NEW YORK -- As if the morning commute wasn't odd enough, intrepid New Yorkers trying to make their way to work had to battle past hordes of the walking dead.

Two dozen zombies, their clothes spattered with fake blood, were staggering up and down the block Tuesday outside Madison Square Garden. Downtown, others shuffled across the Brooklyn Bridge.

Some pedestrians looked startled or amused by the ghost-white actors with bruised-looking eyes. Some people ignored them entirely. Others whipped out their cell cameras.

Horror movie fan Linda Emery was thrilled to see the creatures.

"I'm into zombies, anything with zombies," the 58-year-old home care provider from Brooklyn said.

It made a change from her usual commute.

"You see a lot of stuff, but not this stuff," she said.

Erik Machado, an audio engineer heading to work in New Jersey, was unfazed and passed by the scene with nary a glance at the nightmares walking around.

"Got to commute, got to go where I got to go," the Queens resident said.

The stunt was part of a campaign in 26 cities worldwide promoting the Halloween premiere of the AMC television series "The Walking Dead."

At one point, about 15 zombies crawled on the roof, hood and trunk of a parked, off-duty taxi.

Taxi driver David Pollack managed to escape from the horde, scrambling out of the back seat, playing along with the drama of it all.

"I think I'm going to be walking over the George Washington Bridge and heading over to Jersey, hopefully they haven't gotten there yet," he said.

He added, "I'm a tough New Yorker, but I don't mess with zombies."