Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead : a novel by G. L. Payne. Based on the film , “Night of the Living Dead” , screenplay by George A. Romero and John Russo. In Public Domain

EXCERPT ONE

Forward

“Night of the Living Dead” is not my story. I claim no credit for the creation of this tale that has become as influential in its status as it is iconic in its stature. That honor belongs to George A. Romero and John A. Russo, who constructed a brilliant, compelling story that is a masterwork of filmmaking and storytelling. This work represents my interpretation of this classic tale which is one of my all-time favorite works of fiction. Unfortunately, due to an error in protecting the rights of the creators of the original film (the details of which can be readily learned from other resources) “Night of the Living Dead” ended up being a property in the Public Domain. It has been remade, repackaged, tampered with, represented and misrepresented many times and in many ways. Some efforts, like this one, are labors of love while others have been a straight commercial exploitation of the appreciation, we, the fans, hold for this tale. No disrespect, infringement or judgment of any of those other works or the original material is intended by this effort. Mine is not the first reimagining of the film and certainly won’t be the last. I have tried to remain true to the source material and to capture the tone of the story as seen on film and maintain the personalities of the characters as they were presented by their creators. I would never suggest that the words I’ve written for this novel improve on the original story in any way. This work certainly doesn’t. It’s merely a different venue for telling the story with different possibilities inherent to the different forms of media. I tell this story out of nothing but love for the original work. As a parallel tale, for those who might be interested in something beyond the familiar story, I’ve included new material inspired by the events at Beekman’s Diner hinted at in the film. I hope it is enjoyable.

Prologue

The Chase

If she could make it to the car, she’d be safe. That was what she believed, anyway. That was what she was praying. If she could only make it to the car . . .

She was young—barely 23 years old—but she hadn’t run much since she was a kid and the muscles of her thighs and calves burned from her effort. Her legs moved like pistons, pumping hard enough that the chunky, blunt heels of her flat shoes punched holes in the ground beneath her feet, gouging out divots of earth and grass with every step. The awkward flight made her stride unsteady; her gait uncertain. If she slowed her pace even a little her movement would have been less a frantic scramble and more a controlled sprint. That was something her terror would not allow.

The creature pursuing her was not fast. It was relentless though. That was its advantage. She knew her only hope was to outdistance it but she was already exhausted, despite having traveled just a short way. It wasn’t just the running that had taken a toll. Panic was stealing her breath, causing her to heave large, shallow gulps of air that did her almost no good because she wasn’t holding them in long enough. That was something else she had no control over. Her executive decision-making processes had gone silent as a pure instinct for survival staged a coup and seized full command in her brain. The racket of her heart thundering in her chest, the rush of her blood surging through her veins, made a roar in her ears so loud she could hardly hear any other sound. But she didn’t need to hear the thing to know it was still back there.

Still coming for her . . .

If she could only make it to the car.

The heel of her left shoe snagged in the grass and she went sprawling. She landed on her stomach but caught herself before her upper body hit, bracing on her elbows to keep from face-planting. For a couple of seconds, she lay there, slightly stunned from the impact.

The fall was costly. Glancing back, she saw the thing closing on her. A black shape, it was silhouetted against the foliage and darkening sky behind it. Its arms waved overhead sweeping aside the thin, low-hanging branches of the trees in its path to clear a way forward. Its body rocked side to side as it moved in a clumsy ambulation, like a child still struggling to manage the skill of walking. The thing, whatever it was, had the shape of a man. It wore the clothes of a man—a suit that was tattered and torn by some earlier activity she had not witnessed. All of that was a deceit. Whatever else it might be, it most definitely was NOT a man. It may have been once. Now, it was something . . . different . . .

She had recognized the unnaturalness of thing the instant its touch landed on her when she was first attacked. The flesh of its grasp was cold. Eyes, dull and dark, lacked any spark from a soul contained within it. And the way it breathed, labored and rasping, made a death-rattle wheeze that, on its own, was somehow terrifying—a sound like the last, desperate agonized gasping of someone drawing his final breaths.

