The New Dead: A Zombie Anthology

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FOREWORD

I have never had any trouble understanding the fascination with vampires. Despite the myriad mythologies that have been invented over the past few decades, the thousand permutations created by authors hoping to present a fresh take on the material, the fundamentals have remained the same. Vampires are both beautiful and terrible (and aren’t we always strangely attracted to people with both of those attributes). The erotic nature of the vampire seduction is unmistakable - the biting, the bleeding, the penetration. And, of course, they live forever. Though we might think better of it once the consequences have been contemplated, who in the world has not wished for immortality, for the chance to cheat death?

But zombies? Not so much. Eating brains, my friends, is not sexy.

And yet in recent years the zombie story has become more and more popular and has evolved from the days of voodoo rituals into big business. The zombie’s presence in modern pop culture can probably be attributed largely to George A. Romero, the filmmaker who brought the world
Night of the Living Dead
in 1968. An entire genre seemed to be born with that film, spreading through various media, most especially books and video games.

My good friend, the ever erudite Stephen R. Bissette (who graces us with a story in this volume), could give you a far more thorough history than I of the various elements that contributed to the development of the popular zombie story, not least of which is the biblical tale of Lazarus. What fascinates me, however, is the twenty-first-century surge in popularity that zombies have encountered.

We live in odd times. Strange days, indeed. Times of torture and deceit and celebrity and constant exposure to the worst the world has to offer, thanks to a media that never tires of feeding our hunger for the horrible.

My favorite work of zombie fiction ever is the poem ‘The March of the Dead’ by Robert Service. In a way, it set the tone for this new anthology, though it was published long, long ago. Service wrote of the glorious homecoming of victorious soldiers, celebrated by the townspeople as they paraded through the streets . . . only to be followed by the ravaged, horrible, lumbering dead, the soldiers who did not survive the war.

When I set out to edit this anthology, I sought out a wide variety of perspectives on the modern fascination with zombies. I asked questions. Are we so inured to death that we now find it charming? Or - and this was my suspicion - do we embrace these ideas as an indirect way of processing the horror that we feel at the reality of war and torture and death? The films that have covered the war in Iraq, its foundations and its consequences, have by and large been ignored by audiences, and yet during the height of our horror at the developments there, horror films that dealt with parallel subject matter in a setting and genre divorced from reality were hugely successful.

Something to think about, at any rate.

Now, don’t start thinking that what you’re going to find within these pages will be war stories or political stories. There are military and political elements to a handful of the tales, but I cast the net much wider than that. What I wanted were, in no uncertain terms, tales of death and resurrection. If, in the process, we were able to examine various facets of pop culture’s fascination with zombies, all the better.

That also doesn’t mean that there are no traditional zombie stories in here. The beauty of having such a wide variety of contributors is that the tales run the gamut from modern warfare to postapocalyptic futures, from love stories to heartbreaking voodoo horrors, from the Bible to Twitter. Within these pages you will find humor and truly unsettling horror, you will find tales of great brevity, and others of epic sprawl. You will even find one that answers my questions about death and resurrection in a manner different from all of the others, by eschewing the resurrection element altogether. And, interestingly enough, I think that one brings us back full circle to the question, and even back to the vampires.

Why are we fascinated by zombies? Perhaps because nothing is so terrifying as death come calling, in whatever form.

Here, then,
Zombie.

Christopher Golden
Bradford, Massachusetts
May 18, 2009

LAZARUS

BY JOHN CONNOLLY

He wakes in darkness, constricted by bonds. There is stone beneath him, and the air he breathes is rank and still. He seems to recall that he heard a voice calling his name, but the voice is calling no longer. He tries to get to his feet, but the bonds around him hinder his movements. There is no feeling in his legs. He cannot see, and he struggles to breathe through the cloth on his face. He begins to panic.

Insects buzz around him. There is a sensation of movement throughout his body, as of small things burrowing into his flesh, yet he feels no pain. His body is bloated with gas and fluids, the liquids forced from his cells and into his body cavity.

There is a sound, stone upon stone. Light breaks, and he shuts his eyes against it as it pierces the cloth. Now there are hands on him, and he is raised to his feet. Fingers gently remove the coverings. He feels tears upon his cheeks, but they are not his own. His sisters are kissing him and speaking his name.

‘Lazarus! Lazarus!’

Yes, that is his name.

No, that is not his name.

It was once, but Lazarus is no more, or should be no more. Yet Lazarus is here.

There is a man standing before him, bearded, his robes covered in the dust of many miles. Lazarus recognizes him, beloved of his sisters, beloved of him, but he cannot speak his name. His vocal cords have atrophied in the tomb.

The tomb. He stares down as the last of the grave wrappings are torn from his body and a sheet is thrown over him to hide his nakedness. He looks behind him at the stone that had been removed from the mouth of the cave.

Sickness. He was ill. His sisters mopped his brow, and the physicians shook their heads. In time, they believed him to be dead, so they wrapped him in bandages and laid him in a cave. Yes, a mistake was made, but it has been rectified.

But this is a lie. He knows it even before the thought has fully formed itself. Something terrible has happened. Some great wrong has been committed in the name of pity and love. The one whom he recognized, the beloved, touches him and calls his name. Lazarus’s lips move, but no sound comes forth.

What have you done? he tries to say. What have you taken from me, and from what have you taken me?

Lazarus sits at the window of his sisters’ house, a plate of fruit untouched before him. He has no appetite, but neither can he taste any of the food that has been given to him in the days since his return. The maggots have been ripped from his flesh, and his body has begun to repair itself. He still struggles to walk, even with the aid of a pair of sticks, but where should he walk? This world holds no beauty for him, not in the aftermath of the tomb.

Lazarus does not remember what happened after his eyes closed for the last time. He knows only that he has forgotten something, something very important and beautiful and terrible. It is as though a roomful of memories has been sealed up, and what was once known to him is now forbidden. Or perhaps it is all merely an illusion, just as it seems to him that the world is obscured slightly by gauze, a consequence of the four days spent lying on the stone, for his eyes now have a milky cast to them and are no longer blue, but grey.

His sister Martha comes and takes the plate away. She brushes his hair from his forehead, but she no longer kisses him. His breath smells foul. He cannot taste the decay in his mouth, but he knows that it is there from the expression on her face. Martha smiles at him, and he tries to smile back.

Outside the window, women and children have gathered to gaze upon he who was once dead but is dead no longer. They are amazed and curious and—

Yes, fearful. They are afraid of him.

He leaves the window and staggers to his bed.

III

Lazarus can no longer sleep. He is terrified of the darkness. When he closes his eyes, he smells the air of the tomb and feels the bandages tight around his chest and the cloth blocking his mouth and nostrils.

But Lazarus is never tired. He is never hungry or thirsty. He is never happy or sad or angry or resentful. There is only lethargy and the desire for sleep without the necessity of it.

No, not sleep - oblivion. Oblivion and what lies beyond it.

On the third night, he hears footsteps in the house. A door opens, and a woman appears. It is Rachel, his betrothed. She had been in Jerusalem when he woke, and now she is here. She runs her hands across his brow, his nose, his lips. She lies beside him and whispers his name, anxious not to wake his sisters. She kisses him and recoils at the taste of him. Still, her fingers move down over his chest, his belly, finding him at last, stroking, coaxing, her face slowly creasing in confusion and disappointment.

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