Spooky Empire May-Hem ~ Friday

New ZSC Con procedures after Spooky Empire

Priority Status: High

As a result of events at Spooky Empire, Zombie Survival Crew, we now have a new standard operating procedure for all future Cons. ZSC cadres are requested to check in with Command as early as possible to set parameters for Command protection and integrity for the duration of the event.

Let me tell you why….

It was apparent pretty early on that Spooky Empire May-Hem was going to live up to its name.

My eventually successful attempt to retrieve Light Blue Brigade Commander Anthony Guajardo and his mother Lisa from the airport involved about 35 minutes of driving around in circles – which, I have to say is vastly less exhausting than running around in circles, but still kind of crazy. Shortly after we got to the resort, Lisa crashed in my room. Within minutes? Anthony crashed. Shortly thereafter yours truly was dreaming about sugar plum fairies.

When we awoke – now hopelessly late for set up and early meetings – we immediately discussed the possibility that the Unnamed Government Agency had somehow infiltrated the event and put us all out for reasons we probably wouldn’t want to guess.

Set up involved a crazy mad dash into the celebrity signing room where we would spend the weekend recruiting new members as personalities from The Walking Dead, Boondock Saints, Night of the Living Dead and Evil Dead thrilled the fans.

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ZSC loyalist @buttrscotchboom (a.k.a. Leigh-Anne) showed up shortly after the event opened and adopted a defensive position to assist Command. And she got there just in time – as I was soon to fall victim to a gruesome attack by Bill Hinzman, better known as Zombie #1 from George Romero’s masterpiece Night of the Living Dead. I did manage to escape with an assist from Leigh-Anne and Lisa only to discover that Anthony was passed out on the ZSC table. We revived him – debriefed around the assault that left him incapacitated – and proceeded to scour the room for potential UGA moles.

Put simply? We knew we were in trouble.

Steve Yeun, Jon Bernthal and Chandler Riggs from The Walking Dead were kind enough to jump in and lend a hand on a quick ZSC mission with the Boondock Saints and ZSC First Lieutenant David Della Rocco – while we awaited reinforcements in the form of Blue Brigade Commander Norman Reedus and First Lieutenant Sean Patrick Flanery (both of whom were also waylaid by what we suspect was UGA-crafted roadblocks).

By the time Norman arrived on the scene we were in full defensive deployment mode. We – with our allies from the Dixon’s Vixens – informed Blue Brigade Commander of the multiple attempted attacks just as a predator drone strike took aim at Norman. He was able to escape but inadvertently left Rocco in the line of fire. We bobbed. We weaved. We even retreated at one point to try and regroup. The UGA was relentless. I left Rocco and Anthony with armed guards Leigh-Anne and Lisa and ventured – at 3 a.m. – to find us some food to keep up our strength.

The food resupply was just what we needed to help us strategize – we crafted code words, evac plans and communications to aid us in predator evasion and keeping Command intact for the weekend.

With that, we were ready to face the hordes. Or so we thought ….