Lifting herself off the ground, she kicked away her other shoe. Barefoot now, her running smoothed out and making better time, she started to pull away from the creature. She should have lost the difficult shoes at the start, she realized.

Hope surged as she spotted the car on the road just ahead. Out from under the sheltering shade of the old-growth red maples that stood all around, more light remained from the waning day and the car seemed to glow like a sanctuary lit by a beacon from the heavens. She had begun to fear she’d been running the wrong direction because the walk from the vehicle hadn’t seemed nearly so far as the race back to it. But she could make it now. She was certain of that. She was going to make it.

Leaving the soft, grassy field for the roadway, the hard pavement was painful under her bare feet and her last few steps to the vehicle were an unwieldy clamber. Off-balance and wind-milling her arms to stay upright, she lurched into the side of the car like a line-backer hitting for a tackle. What little wind she had OOMPHED from her lungs and she rebounded off the vehicle, scrabbling for the driver’s door handle to catch herself from tumbling backward onto the pavement. There was no time for that. She couldn’t afford to fall again.

Miracle of miracles, the car door was unlocked. It swung open wide and then, reaching the limits of its throw, made a hard stop. Her grip on the door handle held and the abrupt change in the direction of momentum caused her to pinwheel, then slingshot forward, falling right into the driver’s seat. The heavy car door slammed shut after her. While maybe it wasn’t a day for miracles, it was at least a moment for one.

She received just that one and no more. It was her single instant of good fortune. It passed in the blink of an eye.

She reached to start the car’s engine.

No key.

NO KEY!!

Where was the key?

She didn’t have a chance to wonder further.

The creature appeared at the driver’s side window, pounding and flailing at the glass. Horrified, she realized she had been so focused on the missing key that she hadn’t even thought to lock the door. She slammed the button down and only then did the creature try the handle, as if her act of locking the door had been a reminder that it could be opened. It tore at the handle, yanking with the fury of an angry dog ripping at a rag doll. And, like an angry dog, a vicious snarling poured from its lips.

Unable to budge the door, it resumed hammering at the glass with wild open-palmed slaps and haymaker forearms landing hard enough to rock the whole car. Reacting on instinct, she threw her own arms up, unsure if she was trying to brace the window from shattering or, by simple reflex, block the blows through the glass. Neither was a rational consideration. The frenzy of the moment was contagious and she was barely in any more control than the thing itself.

Then it was gone.

She twisted in the driver’s seat to look over her shoulder. Through the back windshield, she saw it moving around behind the car. The creature was going for the passenger side door. She was faster though, reaching across the seat to lock that door as well. This time the thing seemed to recognize the consequences of her action and made just a token effort to open the door before resuming its hammering attack on the passenger side glass. If anything, it seemed more furious than before.

With the vehicle now an obstacle between her and the creature, she contemplated for a few seconds throwing open the driver’s door and making another run. She was still winded from her first escape though and the way the creature behaved, there seemed to be no limits to its endurance. She pressed her spine into the driver’s door, trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and the thing but there was nowhere else to go. The car she had so hoped would be her salvation had become a deathtrap.

Her eyes again went to the ignition as if, this time, the key might somehow be there. Of course, it wasn’t.

But maybe, she thought, just MAYBE—

She reached for the glove box, thinking there might be a spare key. She knew better but the possibility was the only thread of hope she had left to pull. She hadn’t quite reached the compartment door when the passenger side window exploded, splintering shards of glass spraying everywhere. A stone the size of a softball came through in the hail of debris, just missing her head. She issued a shrill cry of terror as the thing leaned through the now vacant window, clawing for her. Kicking away, she crowded harder against the driver’s door. There was still no place left for her to go.

