⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

“We call ourselves civilised, we look down on people we think of as less civilised, but I don’t think anyone really takes the time to imagine what the term means at an empirical level.”

a plague has spread creating literal monsters out of ordinary people (the infected or Others) and those immune or “cured” fight for survival and a sense of normalcy in the chaos - a classic us vs them scenario. or is it? reality is not always what it seems and uncertainty ravages minds.

we follow Spence living in a rehab facility where people have been “cured”. throughout the novella we travel back in time to his haunting past and his current situation.

what is real? what is true? who’s right and who’s wrong? are we followers or independent thinkers? are people worthy of redemption after our most heinous acts? can our perception of reality be trusted? so many questions.

“Maybe we’ll all have to get used to the uncertainty. Maybe that’s what frightens me. The way you can get used to anything if you’ve got nothing better to gravitate toward.”

i love a horror novella that at its core has a timely or thought provoking theme. this was a quick read at 176 pages, though honestly i wish it had been a bit longer with some of the minor characters fleshed out.
i do also enjoy an unreliable narrator, and that was one of the most redeeming qualities of this book for me.