Fast Zombies

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A type of zombie that is fast. If these zombies are alive, they should count as Technically Living Zombies. If you spend most of your first encounter standing there staring at one thinking it's Not a Zombie, your chances for survival are pretty grim. Deadly Lunge is a common middle ground between this and Zombie Gait, in which a zombie becomes fast once its prey is quite close.

Is it weird that a Zombie has haste? Aren’t they supposed to be slow? Some people in house found it weird, but modern pop-culture zombie storytelling has opened the door to non-plodding zombies, some of which are terrifyingly quick! —Aaron Forsythe, Director of Magic R&D.

Examples of Fast Zombies include:

Film

• Zombies in Zombieland, which is why staying in shape is more important than other zombie stories.
• In World War Z, the zombies never even seem to slow to a mere sprint.
• 28 Days Later and its sequel contain just zombies, though they're infected with a virus rather than reanimated corpses.
• The 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead featured this type of zombies.
• Return of the Living Dead was the Trope Maker.

Tabletop Games

• In Magic: The Gathering there are some creatures with the zombie subtype that have at least one ability associated with speed (such as haste). The page quote comes from a card developer/designer bringing up the trope on the card discussion of Blackcleave Goblin.

Video Games

• Half-Life 2 has fast zombies, which are not only fast, but quite agile and capable of both jumping and climbing.
• The zombies in Saints Row the Third can run pretty fast for zombies, but still do so with a very pronounced stagger.
• Kingdom of Loathing has a special enemy called the modern zombie zmobie. Far beating the other misspelled zombies in the game, the modern zmobie has initiative 300, which means that it almost assuredly will get to hit the player first.