Her elbow or maybe a flailing knee caught the gear shift lever on the steering column and it moved, knocking the car’s transmission into neutral. The vehicle was standing on a slight grade and it lurched forward an inch or so before the emergency brake caught and it stopped again.

Less a miracle this time or even a fortunate happenstance, she saw the moment for the desperate opportunity it was and released the emergency brake. Slowly, the heavy car began rolling forward.

The movement pulled the creature off its feet. Already halfway through the broken window, it nearly fell head-first into the car. A pungent stench of some eye-stinging chemical along with a mild scent of decay flooded the cabin of the vehicle. Groping hands tore at her, reaching for her kicking legs and, having no other choice, she lashed out with a hard thrust of her foot, her heel landing against the thing’s shoulder. More of a shove than a kick in the tight space, the impact spun the creature to one side. It see-sawed briefly on the edge of the window frame then tottered out of the car, shoes scrabbling at the ground as it fought to recapture its footing. It grabbed at the window frame and, for a fraction of time, managed to run apace beside the car before the vehicle was moving too quickly for it to keep up. Still, it held on, being dragged snarling and snapping at her for some yards before it lost its hold. Somehow, it managed to stay upright and barely missing a stride, continued pursuit of the car.

The incline of the road the dead vehicle rolled on became steeper and the speed of the free-falling ride increased. Focused on the thing, she was startled to see how fast the car was now moving. She settled into the driver’s seat and took careful hold of the wheel of the car with both hands. Then she glanced to the rear-view mirror, where she saw the creature falling further behind until it disappeared behind the crest in the road.

That instant of inattention to what was in front of her proved disastrous. The smooth rolling of the car on the surfaced road changed into a rattling, jouncing bounce as the vehicle went over the shoulder and left the road for the unfinished terrain beyond. Snapping to awareness that she’d completely left the road; she turned the wheel to steer off the grassy shoulder and back onto the road.

Or, rather, she tried to steer the car. Without the engine running, the vehicle was a ton and a half of rolling dead weight. No power steering and no power brakes made it a gliding brick nearly impossible to control.

Heading directly for a tree, she pulled the heavy wheel and tromped on the brake pedal. The car was like a boat caught in an irresistible riptide; it didn’t want to give her anything, refusing to turn or slow. The trunk of the tree was thick and the vehicle had enough speed now that a direct impact was going to be a major event. She braced and hauled the wheel hard a’starboard with everything she had and the car granted her a slight turn to the right.

By a fraction, she managed to avoid the head-on crash. For just a second, she thought she was going to miss the tree entirely. Then the driver’s side mirror exploded. It sheered away and there came a screech of scraping, crumpling metal as the vehicle brushed against the trunk with a grinding shudder. The car staggered to a halt, the left front fender crushed and the car itself locked against the trunk. The finality of its stop made it obvious the car wouldn’t be moving again without power to the engine.

She didn’t bother reaching for the handle. The driver’s door was blocked and she was pinned in the car on that side. She looked back in the rear-view mirror and saw the creature coming over the rise in the road, looking like it was emerging from the earth itself. She had gained some distance on it with her kamikaze hayride and the moments in the car had allowed her to at least somewhat catch her breath. If she could only put more distance between herself and the thing, she thought, she might have an opportunity to lose it in the wilds of the underbrush ahead of her. Sliding across the wide seat, she popped the lock, threw open the passenger door and climbed out of the car.

The sun was nearly down, the shadows of evening growing long. The gathering darkness was erasing the horizon, blunting the shape of everything around her and limiting the distance she could see in a way that caused the entire world to seem to be folding in on her. Very soon, the last of the day was going to be gone and it would be full-on night. With barely a glance behind her—she didn’t need to see the thing to know it was still back there, still coming for her—she began to run again.

Excerpt part two:

https://vocal.media/fiction/night-of-the-living-dead-t7203n0m61

Excerpt part three:

https://vocal.media/horror/night-of-the-living-dead-ooym6i06zx