The novel is filled with scads of references to George’s universe, but the only one I feel obligated to explain here, for newcomers who might be confused, is the word ghouls, which is what the undead were called in Night. The word zombie didn’t show up until in Dawn, when at 1:44:53 (of the U.S. Theatrical cut), Peter says, “There’s going to be a thousand zombies in here.” It’s a funny line, in hindsight. George had no idea how true the statement would become in the 2000s. A thousand? Try a million.
Suz didn’t show me any notebook pages on which George practiced writing “Stay scared!” but it wouldn’t surprise me if they existed. The line was his trademark. Merely a cheeky expression, I’m sure he would have told you. But I like to think George, that long-haired ’60s radical whose ideals were too inflexible to squeeze comfortably inside Hollywood’s boxes, was using the slogan as a subtle warning to avoid complacence. To stay vigilant. In other words, “Stay scared.” My longest work is not, in fact, this one, but the two-volume, 1,457-page The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, which I organized entirely around the phrase, “You gotta have fear in your heart.” It took the completion of The Living Dead for me to realize George and I had been saying the same thing for a long time.
Don’t let your heart get hardened.
You gotta have fear in your heart.
Stay scared.
In the writing of this book, during the times I break through the fog and feel anew the awe, responsibility, and gratitude, I feel like it’s March 2006 all over again, and George, tired but resolute, is lumbering down the hall, not unlike one of his creations, heading toward his final event of the day, and I’m still there escorting him, I’m still there guarding him. I’m still determined to help him get there. Only this time, we’re not stopping for smokes.
Daniel Kraus
October 15, 2019
Acknowledgments
Chris Roe and Suzanne Desrocher-Romero brought me into the book; Richard Abate sold it; Brendan Deneen bought it; Melissa Ann Singer edited it; and I will never be able to thank these five people enough. Michael Murtagh’s personal tour of the USS Intrepid was invaluable, as were Adrian Durand’s insights into navy life. When it comes to understanding dead bodies, you can’t ask for a better corpse club than Mary Roach, Judy Melinek, and T. J. Mitchell. Phil Morehart provided a trove of published Romero research material. Adam Hart’s early ideas regarding a post-zombie society were a guiding light. Steven Schlozman made an offhand remark at the University of Pittsburgh’s “Reflections on Romero” event on October 19, 2018, that crystallized a major theme of the book for me. John Stone’s beautiful “Autopsy in the Form of an Elegy,” my favorite poem, appears with the kind permission of Mae Nelson Stone, James Stone, and John H. Stone. Finally, Amanda Kraus did the most important work of all: reminding me the world of the living required attention too.
The following people and institutions helped in ways too granular to get into here: Terry Alexander, Ashley Allen, Tara Altebrando, Bryan Bliss, Jill Bruellman, Christa Desir, Corey Ann Haydu, Jennifer Kearney, Affinity Konar, Adam Lowenstein, Carrie Mesrobian, Anne Elizabeth Moore, Bill Morrison, Vincenzo Natali, Tina Romero, Grant Rosenberg, Benjamin T. Rubin, Michael Ryzy, Marcus Sedgwick, Francesco Sinatora, Julia Smith, Christian Stavrakis, Andrea Subissati, Christian Trimmer, Katharine Uhrich, Jeff Whitehead, Tony Williams, Sara Zarr, the George A. Romero Foundation, and the University Library System at the University of Pittsburgh.
Additionally, I’d like to thank the following people: freelancers Laura Dragonette and Sara and Chris Ensey and at Tor, Greg Collins, Theresa Delucci, Tom Doherty, Oliver Dougherty, Fritz Foy, Rafal Gibek, Jordan Hanley, Eileen Lawrence, Devi Pillai, Sarah Reidy, Lucille Rettino, Alexis Saarela, and Jamie Stafford-Hill.
