Topeka's got Zombies!

A couple years ago, I took the Kansas City Horror Club to Topeka to attend the Slash and Bash Film Festival.

Keith Van Sickle, chairperson of the festival, contacted me about bringing our club out to hang out and meet Adrianne Barbeau, along with several area film makers of varied success, and watch some movies and just have some fun. I gathered up who I could and we had a wonderful weekend, and at the end, looked forward to the next year’s festival.

Shortly after the festival’s end, however, Keith suffered a series of strokes, and we all thought he wouldn’t make it. But he fought through, and two years later, was able to bring the festival back, and he wanted Horror Club to be there, to help organize Topeka’s very first Zombie Walk.

In the interest of full disclosure, even though I’m not a journalist and don’t really care about such trivialities, I should let you know that The Kansas City Horror Club is not responsible for the zombie walks that take place in our fair city, though we do show support, so I called Kansas City’s Zombie Queen, Jamie King, to get her thoughts on the matter. Since her schedule prohibited her from being very involved, she could not attend, but she did lend me a gallon of blood and her bullhorn. One needs at least those two things to wrangle a pack of crazy teenage zombies.

In case you’ve lived under a corpse for the last several years, you should know that cities all over the country have been raising food and money for their local homeless shelters, food pantries, or whomever is in need, by rousing their local zombie populous, who by my reckoning are perfect spokespersons for the hungry. They all bring non-perishables to donate, and then go for a lovely stroll to raise awareness for the cause.

I’d never run one of these, though I did provide some logistical support for some of the ones here in KC, so I had and idea of how to go about it, and it went off without a hitch, thanks to Jamie’s help.

We had about 25 Zombies show up, raised about a hundred pounds in food donations, and thirty bucks cash for the Topeka Let’s Help organization, which serves the local homeless and those in need. A great organization, truly.

Here’s a few pictures from the walk…

We’re very much looking forward to next year! Hope to see you there!!!

Mr. Smith