The Living Dead is a 2020 horror novel written by George A. Romero and Daniel Kraus. The book was unfinished at Romero's death in 2017 and Kraus was hired to complete it using Romero's notes and incorporating an old short story by Romero.
Synopsis
The book is divided into three acts; "The Birth of Death", "The Life of Death", and "The Death of Death". The acts each cover a period of time from the first known undead attack and forward to the next eleven years. Each act consists of chapters of certain characters' stories, both living and dead.
The story begins in a Washington D.C. government building, where statistician Etta Hoffman finds an anomaly: the recording of a death and birth of a patient in San Diego on 10/23.From the same patient in San Diego this then leads to the story of Luis Acocella and Charlie Ratajkowski, in the San Diego medical examiner's office, who are working on an autopsy of a John Doe who suddenly comes back from the dead. During the "birth of death", Luis contacts his superior JT at an event in Las Vegas and learns that the dead ("They") are rising across the country. The ensuing chaos leads to JT committing suicide while on the phone with Luis and Charlie, the phone is then picked up by a mysterious guest at the Vegas convention named Richard Lindhof, whose callous reaction concerns and scares Luis and Charlie.
The story then shifts to the viewpoint of Greer Morgan, a teenage girl in a poor community in Missouri. She has to immediately come to terms with the events unfolding outside of her trailer, while also finding out about the neighbors whom she has come to know while living there with her father and brother. Greer's survival is dependent on those neighbors defending her from "Them" while she frantically looks for her father. Simultaneously, the TV media in Atlanta becomes aware of the events and fights over how to present the events as gang attacks or the unthinkable truth instead. Nathan Baseman is a producer whose acquires footage confirming the spread of the undead. Baseman fights with his coworkers about how to distribute the footage. Miss Glass, a successful talk show host whose used to spinning news for ratings has been chosen to covey things as gang attacks. Ultimately, Baseman recruits longtime anchor Chuck Corso to reveal the truth about the attacks from "them" as the rising dead to the public prior to Miss Glass conveying the lies to calm the panicked public. Nathan Baseman's young studio intern also patches a White House live feed to Chuck's broadcast confirming that the dead are attacking.
Meanwhile, a NAVY aircraft carrier ship far west of the California coast learns of the undead from Corso's broadcast. Some naval staff cannot cope and commit suicide by drug overdose onboard, unleashing the dead within the ships captivity. An unhinged Navy chaplain uses the events to take control of the ship for his own perverse benefit, and to make a new society in his warped religious perspective. According to the Chaplin, survival on the zombie-plagued ship looks to be dependent on him and his followers. He believes these are "golem" from old Hebrew text sent to become his new army. Japanese American NAVY officer Karl Nishimura, who hopes to reach his husband and family in Buffalo, NY tries to stay alive. He works together with tormented fighter pilot Jenny to escape the Chaplain's followers and the undead. During access to their airplane escape, Jenny is accidentally stabbed by Karl and dies; Karl manages to eject and lands safely in Mexico, and begins his long journey eastward. Prior to the end of the first section, we learn of the outcome of Baseman and Corso's valiant efforts to inform the nation via TV broadcast of the ongoing events and of methods of survival. However, their thereafter further broadcast of helpful information leads to the infiltration of the studio by a group of violent deranged survivors, whose actions lead to the studio being overrun by hordes of the undead. Baseman commits suicide on air and Corso is attacked by the horde, with his fate unknown for now.