Douce is plagued by nightmares and was an orphan with a mysterious lineage. Our main characters are Paul Broucek, a psychiatrist, and his pretty girlfriend Doucette Nogaret a painter/artist called Douce. There may be a few who have risen from the dead since they are described as fetid, with ancient clothes and vacant eyes but if this is an invasion of the Living Dead it is trickling in a few zombies at a time. Instead of civilization on the brink we have a New Orleans setting in the 1980s (when this book was published) with Voodoo practitioners who've brought about drugged or spelled or possessed people whom appear similar to zombies. Since that is the story which I expected I have to reevaluate whether this is a good book on its own or not. So far, this book doesn't have much in the way of living dead and no dystopian society implications. 'Prints of at least eight distinct sets of bare feet, six American Negro, two Caucasian one each of the Negro and Caucasian sets are female.' Really, how'd they know? They are only seeing footprints and they know the race which left them? Wrapped in the remains of a burial shroud, and enveloped in a noisome cloud of corruption, it lurches to join the gathering armies of The Living Dead. With a convulsion, it heaves itself upright, escaping its final resting place. The moonlight gleams off patches of dead-white skull the empty eyes stare at nothing. They watch intensely until a partially decomposed head emerges from the forgotten grave. The swamp creatures fall silent as a withered arm thrusts up into the fetid air, its bony fingers wiggling like snakes.

They returned from the grave to drag the living back to hell.īack cover: The earth cracks open and a gnarled, rotted hand pushes through the soft, slimy soil.

The Living Dead by Jeffrey Goddin