Men and women dressed as zombies for the quirky annual Zombie Walk held on a weekend in the Autumn, from the railway station down Queens Road/West Street to the sea front in Brighton, East Sussex, England
Nothing to see here, people. Move along.
Despite a string of grisly incidents throughout North America, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared late last week that there is no evidence of a coming Zombie Apocalypse.
The CDC, based in the Atlanta area, has previously issued promotional materials on how to survive a zombie attack, but these were all “a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with preparedness messages,” according to a new post on the agency’s website. Following a series of ghastly incidents in Canada, Florida, New Jersey, Washington and Maryland, the organization was actually forced to address (mostly online) concerns about back-from-the-dead monsters feasting on the flesh of the living.
(MORE: Today’s Sign of the Zombie Apocalypse: Student Charged in Cannibalistic Slaying of Housemate)
“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms),” agency spokesperson David Daigle told The Huffington Post on Friday.
Zombie talk began May 26 in Florida after 31-year-old Miami resident Rudy Eugene stripped off all his clothes, attacked a homeless man and attempted to chew off his face. Eugene, naked and growling, only ceased his attack after police shot him several times, according to eyewitnesses.
A day later, a New Jersey man stabbed himself 50 times, cut out his own intestines and threw them at police. By the end of the week a Seattle man had killed six people, including himself, in a shooting spree that started in a local cafe and a Baltimore student was charged with slaying and eating the heart and brain of his housemate.
To make matters even more suspicious, a bear was caught eating the corpse of a convicted murderer last week in British Columbia, although until we hear otherwise we’ll assume it’s probably not a zombie bear.