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Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten V \ Dawn of t
Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten V \ Dawn of the Dead
Written 6-5-93 by: David Minter
Based on the movie Night of the Living Dead @1968 by Image
Ten Productions, the concept of the Book and Record Set
@1984 by Buena Vista Records, Night of the Living Dead:
Rewritten IV \ Billy Goes Berserk @1993 by David Minter,
Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten III \ From Here to
Insanity @1993 by David Minter, Night of the Living Dead:
Rewritten II \ Guess Who's Coming to Dinner @1993 by David
Minter, and Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten \
Something Dead this Way Comes @1993 by David Minter.
This is the story of Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten
V \ Dawn of the Dead. I sincerely apologize to Mister
George Romero. You'll know it's time to turn the page
when you hear the zombie rending human flesh like this...
BLORCH! Let's get it over with... NOW!
Technicians in white lab smocks, covered with blood,
advanced on the frightened Fran. Thoughts of food filled
their instinctive little minds. She was gasping with
fright as they approached, hands out stretched for their
meal. Her eyes widened in horror at the sight of them.
Her heart almost burst. They were all around her! "Come
on! COME ON!" Rand was shouting at his wife, motioning
her to follow. "Follow! Quickly! Run! RUN!" She began
to scream as clawed, decayed hands ( Remember a line much
like that from Gremlins: Rewritten II? ) began to reach
for her. BLORCH!
Finding the courage rising out of nowhere, Rand
gathered his strength and ran into the crowd of zombies.
Spinning like a cyclone, Rand let his fists do the
walking. Hands sliced through ghoul spleens. Even when
he missed, he hit. The force of his blows was strong
enough to send sufficient force waves through their bodies
and damage their gastro-intestinal systems. In a matter
of minutes, Rand was standing knee-deep in rotting body
parts. Fran clutched loving and much too erotically at
her husband's and savior's leg. I bet that's how you all
thought it would happen, eh? Nope. It doesn't work that
way. Life's not that cut and dry! This is not a
Miller-Boyette Productions sitcom. BLORCH!
Clawed decayed hands finally grabbed hold of Fran's
flesh. She continued to scream as a mangled hand grabbed
a hold of her open jaw. The zombie began pulling down on
it. Her eyes opened wider, mainly because her flesh was
being stretched to its limits. She still screamed. Her
screams turned into AHHHK!'s as the skin around the edges
of her mouth began to tear open. Blood began to ooze from
the sides of her mouth. The screams and AHHHK!'s stopped
when the zombie finally succeeded in ripping her jaw right
from her face, tearing out the jaw muscles and the tongue.
Blood was now pouring onto the linoleum as zombies reached
into the open wound. The pressure in her head began to
build as more and more hands tried to reach into such a
confined space. Blood trickled from the insides of her
eye sockets as the eyes slowly worked their way out. First
one eye fell out and then the other oozed away as more
hands tore out the delicious contents of her throat. The
eyes just hung uselessly out in space by their optic
fibers. Three zombies, each brandishing crow bars,
gathered around her. But upon seeing that her eyes had
already fallen out and that their crowbars were not
necessary, they let them fall to the floor and reached
into the mass of mangled bodies, tore her shirt open, tore
her breasts open, and began to devour Fran Peltzer proper.
BLORCH!
Rand had started to choke on the vomit welling in his
throat. When he was finally able to do so, Rand started
shouting, "Kelly! KELLY! MY GOD! I mean, Fran! FRAN!
MY GOD!" The zombies looked up from Fran's body, torn and
bloodied flesh dripping from their mouths. Despite the
fact they had just eaten, despite the fact their meal
wasn't even cold yet, the bastards were still hungry!
They were greedy enough to actually want more! "Ummm, dad?
Dad?! Don't you think you'd better close those blast
doors? Dad!" Rand just stood there, frozen with shock.
Luckily, Billy had the sense of mind to dash past his
father and run for the lock. "DAMN!" he cursed. "The
keys are still on the other side of the door!" Billy
dashed past his still still ( No, that was not a
mistake. ) father and ran through the doorway. Zombies
advanced on him as he made a play to extract the keys. He
lurched them out as a ghoul pounced on him, trying to bite
through his shoulder. Using the keys as a ring of 78
knives, Billy stabbed the creature in the stomach. It
rolled back into its fellow compatriots. He scrambled
back through the doorway, zombies in tow. He turned
around, worked his way past his lethargic father, grasped
the door handle, and slid the door shut in the zombies'
faces. A few seconds later and Billy would have still
shut the door in time. He thrust the proper key into the
lock and, well, locked it. "Quickly! Press the green
button on that panel over there," Doctor Cossack called
to him, motioning towards the panel in question. "It will
bring down the inner and outer blast doors." Billy
pressed the button and stood back. A loud clang came from
beyond the closed door and then a second clang came as the
inner blast door fell into place. "We should be safe...
for the moment." BLORCH!
Rand still stood there, staring at the shiny rivets
in the blast door that he was now facing. Tears had begun
to well up in his eyes over his departed wife. Billy
scooped his arms around his father's chest, dragged him to
a wall, and sat him down on the floor. Regaining his
strength, he turned and stared at his father. Rand was
just staring aimlessly into space and crying. "Dad. DAD!"
It just wasn't getting through to him. Angrily, Billy
stood and kicked his father in the groin. That brought
him around. Sitting back down, Billy began again. "Dad!
C'mon! We've got to get out of here!" Rand began sobbing
as he buried his head in his son's stinking chest. "But
she's dead! DEAD!" "I know that. But it's just a fact.
She's dead, and we'll be too if we don't get going!" The
zombies on the other side of the doors began beating
against the metal. "They're superhuman, remember?
Eventually, they'll work their way in here! We've got to
get away and find a way to end this nightmare once and for
all!" "But, don't you care?" Rand pleaded through his
tears. "Don't you even give a damn that she's dead?! I
know you loved her far more than you do me, so you did
show some love for her! Don't you care that she died?!"
Billy thought for a moment. "WELL?!" "I cared," Billy
had to admit under his breath. "You're right. I cared
for her a hell of a lot more than I do you." A tear
streamed down Billy's cheek. BLORCH!
The insistent banging on the doors brought Billy
around. The metal had begun to buckle, revealing vague
outlines of human fists. Drying his eye, Billy spun
around to his father. "C'mon, Dad! We've got to get out
of here!" "NO! If I must live without my Fran, then I'd
rather die here and join her wherever she may be, be it
Heaven or Hell!" Billy had had enough of this. He
cradled his father's head in one hand and smacked it with
the other. "Damn you, Dad! Don't you want to live?!
Revenge, Dad. Live for revenge! Together, I can stop
this horror. But, I've got to do it together!" Rand
began crying harder, both in shame and pain. He reached
out to hug Billy, who promptly jumped back. "C'mon, Son!"
Rand said, slightly dejected. "We've got a war to win."
"You mean, 'I've got a war to win!'" Billy corrected his
father. Over the past few hours, he had become quite
possessive. BLORCH!
"Now that we've got a common goal," Rand goaled. "How
do we get out of here?" "I think I can answer that,"
Cossack made his presence known again. "Follow me." Billy
and Rand followed the odd little Russian scientist up a
nearby staircase. "We might be able to use these,"
Cossack said, waving a hand over a glass case embedded in
the side of the wall. "Don't panic! In case of an
emergency, break glass and use these rocket packs." was
written in large, friendly, red letters on the glass.
Billy jumped up and, using a move he saw on an episode of
Kung Fu, broke the glass apart. There just happened to be
three rocket packs inside. Each one pulled out a pack and
strapped it on. "This staircase will take us to the roof.
From there, we can use these rockets to escape. But
first, I have a job to do myself." Doctor Cossack made
his way up the stairs. "We'll follow. This might help us
in some small way," Billy called after him. BLORCH!
A few minutes later, the trio found themselves in
Doctor Cossack's lab. The good doctor was busy tossing
manila envelopes into an empty toxic waste drum. Next on
the list were computer disks. Finally, a large stack of
binders with notes overflowing were added. Then he poured
a vial full of some odd protoplasmic material onto the
conglomeration and chucked a still lit Bunsen burner into
the drum. The whole mess burst into flames, sending
clouds of sweet-smelling smoke into the air that smelled
like baking bread. "Well, that's all of it, save for
this." Cossack reached into one of the pockets of his lab
coat and pulled out an audio cassette. "Here. Take this.
You said you were going to try to stop those monsters.
