“Now scream out loud,” the photographer instructed me. It was awkward but I obeyed, letting out three high pitched wails in the abandoned junk yard lot wondering what the pedestrians on the other side of the wall might think was going on.
But then again, I wasn’t really sure what was going on. Several months ago (Halloween, to be exact) some friends and I heard about a zombie parade happening in downtown Bogotá. We went, got our faces painted, and groaned our way down the central avenue with 5,000 other living dead people, claws outstretched, feet dragging. For kicks, I uploaded a short video slideshow on Youtube and (I must have been the only one because) last week an email appeared in my inbox from “zombiesbogota@gmail.com” telling me that I’d won the video contest. I was unaware I had entered, but who’s going to complain about a free t-shirt?
This morning I showed up at the cemetery entrance at 10:00 sharp, as instructed, to receive my prize. I waited for a half an hour until I heard a voice behind me, “Katie?”
A high-class Colombian Dracula wearing patent leather shoes and Louis Vuitton sunglasses greeted me. Expensive gel held his dark wavy hair off his face that was framed by the pointy collar of his knee-length leather trench coat. His hand retracted early from our handshake to grab his vibrating cellphone in his pocket and after a brief one-sided conversation he slipped the phone back into his jacket and muttered to me and to no one, “I can’t stand it when people are late.”
I refrained from commenting.
We entered the cemetery and it was explained to me that we were going to take a few “action” photos and I would receive the prints as a part of my prize. OK no problem, I thought, it can’t take too long...
The Count was accompanied by two similarly sinister sidekicks also sporting sunglasses and leather jackets, one with a silver stud in his left earlobe the other with a pencil-thin beard stenciled across his chin connecting his sideburns. While the four of us waited in front of the mausoleum for the zombie models to arrive they puffed down about three packs of cigarettes, guffawing smokey comments about last night’s rager between inhales.
“It was intense man, I almost got my lights knocked out.”
“Yeah dude, I didn’t get back until like four in the morning.”
“Smoke?” the Count asked looking at me behind his dark lenses.
“No thanks,” I said, occupying my hands with my cellphone debating whether or not it was worth the effort to wedge my way into their semi-conversation with a hilarious joke about hangovers or an intriguing question about where the party had been.
Thankfully my mental coin toss was interrupted by the cemetery security guard who came to kick us out. No vampires allowed, or photos for that matter. The begging didn’t work. The bribe didn’t work. The explanation about being with the blonde American tourist didn’t work. So they trudged their fancy shoes back to the entrance and decided to go to the junk yard.
The zombies and the apocalypse cop met us there and I spent the next two hours being chased after, grabbed at, stabbed, axed, bitten and rescued--all in freeze frame. It was awesome. Not exactly how I had planned to spend my Sunday afternoon but with free lunch and a glass of whisky included, it wasn’t so bad.
And, of course, the free t-shirt.
No comments:
Post a Comment