Hordes of zombies of all ages roamed the streets of downtown Phoenix on Saturday during the sixth annual Zombie Walk.
The event, hosted by Downtown Phoenix Inc., began with a festival at Heritage Square Park, located between Monroe and Washington streets and Fifth and Seventh streets. The festival featured music from local bands and Guns ‘N’ Roses tribute band Recipe for Disaster, food vendors, beer gardens and kid-friendly crafts and games.
The walk’s route went north on Fifth Street through the Arizona Center, west on Taylor Street, north on First Street, east on Fillmore Street and south on Seventh Street back to Heritage Square Park.
Before starting, those involved in the walk went through turnstiles in order to count the number of people participating in the hopes of breaking the Guinness World Record for most zombies participating in a zombie walk. Last year’s walk had 20,000 attendees.
Non-perishable food donations were collected at the event to benefit St. Mary’s Food Bank. The first 400 attendees who donated received a free zombie makeover complete with blood-splattering.
For sisters Katie and Cami Carrillo, the Zombie Walk was an event they had been looking forward to for weeks. While neither of the girls were quite sure what it means to be a zombie, they did have some opinions.
“I do know that they’re bad because we watch that show ‘The Walking Dead’ and it’s so cool,” Katie Carrillo, 8, said.
Cami Carrillo was also a fan on the popular zombie show.
“My favorite parts are when the hunters stab the zombies in the face with a sword, then the zombie’s face falls off and the people live,” Cami Carrillo said.
The Zombie Walk also featured some of the zombie hunters that Cami Carrillo idolizes, including Phillip Bujek, an annual attendee of the walk.
“With the dead ones, every war is a war of attrition,” Bujek said. “You’re both the hunter and the hunted, and if you lose focus for just a moment you could get taken and turned, and that would be death.”
Contact the reporters at Nikiana.Medansky@asu.edu and Olivia.Richard@asu.edu
