Will ‘Walking Dead’ companion show use the word ‘zombies’?

The creator of “The Walking Dead” comic book and TV show, Robert Kirkman, has made a point of not using the word “zombies” to describe his living dead ghouls.
The people in the “The Walking Dead” world apparently have never heard of the term zombie or seen a zombie movie like “Dawn of the Dead” or “Zombieland.” Instead, they use the term “walker,” which previously was only used to describe people getting exercise by walking (such as “mall walkers”) or a crutch frame for the disabled or elderly.
In “The Walking Dead,” set on the East Coast of the U.S., the main characters use the term “walkers” to describe zombies. Other people they have met have called the living dead “biters,” “rotters” and “roamers.”
This summer, AMC will air a companion series called “Fear the Walking Dead,” which is set in Los Angeles, home to Hollywood. It is an original series, with characters and stories not based on a comic book.
But Kirkman is likely to stick to his concept that the people in “The Walking Dead” live in an alternate universe where zombie movies, books and other fiction were never made, so the term “zombie” would be unknown to the characters.
In a time of post-modern horror movies and TV shows, where characters are familiar with all the concepts of vampires, werewolves and the like, characters in “The Walking Dead” are blissfully ignorant.
It will be interesting to see what characters in “Fear the Walking Dead” call zombies. Will they independently come up with the term “walkers”? (That’s a stretch.) Or will they use some other term?
We’ll find out this summer.

Photos: Scenes from the upcoming “Fear the Walking Dead.”