Incurable is a work of short fiction by Brandy de Cusack. As a point of fairness, I suppose I should mention that Brandy de Cusack also contributes to this website – so yeah – I might be a little biased :-). It concerns the story of a young lady named Jesse in the not too distant future, who’s got a bit of a problem.
She comes home one day in a tizzy over her philandering husband, only to find that he isn’t feeling so well, and then he rather inexplicably attacks her. She manages to fend him off. Actually “fend him off” may not be a strong enough description. Kills him dead is more in line with what happens. In any case, soon after she takes care of her beau she gets sick. And then the hunger starts.
De Cusack takes us on an enjoyable ride through the mind of a young woman who’s becoming a zombie. Rather than taking the easy route and slinging up a splatterpunk gore-fest (not that there’s anything wrong with that), the story is comprised of a number of keen observations on life in a rapidly collapsing society as well as some wonderful laugh out loud moments.
For example – one of my favorites: “He’d terrified me before; he’d terrified me this morning, but that thing, that foul, drooling horror that loomed over me was not the man I used to love, was not a man at all. That’s why I jointed him like a calf and stuffed his dismembered, cling-film-wrapped body in the freezer.” Sweeeeeeettttt…
Here at For Zombies we always applaud the zombie point of view (ZPOV). Too often we’re treated as cartoonish one-dimensional sacks of cannon-fodder relentlessly shambling after yet another band of heavily armed survivors. Never mind that underneath our slack-jawed exteriors, we have feelings. Dammit – we’re sensitive as Hell!
With Incurable we’re given a view into a young woman’s transformation and see that there is indeed more to unlife than the all-consuming hunt for meat.
This really is a good read. I give it two severed thumbs up – and look forward to seeing more stories from Brandy.
You can purchase a copy of Incurable by clicking here: Incurable.