This might help." Rand, Billy, and Doctor Cossack left
the lab, smoke rapidly filling the hallway as the fire
spread. BLORCH!
They slowly made their way up the stairs. The sound
of the inner blast door falling to the floor a few flights
down made them speed up their ascent. "That reminds me,"
Billy said. "Why would a bakery need blast doors?" "We're
also a leathery," Cossack answered him. "Oh. That makes
sense," Billy answered back even though it didn't and if
it makes any sense to anyone reading this, then go put on
a dunce cap and stand on your head in the nearest corner.
It just might help. It won't, but if you're that foolish,
you don't deserve help. BLORCH!
The moans of the living dead filled the hallways as
they made their way past the now broken blast doors. They
stumbled along and finally found the staircase, slowly
ascending it in pursuit of their next meal. Hmmm. Short
paragraph, wasn't it? BLORCH!
The rooftop door burst open and Rand, Billy, and
Doctor Cossack worked their way onto the roof. "Where do
we go from here?" Rand asked. "We've got to find some
place to make our final stand." "Well, I don't know about
you all," Cossack began, checking the straps of his
rocket again for good measure. "But, I'm going to rocket
over to Hazzard County. You may want to save this
hellhole, but, personally, I just want to save my ass!"
Doctor Cossack pressed the button on his control stick and
flew out of the story. "That may solve his problems, but
what about ours, Billy? Once again, where do we go from
here?" Billy had been waiting for his father to ask that
question. He was expecting it sooner or later. He had
hoped it would be later, but sooner beat him to it. They
were stuck on the roof with a rocket pack full of fuel and
no place to go. "Dad." "Yes?" "Do you know how to get
to the Bat-poles?" "Yes. Even from the air I could get
to the-" Rand paused, startled. "BAT-POLES?! Oh, no.
No, Son. You have to be eighteen to get into the
Bat-poles!" "Dad, this is not the time for silly
sentiments like obeying the stupid laws! I've got to stop
this madness and the only way I can do that is by
experimentation. I can't safely do it in this dimension,
so the only possibility is to perform my experiments in
the alternate Earth reality accessible only via the
Bat-poles." Rand was contemplating the logic that his son
was dangling before his tiny, little mind when the
approaching zombies made his decision for him. "FOLLOW
ME!" Rand shouted as he activated his jet pack. Billy
did the same and followed his father to the Bat-poles.
BLORCH!
The Bat-poles are a very interesting, but stupid,
invention. There are two lampposts in Kingston Falls
where the bats in the nearby area always sit atop whenever
they're resting. These two poles have been endowed with a
not-so-ordinary ability: teleportation. The Bat-poles
teleport their passengers to another location where an
entrance into an alternate Earth dimension exists. Their
story is just as boring as my life. Some scientists at
the research and development division of High Rise Bakery
and Leather Goods were working on a new way to treat
leather when the idea suddenly hit them. "Let's throw
away our jobs by not doing our assigned tasks and instead
direct our work towards a totally useless endeavor like
creating an entry into an alternate Earth reality." Oddly
enough, they succeeded in such a totally useless endeavor.
Isn't that the way it always works? Anyway, such an odd
creation needed an equally odd means of accessing it.
Thus, the Bat-poles were created. One cannot gain entry
into the alternate Earth reality without first passing
through the field generated by the Bat-poles. This field,
as well as the idea and knowledge for them and the
alternate Earth reality, stems from a strange bolt of
apparently quantum energy striking the poles some years
ago. BLORCH!
Another crack opened in the quantum stream. Seven
miles of the Alaskan Pipeline shot out of it at an
incredible speed. Danny Deveto was straddling the end of
it, urging the pipe along with a riding crop converted to
conduct electricity. In essence, it had become a cattle
pod. The pipeline stopped and dumped forty million
gallons of shaving cream onto a man's house just as its
owner drove up. The car stopped, the driver's side door
opened, and Victor Kiam stepped out just in time to see
the odd apparition disappear back into the time stream.
Shocked, he looked at his house covered with shaving cream
and got an interesting idea for a unique business
transaction. BLORCH!
Some 37,000 miles away, a couple much like Johnny and
Barbara and James and Susan used to be were sitting in the
back seat of a beat-up old DeSoto at a drive-in movie
theater. As per the usual kind of bastard slime that
patronizes drive-ins, these two lustful individuals were
full of lust. As a result, they were attempting to neck
in the back seat and were moderately succeeding. The male
portion in question leaned over to kiss his date. He knew
something was wrong when all he could taste was the
upholstery covering the seat. He opened his eyes, pulled
his lips away from the seat, and looked down at what his
date had become. Sitting where his date had been was a
bucket full of cocktail weenies. He screamed at the sheer
oddity of it all and dashed out of his car, suddenly
insane. If only he had known it was just a freak accident
brought on the strange bursts of energy we have alluded to
earlier. Because a mere pittance later, his date regained
her original form with a bra size four letters larger.
BLORCH!
The jets of Rand's and Billy's rocket packs whined to
a halt as Rand brought the pair to the Bat-poles. The
noise drew several zombies into the vicinity. "Okay, Dad.
We're here, but so are they! How do we use these silly
things?" "You just jump on the pole and start to slide
down. When you reach the base, you fall into a temporal
portal and emerge elsewhere." "Right!" Billy shouted and
jumped onto the pole, clutching tightly. Rand did the
same with the other pole, just avoiding the swipe of a
ghoul's arm. The pair slipped down their respective poles
and disappeared into the portals, nearly simultaneously.
BLORCH!
Roughly, Rand and Billy emerged from their portals
and fell onto each other. Quickly scrambling to their
feet, the pair removed their rocket packs and brandished
them forwards, intent on using the jets as a weapon
against the zombies that would surely have started to
gather at the sound. They were quite startled to find
themselves in a building whose doors and windows were
barricaded. "I've never actually been through the
Bat-poles. I just know how to use them," Rand stated.
"The trip has... strangely aroused me," Billy added. He
scanned the devastated scene. Tables were overturned.
Glass lay everywhere. Here and there, blood stained the
floor. A toilet lay in the middle of the room. Loud
noises and music came from behind a closed door near the
back of the building. "Where are we?" Billy asked. He
noticed what appeared to be some broken beer mugs. "This
places looks like a bar." "It is. Dory's, the oldest pub
in Kingston Falls. It has the distinct honor\horror of
being the only bar in the world where an entrance to an
alternate Earth reality exists. Now you see why I said
you must be eighteen. Actually, it's twenty-one, but Dory
doesn't care and it's just a fucking law." BLORCH!
Rand and Billy set their rocket packs down and began
to search the place properly. They searched for any
zombies in the bar and then doubly checked to make sure
the place was totally secured. "I wonder who boarded up
this place?" Rand asked. "Off hand, I'd say it was
whoever has stockpiled themselves behind that large,
wooden door and, judging by the noise coming from behind
it, is having a party," Billy answered him, motioning
over to the large, wooden door from behind which sounds of
a party were coming from. "But, there are more pressing
concerns right now. How do I get into the alternate Earth
reality?" "Over here!" Rand called to his son. "Stand
there." He helped Billy into position, because his son
needed it so much, and went over to the controls. He
looked up into the ceiling and noticed the outline of the
secret trap door embedded into it that held the waiting
acetylsalicylic acid. He smiled as he completed the
proper sequence of controls needed to activate the portal
and keep the acid in place. He pushed the lever and
pulled the button. The portal opened and Billy stepped
into it without so much as waving goodbye to his father.
Even though he was slightly annoyed, distraught, and
ashamed at that, he still wished his son good luck. "God
speed, Billy." Excuse me, God speed. "Well, I guess now
I just sit and wait." Rand turned a chair back over and
sat down. Behind him, the mysterious door slowly opened!
BLORCH!
And now, a special request joke. Minnesota Kreskin.
BLORCH!
The world slowly swirled back into being. What she
felt could best be described as pain... if she could feel
pain, that is. She sat up and the world began bobbing all
around her. One minute she was staring up; the next
minute, she was staring down. Next, the only view offered
her was that of her sides. She stood up, but it only made
things worse. When the world had finally settled down
enough for her to make out anything coherent, she noticed
several things stumbling down a staircase and making their
way past her. She didn't know why, but she knew, for some
unexplained reason, that she had to follow them. BLORCH!
The portal opened again and Billy spilled back into
our world. Spilled is actually not the correct term. It
was more like the portal spat Billy out in disgust. He
scooped himself up. A scream came from out in the street.
