My Walking Dead Escape Experience.
So last week San Diego was once again the home of the pop culture phenomenon known as Comic Con. Apart of the festivities Petco Park was turned into a real life Zombie Apocalypse known as The Walking Dead Escape. A 5k obstacle course filled with walkers. Now when I heard about this, I thought I had to do it. But looking at the ticket prices I thought it wouldn’t be worth the 84 bucks you had to spend to get in on the action. So I decided in advance I wasn’t going to do this. But things change and on Friday the 13th I was standing outside Petco park, hearing the screams of people running through and the moans of hungry walkers. Last minute I decided I needed to do this. (Side-note: doing this last minute wasn’t a great idea considering I was wearing shitty shoes to run in, because at the very end I had huge blood blisters on my feet.).
So I spent the $84, got my evac pass and I was on my way to live an apocalypse. My wave started at 2:40, and there were only probably 15 people in my group for this time. So it starts out with a guy yelling safety procedure over a megaphone and we need to follow instructions to make it to the evac zone. We get inside and there is a cage filled with walkers and a FEMA guy dragging two walkers on a leash. We avoid them and listen to another guy on the megaphone talking, next thing I know I hear screams and the dude is on the ground getting eaten by the two leashed walkers and then the caged walkers break out. That’s where we all start running.
So I’m running through dodging walkers and crawlers. There are body bags everywhere. Eventually I make it outside for a cargo net climb where there are a couple walkers beneath where you are climbing. Then you make it to a slide where there is at least one walker just camping there waiting for you to slide down. What do I do? I slide down and run like hell only to discover a narrow path with orange barricade walls right next to a guard rail with a walker hanging over it. I tried to be smooth to get through but I trip and eat shit into the orange barricade and gash my knee into the ground badly. I still get up fast and keep going. I went up and down stairs and up to the upper levels of the stadium only to discover I’m bleeding and I ripped a hole in my pants where my knee was. Not a good sign.
So I reach a little checkpoint before the next part of the course and one of the workers notice I’m hurt and offer me medical help, so I take up the offer. Even though I didn’t want to because I thought that would greatly affect my chances of getting infected. So after I getting taken care of (Not really though, they cleaned it up and gave me a band-aid. Like that is gonna stay on long) its time for me to move on…by myself. For the most part of the course I’m on my own dodging walkers and limping through the course tired as all hell. I had to crawl underneath obstacles which was a bad thing considering my knee was messed up, and it hurt pretty bad. I still manned up and did it crawled underneath an obstacle jumped over a barrier to roll under another obstacle and continue running. Eventually I caught up with some people and stuck with them. Eventually I was just so tired I started talking to the walkers trying to get them out of character. Succeeded a few times. Made the spectators laugh as I did a “Come on, Man!” when I came across a new walker obstacle. Finally I made it to to the end which was really creep because I didn’t realize it was over. I made it to a stairwell with signs leaving messages for other survivors, and it was just too quiet in the stairwell. I for sure thought there was gonna be a horde once I got to the final door. But alas it was just the CDC leading me to the quarantine area, I actually made it out without getting infected. Surprising because I got touched a few times and got trapped crawling in this fencing tube with one walker in front and one behind.
But I survived…barely…but in style! Overall I thought the course was absolutely amazing and I wish I could have video recorded the entire thing from my perspective because I think my experience was perfect! I started out with a group, got hurt, left behind, caught up with some stragglers, and finished without being infected. My experience felt pretty real, some moments I thought were real. That was how good The Walking Dead Escape was. Not to mention, you got a free 100th issue of The Walking Dead with a cover that you could only get doing the course itself. I sure hope The Walking Dead and Petco Park do this again next year, considering the amount of success it had. It should be a yearly thing at Comic Con or maybe for Halloween. It was better than any maze a Halloween themed Theme Park could ever do. All I can say is that it was well worth the $84 I spent and I’m glad I had this experience that I will never forget.
