Caddis Initiative - Phase One: Infection [Novella Review]

Caddis Initiative - Phase One: Infection

Genre: Horror (tentacle/body horror/medical thriller)/Novella
Year Published: 2017
Published by Bloody Whisper Books
Length - 124 (digital) pages
Written by Cassie Carnage​

Tagline: "Don't drink the water!"

Rating: 5 Skulls

Plot Summary:
There’s something in the water. It’s making people sick. Everything is changing. Everyone is changing. The whole world is becoming something else. Something alien. 
Something terrifying. Something deadly.

The infection is spreading and altering everything it comes into contact with; people, animals, plants - nothing is safe from its invisible grasp.

Becca Espinoza’s entire life changes overnight. The whole world is becoming something beyond her wildest imagination and worse than her darkest nightmares. 

Tentacled slime spewing horrors from beneath the sea are heaving upon the shores of New Jersey. They’re spreading a deadly infection, a contagion that kills the strong and mutates the weak into mind numbing monstrosities. 

It starts with sores that are filled with black thread-like worms. Headaches, vomiting, and fever follow. Shortly after, your body is completely infested with parasites, and you die. Those who survive this infection find themselves swiftly turning into something more than human and utterly alien to the world as we know it. 

Will Becca survive long enough to find her girlfriend and get her to safety? Or is everyone living in their coastal town doomed?

In this brutal, gore filled, fast paced, mutant creature feature novella, a butch lesbian plumber faces off with monsters created by science run amok. Inspired by old school horror and medical thriller movies like The Thing and Outbreak.

Review:
The most amazing thing to me about this story is that Cassie Carnage was asked to write it! (Thank you, Kelsea, for asking Cassie to write you a story. You must be thrilled at this outcome. I know that I am!)

I will start off by saying that Cassie immediately connects you with her characters which, with this kind of "tension-filled" story, pays off in full, as you will be concerned for each character's welfare.

Another aspect worth mentioning are Cassie's creatures - they are truly the stuff of nightmares! (If I ever hear of a fish-to-human disease, I am staying far, far away!)

With all of that said, I am definitely looking forward to Phase Two: Invasion which can't come soon enough!

Before I go, I do want to point out the $5 price tag on this one, for those who may be hesitant. That price seemed a little steep to me, for a 100+ pages novella, but I will say that you do get your money's worth!

Jason