In 1928 the small farming town of Mortling, Alabama was overrun by hundreds of thousands of gophers. A desperate populace exterminated the swarm of rodents with explosives and poison. This combination of weapons was the catalyst for an unforeseen situation. While the explosives killed all the fuzzy rodents, the poison caused mutations and made a fair percentage return from the dead. Zombie gophers have plagued the area ever since. The ghoulish animals feast used to feed on the flesh of livestock. Since the 1970s they have just lurched around the parking lot of the town's KFC.

Source : Tolstoy, Leo. "Ghoulish Gophers Go Ga-Ga" Pravda, October 29, 1940.