He made his way to one of the boarded-up windows and
peeked through a crack purposefully left in the wood for
just such an occasion. What he saw actually made him
burst out laughing. Down one street, Kate was being
chased by a small pack of zombies. Crisscrossing her path
came Mrs. Deagle in a similar situation. Some of the
ghouls chasing Kate gave up and joined in the pursuit of
Mrs. Deagle. A cop was huffing his way down the center of
town chasing a donut that was rolling away from him.
Sergeant Worthlesston would NEVER pass up free
confectionery. "Hey, Dad! You've got to come over here
and see this." Billy fished into his pockets, pulled out
a nickel, put it in the slot, and started to turn the
crank. He had hoped that this action would play the whole
scene out for him again; he had hoped in vain. So, he put
another nickel in, in the nickelodeon. Then he realized
once again that he lost another nickel. So, he put
another nickel in, in the nickelodeon. Etcetera,
etcetera, etcetera. "Dad?" His father hadn't done what
he had told him to do. That really pissed him off! He
backed away from the window and noticed that, save for the
magic pixie sitting on the toilet, he was alone. But, he
also noticed that the mysteriously locked door was now
open. BLORCH!
"Dad? Are you in that room or are you dead?" "I'm
dead, Son. Stay away from me," Rand's voice floated
across the stagnant air escaping from the open room. Of
course I'm alive! You're back already?" "Already? I've
been gone for about nine and a half weeks!" Billy said
erotically as he strode into the room. "I said, 'Come
over here and see-" His words were cut short by the image
of a man dressed in black leather, chains, black leather
chains, and rather nice boots pointing a pistol to his
father's temple. BLORCH!
"According to my watch, you've been gone for
roughly-" Umlaut said, consulting his watch. "-Kingston
Falls." He quickly looked back at his watch in
frustration, consternation, and confusion. He brought his
fist down on it and consulted it again. "Three minutes.
There. That's better now." "Three minutes?" Billy
asked, startled. "Anyway, nice of you to join us," Umlaut
cooed. "Now, if you'll be kind enough to please sit down
so that we can tie you up?" he said, motioning to a
waiting chair. "You think I'm going to allow you to do
that?" Billy shouted, drawing his fist back and lunging
forward. Umlaut easily dodged his pathetic attempt at a
punch. Billy flew through space, his fist out in front of
him, until he planted his fist into the bar's fuse box,
which just happened to be open. Thousands of volts made
Billy's body twitch spasmodically. His body flew back
from the fuse box and landed at Umlaut's feet. BLORCH!
A few minutes later, Billy regained consciousness
only to find himself tied to a chair. Rand looked
pitifully at his captured son. "Nine and a half weeks!
Ha! Oh, well. That electricity looked rather painful.
How do you feel?" "Strangely... feminine," Billy
answered, his voice a few octaves higher. "It's time for
you to shut up!" Umlaut glowered as he shoved a gag into
Billy's mouth just as his voice and gender were returning
to normal. Now, for all intents and purposes, Billy was
bound and gagged. "Why are you doing this to us?" Billy
asked, his voice coming quite clearly and normally through
the gag in his mouth. After staring momentarily at
Billy's talent, Umlaut answered. "Your father here-" He
waved his pistol in Rand's direction, causing the weapon
to go off and graze Rand's left ear. "-told us that you
have the power to stop this invasion of zombies. We don't
want that. We're mad Bavarian motorcycle Cossacks. As a
result, it is our sworn duty to loot and pillage. We
canna do that if the citizens return. So, we tie up this
city's supposed savior and, after we get through looting
this bar and stocking up on provisions, we let the living
dead come in and deal with you two... the same campaign we
used in Pittsburgh!" He turned to his subordinates.
"Eye-patch! Gurgle! Oxymoron! Are we ready to go?"
"AYE!" they answered in unison. "Good." He turned back
to his captive audience. "Gentlemen, as we say in
Bavaria, 'Adieu!'" BLORCH!
Umlaut and his thugs left the bar. "Quick! Before
they come back!" Billy shouted as he hopped his chair
over to the rocket packs that the thieves had used to heat
weenies with, but foolishly left behind. He worked his
chair around and reached for the rocket's controls. "What
are you doing?" "I'm going to use the flames from this
rocket pack to burn my bonds off." "What an absurd idea!"
Rand was only too right. What Billy had neglected to
realize was the initial burn caused by rockets moving from
an inert state to an agitated one. BLORCH!
Billy, the chair, and the bonds affixing the first to
the second exploded into flames! All three bounded around
the room, but only the first was feeling pain. Billy
screamed as he crashed into walls and various pieces of
furniture, igniting them. He even crashed into Rand.
Luckily, the only flame to reach Rand was a small lick
that just happened to hit his bonds and set him free.
Almost at the same instant, Billy's bonds burned away.
Realizing that his secondary problem, breaking free of his
bonds, was taken care of, he could now concentrate on his
primary problem, being ablaze. Billy always was one to do
things in the wrong order. Remembering what he had been
taught on those films that always broke at school, he
stopped, dropped, rolled, and belched. Stopping kept the
air from fanning the flames, dropping smothered the
flames, rolling felt good in certain areas of his body,
and belching blew out what few flames were left. Billy
lay on his back, relishing the feeling of rolling. Rand
dashed over to his fallen son. "Billy, are you dead?" he
mocked his son. Billy slowly sat up. "Son, are you alive
or are you dead and moving around with some form of
unearthly energy?" "I'm alive and fine." He looked
around the bar. "Ummm, Dad?" "Yes?" "Is it just me or
is this place on fire?" BLORCH!
Rand didn't want to believe his son at first. He
just wrote it off to the aftershocks of being on fire. But
the pungent odor of burning wood, leather, and glass ( ? )
made him look around and discover that the place was
indeed on fire. The pair scrambled to their feet and made
a dash for the door. They had just made it through the
doorway in time to see a menacingly small ( Huh? ) group
of zombies attempting to occupy the same space that they
were in. They backed away as the monsters advanced after
their meal. Hunger burned brightly in their eyes, as did
the reflection of the fire in the room. "Don't look now,
Son, but we're about to die!" Billy turned and stared at
his father. "The way I see it, we've got three choices.
One, buy a few more precious seconds of life by backing as
near to the fire as we can possibly withstand. Two, rush
into the things and fight a last, desperate stand before
being torn pieces, eaten alive, and dying rather
painfully. Or three, we slip on the rocket packs, which
have miraculously survived the fire despite the fact that
they're loaded with extremely flammable jet fuel, and fly
straight up through the ceiling, also rather painfully."
"Can we combine any of those choices?" "Nope." "Then, I
opt for the first one." The pair picked up their rocket
packs and slipped into them. Billy reached over and
pressed the firing button on his father's flight controls.
Rand screeched as he burst through the burning roof. Billy
turned away as his father continued accelerating forward.
"Bye, guys. I'm off to destroy you all and end this foul
chain of slaughter." His thumb depressed the button and
Billy sped off. The zombies continued to march forward
unabated and eventually plunged into the flames. Some
tried to devour the fire, much to their destruction.
BLORCH!
Billy joined his father, floating above the bar.
"Son, now that we're safely and humanely away, can you
explain to me how in the hell you can honestly say you've
been gone for almost two months when it couldn't have been
more than three minutes like that ruffian said?" "Time is
relative." "I know. It hasn't visited us for the longest
time." Billy ignored his father's silly joke, even though
Rand was totally serious, and continued. "I'll ignore
your silly joke and continue now, if you don't mind." "It
wasn't a joke. I was totally serious." "Anyway. Since
time is relative to space, the only thing I can say is
that while in the alternate Earth reality, time slows down
in our reality. It's the weirdest place, Dad! Nixon is
still President and left turns are abolished by law. Some
guy named Golobulus is trying to wrest control of
alternate Earth. And, some tv show called "Sledge Hammer"
is on every network, including something called cable." "I
still don't understand the time thing." "Okay, Dad.
Imagine this. You have a glass in your hand. On this
glass is a series of buttons. Whatever button you press
turns you into a liquid and sucks you into the glass.
