A Behind the Scenes Account of a Working Zombie

The End of the World

Have you ever wondered how slow moving zombies are able to take over the world? I did. Now I know. 

The scene is set. It’s midnight, and there is a full moon on a warm fall night. The location is Dogs and Ducks in Mt Pleasant. Two picnic tables out front; each seating a guy and a girl or two in deep conversation. Neither is aware their night is about to change.

Slowly, I creep up, using angles to stay hidden until the last possible minute. I begin a low growl from my raspy throat. Their backs are turned and they ignore me. Louder, now, ‘ARRR!’. First the girl notices, then the guy. Both have the ‘HOLY SH*T’ eyes popping out, frozen in their seats. I can’t hold my laugh back. Success! Relief crosses their faces. Sorry, can’t stop to talk, I’m on a mission. Next table, same reaction.

As a working zombie I can now confirm only 1 out of 10 people actually flee or fight back. The rest freeze with brain lock and become my victim.

How do I know this? It all started a couple of weeks ago…(cue fadeout and Halloween soundtrack)

How it began

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of a haunted house?

I am a born practical joker. It’s in my blood. And as an extension of that, I love to scare people. All my life I seem to have this instinct of spotting a good scare opportunity. Whether it’s powering down the circuit breaker of the house of kids I babysat as a teenager, reaching up from under my roommate’s bed and grabbing him in college (ala Jason), hiding in a crate at work to pop out when someone used the phone next to it, crawling under floorboards 50 feet in a computer center to catch someone from behind, or just the ole fake snake trick, I’m on it!

In fact, my niece still calls me 'Boo' to this day.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Scottish Fest at Boone Hall Plantation. As I was waiting in my car to exit I noticed some workers setting up a haunted house. Naturally, my interest was piqued. What have we here?

I had flashbacks to the days of going to haunted houses and how the adrenaline pumped when the guy chased us w/the chainsaw. That was so awesome! In fact, after experiencing that I jumped at the chance to participate the following year. It turned out that a good friend of mine was president of the local Jaycees and each year they put together a haunted house. For the next couple of years I got to not only scare people without guilt, but also help scheme different ways in doing this. I was in my element! Sadly, that event ended when we couldn’t get facilities or enough volunteers.

Over the years I guess you can say I’ve matured, as I’ve tamped down those primal urges. Most of my tactics revolve around hiding behind doors and jumping out.

But, now I see an opportunity! So I go to the Boone Hall website and figure out the company that is putting this all together. Low and behold they have an online application with some basic questions. I fill it out and send it in. For some reason I think I’m volunteering since I do that a lot. And I’d definitely volunteer to do this for a night or two.

Day 1:  Saturday, The Interview

I receive an email a few days later and have an interview set up for Saturday. I have no clue what they mean by interview but it doesn’t sound too formal so I don’t dress up (like in a suit, not in a Halloween costume) or anything. When I get there I notice someone walking around the side so I follow them and discover a room where they have a few long tables set up. I’m one of the first apparently, as they are expecting 28 people. So I sit and talk for a bit with the ladies working checkin after filling out a form, where I discover I would be considered an actor, and get paid. Bonus!

One more thing I should mention is that I am new to this town and really don’t know anyone. I’m constantly out and about trying new things and taking opportunities to meet new people. I went with this in mind as well.

I’m sitting up at the front and people start trickling in. Realize, I’m an older guy (over 40 at least). When the room is full I have figure out that I am one of the few people out of high school, and probably the ONLY person over 21! WTF? And there is no way for me to just saunter out the back without making a fuss as we are packed in tight. So, I stuck it out when they went over the rules and talked about having your parents sign waivers and getting rides home. What did I get myself in to?

After the 30 min orientation the owner went to another room and we all waited in line for a quick 2 minute interview where we would tell him the ‘part’ we wanted. Options included a haunted hayride, Mary’s nightmare, an asylum, and a zombie area. Some of these parts were speaking parts and some were just your run of the mill zombie. A couple things went into consideration: A) it is the fall and you will be either inside or out based on your set, and B) you will be working non stop for 4-5 hrs.

