Eli Maroney
Dover Zombie Walk ends
with Streets Speckled in the Tears of Youth
Arthur Collins, of
20 Glenwood Ave, Dover, NH, had a mixture of red-die and corn syrup dried,
mid-drip on his face. The red crust was in his hair and seeped down his neck.
It was splattered on his torn, white t-shirt, in the fashion of Jackson
Pollock. Collins is a big man. His left elbow, the size of a Gatorade cap, and
right knee had been made-up by his girlfriend, Janice, to look like severe
contusions. A thin sheet of sticky
plastic on his left cheek, specially designed for the occasion with raw muscles
and teeth painted on, created the very convincing illusion of facial decay.
His red contact
lenses were the first thing to catch the viewer off-guard. The second was his
large wooden walking stick. At about 5’3’’, it was almost as big as him. He
held it in the upper quartile. At its top was a plaster model of a mangled
human head. Its foam tongue hung from the side of its mouth.
Collins was,
without a doubt, the most terrifying member of the Dover Zombie Walk, last
Saturday. The walk was held in downtown Dover, immediately after
trick-or-treating. This meant that Collins had quite the crowd gathered for his
display of pretend gore and mutilation. More than a few of them were small
children. Having gathered their day’s bounty and regaled in the joys of a
youthful holiday, many of these children cried upon seeing Collins.
“I felt pretty bad
when they would start balling,” said Collins. “But, it is Halloween.” Collins wasn’t the only member of the walk to induce
tears from the younger members of the audience. Mike Merrigan, another
participant, told Fosters that he too
had conjured up the emotions of a few youngsters. All and all, it goes without
saying that Dover’s eighth annual zombie walk was a huge success.
The walk lasted
for about 30 minutes and involved 40, zombie-clad participants. As the group
shuffled its way down Central Avenue, spectators yelled and hollered. Zombies
moaned and laughed in excitement. When the walk had concluded, participants
were invited to a Jell-O brain eating contest at Adelle's Coffeehouse. The day
ended in as many smiles as it did the tears of frightened children.
David Baily, a
Dover resident and proud father of an 8 year old who did not cry upon witnessing Collins’ horrible form, agreed with the
walk’s success. “My son and I loved it.” He said. Baily’s son, Marcus, spent
the event on his father’s shoulders, shouting and pointing, “Cool!….Look at
that one!” He said he liked Colllins’ costume the best.
Karen Rivera, a
local mother, said, “I thought some of the contestants went a little far with
their costumes, but it was all in good fun….I don’t think anybody will
complain.” Most parents of crying children declined to speak, or rather,
appeared too preoccupied to question. One father, Mark Holcomb, who had stepped
away from his crying children and soothing wife for a cigarette, had this to
say: “I think it’ll do them good. It certainly can’t do any harm. We told her
[daughter] to eat some candy and she was right back to smiles.”
Mike Merrigan, the
organizer of the event, was very pleased with the results. “I thought it went
very well,” he said. “The walk has become something of a Halloween tradition in
Dover, and we hope it continues that way.” When asked if he was concerned about
the amount of children left in tears after the walk, Merrigan responded, “Look,
there’s always ‘gonna be a few cry-ers, but most kids like it as much as the
adults do.”
Merrigan was
right. For every child who ran into their parents’ arms for comfort, a Marcus
Baily was pointing and laughing. A few children even asked Collins if they
could touch his mangled cheek. Collins graciously obliged, much to the
Childrens’ mutual amusement and disgust.
Collins, who was
really a tender-hearted fellow, didn’t leave his house, that morning, with the
intention of forcing the area’s parents to spend their time and energy soothing
their terrified offspring. For him, it
was all about a love of zombies dating back to the turn of the millennium.
“When I was 14, I watched the original Dawn of The Dead at my friend Pat
McGee’s house,” he said. “It was my first R-rated movie. I was in love.”
From that moment
on, Collins was a zombie fanatic. He’s seen more B-horror films about the
living dead then he cares to admit. He does, however, have a few favorites.
Besides Dawn of the Dead, he highly recommends Braindead, also known as Dead
Alive, an early Peter Jackson film. Of course, he loves Sam Rami’s original
Evil Dead trilogy (“When the blood comes shooting out of the wall, oh my
god!”).
Collins spends his
days as an insurance salesman at Linwood & Griffin, also in Dover. He
treasured the opportunity, last Saturday, to shed his suit and tie and
re-connect with his former, horror-fan-boy, self. “I thought to myself, ‘this
is totally something 17-year-old me would do. So I did it, and it felt great.’”
For Meringan,
passionate zombie-walkers like Collins are a pleasant tangent to what he
considers the main attraction of the event. “It brings the town together to do
something ridiculous and outlandish….It’s really just about having fun.”
Though the town of
Dover declined any input, it can be assumed that despite this year’s especially
high rate of sobbing youngsters, the walk will go on as scheduled for its ninth
consecutive year. “They’re just kids,” said Holcomb as he finished his
cigarette, “they’re reacting to what they don’t understand. And it’ll get them
ready if, you know, the dead eventually do
walk the Earth.”
Unless that day comes
before next Halloween, the town of Dover eagerly awaits next year’s walk of the
dead.
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