A Story of Zombies

Despite my love of Halloween, I can't stand zombies. The blood and gore is disgusting and sometimes zombies scare me and give me nightmares.

I have never seen a zombie movie or show, though I have caught glimpses. I see people dressed up as zombies and many people are very into zombies and it always makes me feel faintly nauseous.

The only zombie stories I read were the Sabriel books, which are horrifying, but also beautifully written (I actually am in love with the Abhorsen necromancer bells... That's probably the main reason I read them). The first time I read Sabriel, I really struggled with some of the dead monsters though.

One book, "The Tower of Ravens" by Kate Forsyth, deals with a necromantic lord who is so obsessed with returning his family to life that he captures children from the villages, kills them, and brings them back to a semblance of life. The zombie children are not even evil or our for blood/brains, but return to their villages at night to cry for their parents.

Besides making me cry, this book also gave me such horrible zombie dreams that I put it down for over a year before going back to finish it. Sadly, that is a normal relationship for me and this series. I started the second book in that series two years ago and got to page 35 before I stopped because it made me anxious. She's a great writer and I love her first series--one day I will finish this one!

Anyway, I have a rough time with zombies. And then a friend from Starbucks invited me to a skating party (she was a derby girl, so she goes to these events). I had been wanting to go for ages and never could because I worked so early, so I jumped at the chance. Except that the theme was zombie night. Ugh.

I am not one for passing up an opportunity to dress up, however, so I did some research and went to a thrift store.

I came out with leggings, a slightly stained and used-to-be-nice tunic top and faded-looking jean jacket.

When I got home, I cut holes in all my clothes and tore the hems of the shirt:

Leggings, holes not included (like my fuzzy slippers?)

The top was a sort of jersey cotton type material that was easy to tear. I didn't need scissors for this. I did cut holes in the top as well.

The top came with a tie which I promptly cut like so before tying it on.

I actually dusted my shelves with the shirt, too. It helped make it look dirty and helped my shelves at the same time!

The jean jacket already looked faded, but I took a razor blade to the edges to try and make it look more ragged:

The jean material was a little tougher to work with. And it will be a cute jacket just to wear on its own.

I did my hair up in an approximation of a nice hair style that got messed up while in the grave. 

I didn't have any good makeup for a zombie, so I did what I could, but Ashley made me up like a true zombie! She's very artistic and she did an AWESOME job (though it kind of grossed me out, too). I hope this picture does her work justice:

It doesn't do her work justice... She did that nasty, vein-y bruise on my neck and made my eyes look gross.

So there you have it: zombie Samara. On the plus side, I now have a zombie costume in case I ever need one again...

I threw all of this together in a couple of hours. I would recommend more time, but zombies are pretty easy.

And the skating party was super fun! I had my roller blades, and my friends had or rented roller skates. And we just skate around! It was lots of fun!