Having been someone who jumped out from behind a door to shout at the top of my lungs for one haunted house in my day, I know this could be an exhausting experience. Any speaking part was going to require hrs and hrs (night after night) of the same speech. I’m not an actor, nor do I like being the center of attention that long. Personally, at this point I just wanted to participate and have a professional make me up to be a zombie. How cool would that be?

My turn came and I met the owner who was probably in the same age group as me and turned out to be super nice, which was a surprise after listening to his strict orientation. After getting some quick background on me we both kinda mentioned at the same time about how young the others were. He made a point to tell me that there are other older people working and that I would have a blast and how happy he was to have me there. In those moments he convinced me that I should stick it out and see how things went. So, I said to put me down for a zombie. And that was the interview.

Day 2: Tuesday, Tryouts

The next step in the process was the tryouts. Now, if you are like me, you are thinking ‘Tryouts? Seriously? To just limp around and grunt?’ 

I showed up at 5:45 for the 6 pm tryout. I mention this because they are adamant that you show up on time since this is considered a show. A few stragglers came late and they were definitely called out on it. Point taken!

There were about 20 of us for this particular set. First we were told the basic rules, and general logistics. They told us a story about how the previous night’s group acted during the rehearsal walkthrough and how lame some people were when they’d just go ‘ARH!’ once and think they were done. To warm us up and get us in the moment we formed a circle, put deep thought into our character, and then spent the next minute acting like zombies in a big group. As he said, some people seemed to think they were in a mosh pit. 

This was fun, but it also gave me my first warning that making grunting and growling sounds for even that long was going to tear up my throat!

We were assigned positions, two per part. This means you and the other person would take turns working that part during the course of the month, one actor per night. My counterpart is a 20 yr old girl who worked the event a couple of years ago; she is a veteran. When she worked before she worked every night. At this point I’m already wondering how her throat can handle that. I’m thinking when this is all over I should join the whiskey drinking crowd and have a few smokes since that is where my voice is heading. Course, maybe I’ll end up w/a sexy Barry White (I told you I’m old) voice. Look on the bright side!

Oh, I should mention that I did meet one other person over 30 as we were walking from the parking lot. His wife came across this event while surfing the net and thought he’d enjoy it. He has 3 kids so it will be fun for them to see their pop as a zombie. Hope he doesn’t scar them for life! Imagine being a 5 yr old and seeing Daddy attacking people with other zombies 

My new friend is working as Field Zombie #2 which is the next section after me. We begin to scheme ways to team up for maximum effect on the nights we work together.

As we are escorted to our positions we walk the path that the audience will follow. This serves to give an idea of what they have faced and what mood they will be in by the time they meet us. They will go down a dark tunnel into a room that is an insane asylum, where the inmates are lose! They go through a couple other scary rooms, and then come outdoors to an open compound area. This is where I will be waiting.

The ‘field’ is basically a maze like area that is broken off into sections by some fencing, wood pallets, and plastic barrels. There are 7 sections, one zombie per section. Now, you can’t touch the customers, but your job is to do whatever you can to scare them and move them on their way.

The management group gives us a rundown of our jobs, and then walks through 3 times. As they do we have to act out our parts so they can evaluate both us, and their setup. This is kind of weird, since they basically don’t react to your antics, and just ignore you as you as they go by. First, they did it with group 1, then with group 2 (my group), and then with everyone acting. My counterpart was out in plain sight when they came out, and acted the part of a wounded zombie. We quickly discovered the effect of banging the metal and plastic drum containers for effect. I had conferred with my zombie #2 and his job was to get their attention with their eyes focused down into the compound. This left me to do my favorite thing: hide behind some containers and jump out as they are passing by as I slam my hand on the drum. The evaluator said I did a great job. I have found my niche!

