[Starfleet Command]

Meanwhile, all across America, people are stocking up on necessities, getting ready for the zombies.

Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil, I Am Legend et al.

I have a very, very dark idea about the "zombie meme". I think it's a shock image from the (near) future which causes ripples of perception to move back through time.

This is similar to CS Lewis' perception of the Crucifixion, which he described propagating backward through time to other "pagan" societies as "nice dreams", only on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum.

I don't think the dead are going to return to life and attack the living, but I do think the visual and functional behavior of the masses in the cities will be too similar to dismiss. Diseased, starving, ragged, aggressive, senseless, parasitic. Like today's Democrats but without foodstamps.

[Charles Martel]

Hey, you forgot Sean of the Dead. ;-)

With regard to the similarities between zombies and the residents of the blue zones, I Am Legend might have accidentally hit fairly close to the mark with its depiction of "hyper-violence" as a major characteristic.

The older zombie flicks showed violence, but I Am Legend took the pack-hunting / predator angle to new heights.

Also, all of the blue zones are surrounded by suburban and rural regions, hostile territory for the blue-zone predators. Recall the helicopter flight out of the city in the original Dawn of the Dead? "Those rednecks are having themselves a field day."