See?" "No." "I know you don't. For you see, that
analogy has nothing to do with the real reason. Imagine a
rubber band stretched to its limits. One end is your head
and the other is your feet. If you relax the band, it
takes less time to reach your feet from your head than it
would when the band is stretched. Correct?" "Yes. It's
all so clear to me now! What you just said also has
nothing to do with the real reason! Right?" "You're
learning, Dad. Gradually." "So, you're really just
stalling for time because you don't know." "Exactly. But,
I think my second postulate is the closet thing to the
real answer that I can come up with right now, and I DO
know what must be done to stop these zombies. I'm going
to do it right now. Onward to the Kingston Falls Nuclear
Power Facility!" BLORCH!
The pair landed on the empty roof of the nuclear
power plant. They jimmied open the locked rooftop door.
Their secret was to burn it off with the exhaust from
their rocket packs. Cautiously, they made their away
along the darkened staircase. The only source
illuminating their journey was the moonlight pouring in
through the open rooftop doorway. "You mind telling me
how we're going to pull this off again, young man?" Rand
asked, amazed that his son had actually proffered such a
crazy scheme. "First, we go down to your office and pick
up some weapons just in case some of those things are
still in here. By now, anyone left alive here has been
eaten and hopefully they've left. Next, we get a tape
recorder and a radio. Finally, we go to the main control
cubicle. I'll fully explain the rest there." The pair
passed long corridor after short corridor before finally
coming to the module where Rand worked. Rand turned on
the lights, and walked over to his desk. He opened a
drawer and took out a key. With that key, he unlocked a
hallway closet and removed a sledgehammer. With the
sledgehammer, he ripped a hole open in a nearby wall. He
stepped into the hole and stepped out with two rifles and
necessary ammunition. "There should be a portable radio
and cassette recorder in Wisemann's office, through that
door." Fishing out his identification card from his
wallet, Rand used it open a heavy steel door. Even though
there was a slot there to read the card, he decided to be
a smart ass and prove to his son that he could use the
card to jimmy the door open. He walked into the open
doorway. "Well, I still don't see how- OOOFFFFFF!" Rand
bumped into the imposing form of a zombie and staggered
back! BLORCH!
Rand shook his head, regaining his composure. He
looked up to see a hissing man with what appeared to be a
bullet wound in the side of his head. Blood was caked
around the edges of the sore and issued forth from it as
the creature's spleen\heart\lungs\brain pumped it into the
head. Rand put a hand to his mouth as Billy gasped. "Oh,
dear Lord in heaven! Director Wisemann!" BLORCH!
Once again, Rand was frozen in fear upon seeing
someone that used to belong to the group of people he knew
and loved savagely lusting after his flesh. With a
mockery of a smile on its face, what was once Director
Wisemann advanced on Rand. Billy tugged at his father's
arm. "Dad! Shoot it." The gun trembled uselessly in his
father's hand. "Shoot it!" Billy's words meant nothing
to Wisemann as he pounced on Rand. Wisemann's actions
brought him around. He struggled with the now inhumanly
powerful form of his former boss. But, that was a
lifetime ago. Now, Rand was fighting for his very life
while Wisemann countered just for the sake of a good meal.
Several times, the tide of the battle turned. Rand was
winning at one point, but some force drove Wisemann on and
came very close to biting him more than twice... once.
"THIS ENDS NOW!" Rand shouted as he brought his legs
beneath himself and threw Wisemann's living corpse off.
Billy rushed over, aimed his rifle at Wisemann's spleen,
and fired repeatedly. "Die, damn you! DIE!" Wisemann's
grotesque body writhed momentarily as the last amount of
green, chunky ooze flowed from his spleen, and his new
unearthly life left his body. BLORCH!
Rising to his feet, Rand congratulated his son. "Good
work, Billy." Billy reloaded his rifle, cocked it, and
spun around on his father, pointing it straight at his
heart. "Now, you listen and you listen good! These
monsters are no longer what you once knew them to be. All
they want is to rip the skin from your very body. They
don't give a damn about you, whether you suffer, what you
had for breakfast, or all the other amenities from their
former lives! They're purely animated by evil, and I'm
going to stop it. I know you lost your wife. I lost my
mother. They just happen to be the same person just as
you happen to be my father. Nothing more; nothing less!
Either you shape up and defend yourself or you die! I'm
almost through with you and then I won't need you anymore.
Frankly, I've almost always hated you and could easily do
without you and your silly Christmas critters!" Rand
wrote off his son's ravings to ill effects of his earlier
madness, but deep down he knew better. Billy lowered the
rifle and went on a rampage, rummaging through the desks
in Wisemann's office like a blonde looking for a bottle of
peroxide in her bedroom. Finally, he found the radio and
cassette recorder he needed. "Now, Dad. You lead me to
the reactor's control room or, dammit, I'll kill you here
and now with a bullet through your gut!" Somewhat
reluctantly, and rightfully so, Rand lead him up the
staircase leading to the control room. BLORCH!
Inside the control booth, was the inside of the
control booth. The pair made their way into it and turned
on the lights. A technician's corpse was slumped over a
panel. His stomach had been torn wide opened, and his
spleen had been damaged by a careless zombie. Billy
shoved the body aside, which fell to the floor with a thud
that arrived a few seconds after the body fell.
Apparently, the technician had arrived in a vain attempt
to warn the police, or seal off the compound, or one of
any number of things that always cost insignificant
characters such as he their lives in stories like this. He
looked around the room that a few hours before he had been
hiding in. He shuddered as his tormented mind brought the
memory of Director Wisemann callously killing that
technician, and then of the zombie coming in and killing
that poor woman, and finally of Wisemann killing himself
and the zombie devouring him. BLORCH!
Forcing such thoughts out of his minds ( ? ), Billy
turned to his father, pointed to the controls, and
shouted, "Get this thing back on line!" "But, Son-"
"YES, DAMMIT! IT'S PART OF MY PLAN!" Rand carefully
strode over to the control panel. Billy watched intently
just in case he should ever have to operate this equipment
himself in the future. In a matter of minutes, the plant
hummed back to life. "Apparently, there was just enough
reserve power to run our house, Dory's, and the few lights
we used in this building," he said, pointing to a gauge
whose needle was in the absolutely invisible zone.
"Where's the PA system?" "Over there," Rand answered,
pointing to the bank of controls in question. "How loud
can it get?" "If necessary, we can blast an emergency
meltdown message to half the city. By the time half the
city receives it, we believe that that half will notify
the other half and all halves will be notified." Billy
nodded, turned on the radio he was carrying, and adjusted
it until he got a station that was still broadcasting in
the area. "Hey there! This is Rockin' Ricky Rialto,
broadcasting from a remote area safely away from all the
carnage in my home city, Kingston Falls, Ohio! I hope
there's someone left alive there getting this broadcast.
Otherwise, my job won't be worth shit. Primarily, it's my
job to inform and entertain. Since the citizens have
either heeded my warnings, got out, and survived, or
scoffed at me, foolishly stayed, and were eaten, and since
the Army is now patrolling Kingston Falls and the
surrounding areas with flamethrowers to mop up the rest of
the zombies and citizens, just in case anyone there is
contaminated with this strange yeast like bacterium, I can
get back to entertaining. You know, gang? There really
should be a law about run-on sentences such as that last
one. Here's a classic oldie! 'Another Saturday Night' by
Sam Cooke." Thinking and reacting just as quickly, Billy
turned on the tape recorder, placed it in front of the
radio, and motioned for Rand and any roaming ghosts in the
room to keep quiet. After the song ended, Billy shut off
the tape player and motioned that Rand could speak now.
Pent up ghostly moans promptly and loudly filled the room.
"Who do I turn this PA on?" Billy asked, staring
quizzically at the apparatus. Rand went over and turned
it on for him. "While you're there, turn the output up as
far as it can go and show me how to use this." Rand
turned the necessary dial all the way and pointed out the
sequence of steps needed to operate the microphone. Billy
placed the tape player down next to the PA system, moved
the microphone into position above its speaker, rewound
the freshly recorded tape, turned on the mike and the tape
player. Sam Cooke's "Another Saturday Night" filled and
echoed along the desolate, deserted streets of Kingston
Falls. "But, Son!" Rand shouted hysterically. "That
will draw all the zombies here!" Billy drew his arm back,
with the radio in his hand, and hurled the radio, which
was still on, into his father's temple. The radio
promptly shut off. Rand massaged his sore head. Billy
grinned maniacally. "That's what I want them to do! Open
all entrances into this compound. It's part of my mad
plan. Now, here's what I want you to do next-" Isn't it
convenient that the paragraph ends just before the plan is
revealed? You must admit, though, that this paragraph was
exceedingly long. BLORCH!
