In the aftermath of a zombie-like plague, a girl must come to terms with the the things that she has seen and experienced, and with what other people did.
When I started this story I thought, “Oh, another zombie apocalypse story, *yawn*,” but it turned out to be so much more than that. It takes place in the aftermath of the Plague, a viral infection that caused some people to become “raveners,” mindlessly craving flesh and forming mobs that devoured their neighbors. The main character has lost her family to the raveners, and is living now in a small town that was untouched by the Plague. A vaccination program has both prevented new infections and also reversed the infections of the raveners, who appear to be completely amnesiac to the horrors they committed under the virus’s control. People are urged to forget, to move on, but there is no accountability or justice in forgetting.
In the context of recent history, this is an incredibly poignant and powerful story. It weaves together both the actual viral pandemic we’ve been living through, but also the political horrors of increased cruelty and violence. As always after some horrific period of history – Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Bush torture program, the stupid cruelty of the Trump administration – we are urged to forget, to move on, to forgive the recent injustices for the sake of unity. Sometimes, though, a cleaver may be a better solution.