"Braaaaains!"

On the Friday night before Halloween, downtown Austinites were surprised by a roving flash mob of costumed zombies.

The event, organized with the assistance of the internet-based MEETinAUSTIN social group, drew dozens of shambling, faux-bloodied actors portraying the living dead. The zombies assembled at City Hall before proceeding to 4th and Colorado. "Austin's a really cool city," explained one zombie before the walk began and before her vocabulary became limited to growls and groans. "It's going to be interesting," she said.

As the mob arrived at the Alamo Drafthouse to waiting camera crews, an organizer was quickly swarmed by the mob. As the zombies pulled the actor to the ground and covered her in fake blood, a patron at the nearby Kenichi sushi bar urged zombies to renounce their taste for human flesh. He remarked, while laughing hysterically, "It's unsettling in a certain kind of way."

As the zombie invasion progressed through downtown, latecomers added to the mob's size. By the time the zombies reached 5th Street and Congress Avenue, their growing numbers began drawing everyone's attention. The cries of "braaaaains" echoed through a high-end luxury restaurant as patio diners tried their best to ignore a different kind of feast passing by.

The zombies then proceeded to 6th and Brazos, busy with weekend costume goers, before splitting up and hitting the bars.

At a post-walk party at nearby Buffalo Billiards, one particularly scary-looking zombie wearing surgical scrubs explained his presence at the event, "Halloween's my favorite holiday," he said.

"We're in a social group called MEETin, it's how we got started," said another. "But we really weren't trying to promote our group."

This isn't the first experience Austinites have had with the living dead. Another gathering in October of last year drew 15 zombies to the Frank Erwin Center in sight of a hundred rejects from "American Idol" auditions being held inside. Fox TV producers promptly requested the zombies sign waivers allowing their images to be broadcast.

One ACC student at Rio Grande reported that she had passed a few zombies milling in front of the Oakwood Cemetery near I-35 early this semester. It is not clear if there was any connection to the recent march.

In recent years zombie flash mobs have swept the nation in no small part due to the success of George A. Romero's cult films. Since the premiere of Romero's 1968 horror film "Night of the Living Dead," zombie genre films have achieved considerable success with recent titles such as "28 Days Later," with a sequel now in the works, and a remake of Romero's classic 1978 film "Dawn of the Dead." Each was criticized by fans for depicting zombies as fast moving and athletic, contrary to the original stereotype of movement at a snail's pace. This year's organizers, however, stayed true to the original.

The flash mob has been popularized over recent years with the widespread introduction of cell phones and the Internet, allowing a large number of participants to rapidly assemble in public with short notice. The modern term was probably first coined in science fiction author Larry Niven's 1973 short story "Flash Crowd," depicting a future inundated with teleportation booths that allow anyone to transport anywhere for parties or newsworthy events. The story deals with the social consequences of such communication-enabling technology. For example, riots could rapidly grow in size, as seen in the 2005 riots in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. Regardless, the flash mob is here to stay, although it's often used for the greater good. On Oct. 29, a zombie walk world record was set at the Monroeville Mall in Pittsburgh, where the original "Dawn of the Dead" was filmed. 894 zombies descended on the mall for a charity benefit, bringing enough brains, err... food, to fill 57 boxes for the city's food bank.