The Real Night of the Living Dead (2 page)

Before I go into the events that took place that night in 1951, let me give you a brief history of Philadelphia State Hospital. I’ll begin by telling you that it was not a regular hospital. You know, your kid gets sick so you take him to the ER, or your wife is about to have a baby so you rush her in so she can give birth. No, it wasn’t like that at all. Philadelphia State Hospital, or
Byberry
(as it has come to be known as over the years), was a mental hospital. It opened in the beginning years of the twentieth century and began closing some of its buildings in the sixties. By the end of the eighties, it was completely shut down.

Almost from the beginning, the hospital was infamous for the horror stories that took place inside its walls. Some of the stories include: patients forced to walk around naked because they tore off their clothes and the hospital didn’t have the money to replace them.
Patients being chained to their beds for months at a time.
Others kept doped up, walking about the ward while the nurses remained locked in their station, frightened of what the patients were capable of. They would keep them doped up by passing their medication through a slot in the window. Even murders occurring among the patients, one of which involved a male patient who murdered a female patient, chopped her body into itty-bitty pieces and scattered them throughout the campus. My friend, one of the attendants, found a patient (about 8 years old), playing with the victim’s jaw. The guy couldn’t eat or sleep for days after seeing that.

Throughout its years, the hospital became known as a last resort, a place to send members of your family, who were handicapped or mentally ill, when you wanted them out of your life, wanting to hide them from others, wanting to have nothing else to do with them.

I guess that’s one of the reasons why my story was discarded for so many years. Many of the victims were patients and, sad to say, they had no loved ones to claim them.
No one who gave a damn.

It was late in the evening, Wednesday, March 21
^st
, 1951. Two days before Good Friday. I was working in the N-3 building, it was a therapy building. Actually, on one of the floors, the third floor (where I was working that day), doctors would test drugs on patients.
Used them as guinea pigs.
Tested all kinds of drugs that were in the early stages of development.
They weren’t too concerned with side effects, because the patients were considered crazy and really couldn’t complain. Who would listen to them? It was really horrible.

I was an attendant; had been working at the hospital for the past five months.
Me
and my friend, Melvin, were assisting a couple of doctors who were testing a new vaccine. Really we were just standing by, in case they needed the extra muscle to control the patients.

The third floor of N-3 had at least a hundred beds in the room, two rows on either side of the room, lining the walls,
then
a row going down the center.

There were about twenty patients on the floor, most of them men, a few women. Some were shackled to the metal bed frame as they were considered criminally insane, but most of them weren’t. They were just too crazy to give a damn and just laid there with smiles on their faces.

The doctors were given a new polio vaccine to test. Back then, the polio virus was a son of a bitch, and there were tens of thousands of cases reported each year. The vaccine was developed by a colleague of a doctor by the name of
Kollmer
, who years earlier tested a polio vaccine which turned out to do more harm than good. The people who were given
Kollmer’s
vaccine had their polio worsen and some even died. But this new vaccine, the researchers said, was destined to cure polio.

Doctor Haas had already injected the vaccine into three of the patients, and he was working his way down the line. The second doctor, Doctor
Oksenberg
, was observing the injected patients.
His hand on his chin, and his eyes squinting.
Looked like he had to use the john.
A nurse was following Doctor Haas, handing him tools as he requested them.

The doctors and the nurse barely said a word to Melvin and me. To them, we were scum. I was a convict, and he was hired off the street, almost literally. There was a sign posted along the block where he lived in North Philadelphia, calling for men needed as orderlies, no experience required. He applied and was hired on the spot. He’d been here for a couple of months, and I don’t think a day had passed that I worked with him and he didn’t smell of booze. But he was a good guy. We got along great.

“You listen to Dragnet last week?” said Melvin, as we stood side by side.

My eyes were on Doctor Haas as I said, “No, it’s been a while.”

Melvin said, “Yeah, lately, I’ve been going to my neighbor’s house down the street. In the evenings, a bunch of us go there to watch his television.”

“Television?
He rich or something?”

He shook his head. “He won it in some kind of lottery. I don’t know. All I know is he’s got
himself
a television, and he charges us a nickel a piece to watch the programs after supper.”

I began to hear a slight grunting, and my eyes moved from the doctor over to the first injected patient.

“You missed a great one, pal,” said Melvin. “About a guy who was beaten, had his car stolen, then a murder took place.”

“Melvin, when doesn’t a murder take place on Dragnet? No skin off my back. I’ll catch it next time.” I was too busy focused on the grunting patient. Something about the guy didn’t seem right.

“Next time?
Next show doesn’t air until sometime in April.”

“Okay, good lord.
What, you got the
hots
for Jack Webb or something?” I said.

“It’s a good show.
Probably my
favoritest
radio show.”

I nudged Melvin and motioned with my head to the grunting man.

“Yeah?” said Melvin. “What about him?”

“Something’s wrong with him. Listen to him.”

“You just figured that out? Guy’s a nut job.
Prob’ly
the same sound he makes when he plays with himself.”

The grunting grew louder. My eyes went to Doctor
Oksenberg
. He was watching the grunting man and recording notes on a pad of paper.

