Downtown zombie invasion a rousing success By PHILIP NARSH Staff Writer PSNsool@psu.edu It was a gray and cloudy day in the late afternoon of October 24. Thick fog billowed up from the Susquehanna River as a blood-thirsty gang of more than two hundred zombies shambled across the Walnut Street Walking Bridge from City Island toward an unsuspecting Harrisburg. The horde growled and moaned as it made its way through the busy streets, passing the Capitol building and Strawberry Square. However, this flash mob of walking corpses was not a sign of the zombie apocalypse; this was the first annual Harrisburg Zombie Walk. The walk was organized by zombie enthusiasts Melanie Devorick and Justin Kovaloski, who had planned the event for several months. Mostofthe people who attended the walk found out about it from the Facebook group Devorick and Kovaloski created. “[Video game designers] really succeeded in making terrifying video games. I think that helped get a whole new generation of people to love and fear the undead,” Devorick said. The zombies came from all walks of life, young and old, and dressed in all manners of blood soaked costumes ranging from zombie brides to construction workers. One man wheeled his zombified daughter about town in a stroller as he chewed on a severed limb. The citizens of Harrisburg didn’t know exactly what to make of this sudden outbreak. People waved from cars as they passed, some screamed in terror. Many stopped to pose for pictures with the zombies. Penn State students Colin Powell and Brian Lopez were among the brain-eating crowd. Powell, a sophomore telecommunications major, dressed in running shorts and a blood-smeared Relay for Life t-shirt. “It was great,” said Powell, “I got the most enjoyment from seeing people’s reactions, taking pictures and videotaping us. Seeing it on the news was really cool, too. I felt like a celebrity.” “Pm so proud of my generation,” said Lopez, “I was really surprised at how many people showed up for it and the detail they put into their costumes.” Powell and Lopez plan to attend the next year’s zombie walk in different costumes and with more blood. Devorick and Kovaloski have already begun planning for next year’s zombie walk and hope to achieve an even larger turnout in 2010.
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