Crowded Quarantine First Edition (2014)
HellBound Books Rerelease (2020)
First published back in January of 2014, ‘Walled In’ formed the debut novel from Welsh author David Owain Hughes.
DLS Synopsis:
DLS Review:
The outbreak started within the small Welsh town of Twsc. Located on the very edge of the town, within an isolated field, the Twsc army barracks housed a top-secret research facility. A highly secure base where the army had been undertaking experimental tests to develop a new biological weapon.
They’d dubbed it the ‘defector virus’, or simply ‘Virus-D’. A mutated influenza which the army’s scientists had been injecting into unwilling test subjects sent from Broadmoor prison. Within minutes, those infected would break out in a mass of fetid pustules and seeping boils, covering every inch of their bodies. Their minds, equally corrupted by the virus, driving the infected to enact horrific acts of extreme violence upon those around them.
From the army’s experiments, it seemed the longer the virus festered away in its victims, the more the virus evolved. It turned the young and old into vicious killing machines. Those already with warped minds, becoming even more disturbed, pushing the degrees of cruelty they’re willing to explore down even darker, more deplorable avenues of depravity. However, daylight seemed to have an effect upon them. The infected detested the sunlight, cowering away in the shadows, until night had fallen again. At first anyway.
Just outside of Twsc, a small group of survivors had taken refuge from the infected within an abandoned cottage. During the hours of darkness, night after night, the infected surround the cottage, throwing stones at the property and launching attacks whenever they see a potential way in.
Fighting the infected off is a constant struggle. Even the smallest slip up could mean the difference between life and death. However, in this terrifying new world, it’s not just the infected the survivors need to be concerned about. As Ollie, Jeff, Maria, Roxie and Amy will soon find out, when the world crumbles, the very worst in humanity can flourish unchecked and unchallenged.
As night bleeds into day, those holed up in the cottage begin to see a change in the infected. Watching the crazies moving around outside the cottage, it appears the infected are getting smarter. Working in packs and starting to communicate with each other through grunts and growls.
If what they’re seeing is true, then the situation the survivors are facing is becoming even more dangerous. Luckily, the group may have a plan to get out of this madness, once and for all. Jeff has a set of keys for an aircraft that’s currently locked up in a hanger, located in Cardiff just 5-6 miles away. If they can get to the hanger, they might be able to escape to Jeff’s sister’s isolated fish farm in Scotland. They could even fly over to a small island off the coast, fully away from the threat of the infected.
The group had a plan. But it wasn’t an easy one. And in this violent new dog-eat-dog world, you never know who to trust, and where the next eruption of violence might explode from…
So, here we have David Owain Hughes’ debut offering. A relatively run-of-the-mill post-apocalyptic tale, with the infected turning into ultra-violent lunatics, relentlessly stalking those that have survived thus far. It’s akin to a Welsh ‘I Am Legend’ (1954) crossed with ‘28 Days Later’ (2002), with aspects of ‘One Rainy Night’ (1991) and ‘Among Madmen’ (1990) thrown in for good measure.
When I say Welsh, I also absolutely mean it. This novel is set in Wales, written by a Welsh author, and the entire dialogue has fully embraced the valley’s Welsh twang. As such, the novel is littered with all those localised expressions we’ve become familiar with, like ‘beaut’, ‘mun’ and ‘butty’.
There’s also a healthy cast of characters that we follow along this post-apocalyptic journey. However, like we saw in ‘The Walking Dead’, many of the story’s characters are killed off at the drop of a hat. As such, we see characters come and go with a seemingly regular frequency. This aspect works to the novel’s advantage, creating a constant sense of unpredictability and danger for these characters, which lasts for the entirety of the book.
It would be fair to say the novel exhibits a relatively run-of-the-mill plot. That said, it does attempt to break from this otherwise standard plot in places. We of course have the ‘I Am Legend’ (1954) angle, in which we find seemingly more intelligent infected beginning to interact with the survivors, waving, smiling and pointing. Outside of this, Hughes also adds in that the infected have the power to vomit acid that can disintegrate flesh, bone and even metal chains. Although this angle isn’t really explored beyond its original mention, it again exhibits an almost work-in-progress feel to the novel’s overall direction.
As with many of Hughes’ novels, the story is packed with numerous bouts of extreme violence, which includes strong elements of sexual violence. Indeed, here we see a lot of Hughes’ first tentative explorations into an area of extreme horror which he would later become well-known within. Throughout this there is still a very rough and ready rawness to the novel. Compared to Hughes’ latter offerings, ‘Walled In’ is nowhere near as finely crafted, instead containing more cardboard-like characters, quite unnatural dialogue, and unfortunately more than a few typos throughout.
The combined result of this feels like a first novel where Hughes is essentially finding his feet. The rawness behind it can feel unrefined and unrestrained, but in other places can come across as quite sloppy and hinting at amateurish. Hughes has certainly come a long way with his writing, since this early piece. That said, the novel still serves up plenty of action-rich violence and bloodshed, enough to satisfy any good horror hound.
It's a fun novel, packed with a plethora of twists and turns from start to finish. The constant unpredictability we’re faced with works superbly, with the bodies piling up at an increasing rate. It’s well worth a read, although you’ll find Hughes has definitely refined his art over the years since this release.
The novel runs for a total of 338 pages.
© DLS Reviews