"Another Saturday Night and I ain't got nobody! I
have some money 'cause I just got paid. Now how I wish I
had someone to talk to! I'm in an awful way!" These
words reverberated through the empty streets and alleyways
of Kingston Falls. All through the city, zombies turned
their heads towards the noise. Some who had caught the
few stragglers on the streets looked up from their meals.
The noise was alluring to them. Something in their
instinctive, little brains made them seek out the source
of the music. Somehow they knew that food awaited at the
source. An ever increasing mass of zombies plodded along,
forming a line heading straight for the nuclear power
plant. BLORCH!
The funny sounds came to her ears, too. She turned
to what she believed was the source of the noise. The
world swam before her. Her oozing eyes barely hung from
their sockets by the optic nerves. Her eyes swung around
as she moved, distorting her view of the world she had
just recently awoke into. Actually possessing the
intelligence necessary to do so, she used her ears to
guide herself to the source, where people, and of course
food, awaited. BLORCH!
"YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?!" Rand shouted,
rising from his chair. "You heard me! Now do it!" "I
can't possibly do that! That's absurd! That's crazy!
It's worse than crazy and absurd combined! It's berserk!"
"Well, I'm that kind of guy! 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 7, 8, 9!"
Rand stared at his son. The string of words meant little
to him. "That's the activation code, is it not?" Billy
asked. Rand looked at his identification card and nodded
his head slowly. "Good. Now, enter in my commands." "No!
I will not! It's monstrous! I can't open the flood
gates! The radioactivity will gradually rise-" "YES!"
Billy interrupted. "Gradually rise. Given time, this
radiation will build to a sufficient level to destroy the
yeast in their spleens." "True, but the lead shields may
give way and toxic wastes will run uncontrollably into the
cooling tanks! We'll then be cooling off the reactor rods
with hot, nuclear material! This city will be a graveyard
in a matter of minutes!" "OH! So you think this city
isn't already a crypt. Dead bodies fill the streets. Some
of those bodies are returning to life! We've got to close
the gates of Hell here and now! Now, open those flood
gates!" Seeing that he had no choice, Rand slowly pressed
the necessary lever forward. BLORCH!
The rusty, metal doors began to part. A thin stream
of water poured between them and out into the main
reactor. This stream began to increase in intensity.
Gradually, radioactive water began to leak through the
many cracks in the reactor shields. The whole reactor was
slowly being flooded! In the control booth, Billy grinned
with satisfaction at the rising water in the reactor.
Every conceivable gauge's needle was going way off the
scale! "The meters are all going crazy!" "Tell them to
knock it off." "KNOCK IT OFF, BILLY!? You can tell these
machines to just knock it off! Any responsible driver
knows that when the gas gauge points to E, you don't just
smash the plastic over it with a tire iron, move the
needle to F, and expect the car to run!" Billy brought
his rifle up, smashed the plastic off of a nearby gauge,
and moved its needle to the safe zone. Amazingly enough
and unbeknownst to Rand, this actually bought the pair the
few precious seconds they needed for Billy's plan to
succeed before the whole reactor went meltdown. Billy
walked back over to the bank of cameras. "Ah, ha! HERE
THEY COME!" he shouted and pointed to a small group of
Indians on the screen. BLORCH!
Large numbers of zombies stumbled through the
entrances of the plant. Billy watched the whole mad scene
on the screens. "Greedy bastards! You'll get your just
desserts!" He continued to scan the screens, awaiting the
moment when every entrance was empty. He began tapping
his fingers on the panel, anxious for the last zombie to
enter the building. "Hurry up, damn your eyes!" An alarm
klaxon went off. Billy spun around to face his father.
"Well?!" "Main coolant leak on module seven! We've
really got to get a new one. That module always was a
pain in our collective asses. That's the one responsible
from my toxic waste. We've got to stop this madness...
NOW!" "Just a little longer! The last one is coming in
now!" On screen nine, Billy watched with bated breath and
sight as the last ghoul tumbled into the plant. "QUICKLY!
Seal the building!" Rand pressed the button and every
door leading into the plant sealed shut. Blast doors fell
into place systematically. "Module seven. How close is
it to the reactor?" Billy asked. "How close?" Rand
asked with a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "It's the
secondary independent control room for the main reactor.
The reactor can be controlled from here or module seven."
"How fortuitous!" Billy said as he turned to the PA
controls and switched off the system. "We'll let that
klaxon draw them to the reactor. Then, we close the doors
leading into module seven, open the doors sealing off the
reactor from the module, and every last one of the creeps
gets a much needed bath!" Billy turned to the security
screens and stared intently. Already on module six's
screen, zombies could be seen entering that module, intent
on getting into module seven, the source of the sound. He
moved his gaze to module seven's screen. Blankness
greeted him. "What the hell's happened to module seven's
camera?" But the answer hit him all too well. His mind
drifted, as it so easily often does, to the ordeal with
Wisemann. "Cameras on modules seven through ten
impaired," Billy whispered with horror. BLORCH!
"Adjust the camera in module six to monitor the far
end door leading into module seven!" Billy shouted the
instruction to his father. Module six's screen lit up to
offer a view of the door in question. Zombies had already
started entering the module. They crowded each other into
the doorway as more creatures pushed them forward. It was
like a mad house down in the module. "Seal off the
entrance into module six, but leave the exit open!" Some
of the zombies were momentarily distracted by the sound of
the blast doors shutting them into module six. But only
momentarily as they regained their true objective of
trying to gain entrance into module seven. Billy carefully
scanned the other monitors, making sure that all the
zombies that had entered the plant were safely sealed up
in modules six and seven. "Okay! They're all in or near
the reactor. Open the door sealing off module seven from
the reactor and flood the room!" Rand drew his hand back,
pausing before pushing the button that would decide their
fate. Needless to say, he was scared. Either the heavy
water in the reactor room would kill the zombies or the
reactor would go sky high. Or, it could just as easily
not work at all and he would have gone through all this
hell for nothing! "May God forgive me," he prayed as he
drove his hand home, and pressed the fateful button.
BLORCH!
Down in the reactor, the exit in module seven flew
open. A torrent of brightly glowing green water poured
into the module. It covered everything. Computers,
chairs, control consoles, copies of Penthouse magazine,
and, of course, the zombies were affected. Nothing
escaped its vengeful grasp. Its hot mass ate away at the
listed objects. Computer tape drives were erased. Chairs
rotted away. Control consoles sorted out. Penthouse
magazines broke apart, save for those little postcards
which always seem to survive no matter what. The force of
the water tore loose limbs off of some zombies. Their
skin burned away. The klaxon's noise bubbled through the
water and joined the drowned out inhuman screams of the
dying living dead. An infinitely incalculable number of
rads of radiation shot through the monsters' bodies. The
water began to seethe with a powerful force. Stomach
linings boiled away. Spleens dissolved and erupted the
now famous green chunky mass that had set up shop inside.
The strains of the yeast bacteria screamed in the way that
bacteria scream... by not screaming. Soon, these samples
of super yeast, Cossackus Risae, ceased to exist. The
green water was now becoming polluted with more than
radioactivity. Chunks of flesh, various body parts,
machinery, globular remains of a new strain of super
yeast, and pages of Penthouses changed the water into a
soupy, muddy color. The water forced its way into module
six and worked its magic on the remaining zombies there.
Finally, after a night of pure and living hell, the last
of the living dead were no more. BLORCH!
"Do you think the last of the living dead are no
more?" Rand asked as he brought the reactor back down to
normal. "All of them? No. I'm sure there are a few
stragglers out there near the outskirts of the city that
didn't get here in time. But, the Army IS smart enough to
deal with them. All we have to do now is mop up those
survivors and collect the dead bodies. They must be
examined for Cossackus Risae. If-" "For what?" Rand
interrupted. "I'll explain later. If they do have the
strain in their systems, we must destroy the spleen. Then,
we can bury the dead, rebuild our town and police force,
and get on with our normal lives. Right now, I just want
to get this all over with. Is this place in any danger of
going sky high?" "Well," Rand began as he scanned the
various instruments. "Modules six and seven are sealed.
They're relatively watertight, so I think there's no
problem there. The reactor is sealed off from module
seven, so most of the water is contained in the two
modules." Rand's eyes widened in horror. "THE WATER?!
