Fear stalked the Capitol Dome.
The zombie apocalypse had come to Olympia Tuesday: Mindless hunger. Relentless. A horde of lobbyists. A plague of panic, or at least a pretense of it.
A handful of humans burst into the open, running down the countless granite steps outside the Capitol, the undead swarming after them. A fleeing Angela DiMarco carried an ax. A zombie burst into her group from the left, apparently not knowing Angela is a badass. She swung that ax and zombie-boy went down big-time.
Seconds later, as several fast zombies -- not a lumberer in the bunch -- chased her friends, Angela shouted out: "We need to increase our film incentives before it's too late!"
Cut!
The video crew shot that scene over and over and over. Angela chopped that zombie's chest through so many takes that he could've eaten his own innards. Unfazed elementary school kids watched as they filed in and out of the Capitol for field trips.
Meanwhile, dozens of supporters of the Washington Filmworks Motion Picture Competitiveness Program invaded the Capitol Dome Tuesday, like zombies crashing into shopping malls in the 1978 and 2004 versions of "Dawn Of The Dead."
Their prey: Legislators. Senators and representatives who could be persuaded to vote for SB 6027, the creation of Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle.
Gov. Jay Inslee shrugged off the threat of tattered blood-thirsty reanimated cannibals. "I don't care how legislators dress. I respect them," he said.
Rod Hearne, at the Capitol to lobby for Equal Rights Washington, was grilled on whether his organization should represent walking dead. "Apparently, we need to work on this. Zombies are people too. I should say zombies were people too," Hearne said.
So what is SB 6027? And why would otherwise mindless zombies care?
Right now, the Washington Filmworks Motion Picture Competitiveness Program distributes refunds in investments to movie and television productions working in the state. The production finishes its work. Its finances get audited. And up to 35 percent of its investment could get returned.