While I used far too many research materials to list them all, here are a few that greatly impacted the writing. Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner, by Judy Melinek and T. J. Mitchell; The Chick and the Dead, by Carla Valentine; both The Cinema of George A. Romero: Knight of the Living Dead and George A. Romero: Interviews, edited by Tony Williams; Night of the Living Dead, by Ben Hervey; Murder in the News: An Inside Look at How Television Covers Crime, by Robert H. Jordan; Carrier: A Guided Tour of an Aircraft Carrier, by Tom Clancy and John Gresham; Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H. W. Bush, by Geoff Dyer; the PBS series Carrier; When There’s No More Room in Hell: The Sociology of the Living Dead, by Andrea Subissati (which helped me connect Haitian zombies to Romero zombies); The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm, by Lewis Dartnell; Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World, by Rutger Bregman; Martin Heidegger’s Grouch, by Yan Marchand; Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth, by Kim Paffenroth; Powell and Pressburger’s The Tales of Hoffmann, and, of course, the films of George A. Romero.
About the Authors
GEORGE A. ROMERO’s classic zombie movie cycle begins with the groundbreaking Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, which are followed by four sequels. Romero directed two Stephen King projects, Creepshow and The Dark Half, and created the TV series Tales from the Darkside. Originally from New York City, Romero attended Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. He and his wife, Suzanne, lived in Toronto for many years. George A. Romero died in 2017.
Visit him online at georgearomerofoundation.org/, or sign up for email updates here.
DANIEL KRAUS coauthored the New York Times bestselling The Shape of Water with Guillermo del Toro, based on the idea the two created for the Academy Award–winning film. Their earlier collaboration, Trollhunters, was adapted into an Emmy Award–winning Netflix series. Kraus’s novel The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch was named one of Entertainment Weekly’s Top Ten Books of the Year, and his novel Rotters was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. Kraus lives with his wife in Chicago.
Visit him online at danielkraus.com/, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraphs
Act One: The Birth of Death
Absovle Me Iff Yuo Can
A Gray Murk
This Is the Place
It’s the Twixt That Gets You
Who’s Got the Last Laugh Now?
Invisible Hands
The Miscarriage
Sixty-Four Floors
Go Redskins
A Richer Vintage
No Teeth
Altogether Different Beasts
No Longer in Service
Dream’s Over
Bad Vs. Badder
Fringe Jabberwocky
Chucksux69
The Suspense Is Killing Me
Bigger Balls
Peculiarities
Juicy, Grisly, Sexy
Ghouls
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
Some Kind of Bird Flu Thing
Just Plain Jenny
It Will Be Our Fault
Love Was the Ocean
The Golems
You Are Hungry
Mommy’s Boy
Patterns
The Full Armor of God
Controlled Crash
Ocean of Blood
Millennialists
Body to Bread
Taking Command
You Are Not Alone
If the World Goes Gooey
Sarcophages
Urschleim
Being Decent
All Mine
Graduation
>
Capricious Gods
A Forever Situation
The Second Civil War
Oh, Jubilee
The Shotgun Marriage
Walk Away
Legion
You’re the Sheriff
The Wrong Pilot
Home
This Is a Test
Fuck Jansky
Steer into the Wind
Very Talented
Act Two: The Life of Death
Act Three: The Death of Death
You Will Soon Be Gone
More Shit to Do
Super Bowl Sunday
A Shovelful of Dirt
Yay, Toast!
The Lion and the Dove
It Was a Monday?
Little American Flags
Astonish Ourselves
Suddenly Sadness
Beowulf
No Long Goodbyes
Half-Bomber, Half-Bombed
Libido Dominandi
Past Due
Ecclesiastes Something
Throw the First Punch
All That Mattered
Eviction
Faster, Brighter, Deeper
We Made This Happen
Carve the Heart
Let the World Rise Gently
All Her Favorite Songs
The Gauze
Beautiful
Stay Scared: a Coauthor’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
THE LIVING DEAD
Copyright © 2020 by New Romero Ltd.
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
Cover photographs by Moolkum/Shutterstock.com
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10271
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-30512-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-30528-2 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250305282
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First Edition: 2020
The Living Dead Page 71