Oh, my God! There's still water leaking into the reactor
core!" He ran back to the controls and shut the flood
gates. He stepped back and wiped the sweat from his
forehead. "PHEW! Another few seconds and we'd be dead
now! There is still some heavy water in the reactor, but
we've got special drainage tanks to hold that. I've
already opened them. The residual background radiation is
relatively low. With modules six and seven and the
reactor sealed off, I'd say this place can be habitable
again in roughly a hundred thousand million years. So, I
suggest we get out as fast as we can and get some
Toxo-vipers in here." Rand had no idea what a Toxo-viper
was, but we know why he said it. Wink, wink! "Funny you
should use the word Toxo-viper, Dad. In the alternate
Earth, that's the number one selling action figure."
"Hmmm. How odd." Rand commented as he pressed the
appropriate controls to draw back the blast doors and open
the entrances. Then, he sealed off every other door
inside the reactor itself until the Toxo-vipers could
arrive. "Welp, as I've said for the very first time,
she's as tightly sealed as a high school virgin and the
front door is open. There just might be a connection
between those two phrases." "There very well may be, Dad.
Right now, I just want to go home." "Me too, Son. Me
too," Rand whispered, patting his successful son's
shoulder. Deep down, though, he secretly wished his wife
was waiting for him with breakfast when got home and that
this had all been a bad dream. But this was not a dream.
This was horrible reality. Rand Peltzer's wife was dead.
BLORCH!
Rand bolted upright in his bed; he was breathing hard
and his whole body was covered with sweat. He rubbed that
yellow crap from his eyes and thanked God that it had all
been a dream. He turned over and erotically patted Fran's
< CENSORED >. He peacefully went back to sleep, safe and
secure in the knowledge that it had all been a nightmare
and that his wife was still alive. If you fell for that
garbage, then I hate you! As I said before, 'Life's not
that cut and dry. This is not a Miller-Boyette
Productions sitcom!' BLORCH!
With a heavy heart and even heavier shoes, Rand
plodded methodically along behind his son. The butt of
his rifle scraped and rattled along the floor as he drug
it listlessly behind him. Just ahead of him, the dying
rays of the moon filtered into the plant through the open
front entrance. He was tired. He had been through the
biggest ordeal of his life. He had lost his wife
physically and his son mentally. The open parking lot did
nothing to alleviate his burdens. Tears filled his eyes.
He looked back down the hallway as they left the plant. If
only he could see Fran just one last time in his life. He
turned around and bumped into Billy, something making him
freeze in terror. Rand looked over Billy's shoulder. The
blood left his head and coagulated in his feet. His
extremities went cold with fear. There, barely managing
to stand before them was a female zombie. Her bloodied
eyes clung onto their optic nerves as they dangled loosely
in front of her face. Blood covered her face and clothes.
Her jaw had been violently torn from her face. "Oh no.
No. No! NO! nO! NOOOOOOOO0OOOOOOOO!" Rand screamed as
his built up terror finally found a vent. "Oh, dear
Jesus!" Billy used the Lord's name in vain. "MOM!"
BLORCH!
An invasion of sound erupted in her mind. She once
again used her amazing sense of hearing. She tumbled
forward, her hands outstretched hoping to find some warm
meat. At last! Her hands grabbed hold of hot, soft,
supple, delicious flesh. She tried to open her mouth,
leaned forward, and prepared to bite down into Billy's
arm, which of course was a useless action considering her
jaw was mostly missing. Billy swung his rifle into his
mother's midsection. He had no qualms about shooting his
parents, either dead or alive, if it meant ensuring his
survival. He pulled the trigger, but was meant by that
awful sounding click that the stubborn doorknob had made
back at his house when it refused to open upon cross
examination. He tried again, but no fire, no noise, no
death for the abomination that his mother had become, an
inhuman monster bent on devouring him. Nothing more.
Nothing less. "Dammit! My gun's jammed. Dad! DAD! Help
me! She may not have a jaw, but she can still tear me
apart with her bare hands and shove bits of me down her
throat! Help me, please!" BLORCH!
Various demons were attacking what passed for Rand
Peltzer's mind. He got his wish. Here was his wife, one
last time. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a
monkey's paw, shouted "Damn you!" and hurled it aside. The
sight of his former wife about to devour his only son sent
him tumbling into the unforgiven and unbiased abyss of
madness. He raised his rifle, closed his eyes, and fired.
The shot struck Fran in her exposed throat, causing her
topple backwards. Opening his eyes and seeing his wife
through a haze of tears, he took better aim at her spleen.
Crying, he shouted, "Forgive me, Fran!" He had meant to
hit Billy and end it all so that he could let himself die
at his wife's hands and they could all be together. Quite
a silly plan, wasn't it? He pulled the trigger. The
bullet seemed to travel in slow motion through space as it
struck what was once Fran Peltzer's spleen. The bullet
only grazed her spleen. Gobs of green slime bled their
way onto the pavement. "God, Fran! FORGIVE ME!!" He
fired one last time. Even though most of her face was
destroyed, Fran still died with the most painful
expression Rand had ever seen on her face outside of their
bedroom. She put her hands to her stomach in a vain
attempt to stop her death. But, it was no use. She
slumped forward, dead for the second and last time.
BLORCH!
Rand dropped his still smoking rifle to the asphalt,
which went off again and struck a passing zombie survivor
in the spleen, killing it outright. He fell to his knees,
rather painfully because he broke them in the process.
Leaning forward on his hands because he couldn't stand the
pain from laying on his broken knees, he began sobbing in
earnest. "That- that look of pain- of utter betrayal on
her face! It was like she was asking 'Why?' Did I do it,
Son? Did I betray her?!" Billy actually came over to his
father, got down on his knees, correctly so as not to
break them and cause himself pain, and placed a hand to
his father's shoulder. "Dad. I- I don't know what I can
say. All I can think of is
supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, but that isn't
appropriate in such a touching situation as this. And
thank you for drawing up the courage to kill her. I know
it took a lot out of you, Dad. She was my mother. She
wanted to- to eat me! And you stopped her." Billy began
to cry along with his father. "DAD!" Father and son
hugged each other for the first time in too long a while.
They buried their head in each other's chests, Rand more
painfully so than Billy because his knees were broken and
Billy never bathed. They cried loudly, longly, and
heavily at the carnage caused in this one night, this
night of evil, this night of the living dead. The smoke
from Director Wisemann's still burning limousine rose into
the early morning sky. Birds came out to welcome the
approach of a new day. Dawn broke out over the devastated
city of Kingston Falls, Ohio. The first bright life
giving rays of the sun penetrated the foul stench of death
in the city and the night of the living dead had ended.
BLORCH!
The bright rays of another dawn stirred Billy Peltzer
from his exhaustion induced sleep. He had been through a
rough night the other day ( ? ). Fighting a virtual army
of the living dead, losing his mother, going berserk,
running madly through most of Kingston Falls, his ride in
the Factoid, turning into a physically powerful specimen
and back again in such a short span of time, spending nine
and a half weeks in another dimension, culture shock,
experimentation, flight, carrying his father all the way
back home, waiting for an ambulance from Buford County,
just outside of Hazzard, for an ambulance to arrive, and
repairing the door so he could go upstairs to sleep
without the fear of a straggler coming in and eating him
or one of those mad, Bavarian Cossack motorcycle looters
invading his house had taken their toll on his body. He
turned on the radio in his room. They were reporting on
the succeeding efforts in rounding up and destroying the
last of the zombies. The date the announcer said
indicated that he had asleep for nearly three days! He
dressed and went downstairs to get some breakfast. He
noticed how clean the house was. He went into the kitchen
and saw Rand sitting at the table. His legs were in
braces and stretched out along another chair. A bowl of
cereal and a cup of coffee that looked a lot like tar were
on the plate in front of him. He looked up from the
newspaper. "Oh! Morning, Son. Sit down. A lot has
happened in the past three days." BLORCH!
"Breakfast?" Rand asked, pushing a plate of bacon
and Mentos across the table over to him. "I think I'll
pass on the Mentos," Billy said. He wasn't in any way
suffering from Mentos withdrawal since he hated the silly
little candies. "Coffee?" "No, thanks!" he said,
vehemently. "Well, the ambulance took me over to Buford
General Hospital where they fixed me up and put these
braces on my legs. They brought me back here, where they
decided to take a coffee break and fix up the house for
me. They had to break down the door, of course. So, that
was first on the list. Next, we cleaned all of that
kangaroo off of the upstairs hallway and re-papered it.
Then, we cleaned up the basement and got rid of your
grandmother. We wiped up Oreida, the Jehovah's witness,
and the others from the rugs. We straightened up the
house a little, too. We found you upstairs sleeping. So,
we secretly got you tattooed and left you in peace." That
piece of information, oddly enough, didn't even flinch
Billy. BLORCH!
