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Canada's queen of the undead is a vegetarian.
And she fondly recalls past birthday parties -- where she found inspiration to infect the world.
Known as Thea Munster, the now 34-year-old Toronto lab technician organized the first "zombie walk" in 2003, as a logical next step after hosting zombie-themed birthday bashes. During those ghoulish celebrations, she would often be the only one to arrive dead.
But she had a hunch there were more wandering spirits, begging to be set loose on the streets.
Her first shuffle through downtown Toronto -- a harmless bit of public theatre -- only drew a handful of diehards. But since then, the odd outings have grown -- and taken over other cities. Zombies regularly walk the streets of Calgary, Ottawa and Vancouver, in Australia, in Europe and across the U.S. -- with one in Pittsburgh drawing out 894 stiffs to some of the same locations used by filmmaker George A. Romero in Dawn of the Dead.
Many are planned around this month.
Munster holds her fifth walk -- or manic lurch -- today in Toronto, and she hopes to surpass Pittsburgh's numbers.
"It's like a plague," she says of zombie flash mobs now taking place in more than 40 cities. "I look at what I started and think I should feel really bad."
She says zombies strike a deep cord in us all, because they represent a terror that's far-fetched but close to home -- that family and friends, not just your boss, could suddenly want to eat your brain.
In Boston, in April, they lurched and moaned into Harvard Square -- banging on the sides of city buses, as confused passengers checked their own pulses.
"It's a way of celebrating our dead, which we don't do," she explains. "Even on Halloween, people dress up as TV characters, and not the dead. What's the sense in that?"
In hopes of keeping most in line during her own zombie walks, she posts tips on her website (torontozombiewalk.ca), pointing out that zombies need to obey traffic lights.
And the one thing that truly scares Munster? Bay Street, banging down her door.
She says while many companies have come calling, she won't sell out the zombie walks to corporate sponsors. "I spend a lot of time fighting them off," she says.
"(Because) nothing brings me more joy than letting an army of zombies loose on their own."
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WALKING DEAD
The 2007 Toronto Zombie Walk will start today at approximately 3:30 p.m at Trinity Bellwoods Park. From here all zombies will head east along Queen St. W. and then north on Bathurst St. to Bloor St. W. Then east along Bloor St. W. to the Bloor Cinema, arriving at approximately 5 p.m. before the evening entertainment -- a zombie double-bill at the theatre, of course.