Field Trip: How I Survived the Zombie Apocalypse

How I survived the zombie apocalypse in Essex

Did you know the apocalypse has already started? In Essex? Oli Rahman reloads his BB gun and joins The Last Survivors…

A screaming zombie batters through the double doors and drags my friend out of sight. My sweaty fingers slip as I try to load my shotgun.

I can hear whimpering and snarling. I think the whimpering might be my own.

Welcome to The Last Survivors, a real life survival game that pits you and your team against a slavering horde of the infected.

We’re in a field in Essex outside the entrance to a “secret nuclear bunker”, armed with pump action BB shotguns.

Two soldiers hand out torches and soon we’re creeping nervously through a dark tunnel. They say a government scientist got carried away experimenting with viruses.

Our mission? To find his research papers, and hopefully a cure. The downside is that there’s every possibility we’ll run into him. And that he won’t be human anymore.

Carly and Antony set up The Last Survivors around two years ago after attending a similar event that used Nerf guns instead of BB shotguns.

“We just thought, we can do this, and we can do it way better. We love horror so it was a perfect fit for us,” says Carly.

How I survived the zombie apocalypse in Essex

After two intense hours and a horrifying encounter with an undead doctor we finally make our escape.

We may have survived this time, but Carly tells it like it is: we were shocking. We had failed to find half of the collectibles, and two of our team had been contaminated by the infected hordes.

One guy had even managed to nearly shoot his own teammates in the face while attempting to unjam his shotgun. Our survival skills definitely needed some fine tuning.

We find the actors afterwards drinking tea, still in their gruesome makeup. I ask them why they think the idea of survival horror is so popular.

“There are no rules anymore, that’s the appeal. If you want to drive a mustang round town with a shotgun and take all the drink and drugs you want, you can do it! I mean, who’s going to stop you?” says one actor.

Chief zombie Simon has a more disturbing theory.

“As a species we’re designed to be in terror on a daily basis,” he says thoughtfully.

“We have very safe lives and no chance to experience that primal fear.”

As we leave the bunker it strikes me that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but that my outbreak survival plan could do with some work.

Oli Rahman

Visit The Last Survivors website

Posted on 14/10/2013 by thedoublenegative