LaReeca Rucker
From the archives

If you turned on the local news last weekend and thought you were watching a trailer for the next “Walking Dead” spin-off, don’t adjust your screen. That horde of groaning, grimy, fake-blood-soaked humans shambling down the street was very real — and they were everywhere.

Yes, friends. The zombie apocalypse has officially arrived in the metro area.

From the Mississippi International Film Festival Zombie Ball — where the undead traded brains for beats — to the Cadaver Course 5K in Ridgeland and the mud-caked madness of Richland’s Zombie Mud Run, our usually polite and genteel corner of the South was crawling with creatures that looked like they clawed their way out of a grave (and possibly hit up a Spirit Halloween store along the way).

Mississippi, it seems, has been infected — and I mean that in the most fabulously frightful way possible.

I first noticed signs of a zombie renaissance back in 2008 when I wrote a blog post about their growing popularity. At the time, Etsy was teeming with zombie-themed jewelry, artwork, and handmade oddities — all of it timed with the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” which, let’s be honest, remains the ultimate undead dance party. I also touched on how the zombie film genre was creeping its way into the mainstream faster than you can say “double-tap.”

But little did I know back then just how deeply zombies would sink their teeth into pop culture. Fast-forward to today, and we’re living in a full-blown zombie age. There are themed 5Ks, escape rooms, costume contests, charity runs, haunted houses, pub crawls, and even survivalist training camps (you know, just in case it stops being fun and starts getting real). Zombies have shambled out of fiction and fandom and right into your neighborhood park — and they’re raising money for good causes while doing it!

That’s why we decided to put together a feature called “Year of the Living Dead” — an exploration of how zombies have gone from fringe horror flicks to the friendly face of American charity events, cosplay culture, and social commentary. Yes, it turns out that behind the gore and groans, the zombie trend says a lot about how we view survival, fear, conformity, and even consumerism. (George Romero called it way before it was cool.)

So if you find yourself being chased by a moaning runner in tattered clothes this fall, don’t panic. You’re not hallucinating. You’re just living in a world where being undead is the it thing.

And remember: cardio saves lives. Especially when the zombies are fast.