Is a zombie apocalypse really possible? What would it be like?

We've all seen TV shows, movies, video games, and books about a devastating apocalyptic scenario in which humans turn into mindless cannibals who's only goal is to devour living people and throw the world into chaos. That's all fictional, though right? There's no such thing as a "zombie virus" is there? Are there any true facts behind a real zombie apocalypse? 
According to Elankumaran Subbiah, a virologist at Virginia Tech, a viral rabies hybrid really could create a zombie apocalypse, but it would have to be genetically engineered, since  mutations occur randomly in nature. “They [viruses] are too different from each other. They cannot share genetic information. Viruses assemble only parts that belong to them, and they don’t mix and match from different families,” said Subbiah. “Sure, I could imagine a scenario where you mix rabies with a flu virus to get airborne transmission, a measles virus to get personality changes, the encephalitis virus to cook your brain with fever and throw in the ebola virus to cause you to bleed from your guts. Combine all these things, and you’ll get something like a zombie virus. But this couldn't all naturally happen at the same time.”
Phew, zombie apocalypse averted... right? Unfortunately, the modern world has this scenario becoming a frightening reality. What if a country or terrorist group were to purposefully genetically engineer a zombie virus as a weapon of mass destruction?
Fortunately, scientific knowledge for creating an artificial virus is not exactly a common specialty, and it took a team led by J. Craig Venter years to make the first major scientific breakthrough. But in August of 2014, researchers from Wageningen UR successfully developed an artificial virus for the first time. The long-term goal is to apply these techniques to biotechnology, medicine, and nanotechnology, but how long will it be until these techniques are weaponized? If that scenario were to ever become reality, the world may wish the zombie apocalypse had been created by nature instead of man.