Hopkins Park was the site of a zombie apocalypse this weekend.

Clinton Rosette Middle School, 650 N. First St., hosted its second annual Run for Your Life 5K Sunday morning. Runners had to escape the clutches of zombies chasing after them. Zombies were infected not by the regular means of contamination — government experiments gone awry or bad drinking water — but instead by a group of volunteers painting faces on participants. The money the 5K raised will help the school buy more computers, field trips and programming needed by the teachers.

Falling short of its goal to raise $10,000, the school’s Parent Teacher Association attempted to match last year’s goal of $8,000 with more than 150 runners and donations from businesses within the community.

Given a two-minute head start, runners were given a flag to represent their lives, while zombies left the start line in hopes of “killing” runners to receive a top three spot as the best zombie. Graduate anthropology student Robert Bulanda claimed the second-place medal by taking eight lives.

“I think I did pretty good,” Bulanda said. “There was a little kid ahead of me that may have had more.”

The extra incentive to attack humans helped him run.

“It gave me a burst of energy. An adrenaline rush,” Bulanda said.

Starting two minutes after the zombies left to claim their meals, a third group of runners classified as medics were not to be hunted, but to enjoy the brisk run and witness the frenzy.

“It gets very crazy on the course,” said Jamie Vilet of DeKalb, president of the PTA and organizer of the race.

Vilet was happy to see spectators, or zombie “groupies,” that were there to watch the eating frenzy.

Jeff Wig, 41, of DeKalb, was sporting a post-zombie apocalypse gas mask during his run. He was mostly unfazed by the threat of zombies.

“I think wearing the gas mask makes it harder,” Wig said. “I like a challenge.”

Vilet handed out medals to the top three runners and zombies. The most ruthless zombie collected nine lives while the top runner escaped the course in 20 minutes and 12 seconds.