However, in just 4 times of acting a zombie my throat is sore! I really need to research how to deal with this. Maybe cough drops. Yeah, I can see sucking on one of them and choking as I jump out. People will think I’m acting, and just point at me as I choke to death. Maybe I’ll come back and haunt the event?

Afterwards, we are given our first week schedule. I draw the Saturday night event while my counterpart gets Friday. This means that at the Thursday dress rehearsal she will be in costume while I think the non-workers get to walk through and see this all in action. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the rest of the sections turned out too!

Day 3: Thursday, Dress Rehearsal

Thursday night is dress rehearsal. Anyone working Friday, opening night, has to come in and get in costume. Since there is only one set of costumes, the second crew, including me, get to go through and see the show in action.

It is controlled chaos as the actors are learning how to apply makeup, trying on their costumes for the first time, and just figuring things out. The rest of us are standing around outside for about a half hr waiting on them. Oh, and I find out that the one other person in my age range has already quit because he got a promotion at work and couldn’t make the hours. This leaves me with nobody to talk to as the kids are all in their groups. I do talk to one kid for a couple mins and it turns out he works the construction site extending the local highway. I get a little inside information as to when it will be complete. Then it comes down to talking about the weather. 

I am really feeling like I’m standing out. I’ve worked as a tutor for high school students before, and know the key is to show no fear. Try not to picture the Youtube video of the older lady bus monitor who was verbally abused by the students on her bus! But, I don’t notice any sideways glances at me so I guess I’m not coming across as ‘that creepy old dude’.  Luckily, I am just as versed in using my smart phone as they are and fit right in by tapping away at it. I find the Nat’s game online and keep up with that, safe in my little screen.

The highlight of waiting around occurs! One of the guys running the show is testing out something. What IS that thing? I was checking it out earlier and thought it was like a tennis ball cannon. Well, I was close! He hooked up a propane tank to it, and asked us to move out of the way. Everyone did, except this one shmoopy couple who ignored me when I tried to tell them to watch out. Oh well, you were warned! BAM!!!!! This was some kind of cannon, like they would use at airports to scare birds away. NOW we’re talking! Yes, the shmoopies crapped their pants!

Now we have another meeting to gather us all together and prep us for the weekend. One thing that sounds really cool is the pre-show raid. This occurs when the early birds are standing around in line. We signal the DJ (DJ? Yes, apparently they have a DJ working the parking lot) and he plays some loud, ominous music and distracts them. Then, the whole crew of actors runs out and scares the crap out of them for 30 seconds before retreating. I’m looking forward to this!

The meeting is pretty amusing since this was everyone’s first time at putting on makeup. Most people just put some white paint on their faces with a couple little blood smears. He called them out and pointed out how it looked like they were just wearing a mask and that even the neck should be covered. And of course everyone’s hair still looked perfect except one girl. He called her out to show how the rest how it should be all messy, and the whole time I’m thinking ‘what if that is her natural look and she didn’t make it messy for the show?’.

Next, it’s time for the chainsaw gang to get prepared. There are about 8 guys who get these small chainsaws with fake blades. One of the kids has his own real version back at home and he keeps saying what crap these are and how he wants to bring his own in. He is seriously looking the part and really getting into it. Somehow my curiosity attracts him to me and he explains, again, why these chainsaws are crap while revving it up for me, smoking me out. I get the feeling this guy is really going to do his part well.

It’s SHOWTIME!

I had been thinking I’d come out on Friday to pay for a ticket and go through the events to see what it was like. No need, as we second stringers got to go through each exhibit of the 4 exhibits. One was the asylum, one was a little girl’s nightmare, one was a zombie section, and then the haunted hayride. For the first 3 I was stuck with a small group of high school girls. THAT made it fun, surprisingly; they were screaming and running even when they knew the person scaring them. Nice job team! I’m not going to go into the scare tactics details since there are just too many, and you can use your imagination for this. I’m sure it’s better than my descriptions. The one thing I’m disappointed is they didn’t have the 3D glasses out for the nightmare section. I’ve never seen live 3D and they said it was really cool.

