World Zombie Day Survivors Tell Their Tales

If you happened to run across any gangs of crater-faced, brain-eating ghouls this weekend, there's a chance it was just a bunch of otherwise normal people celebrating World Zombie Day. This growing phenomenon is part costume parade, part canned food drive, and part geek-uprising, and it's growing annually by leaps and bounds. In this week's Web Stalker, I asked WZD event-coordinators from all across the nation to describe their revenant-herding experience. I got a couple more reports back after my deadline (including one from WZD headquarters) which are included below. Thanks for getting back to me on short notice, everybody!

"I'm still waiting on more than half of my WZD cities to report. As of right now, we in Pittsburgh had 1,341 zombies participating (led by Ken Foree and Joseph Pilato!) and the cumulative count for the other 15 cities who have reported is about 3,000. We also have to wait for the food bank to give us a tally on the pounds of food collected... Pittsburgh also hosted a Zombie Ball on Friday and a Zombie Fest on Saturday and Sunday at the Monroeville Mall. Our fans had a great time and our exhibitors reported great success."

-- Sandy Stuhlfire, Pittsburgh PA


"We had a great event! over 1000 zombies in Portland and I'm sure we'll have more next year... We had babies and toddlers participating in the walk which is always fun. It is a family friendly event, and although we may scare some children I think most of them love it."

-- Blanca Garcia-Rinder, Portland OR