More Zombie News

I'm not into zombies - I neither write nor read zombie stories, and I don't watch zombie movies... although I did enjoy Michael Jackson's Thriller, but that was different.  Even so, nearly a year ago I wrote about Chicken Zombies, and explained that there really is such a thing.. although in my opinion, a more accurate name would be zombie chickens.  However as a general rule, I ignore all things zombie.

But.

Today I came across an article on the Courthouse News Service (a nationwide news service out of Pasadena California) that mentioned zombies.
I was surprised.

I don't know that I've ever seen 'zombies' and 'courthouse' in the same context before.

Clearly, this required further investigation.

The title of the article is "Crowd of Zombies Blamed for Accident".  My imagination ran wild.  Perhaps this was another case of chicken zombies gone wild!  But it turns out that this isn't even close.

You see, while I might not be into zombies, apparently a lot of people are.  Turns out that there are Zombie Walks all over the world.
These are organized events where people dress up as zombies, and then walk somewhere.  Or perhaps I should say shamble and lurch somewhere.  In fact every year, Zombie Con (also known as ZomBcon) takes place in Seattle in October... and it features a lot of walks.  Among other locations, zombie walks have taken place in Singapore China, Toronto Canada, Brisbane Australia, and Knottingham England, as well as all over the U.S.  You can find a listing of zombie walks around the world, at Deathbyzombie.com.

There are dozens of You-Tube videos telling you how to tear your clothes for that 'real-zombie'
 effect, as well as how to apply fake blood and create wounds, and do your makeup.
Zombies have even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records.  The Book has been keeping track of the largest zombie gathering since 2009.

But I digress.  Let's get back to the story in the Courthouse News Service.  In 2014, a woman in San Diego stopped to photograph the Zombie Walk.  As you might imagine, participants are wearing torn clothing and bizarre makeup, and are often covered in what looks like blood.  So I can see that someone might want to stop to take pictures of such a sight.  And not surprisingly the participants kind of lurch and stumble around - sure, I can see that if you were partaking in a Zombie Walk, you might be inclined to do that.  And apparently a driver passing by, stopped at the intersection to allow the zombies to pass.  I can see that, as well.

But that's when things took a turn for the worse.  Inside the car was a child.  Not only was the child not a fan of zombies, but he was terrified by all the lurching and fake blood.  So in an effort to leave this situation, the driver honked and began to inch his car into the intersection. Unfortunately, the zombies didn't like this, so they began to gather around the car, blocking it in even more than before.  This, of course, further terrified the child, and now the driver was scared as well.  So he continued to honk his horn and inch his way forward.

And somewhere along the way, the driver knocked over the woman who stopped to take pictures.
So now she's suing the Walk, the City, and the driver.  I don't have to make this stuff up, people .. it's out there, begging for my attention.

Hard to know what to say about all this.
Guess I'll just have a cup of tea.