Rand continued. "The paper's been going berserk, no
pun intended, about the whole story!" Rand folded the
paper back so that his son could read the headline. THE
DEAD WALK! ZOMBIES INVADE KINGSTON FALLS, OHIO! PEOPLE
OF PITTSBURGH SHOUT "COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT!" "Says here
army officials state that every last zombie here and in
the surrounding counties should be routed within a week."
Rand continued reading the article silently. "I haven't
finished it yet, myself." Billy bit into one of the
strips of bacon. Rand began to laugh sarcastically. "Get
a boatload of this! 'The recently restored Kingston Falls
Police Force promoted Sergeant Harry Worthlesston to
lieutenant for his valor and courage in the face of
adversity!' Probably ran like hell. 'Lieutenant
Worthlesston's first official act as lieutenant was to
arrest, prosecute, and summarily execute a band of
motorcycle looters pillaging the vulnerable Kingston
Falls. Chief Vince Emorby was posthumously awarded a
Medal of Valor for giving his life in defense of the city
he was sworn to protect. Assistant Forensic Chemist Kent
Helpya was promoted to Chief Forensic Detective and Mort
Emmkommapost will be posthumously awarded with a Nobel
Prize in Science for his work in attempting to ascertain
the cause of the chaos.'" Rand shook his head shamefully
at how the newspaper and the cops work together to help
support the other. He read on. "Hey, Son! From the
regional section. Births. 'Despite the fact that the
dead were returning to life and people were dying, a new
life entered the world during the so-called 'Night of the
Living Dead.' A baby was born to Mrs. Edna Feldman,
recently widowed during the events of three days ago. She
has decided to name him in honor of his father, Pete.'"
"Pete," Billy said, looking up from his breakfast. "Nice
name. Maybe when she moves back here, Pete and I can
become friends when he grows up." BLORCH!
Billy pushed his empty plate away. "Dad. I have to
ask you this? On a more personal note, how are you
feeling about... Mom?" Rand folded his paper back up,
slid the last bit of coffee down his throat, and spoke. "I
really must see to fixing that coffee maker of mine. Well,
I'm still a little torn up about it. But, life goes on.
And I think I've found someone to take my mind off of her.
We met at Buford General. Son, I think I'm going to marry
her!" "YOU'RE GOING TO WHAT?!" "Re-marry. You're going
to have a step-mother. It's too bad you're not
red-headed," Rand remarked with disappointment. Several
thoughts were swimming through Billy's mind at that
moment. Was he ready for a new mother? Well, a
step-mother, anyway. He thought he could handle it. But,
deep down, it was different. For some odd reason, even
though he had yet to meet this woman, he wanted so
desperately to give her a jocular punch in the mouth. He
had never had such feelings before for his biological
mother. "Hmmm. How interesting." Rand had started
reading the paper again. "'Dory's to re-open under new
management after fire destroys building.' Says here that
the only things left standing after the bar burned down
were a toilet and the apparatus linking our Earth with the
alternate one." He continued reading the paper, silently.
"WHAT?!" he shouted, rising from the table after reading
the article that he was on. "This city's kind snowplow
driver, Mister Futterman, is being rewarded with a key to
the city for his valiant efforts to combat the zombie
horde with his latest invention, the Factoid. Futterman,
unlike his fellow inventor Rand Peltzer, whom many of the
surviving townsfolk partly blame for the massacre, is a
brilliant man whose many devices have bettered all of
mankind! I'll kill him! I swear I will! One of these
days!" BLORCH!
Rand calmed down and went back to his reading. "Hmmm.
This is interesting. 'The Old Man, president and founder
of the High Rise Bakery and Leather Goods was shot today
by two mysterious men claiming to be bounty hunters. It is
interesting to note that both High Rise and the Old Man
were under investigation to see if they had played a part
in the zombie massacre. It seems that Fran Peltzer, wife
of Rand Peltzer, hated inventor whom many of the townsfolk
totally blame for the disaster, worked as a receptionist
there. In the opinion of this reporter, Rand Peltzer is
truly a piece of scum.'" Rand quelled the rising anger
and continued reading his paper with little further
incidence. BLORCH!
Rand finished his paper, set fire to it, ate the
ashes, and turned to his son. "Now, there are a few
unanswered questions that only you can answer. How in the
hell did you know how to stop the zombies once and for
all?" "That was easy, Dad. I had a little help from
Doctor Cossack. Wait here. I'll go get that tape he gave
me." Billy got up, left the table, and crossed the living
room, heading for the staircase leading to his bedroom.
"Hi, Son. I'm going to be your step-mother," a woman
called to him from the couch where she was watching a
Hogan's Heroes rerun. "Hi, Mom. Glad to meet you," Billy
calmly replied, as if this was his real mother. He went
upstairs and into his room. He took Cossack's tape from a
dresser drawer, grabbed his tape player, and went back
downstairs. "Hi, Mom!" Billy casually greeted his
soon-to-be mother. "Good morning, dear." Billy sat back
down at the kitchen table and set his tape player on it.
He put the tape in. "Here. Listen to this while the
writer thinks of great words to put in my mouth to explain
how in the world I could come up with a plan based on
this-" Billy pushed the play button. Rand listened while
the writer thought. BLORCH!
"Doctor Igottcha Cossack. High Rise research
division number 95011323, serial number 38-24-36. Project:
Sweetbread. Experiment number 127. Project: Sweetbread
must be considered a complete success! It's worked! Some
kind of regenerative process has begun. Upon irradiating
the subjects of experiment number 126, I have induced a
tolerance to high levels of that self-same radioactivity,
enabling the yeast to survive its multiple mitotic
separations necessary to create a high yield of bread.
This could be beneficial for everybody. This could end
world hunger, not to mention, making me rich!" There was a
short pause. "Experiment number 128. Experiment number
127 must be considered a complete failure. Outside of a
high level or radioactivity, the bacteria degenerates. It
seems this creation of mine can only exist within a
relatively short band of radiation. Too much stunts its
growth and too little kills it." There was another short
pause. "Experiment number 129. This time I've really done
it! By inducing a silicon-based mutagen into the
distillation, I have endowed my creation with the ability
to generate enough radioactivity to keep itself alive, and
dispel any amount of harmful radiation through its waste
products. I must perform further tests to see if this
yeast is edible by human beings." Another short pause
later... "Follow up report to experiment number 129. The
silicon-based mutagen, after inoculating the yeast, is
broken down and used by the bacteria as food. Giving a
necessary gestation period, the silicon can be eaten away
and then induced into the dough. As to the subject of
storing and releasing radiation, only a small sliver of
radioactive body wastes is produced by the bacteria. This
amount is far below the normal level tolerated by human
beings. This excess radiation is usually eliminated by the
body's excretory system, much in the same way as the
bacteria's. As to storing, high levels may be stored and
are usually broken by the bacteria as a primary source of
food. There is absolutely no danger of radiation sickness
or poisoning by radioactivity or silicon. We can market
this product immediately. I have given my creation of
super yeast the name Cossackus, after myself, Risae, a
derivative I created from the word rise, as in bread
baking."
Billy pressed the stop button. "With that piece of
knowledge, it was easy to perform my experiments. I
turned my attention to the radiation factor of the
bacteria. I figured that an overdose was the key to
beating them." "But, that tape said the bacterium was
resistant to radiation, that it broke down radiation for
food." "Exactly! So, I did the simplest possible thing
imaginable. The simplest solution to the problem of the
zombies, draw as many of them together as possible,
irradiate them with a massive dose, and feed them till
they burst. The only reason the zombies were attracted to
warm flesh was because of body temperature. Heat is a
form of radiation, conduction, convection, etc. radiation.
That was what the yeast was after in the flesh. The flesh
itself was only secondary and broken down by the host's
system. It took over the host's lymbic system, the source
of all physical pleasure in the body, and convinced it to
feel euphoria upon eating human flesh. Thus, the host
would seek the food merely for the physical pleasure given
to it by the yeast, and the yeast would get the heat from
the prey's body. The radiation we generated at the plant
also destroyed their physical form, exposing their
spleens, where the yeast collected, to further
radioactivity. The bacteria fed and fed until- POP- they
were full." "That was, uh, very interesting logic, Son."
Actually, it was totally berserk and Rand knew it. But,
they had been lucky enough to survive, so why knock a gift
horse's mouth, or something like that. BLORCH!
