One ideal sunny fall Saturday in Rosendale, residents looked out their window to see a blood-soaked bride corpse staggering down the street, dragging her half-dead groom alongside. Behind them was another half-decayed corpse, and another and another till it became apparent that either Stephen King was somehow involved or this was the first-ever Rosendale Zombie crawl.

About 150 to 200 zombies staggered, moaned and lurched up and down Main Street as on-lookers stared through the viewfinders of their cameras. According to organizer and producer Lara Hope, the infestation of corpses raised $200 for the Rosendale Food pantry, and the Rosendale Theatre took in $450 in ticket and concession sales for its showing of cult-classic Night of the Living Dead. Hope’s band Tiger Piss was among bone-chilling music acts which played after the parade at Willow Kiln Park.

“It seemed as if the people who didn’t participate, still came around to take pictures, or at least came and gawked for a few minutes,” said Hope. “I heard no objections at all. We raised money for both the food pantry and the theater, and I think everyone was pleased.” Prizes were given for the best costumes and undead vendors sold Rosendale’s own Zanti jewelry, horror buttons, coloring books, illustrations and art and even a toy zombie pet shop.

“Like there’s no crying in baseball, well, there’s no glitter in zombies,” hissed Saugerties zombie ruler Captain Cruella Moxham, who will be responsible raising the dead in Saugerties for the Village Invasion Zombie Crawl on Oct. 16. Joining the ghoulish get-together will be the Hudson Valley Horrors Roller Derby team and there will be drink specials at the Dutch Ale House; the band Voodelic will rock under black light; and the Ulster Bio-Recovery Trauma and Death Scene Clean-Up Crew will hand out some galling goodies. For more information about the Saugerties Village Invasion, visit www.crawlofthedead.com/crawls/info/village_invasion.