Zombie Walk to be unleashed on Lawrence Thursday

IF YOU GO

6 p.m.: Zombie Walk participants gather at the South Park gazebo for dress, photos, zombie-walk training and T-shirt sales. No fee is necessary to participate.

Sundown: The undead are unleashed on Massachusetts Street. Zombies will walk up to Seventh Street on the eastern sidewalks and back down to South Park along the western side.

Normally it would be advisable to avoid an area infested with undead, starved-for-flesh zombies. Not so on Thursday.

Members of the public are invited to downtown Lawrence Thursday evening to either watch or participate in the eighth annual Zombie Walk, where hundreds of people of all ages dress up, douse themselves in blood and mosey up and down Massachusetts Street.

“I think people absolutely love it, it’s very cool, it’s unusual,” Downtown Lawrence Inc. executive director Sally Zogry said. “Last year they had almost a thousand zombies walk.”

Participation is free, though there are opportunities to give money to a worthy cause. Zombies will gather at the South Park gazebo at 6 p.m., where you can “pay to get spritzed with blood or splashed with blood,” Zogry said. Photo shoots, T-shirts for sale and zombie-walk training will also be available.

Proceeds will go to the Lawrence Humane Society. The event raised about $2,200 last year, Zogry said.

The march will then commence at sundown, with zombies walking and snarling their way up the eastern sidewalks up to Seventh Street and back to South Park along the western side.

The parade-like event, which is sponsored this year by The Granada Theater, typically draws large crowds. With zombies and spectators sharing the walkways, it usually makes for more of an interactive experience for everyone, Zogry said.

“(The zombies are) getting in your face or whatever,” she said. “There’s definitely people who are waiting for it every year, and they go all out.”