"How could a bacteria, especially residing in the
spleen, take over the whole body?" "Simple. It by-passed
the lymbic system and received its impulses from the rest
of the body. It would then send its instructions directly
to the necessary parts, by-passing the brain. That's why
destroying the brain had absolutely no effect. Damage to
the spleen exposed the bacteria inside to the radiation
that had polluted the zombies' bodies. Since the host was
clinically dead, its excretory system had ceased to
function and the bacteria simply ejected the radioactive
wastes into the coagulated blood. It festered there and
the radiation grew. The spleen bursts open from damage,
the bacteria inside is exposed to a massive dose of
radiation when the blood falls into the spleen, and the
bacteria feeds until it bursts. It's as simple as that."
Yes. During the nine and a half weeks that Billy spent in
limbo, he decided to dissect the workings of the zombies.
BLORCH!
"Son, can you finally put to rest once and for all
whose fault this zombie death spree was?" "Yes. You're
not going it like, though. I'm not going to like it.
Doctor Cossack and High Rise aren't going to like it. It's
a combination of faults. Your laziness caused some toxic
wastes to be created. Doctor Cossack created a new strain
of mutant yeast, but had failed several previous times.
To be exact, 127 times. High Rise dumps the failures at
little cost. I press a button that I'm not meant to press
at the nuclear power plant and a drum of your toxic waste
is dumped down the ravine behind the plant. That drum
strikes the drum filled with Doctor Cossack's failures,
causing radioactive materials and yeast distillations to
leak, combine, and infect someone or something, dead or
alive, I don't know which. The radiation mutates the
yeast further, changing it into a bacteria capable of
reanimating and controlling a dead body. It is also able
to infect and gradually take over a living system, but the
host dies first from his injures, no matter how minor."
"That's such a coherent explanation. In fact, too
coherent." Rand put a hand to his chin. "How were you
able to ascertain this, hmmmmmm?" "I re-created the whole
scene, on a smaller, more controlled scale on Earth II, as
its inhabitants like to call it." "Do you realize what
this tapes means?" Rand asked, beaming as eye beams shot
out into space and probed the tape player. "This tape can
show those newspaper reporters and everyone else in the
town that I'm not totally to blame!" "Won't work." "And
why not?" "Everyone hates you, including me. And, might I
add, rightfully so." Using his eye beams, Rand levitated
the tape player and hurled it at Billy's head. Billy
rubbed the sore spot and pondered on how ironic the action
was. He had no idea just how ironic it all was, because
when the tape player struck Billy's head, it turned it on
and erased the tape. BLORCH!
"Okay! Okay. I've answered your questions," Billy
said, massaging his still sore temple. "All that's left
on your part is to understand them. Now, I've got a
question for you. The plant's closed down. You said for
nearly a hundred thousand million years-" "ROUGHLY!" Rand
interrupted him. "I said roughly." Billy continued, a
look of hatred burning in his eyes. "Barring any
inconsistencies between our words and the plot, what are
you going to do for a living now? How will you support a
son and a future wife?" "I've already got that figured
out," Rand said as he opened the newspaper again. He
scanned the pages looking for the want ads. "Here. Read
this." He handed the paper to his son who read the
indicated article. "'Wanted. Nuclear technician to help
design and build an atomic power source to replace the
decrepit boiler system at the Kingston Bijou. Prior
technical knowledge requested, not necessarily required.
Prefer someone who has worked at the Kingston Falls
Nuclear Power Plant. Prefer ICS graduate. Call
976-NUKE." Billy stared at the article, a cloud of doubt
covering his mind. "PREFER ICS GRADUATE!" he eventually
shouted with disbelief. "Hmmmm. 976." "As you can see,"
Rand began with an air of smugness. "I'm totally
qualified for the job." Billy placed a hand loving on his
father's shoulder. "Dad. If my little bit of love for
you means anything to you, you won't take that job." Rand
thought about it for a moment. "Okay, Son. If it means
that much to you, I won't call them." Billy breathed a
sigh of relief. "In fact, I can't call them because after
I called about the job and they accepted me, they told me
never to call them back again because they hated me so
much for my part in the fiasco." Billy buried his head in
his arms and stared crying. "That's cute," Rand thought.
"He's that happy for me." BLORCH!
It took several years for Rand to fully recover
enough to return to Chinatown. Many things had happened
to him, his family, and Kingston Falls. He did re-marry.
Billy eventually accepted her as his mother, but he didn't
love her quite as much he should have. He loved her about
as much, maybe a little more, than he loved him. He also
developed this odd complex that he and he alone had
stopped the zombies. Never mind the little bit of help
from him, Doctor Cossack, and Mister Futterman and his
Factoid. Billy got a job down at the First Kingston Bank.
Pete grew up, and he and Billy became very good friends,
despite their age differences. They were always at the
YMCA doing something or another. Billy did fall in love.
Oddly enough, it was Kate, who had also survived the
night, who became his girlfriend. Mrs. Deagle survived
and became an embittered, old recluse. The Toxo-vipers
closed down the Kingston Falls Nuclear Power Facility,
which the newspapers had affectionately named Peltzer's
Folly. Rand had made a sizable fortune designing the
world's first nuclear powered movie theater. Kate got a
job there as an usher, before it had been converted, that
is. After conversion, Kate joined the work froce under
Dory's new management. Rand ran the nuclear powered
theater for several years before retiring and devoting his
spare time and fortune to his inventions. BLORCH!
But, all these changes did not exactly settle well on
his strained mind. The loss of his first wife and the
horror of a single night nearly drove him insane once when
the movie theater almost went meltdown. He felt that if
anything traumatic like that ever happened again, he'd
shoot himself. But, eight years had passed. Things had
settled down. Kingston Falls had returned to relative
normality; as normal as a town with an entrance into an
alternate Earth reality can be, anyway. Dory's was
re-built. It had been eight years since Rand had bought a
Christmas gift for Billy. It was quite odd that, before
he left, Billy had begged him not to buy a gift. He had
said that his father didn't need to buy him gifts to show
him his love. Rand knew otherwise. BLORCH!
Eight years needed to pass before Rand's mind was
stable enough for him to return to Chinatown. It was
Christmas time, and Rand Peltzer needed a gift. He
stepped out of his pick-up and looked around at the
colorful curio shops all along the streets. He noticed
one in particular. Its owner, a young Chinese woman, was
standing in its doorway, staring at him. The oddest
thoughts went through the young lady's mind. She had a
terribly foreboding feeling that she was going to die
sometime very soon. Rand turned away from the woman and
saw a small, oddly dressed Oriental boy in front of the
shop. Behind him was an alley that looked all too
familiar to him, but he just couldn't quite place where.
Despite all these odd feelings, Rand definitely knew that
this visit to Chinatown would change his life forever. And
Kingston Falls was content until the night that an army of
Gremlins invaded. But, that's another story.
This is the end of this series.
Thankfully, it's all over, except for the shouting and the
flaming balls of death. AHHHHHHHHHHH! It could have been
better. But, be here next time when I end it all! Well,
most of it anyway. Hee, hee! Yep. Series number five in
a five series limited series that will pan out into six.
You'd have to be stupid to miss Bionic Commando: Rewritten
\ The Beginning of the End. You heard me right, the end!
Almost. Only two more series to go! Ha. I just thought
of something. Sixth story, my favorite number is six, and
666 has to do with the end of time. You're drooling by
now, aren't you? Don't worry; you won't have to wait too
long! Bye!
Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten V \ Dawn of the Dead
@1993 by David Minter. Based on the movie Night of the
Living Dead @1968 by Image Ten Productions, the concept of
the Book and Record Set @1984 by Buena Vista Records,
Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten \ Something Dead this
Way Comes @1993 by David Minter, Night of the Living Dead:
Rewritten II \ Guess Who's Coming to Dinner @1993 by David
Minter, Night of the Living Dead: Rewritten III \ From
Here to Insanity @1993 by David Minter, and Night of the
Living Dead: Rewritten IV \ Billy Goes Berserk @1993 by
David Minter.
Night of the Living Dead @1968, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1989,
1990, 1992, 1993 by Image Ten Productions and George
Romero, John Russo, and Russ Streiner.
Buena Vista Records is a subsidiary of Walt Disney.
This series is dedicated to me, without whom this whole
warped representation of the universe wouldn't exist, you
all might get some more restful nights, and keep your
girlfriends.
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