It's getting kind of creepy out there.
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A raft of news stories that could pass for harbingers of a zombie apocalypse has apparently even created a need for bullets specially-designed to stop the undead in their shambling tracks. Zombie Bullets, from Hornady Manufacturing, are for those who want to be ready and fully-supplied for, in the company's words, "the Zombie Apocalypse." Said Apocalypse will require Hornady's "Zombie Max ammunition," which is loaded "with PROVEN Z-Max bullets" which are specially designed to "MAKE DEAD PERMANENT."

A Detroit-area reporter spoke with Hornady rep Everett Deger. He told WWJ's Zahra Huber that Zombie Max Bullets were really based on company owner Steve Hornady's affection for zombie flicks. In other words, (don't be surprised!) it's all a marketing goof. The company "decided just to have some fun with a marketing plan that would allow us to create some ammunition for that... fictional world," said Mr. Deger.

Of course Dawn of the Dead-style zombies aren't real, but a selection of recent news stories with a certain zombie-ish feel underscore Hornady's motivations for their tongue-in-cheek marketing scheme (the horrific "Miami zombie" attack isn't even included below):
  • A New Haven woman was caught trying to steal a discounted wig at a New Haven, Connecticut beauty shop. She bit and struck the owner and resisted police with "crazed kicking and struggling." She was outwardly calm in a later court appearance. Note: not all zombies in fiction are exactly undead. Some suffer from secret, government-engineered viruses that cause them to behave like raging psychopaths.
  • Meanwhile, back in Miami, Brandon DeLeon was arrested for assaulting police officers in North Miami beach. He banged his head in a holding cell and according to one report growled at nearby officers "like a rabid dog." Mr. DeLeon allegedly consumed a cocktail of the synthetic drug Cloud 9 and Four Loko. In George Romero's 1973 The Crazies a bioweapon is unleashed on an unwitting small town and residents there go similarly - but much more violently - insane.
  • Then there's this eerily hilarious tale from the United Kingdom, where an alleged giant Smurf is on the loose in the Forest of Dean, approaching women, waving at them and "doing star jumps." Fictional Smurfs, of course, are quite small and not typically interested in more than one woman.
It may be the last is the story we'll most regret holding at arm's length with humor later, unless Gargamel is already on the case.