SALEM — What do we want? "Brains!"
When do we want them? "Now!"
That chant rang throughout downtown Salem from a horde of the "undead," who lurched, staggered, and left trails of costume blood along the first-ever Salem Zombie Walk held yesterday afternoon.
"Zombie" Kelly Weissinger, of Salem, gnawed at glistening red intestines that spilled from her belly. Another zombie dragged her leg and had a worm dangling from her cheek.
Open wounds, severed limbs and bloody noses — you name it, and these zombies sported it.
"I like horror movies a lot," said Kelly Mahoney, 18, of Beverly, who mixed corn syrup, red food coloring and dirt to feign gashes on her legs and a bloody nose. "I like costume make-up and I like dressing up like a zombie. The bloody nose is my favorite, especially now that I have the septum piercing."
More than 100 costumed walkers gathered for the inaugural Salem Zombie Walk.
"There are zombie walks all over the country," said Shannon Cormier, 23, of Salem. "Salem never had one before, which is really surprising. It's almost a culture. People love zombie movies; they're funny."
Cormier and her friend, Janara Digou, 23, also from Salem, achieved the desired zombie look by wearing ripped clothing, rolling in the dirt, and dusting with baby powder.
"And we put leaves in our hair," said Cormier, who wore torn, black fishnet tights. "You have to look like you just came from the ground."
The zombies trickled into the Collins Cove park before yesterday's walk where they put finishing touches on their costumes and played zombie frisbee and kickball — reeling and swaying from base to base.
"Come on, give it a shot — we're all dead here," shouted a bloody-lipped zombie on the kickball field whose black T-shirt read, "Born To Be Devoured."
The zombies set off around 4:30 p.m. (30 minutes late, but they are zombies after all) and stumbled toward the downtown, much to the surprise of motorists and pedestrians along the route who slowed, gawked and took photos with cameras and cell phones.
Sandy and Bill Berchoff, of Beverly, were among those who drew prolonged stares.
"It's foam latex — what they use in the movies," Sandy Berchoff said while poking the mottled, gray mask with warts melded to her face. She wore a dark floral dress and her husband wore a tattered grey suit that he airbrushed with dark paint.
"We're going for that 'freshly dug out of the grave' look," she said. "We come to Salem every year on Halloween. This year we'll be doing 'Planet of the Apes' costumes."
Salem police officers manned the Zombie Walk yesterday and told the undead to remain orderly and stay on the sidewalks as they shuffled down Webb Street, to Boardman Street, through the Salem Common and onto the Essex Street Pedestrian Mall, calling out "Brains! Brains!" and jutting their arms outward in the classic zombie stance.
Even though they are dead, zombies can apparently use the Internet, too. Many of yesterday's walkers said they heard about the event through the social networking Web site, MySpace, where the "Zombie Walk Salem" page reads, "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth."
There were zombies new and old at yesterday's walk, like Mahoney, the zombie with the pierced septum.
"I've done the Boston zombie walk three years in a row," said Mahoney, a freshman at Montserrat College of Art. "The best thing is going up to the glass at windows at restaurants when people are eating. They don't realize at first, and then it's, 'Oh, zombies!'"
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