Infected
William Vitka
Graveside Tales
Review by Sheri White

This review contains a minor spoiler.

Are you tired of zombies yet? I confess, I am not. I’m a huge fan of those lurching, flesh-eating monsters. I know some people believe this sub-genre has played itself out. If you are one of them, you are in for a treat if you read Infected. This is no ordinary zombie tale; Infected takes place in the not-so-distant future, and is a sci-fi story as well as a horror story.

A Manhattan journalist is assigned to interview Bronx Councilman Jonathon Schneer, who has murdered a hooker during sex. He visits the Councilman in the hospital, and it turns out to be quite an interview when the Councilman attacks him, trying to bite him. After a hospital workers actually is bitten, things go downhill quickly.

Things are going crazy on the news – giant killer cockroaches in the NYC subway, missing corpses, people biting one another. When the journalist is trapped in his building by a growing horde of zombies, his only thought is to rescue his girlfriend across town.

Infected is one of the best zombie stories I’ve read this year. Actually, it’s one of the best stories I’ve read this year, period. It’s funny, offensive, irreverent and action-packed. Barely anybody is going to survive in a zombie apocalypse, and this story is no different. However, my only complaint about Infected is that it’s told in the first-person, yet the narrator doesn’t make it through. First-person death is a pet-peeve of mine, but truly, it’s a minor nitpick here since the story is so good.

If you’re a zombie fan who is losing faith, Infected will give you the warm fuzzies all over again.