Day 4: Saturday, My Debut

Finally, Saturday evening arrives. I start packing for the night, thinking it’s going to cool down a bit, though it’s about 80 degrees right now. I pack a long sleeve shirt – neutral color with no logos as you don’t want to have it deter from the costume. Camera, bug spray, set my phone to vibrate. Wearing jeans, a light green t-shirt, and tennis shoes. Next stop, the super market. They mentioned the importance of water, so I buy a Gatorade, 2 bottles of water, and a Naked smoothie to eat with a sandwich I grabbed. I get a little carried away and also grab a bag of almonds and a Reese's cup. But, the most important treasure is the bag of cough drops!

I don’t want to arrive in a rush, so I make sure to get there with plenty of buffer time. Even then, the parking lot is full so I forgo eating my sandwich for now. Let’s make sure I’m not missing anything.

Back to the interview room, which is also the all purpose sign-in, costume, and dressing room. It has a long table with a long mirror against one wall. The back wall has the sign in desk with all of the costumes hanging on the back.  Wait in line and check in, Field Zombie #1 at your service. Grab my fake white haz-mat coveralls which turn out to be partially shredded from the previous night. It takes me at least 10 minutes to figure out how to unravel this thing and determine which holes are for my feet, arms, and which ones are just holes. Finally, its on. I see that  both the lower front and rear have been torn open and wonder if someone had an emergency rest room stop the previous night. This actually works out well for me since I have access to my pockets which hold the precious cough drops 

Next it’s over to the mirror wall where someone tells me how to put on a white base. I realize at this point that there is no them and me mentality; we are all in this together (funny, at some point someone asks me what grade I’m in (awesome!)). I put that white stuff everywhere I see skin. I’m not going to be the one called out for that mistake! Luckily, I’m also standing next to the lady who shows us how to apply the latex. THIS is going to be cool as I’ve never had this done before! She dabs some liquid on my face and then tears off pieces of toilet paper and sticks it on there. TOILET paper!? She says it gives texture and who am I to argue? On my way now, to the next line. This one is for the guy who airbrushes the colors onto your face. You stand there with your eyes closed and feel little puffs of air.

The whole process from grabbing my coveralls, to ready to perform, took maybe 15 minutes. I look incredible! And then realize my mistake. I have makeup all over and didn’t eat my dinner. At least I figure out how to drink the smoothie. Now I have about 40 mins to kill. At least this time I can talk to the other’s about the parts they are playing and really check out the makeup jobs. A few people are worried they don’t look quite right, but it’s not like we are going to be on TV; maximum exposure to the audience will be 10 seconds with lights flashing and eyes bulging. I wander back to the holding/meeting area to chill out and immediately get sent to the ‘splatter wall’.

Who am I to argue? Ok, lean up against the wall and close your eyes. I see the girl has a squeeze bottle of ‘blood’ which she pours onto a paddle and I realize she is going to wing it at me. I get three good doses to the crowd’s delight. I check out the mirror and this was definitely the perfect finishing touch. The next 20 minutes is spent watching as the rest of the crew is doused by their friends. The blood has a sweet taste to it and I start hoping there are no bees around.  

Finally, it’s time. As I mentioned a couple of days ago, there is a mad rush just before we open. The DJ cranks some music and we all go charging the customer’s milling around out front. They LOVE it! This also serves to really get our hearts beating (and unfortunately, the sweat begins). Now we head to our positions and wait.

Here is a link to a video of the raid taken from the front. I'm the last one out and the one they show at the end.

