Dollar Bin Horror Spotlight - The Killing Floor by Craig DiLouie

The mystery virus struck down millions. Three days later, its victims awoke with a single violent purpose: spread the Infection. As the world lurched toward the apocalypse, some of the Infected continued to change, transforming into horrific monsters. America's far-flung military has returned home to war against its own country, engaged in a fierce battle to retake Washington, DC. Two hundred miles away, Ray Young, survivor of a fight to save a refugee camp from hordes of Infected fleeing the burning ruins of Pittsburgh, awakes from a coma to learn he has also survived Infection. But this is no miracle. Ray is not immune. Instead, he has been transformed into a superweapon that could end the world ... or save it.

In this sequel to The Infection, Craig DiLouie's The Killing Floor continues where the last book left off, following the survivors who saved a refugee camp from a swarm of the infected. While the book switches view points to tell the story from everyone's perspective, the main story line of the book follows Ray, a man who's become infected but was allowed to die on his own instead of getting a shot to the head...only he doesn't exactly turn into what the rest of the infected have become. He becomes more like a carrier of the infection, but he's not completely immune. The story follows him as the military and others try to find him, looking for a cure in his blood or to just kill him (sounds like lovely people, don't it?). It sounds a lot like something from The Last Man on Earth but when you read it, you'll see that he turns that concept into something very wonderful and unique.

The story also introduces us to some new characters as well as all the characters we met in the first book. This book focuses more on the characters and their story progression than the first but still has plenty of infected action for all to enjoy. The thing I really like about this book, as I have with the other books from Craig, is how he convincingly creates real people that seem to jump of the page rather than just two denominational characters you couldn't care less for.

That's not to say everything about the book is perfect. In a few places, I found myself skimming over pages where the text seemed to run a bit long. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the book jumps from view point to view point. It got a little confusing at one point when I lost track of who was saying what, but this only happened once and I will admit it was a little late at night...ok, it was like at 3am so it was pretty damn late. But what does it say when I stay up till 3am to finish reading a book? It says the book was pretty damn good! You can get your copy and judge for yourself HERE.

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