Infected: King of the Rats

by Trey J. Hunt

Aiden Cole, a young college biology major, attempts to completely stop the issue of substance abuse, an issue that has inflicted him personally. The support of his friends, family, and adoring college faculty leads Aiden to develop a cure. However, the lab rats being tested show the results hopped for with some adverse side effects. The rats become highly aggressive. Going as far as eating food given in seconds, endless hunger resorting to eating each other and euthanasia seems to be entirely ineffective.

After a campus news piece shows the darker side of Aiden's project he worries college authorities will stop his work. While his friends plan to stop the interview from being released, Aiden hatches his own plan to show everyone his cure will work. The results in a human host are completely different than whatever could have been expected.

New species of humans are created. Some are absent minded and primitive; only with a desire to eat, even humans. While most infected gain super human abilities and lose their sense of humanity and morals. The majority gain new animal instincts to hunt and eat the flesh of non-infected to increase their own attributes. Competition for flesh and the endless hunger leads to bloody gory conflicts as the virus spreads to the unlucky few it hasn't already taken.

A small amount of people become something more. Those who are gifted with the infected's strength but the mentality of a human are at the top of the food chain. Only this small group possess the power to end the coming or lead it.

The King of the Rats.

Genres: Zombies

62 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 6, 2015

Reviews

[Netanella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book's first publication, back in 2015, and remember writing that I preferred the intro piece of our narrator's childhood, rather than the later and larger portion of the book, where most of the action took place.

I'm glad to say that I've changed my mind with this re-release. Although there are still editorial issues with typos and word usage, the story itself is a pretty interesting one. A grad student in science, still haunted by his troubled childhood, Aiden works on trying to find a cure for a deadly Asian disease by experimenting on lab rats. The challenge: the apparent cure for the disease seems to cause unusual side effects in the rats. Add a few external elements from the typical college crowd - horniness, jealousy, cheating, a strip club, and alcohol - and Aiden has a formula for disaster.

An interesting story, and worth the time once it's cleaned up.

[Celeste Peña · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the story!

[Randy Harmelink]

No rating. Moved to the DNF shelf at the 37% mark. I just wasn't enjoying the book. I wasn't caring about any of the characters.

[Diane Andrews · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the characters, very compelling and interesting relationships. Will there be a second book though??

[Netanella · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Infected: King of the Rats" is a strange, sad tale of a young man whose attempts to cure drug addiction in lab mice creates a new infection. When I started the book, I thought it was going in a different direction, with the vivid descriptions of Aiden's dilapidated house and his parents fighting. Sadly, these scenes of his early childhood are the ones I liked the best. The rest of the story was just okay.