Does The Rising get better?

I've been picking at The Rising by Brian Keene (author's definitive edition) for a bit now. I'm 30% in and so far I'm getting very little from it.

My first impressions:

The prose is alright, the characters feel really flat (the drug dealers in particular almost had me DNF right there.) The horror, what there is of it anyway, just doesn't feel very extreme or compelling or like it matters at all. But above all, the premise is just kinda... Silly. Theres just so much contrivance and hand waving to justify everything that's happening.

I really want to like this book because I've been looking to get into more extreme horror and in particular I've been craving zombie content, especially something more mystical that isn't trying to pass itself off as scientific. But unless I'm missing something, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to DNF.

Is there anything to look forward to? If not, got any recommendations that will actually blow my socks off?

(I was also really put off by the forward where Keene out and out claims he started, or heavily contributed to, the zombie craze of the 00s when 28 Days later predates this book by a year. The whole thing has this arrogant, resentful tone to it that almost turned me off before even starting. Which I'd give credit where credit is due except I was obsessed with zombie content at the time, literally reading everything I could get my hands on and never once even heard of The Rising. To say nothing of the fact that it's exceedingly okay so far.)