#7 – Do the Spice Rack: Zombie Chase with Spice Scotland

It was difficult to choose my event with Spice Scotland as they run some brilliant ones; Edinburgh Festival weekends, Hogmanay, breaks in the Highlands – but I’ve done all of these before.  I enjoyed them very much and would love to do them again in future, but for the Spice Rack challenge I wanted to do something a little different this time round.  As I’d never previously visited Glasgow, it was also an excellent opportunity to do that.  The next thing was to find something suitable.  Obviously to be worth the trip, it needed to be an unusual event – there would be little point flying the length of the country to go out for a meal, for example!  And that’s how I ended up participating in a Zombie Chase about the industrial estates and back roads of Glasgow city centre, late on a Friday evening in August…

This is not the sort of thing I usually do.  I was really worried about whether I’d enjoy it or not, whether I’d be physically up to it or not – but as they pointed out, you don’t need to outrun the zombies you only need to outrun the person next to you!  And part of the point of doing the 40 before 40 is to push myself out of my comfort zone occasionally.  So, a Zombie Chase it was.  “What is a Zombie Chase?” I hear you ask.  Basically, think orienteering.  With added zombies.

The scenario for the night was:  We were living in a community of ‘outlaws’ beyond the city limits in a safe haven, free from infection, called Asylum. Outside, and across in the city itself, roamed hordes of zombies. The problem was Asylum had run out of water, so we had to venture out, break back into the city, find resources, avoid the zombies and make it back alive.  One member of the team was designated as the water carrier and they had to be protected at all costs as if they became infected, the water was infected and was useless.

After rapid instruction on the codes needed to unlock the terminals we would find en route and a briefing on Zombie behaviour (their eyesight isn’t very good but they will see movement and be attracted by noise made by humans such as screaming, clapping, shouting etc..), we set off on our mission.

Our first location was Scotland Street School, now a museum.  We were searching for a terminal in one of the rooms which would give us our next location, providing we remembered the codes correctly…  The lights were out, so it was emergency lighting only as we stole through the corridors on tiptoe, jumping at anything that moved in the shadows.  We found the terminal, cracked the code, and identified our next location, escaping with hearts pounding but without having encountered any of the undead.

Our route next sent us into an industrial estate, with a terminal located in a back road there.  Unfortunately, this one was guarded by two zombies in boiler suits who shambled around and tried to attack us as we tried to get the information we needed.  We divided into two – one group surrounded the water carrier to get him safe passage, the others used the terminal to find out where we should head next.

The zombies were surrounding us in ever greater hordes now, as we made our way across a car park packed with them, towards a storage unit.  Only unit B42 could be guaranteed as safe, but to get there we had to wend our way down seemingly endless narrow corridors, doors on either side, out of which a Zombie might appear at any moment.  And they did.  Right behind us.  I screamed.  The team, as one, started to run.  We sprinted through the units, screaming and shouting, adrenaline taking over.  It was each man for himself until we reached unit B42, found the terminal and could get out of there, pursued as we left by yet more of the undead.  I had no idea I could sprint until it was a matter of survival!

 

One of the terminals

Zombies guard the entrance to the storage unit

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As the evening progressed, we visited an office complete with hanged corpse bearing a sign saying “Got bitten, didn’t want to live like that”, a derelict parking lot crawling with zombies and ran into even more of them on the streets.  Eventually, we made it back to Asylum, where we were individually scanned for infection and segregated into the infected and the survivors.  Having been caught by three zombies en route, I was fairly sure I was infected – as indeed was the case.

INFECTED!

Most of the rest of the team survived however.  Our water carrier also made it back clean, so our mission was accomplished with just three of the eight of us joining the ranks for the undead for the night.  To finish the evening, we enjoyed the ‘party at the end of the world’ with some beers and lots of appropriate music – Thriller and The Timewarp included.

More surivors than Infected, in the game overall

The majority of the team survived

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was an event I was really not at all sure I’d enjoy yet it was both brilliant and terrifying in equal measure.  You really haven’t lived until you’ve sprinted down the corridors in a storage unit with a zombie in hot pursuit.

I’m sure this is one Spice event I’ll never forget and I’m grateful to Spice Scotland for looking after me so well.

If you want to know more about Spice and what the Spice Rack is, see my previous post: https://chelseas40before40.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/do-the-spice-rack/