“Should he be making sounds like that, doc?”
He ignored me as he studied the patient who was beginning to turn pale. Then the grunts came to a halt. The patient stopped moving. His arms dropped limp.

Chapter Two

Doctor
Oksenberg
approached the dead patient and leaned forward, putting his ear to the patient’s chest. He looked up toward his colleague and said, “I don’t hear a heartbeat.
Doesn’t appear too promising.”

“Let’s see what we can get from the rest,” said Doctor Haas. “Have one of them take the deceased downstairs to the morgue.”

Oksenberg
stood upright and looked to me and Melvin. He said, “Come on. One of you boys get over here and take him. You know where the morgue is, right?”

Melvin shook his head. He seemed a little scared. He probably never put his hands on a dead body before. I was a little familiar. “I’ll take him.” Melvin was relieved.

I moved toward the bed. Then he twitched. Me, Melvin and
Oksenberg
flinched in unison. I could feel the hairs on my arm stand. Doctor Haas and the nurse were busy moving their way down the line of patients to notice what just happened.

“Cancel that,” said Doctor
Oksenberg
. “He’s moving.”

The patient was a man, I would say in his late thirties, but he appeared to have aged twenty years since taking in the vaccine. He was dragging his feet up and down against the thin urine soaked mattress pad, and his eyes were rolling side to side under their lids.
 

Oksenberg’s
pen began to dance again. Standing behind him now, I looked over his shoulder, past his thinning gray hair, at what he was scribbling. He wrote:
Within 5
mins
.
of
vaccine injection - Outermost layer of eye appears
 
yellow in color
.

My gaze drifted to the patient. He was staring dead at me. And the doctor’s notes couldn’t be more correct; the whites of his eyes were now a stale yellow. I’ll tell you what; I was a tough guy in my day. Never backed down from any
joe
. But when I saw those yellow eyes on me, I was intimidated.
For the first time in my life.
And that made me feel very uncomfortable.

I turned to Melvin and he looked confused, like he was waiting for
Oksenberg
to give the next order. I put my finger to my eye and
mouthed,
His eyes
.

His gaze went to the man’s eyes. His forehead wrinkled and he said, “Say, doc, what’s with his eyes? He
ain’t
looking too hot.”

“Please, boys. We’re extremely busy here. Would you prefer to work your shift at N-9 and try to deal with those psychos?” said Doctor
Oksenberg
. “I’m sure they would enjoy hearing your questions as you listen to them scream themselves to sleep.”

Melvin hushed up real quick, and I wasn’t going to open my mouth again. Not after that threat. N-9 was the maximum security building where they kept the worse of the worse of the men. No thanks.

Oksenberg
continued scribbling as the yellow eyes scanned the room, like he had just woken up after a long nap and was trying to figure out where he was. Doctor Haas and the nurse were nearing the end of the injections. I could hear one of the patients say, Thanks. Another said she was being crucified for stealing muffins from the kitchen. A few others laughed as the needle shot the vaccine into their veins, others cried. But we noticed some of the first patients injected were beginning to show the same effects as the man who we thought had died.
   

The man with the yellow eyes placed his hands on the edges of the bed. He let out a faint moan as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

“Please lay down.” He didn’t listen. His head was hanging. His chin was resting on his chest, but his eyes were focused on
Oksenberg
. He said, “Lay down. Do as I say.” He placed his hand on the man’s chest to shove him back, but the man snatched the doctor’s hand and screamed as he moved the hand toward his mouth.

Oksenberg’s
reaction was to pull away. He looked to us as he shouted for help. Melvin and me rushed over, each of us grabbing an arm, and slammed the patient back down to the bed. We gave each other a look that said,
What
the hell was that?
We turned to the doctor, and his face was covered in sweat as he held on to the hand he nearly lost a few seconds ago.

Our attention fell to the man acting erratic. We were holding him down. Had a little strength to him, but no more than an average man. With the two of us holding him down, he wasn’t going anywhere. But it was obvious he was trying to bite the doctor. His head would rise, and his jaw would snap at the air.
Looked like a damn bear trap.

Doctor Haas stood beside his colleague now. His eyes gazing at the patient as he said, “What in the hell just happened?”

“He tried to bite my hand.” I can still see the look of shock on his face.
Amazing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he wet his pants at that moment.
Just a little.

Haas turned to us and said, “Call the guard. Tell him to take this gentleman to N-9 via the tunnel.”

Melvin jumped at the chance to get away from the situation. He said, “Can you hold him while I go?” I nodded. He waited for me to place my other hand down on the man’s arm before letting go. I was pressing down now, holding him, but I was growing tired. Melvin exited the room.

I looked down at the insane man right below me; he was snapping his jaws, trying his best to bite me as he screamed. I had to look away, those eyes were too eerie. My gaze went to the doctors who were staring, they looked scared. The nurse was way down at the end of the line, standing by her rolling cart that carried the vials of the polio vaccine. She was the only one who didn’t appear scared. But she did look impatient, like she was hoping Haas would get his butt over there fast, so they could wrap up the vaccinations.