Night of the Living Dead Read online

  Night of the

  Living Dead

  Other Works by Christopher Andrews

  Novels

  Pandora’s Game

  Dream Parlor

  Paranormals

  Hamlet: Prince of Denmark

  Of Wolf and Man

  (Bronze IPPY winner for Horror)

  Collections

  The Darkness Within

  Screenplays

  Thirst

  Dream Parlor

  (written with Jonathan Lawrence)

  Mistake

  One More Round

  (written with Roberto Estrella)

  Web Series

  Duet

  Video Games

  Bankjob

  Night of the

  Living Dead

  A Novelization by

  Christopher Andrews

  Adapted from the public domain film

  Night of the Living Dead

  by

  John Russo and George Romero

  Copyright © 2009 by Christopher Andrews

  Night of the Living Dead

  ISBN: Trade paperback 978-0-9824882-1-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  This book is a work of fiction, based on a film by John Russo and George Romero — the film Night of the Living Dead is property of public domain per U.S. Copyright Law. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the creators’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book was printed in the United States of America.

  Rising Star Visionary Press trade paperback edition: October, 2009

  A Rising Star Visionary Press book

  for extra copies please contact by e-mail at

  [email protected]

  or send by regular mail to

  Rising Star Visionary Press

  Copies Department

  P O Box 9226

  Fountain Valley, CA 92728-9226

  With absolute respect for the film’s creators,

  John Russo and George Romero.

  And thank you to Daniel and Lindsey at

  Rising Star Visionary Press for this opportunity.

  Contents

  BARBRA

  BEN

  TOM AND JUDY

  THE COOPERS

  NIGHT

  DAWN

  About the Author

  BARBRA

  "They’re coming to get you, Barbra ..."

  Barbra jerked, her head snapping upright with painful rigidity. Her neck burned in protest, and she bit down on a gasp the barest instant before it escaped her lips. If Johnny realized that she had fallen asleep while he had to drive ...

  But a glance from the corner of her eye showed that her brother had not noticed. He was grumbling under his breath again, too wrapped up in his own bad mood to pay attention to her, for now.

  Barbra breathed a sigh of relief, her heart slowing to a more normal pace — not that she would be able to release all of her tension until they got this over with. She glanced out the open passenger-side window, using her blonde hair as a curtain as she looked out at the pretty yet mundane scenery.

  What was it that had startled her? A dream that was just beginning to unfold ...

  No, not a dream. Not really. A memory. A memory of the place they were going, a place she dreaded so much, of her brother chasing her around like a cruel idiot, terrifying his baby sister with his hackneyed Boris Karloff impression. Under other circumstances, she might have mentioned it, using a feint of shared humor to ease her nerves, to try and force her adulthood to scoff her inner child into submission.

  But no, it would not be a good idea to remind Johnny of his juvenile games. Lord knew Johnny could be a handful at the best of times, and today’s annual errand had already put him into a foul mood.

  Johnny had been difficult all day. But then, Johnny was always difficult.

  Life had not been especially kind to either of them. Their father had died when they were both very young. In spite of their mother’s shaky health, she had been forced to take a job as a seamstress, leaving them to spend their days with a grandfather who was not known for his warmth. He had been a church-going man — "church-going" as in the Hellfire & Brimstone variety. His long lectures and sermons had influenced Barbra to attend church to this day (though she preferred a quieter church to the one her grandfather had insisted they attend as children), but they had driven Johnny to grow up boisterous and irreverent. This attitude led to frequent conflicts with their grandfather, their mother, and even Barbra on any number of occasions.

  Such as today.

  Barbra was doing everything she could to keep things civil. She knew that Johnny hated these long trips out to their father’s grave, but Johnny owned a car and she didn’t, so she had been trying to keep the peace. When the car radio had stopped working about an hour ago, leading to a litany of curse words from Johnny, Barbra had bitten her tongue to avoid voicing her disapproval, which would have only created more tension. He was also chain-smoking cigarette after cigarette, something he knew she hated ... but she said nothing.

  At long last, they turned onto the winding dirt and gravel road that slithered its lazy way up to the cemetery. Their ritual for the sad anniversary of their father’s death was halfway over.

  Johnny had ceased his quiet grumbling, and when he pulled the car into their usual spot near the top of the hill, Barbra offered a light comment. "They ought to make the day the time changes the first day of summer."

  Johnny was in the middle of crushing out his cigarette. "What?"

  "Well," she explained, "it’s eight o’clock and it’s still light."

  "A lot of good the extra daylight does us," Johnny groused as he futzed with his silly leather driving gloves. "Now we’ve still got a three-hour drive back. We’re not going to be home until after midnight."

  "Well if it really bugged you, Johnny," she observed, "you wouldn’t do it."