I have my own area. This is where the customers come out of the asylum house and into the zombie compound. I walk through the ‘scene’ with 4 others that are immediately impacted by my part. First, the guy inside who has the last room of the house. When he turns on his strobe light for his part, that’s our signal outside that we are expecting company. One of the girls in section 3 (Im section 1) tells us she will shout ‘caw caw’ whenever she sees this. I’m thinking ‘uh, I’m right here, I can SEE the strobe go off, but whatever’. She had worked the night before and had seen what was successful, so I went with the flow. She also warned us about one of the girls getting punched in the face in her section when a customer got scared. And about another actor puking and having to leave early. A third girl had to switch to another scene as she was on a rocking bed for 4 hrs and almost passed out from nausea. This is NOT going to be a walk in the park.

Working with Zombie #2, we decide to use the Distract and Drive tactic. Basically, she would hang her body over a part of the fence in her section. When the customers come out of the house the theory is they will focus on her, waiting for her to jump up. Just across from her against the wall are some large barrels that I can hide behind. I have this 2 ft piece of wood that I will use to smack the plastic barrel to scare them, and get their attention. If it all works out they will be focused on me and running towards her. When she hears the bang she jumps up and bangs a metal can and starts grabbing for them (we cant actually touch). I have to herd them along to her section and then I’m done.

And now we are on. Our plan turns out to be simple but effective. First ‘caw caw’, rush to our positions, I peak from the back and can get an idea of who is coming out and how fast, wait until the first one passes and WHAM! We hit them hard! This has a 95% effect rate. Since we did this about 100 times during the next 5 hours, here is a general recap:

• Teenage girls are the best, especially in a group. There is no macho attitude and their screams serve to make us do even better. If they enjoy it, we do too.
• Next would be the pre-teen boys who are trying to act tough but really lose it when face with our overwhelming sensory attack.
• I kept hearing them say ‘someone is behind there’ which triggered me to jump out before my queue. It turned out only about 3 people actually looked behind the barrels for me. The rest were actually falling for our trap. I had to learn to trust our plan.
• When you are carrying a big stick, banging whatever you can, people will react. I don’t care how cool you think you are, if you ignore or mock me, I WILL target you and stalk you into the next section, growling and banging. I get perverse pleasure in breaking you and making you flinch against your will
• I can spot the weak link in an instant. When you jump out you have a millisecond to assess the situation. Girls and kids are always the first targets. If you react at ALL, you are a target. If you don’t move along fast enough for my liking, I will bang barrels right next to you. I will stalk you if you turn your back on me and growl in your ear (I held a growl for 30 seconds before I broke one girl down). Trust me, after 5 mins of this your voice is so shot you can make the most hideous sounds
• The very best, and I mean the best, tactic of the night was when one of the staff would eves drop on the crowd and pick up their names. He’d randomly come through and give us a heads up to a girl’s name in the next group. To see her reaction to zombies calling out her name in a creepy voice is just priceless! ‘HOW DO THEY KNOW MY NAME!!!’. The ultimate from this trick was a16 yr old girl coming through solo (not sure why) who was trying to be all cool and walk slow. As she is leaving my station I remember to say her name and growl it out. She turns and says ‘how the F**K do you know my name?’. And immediately puts her hand over her mouth for cussing out loud. I just crack up and let her go. Yes, sometimes my growls turned into a mix of laughing and growling. It is that fun!
• If I hit my cue I can send a whole group flying across the yard. If the group is doing a chain gang for safety, well, if one falls, they all fall. Yes, they did.
• If I don’t hit my cue I find myself blocking the path. That actually turns into a battle of wills as the panic sets in ‘which way do we go?!!!’
• People handle panic differently. Most cower and try to move on, but some hit the ground, and others go shooting off into the set through the obstacles instead of the paths. It happens to fast to stop them. Luckily, nobody was hurt.
• Flip flops are NOT the shoe of choice when being attacked. I scared the shoes off quite a few. My favorite was this pre-teen girl who was so polite. She was scared and running and lost her flop. She stops and politely asks me (‘Mr Zombie’) if she can pick it up. If you ever played steal the bacon as a kid, where you have a chalkboard eraser on the ground and two kids square off and try to grab and run without being tagged, you can imagine the scene. I faced her down and as soon as she snatched it I was lunging. It was like trying to catch the road runner she took off so fast.
• One of the oddest things that happened was a mixed group of teens who came through. I’m not sure if it was a fear reaction, or the kid trying to be cool, but he grabs me around my chest and starts shaking me. I stay in character and keep growling, but thinking what is the deal? He moves on and it’s on to prepare for the next group. It all happens that fast.
• Another weird one was a boy just asking me ‘are you a freshman? No? Sophomore? No? Junior? No? I guess you’re a senior’. Ok, I have to give him credit. He completely threw me off and saved his group from attack.
• I think at least 3 boys will no longer have girlfriends after that night. Between flat out leaving them behind, throwing them in the way of danger, or falling down screaming just isn’t going to cut it.
• One of the funnier moments for me was when a group of older teen kids came through. They were the type that were too cool to be scared. Since it was a large group my first attack only nailed a couple. Usually at that point I head to the back of the line to get the stragglers and then work my way back up. This time I felt like I was in a scene in a movie as I go sprinting to the back and come face to chest with a large kid who had gold plated teeth. It’s a standoff that seems to last for a minute as Im growling and looking up at his face, and he’s not budging. Then he goes ‘Hey uncle Fred, how’s it going?’. I broke off and attacked his friend since I was about to burst out laughing.

