved zombies, some dragging their limbs in true zombie-fashion, were cresting the hill over the Bridge of Nations and were making their way toward me. I could hear their low, dull moans as they inched their way closer and closer.

I was amazed at what I was seeing.

Once the group of living dead proceeded past me, I hurried over to Memorial Park to wait as the ravenous zombies continued terrifying the streets of downtown.

Back at Memorial Park, the scene was being set for the arrival of the undead. There were skulls spewing fog, a few vendors, such as Fric and Frac, who were there with a selection of handmade jewelry relevant to the season of ghouls.

Rob Shlemkevich, head ref, manned a booth for NCRD, provided information regarding the league and sold Sudbury Zombie Walk T-shirts and other merchandise.

There was a fun area set up where Zombie Hunters shot zombies with foam darts. If a zombie successfully hit a Zombie Hunter, they became the undead.

I asked Elle Hoar, president of the NCRD league, why they organize a yearly zombie walk.

“It’s a worldwide phenomenon, that we needed Sudbury to be a part of,” she said.

She also told me that about 200 zombies took part in this year’s event. Elle wants people to know that this is a free public event open to anyone and everyone and, as organizers, they make no profit.

As a spectator, I can tell you this — those zombies were scary!

Most costumes were ultra-realistic. A few really intrigued me. Rose-Anne Cardinal and her fiancé, Adam Kehoe, were a very convincing zombie couple. She told me they made their own prosthetics from scratch; a labour-intensive process that took the couple 10-15 hours over a two-week period.

Cambrian College Police Foundations students volunteered their time to keep the festival from becoming a full-blown zombie apocalypse. It was a good, clean, fun event.

Unfortunately, I have heard some people say that they weren’t aware of the festival until after it happened. NCRD is striving to iron out the kinks and promise to make it more well-known in the future.

To stay in the know on future NCRD events, bookmark www.ncrd.ca, or follow the group page on Facebook. Search for Sudbury Zombie Walk.

Janet Young is an amateur photographer who likes to share community events with Sudburians.


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