  She realized as soon as the words left her mouth that it was a mistake, but fortunately, Johnny did not rise to the bait with his usual vehemence. He just snorted and said, "You think I wanna blow Sunday on a scene like this? You know, I figure we’re either gonna have to move Mother out here or move the grave into Pittsburgh."

  Barbra rankled and reminded him, "She can’t make a trip like this."

  "Ohhh," Johnny scoffed as he twisted around to reach into the backseat. "It’s not that she can’t ... Is there any of that candy left?"

  Barbra leaned forward to look. "No."

  Johnny pulled the small wreath onto his lap. "Look at this thing," he grumbled. " ‘We still remember.’ I don’t. You know, I don’t even remember what the man looks like."

  The sad thing was, she couldn’t tell if he really meant it or was just trying to provoke a reaction from her. "Johnny," she sighed, "it takes you five minutes ..."

  "Yeah, ‘five minutes’ to put the wreath on the grave, and six hours to drive back and forth. Mother wants to remember, so we trot two hundred miles into the country and she stays at home."

  Weary and wanting to close the subject, Barbra rolled up her window and returned to her placating voice. "Well, we’re here, John, all right?"

  Johnny mumbled some retort, but he, too, began rolling up his window. Barbra got out of the car and crossed around behind it, her heels crunching on the gravel and making her feel a bit unbalanced. Very faintly, she heard the rad
io start to whistle through Johnny’s rising window.

  Now it decides to work! she thought.

  As she waited for Johnny to catch up, she was only vaguely aware of the voice on the radio saying something about technical problems. She was too busy looking around the graveyard in the dimming light, and struggling to keep her jittery nerves from getting the best of her.

  They’re coming to get you, Barbra ...

  Barbra shuddered. She had never liked graveyards. Pulling her coat tighter around her throat, she stepped off the road and onto the cemetery lawn just as Johnny joined her.

  "There was nothing wrong with the radio," he said as he came alongside her. "Must have been the station."

  All of them? she started to remark, but decided against it — implying that his car wasn’t as cherry as it once was would be unwise. Instead, she ignored his comment and asked, "Which row is it in ...?"

  Together, the siblings meandered into the somewhat disorganized graveyard. They cast about for their father’s grave while Johnny carried the wreath and Barbra made sure not to lose her footing — her heels had not been designed for soft earth any more than the gravel road.

  The glooming sky and lengthening shadows chased a tickle up Barbra’s spine. The place was just so empty, so ... well, dead.

  "Boy, there’s no one around," Johnny observed in a low voice, as though echoing her thoughts.

  "Well it’s late," Barbra retorted, the surroundings getting the best of her nerves. "If you’d gotten up earlier..."

  "Aw, look, I already lost an hour’s sleep with the time change—"

  "I think you complain just to hear yourself talk." She shoved her hands into her coat pockets just as she spotted their father’s headstone. "There it is."

  Marching over at first, Barbra’s steps slowed as they approached the unkempt grave. Her heartbeat was fluttering again, and she feigned a sudden interest in a low-hanging branch as Johnny knelt to set the cross-shaped wreath in place.

  "I wonder what happened to the one from last year," Johnny said. "Each year we spend good money on these things, we come out here, and the one from last year’s gone."

  Barbra shrugged. "Well, the flowers die and ... the caretaker or somebody takes them away."

  A low thunder rumbled through the evening sky from dark clouds rolling in over the horizon. Johnny leaned back to inspect his handiwork over the rims of his glasses. "Yeah, a little spit-and-polish, you can clean this up, sell it next year." He climbed to his feet. "I wonder how many times we’ve bought the same one."

  Ignoring him again, Barbra stepped forward as Johnny stepped back. She knelt before the grave of their father, clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and began to pray.

  She heard Johnny shuffling around behind her — probably uncomfortable with her supplication, if she knew her brother. The thunder rolled again, and Barbra focused to keep her breathing steady.

  Sure enough, Johnny only managed to wait a few more seconds before needling, "Hey, come on, Barb, church was this morning, huh?"

  Another clap of thunder — the loudest yet — made her jump a little, but it also brought her a reprieve. Her eyes remained closed, but Johnny must have taken a moment to look around, perhaps evaluating the sky for rain; a creaky rustling also told her that he was slipping back into those driving gloves of his.

  But eventually, as always, he started again. "Hey, I mean, prayin’s for church, huh? Come on ..."

  Barbra sighed, but kept her eyes shut. "I haven’t seen you in church lately."

  Johnny chuckled. "Yeah, well ... there’s not much sense in my goin’ to church." He paused, then asked, "Do you remember one time when we were small, we were out here?"

  Oh, no ...