Reality Sets In

Now, you may have the impression that this was a lot of fun, and you are right. But I cannot even begin to describe the exhaustion that was hitting us.

I killed almost all of my water before the one break 2 hrs in, and was just pouring sweat. I could tell I was overheating since a couple of times I didn’t even notice the strobes started until I heard the ‘caw caw’. As much as I mocked that in the beginning, it turned out to be a brilliant trigger that I responded automatically to. Zombie #2 and I probably ate the whole pack of cough drops – I almost cough growled at a group it got so bad. Zombie #3, ended up puking for a few mins behind her section. And the poor actors inside were in a sweat box, coming outside for whatever cool air they could grasp before rushing back. Sweat runs the makeup into your eyes, but you don’t want to smear the makeup. We actually welcomed the light rain that hit! By the end of the night my sore throat had moved to my chest, and a headache and earache were setting in. I find myself counting seconds between groups to pass the time and hope it ends soon. Fun? Yes! Exhausting? Beyond belief! I keep telling myself that each person deserves a good show so that pushes me through.

Tips for going to a house

1. Go to the house between the second and third hours it is open. The actors still have a lot of energy and everyone is in the groove.
2. Bring teenage girls or at least one friend who will be scared. The actors really play off your reactions. If you don’t react, it’s like a joke gone flat.
3. If you don’t feel like being scared, or just aren’t feeling it, discreetly point out the one you want us to attack. It will make it more fun for everyone if we can help you humiliate that sucker.

It's Not Over Yet!

We are finally let go for the night. It takes about 3 minutes to get out of costume, but I decide I really need a beer to cool my throat. I have such a great look going that I decide to leave the stuff on my face. As I walk out to the parking lot I scare and joke with some of the teenage boys walking out. All of them said they had a blast. Then I notice a boy about 10, with spikey hair and a football jersey being dragged along by his mom. He is obviously shaken up from the experience, which is the whole point, right? I think about scaring him, but feel too guilty. He’s had enough, poor guy.

Well, not so fast. His 2 sisters approach me and beg me to scare him. I tell them he doesn’t need anymore but relent when they say his mom was OK with it. It really doesn’t take much as I really just have to growl a little and stare at him. His family is dying with laughter as he is squealing. I get in my truck and they keep walking to the parking lot. Which just happens to be the direction I’m driving. Yes, I am evil. I pull up next to them, roll down my window, and give him one last thrill. As I’m driving away I start thinking that now I’ve really done it. At least normal zombies you can outrun or drive away from. But a zombie who can drive? I also get this slight guilt feeling when I think of how my sisters used to torment me. Well, only a slight guilt feeling.

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