Review of "For You, the Living," by Wayne Allen Sallee

Review of

For You, the Living, by Wayne Allen Sallee

Three out of five stars

 This short story is a morbid one based on a brutal plague that leads to heightened sexuality followed by your body simply falling apart. The location is Chicago and the city is trying to isolate itself by using the snowplows to grind the encroaching plague victims into a protoplasmic mush.

 The story is gruesome and told with no hope for the survival of the narrator and little for that of the human race. While the origins of the virus are hinted at as having something to do with an attempt at a cure for AIDS, that line is not heavily pursued.

 This is a dark story of humans trying to keep a society functioning against the most powerful and deadly enemy, a microscopic organism against which there are only reactive defenses. It will make a dark mood even darker.