  Johnny continued, sounding nostalgic of all things! "It was from right over there. I jumped out at you from behind a tree, and Grandpa got all excited and he shook his fist at me and he said, ‘Boy, you’ll be damned to hell!’ "

  Barbra stood then, averting her eyes. Why couldn’t things ever be easy with Johnny?

  Johnny chuckled again, still thankfully oblivious as to how nervous he was making her. "Remember that? Right over there ..."

  Barbra walked away, heading in the general direction of the car.

  "Boy," Johnny said, still musing over the tree in question, "you used to really be scared here."

  "Johnny," she said, turning his name into a chastisement. Big mistake.

  Johnny locked onto the tremor in her voice like a cat onto a mouse. "Hey, you’re still afraid!" He sounded all too pleased with himself.

  "Stop it now!" she scolded, trying in her own way to sound like their grandfather. "I mean it!"

  That was the worst thing she could have done with Johnny — all it did was egg him on. He smiled and started with that annoying, creepy voice of his. "They’re coming to get you, Barbra ..."

  "Stop it! You’re ignorant!"

  Barbra turned her back on him, but her idiot brother kept at it. He ducked around one of the larger tombstones, then pulled himself over the top like some kind of ghoul. "They’re coming for you, Barbra ..." he moaned in his Karloff-wannabe voice.

  Barbra stomped her way back toward the car, and Johnny followed. She hesitated just long enough to tell him, "Stop it! You’re acting like a child!"

  "They’re coming for you ..." Johnny insisted.

  Barbra scoffed with as much false courage as she could muster and continued on her way.

  It was sad, really. Here they were, two supposed adults — one teasing the other like a child, and the other afraid like a child. Johnny could barely maintain his faux-frightened mask as the impulse to grin at her rose and fell. He looked over to his right, and Barbra followed his gaze.

  An older man was shambling through the cemetery. He swayed from side to side and looked a little bedraggled, and Barbra had to wonder if he was drunk, perhaps even driven to drink by visiting a fallen loved one here in this lonely place.

  "Look!" Johnny proclaimed. "There comes one of them now."

  Barbra was aghast. "He’ll hear you!" she admonished with a ferocious whisper.

  Johnny ran up to her, taking her by the shoulders in mock fear. "Here he comes now! I’m getting out of here!"

  "Johnny!" Barbra gasped as Johnny took off. He ran past the man, and Barbra’s cheeks burned in humiliation. She often thought that their grandfather had been too harsh with them, but at times like this, she wondered if maybe he should’ve tanned Johnny’s hide a little more often.

  Her hands tucked into her pockets and her eyes low in embarrassment, Barbra continued on her way. She would cross paths with the poor man in a matter of seconds, and she prepared to apologize for her brother’s boorish antics.

  The man attacked her.

  Barbra screamed as he grabbed at her, only the collar of her coat preventing his fingernails from tearing into the flesh of her throat. Her shrieks grew strangled as he clutched at her, pulling her toward his snarling mouth — he snapped his teeth as though trying to bite her face! Despite the wildness of his expression, he made very little noise. His body smelled horrible, and from what little sound he did make, his rancid breath made her sick.

  Johnny stopped and looked back just in time to see the man assault his sister. For a moment, he could not respond — the sight was otherworldly to him. He had just been teasing Barbra that the man was coming to get her; for the stranger to actually be doing so was ... well, it was ridiculous. Outrageous. Couldn’t be happening.

  Barbra wailed, pulling away from the maniac with all her strength. She pounded at him, his chest and his face. When her fist came near his mouth, he again tried to bite her.

  Johnny finally broke into action. He dashed back to Barbra, throwing himself against the madman and wedging his arm between them. He pulled and tugged, desperate to get the man away from his sister.

  "Johnny!" Barbra cried. "Help me!"

  Finally, Barbra managed to slip from the man’s grasp. The lunatic grew wild in agitation, twisting around in Johnn
y’s arms. Barbra then ceased to exist, and Johnny became the target of his fury.

  Cowering against a gravestone, Barbra watched helplessly as Johnny wrestled with their assailant. The man bit and snapped at Johnny, trying to sink his teeth in wherever he could reach. Johnny cried out as the man’s fingers raked down his face, pulling his glasses off and digging into his eyes. The man still made little noise, and what few sounds escaped his throat were no more coherent than those of a rabid dog.

  Having his glasses ruined, of all things, inspired Johnny to his own greater violence. He grab the maniac and shoved him down with enough force to finally break his grip. When the man got right back up onto his feet, Johnny was ready for him, meeting this latest attack with one of his own. They grappled with one another, Johnny clutching and punching at the man’s mid-section, while the man sank his teeth into the padding of Johnny’s coat shoulder without doing any real harm. They twisted, spun, and toppled over — Johnny squirmed around, aiming to land on top so that he could press his advantage.