The Veil

by Joseph D'Lacey

Some call it The Long Silence, others The Hush. Whatever it is, the world has gone quiet. No electricity, no engines, most of the people gone. There are survivors, small groups enduring as best they can in a seemingly abandoned world.
At night, the landscape glows with unnatural light. The stillness is broken by the desolate cries of the lost population, returning now to search for...no one knows what. What is certain, though, is that those they drag into the shadows do not return.
The Veil contains the final testaments of two disparate groups; a band of survivalists barricaded into a single block of an American city, and a young family hiding in a remote part of the English countryside.
But there are enemies among the survivors too, using the cataclysm to serve their own desires. If the end of the world can't cleanse the human heart, what reason can there be to continue?

Genres: Horror

176 pages, Hardcover

Published November 26, 2016

About the author

Became vegetarian after writing MEAT. Fond of meditation, unfathomable questions and cats.

Repped by Robert Dinsdale.

"Joseph D'Lacey rocks!" Stephen King.

Reviews

[Frank Errington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review copy

While I admire Joseph D'Lacey's attempt at doing something different with the post apocalyptic trope, The Veil (Testaments I and II) did little to excite me.

Two novellas, set in the same world, told by different survivors and yet I was no more enlightened having read this pair of stories than I was going in.

Testament I - This story begins with a group of survivors holed up in The Station. They call themselves the Stoppers and they are doing what they can to hold off the Commuters, so named because they still get around. They called the event that started it all or perhaps ended it all. The Long Silence.

This story, told through the eyes of Sherri Foley, is about life at The Station, her sometimes lover, Ike, eleven year old Trixie, and the ad-hoc family they've become.

Testament II - The same circumstances from another point of view. Here the event was known as The Hush. There was more details about what was happening in the aftermath and the ensuing fungal infestation.

This time the story-teller is Rob who wants to protect his family, Tara and Jake, and at the same time needs to get away from it all

Although I'm glad I read these two novellas, I'm not sure I can honestly recommend them to other readers.

The Veil (Testaments I and II) is available in paperback and for the Kindle from Horrific Tales Publishing. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited you can read it at no additional charge. Also, if you are an Amazon Prime member you can read it for FREE using the Kindle Owners Lending Library.

From the author's bio - Joseph D'Lacey writes Horror, SF & Fantasy and is best known for his unsettling novel, Meat. He won the British Fantasy Award for Best Newcomer in 2009. H also writes children's stories with his daughter.

[Angela Crawford · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes. This is in no way reflected in my opinion of this anthology. I did not receive any form of compensation for my review.

The Veil (Testaments I & II) is a set of post-apocalyptic novellas told from the perspective of two different groups of survivors. The apocalypse has come in a new and insidious way in the world of The Veil. In The Kill Crew (Testament I) we get to know Sherri, a Stopper who helps protect her small group of survivors from the Commuters, the zombie like remnants of society. As Sherri learns the truth about the Commuters and struggles to protect Trixie, a young girl she befriended, this story takes on the bleak tone of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. In The Failing Flesh (Testament II) we learn more about the creatures that are wiping out humanity. Rob takes his wife and son to a secluded place but quickly learns that nowhere is safe. Both of these novellas are grim and filled with terror but The Kill crew ends with a glimmer of hope that makes me want to read more about this desolate new world. A gripping 4 star read.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this work in exchange for my honest review. Please be advised that the following may contain mild spoilers.


The book is split up into two parts, called testaments. I will review each testament separately.


Testament 1


At first I wasn’t too excited about Testament 1 (Entitled The Kill Crew). Post apocalyptic thrillers never appealed much to me, especially in markets that have been oversaturated by them. However, I’m happy to say that The Kill Crew pleasantly surprised me. The “zombie stand-in” villains are forever wailing, sobbing and reaching for people in desperation. This imagery is written well enough so as to have a definite emotional impact on the reader. The fact that the entire world is enshrouded constantly in an eerie greenish light with no discernible source is also efficient at setting up a creepy atmosphere. But a lot of the horror is much smaller and more personal in scale, and comes from the small family unit this story revolves around. There are moments that make you tense and moments that break your heart. My main complaint is that the dialogue can be pretty cringe-worthy in places. I don’t like post-apocalyptic stories but I like this one. Four out of five stars.


Testament 2


Testament 2, which is entitled The Failing Flesh, is my absolute favorite story to come from Horrific Tales Publishing, and one of the best horror stories I’ve read in a very long time. The overall story reminds me strongly of Lovecraft, though the author is clearly better at making his characters interesting than Lovecraft is. Multiple themes are mixed here: the corruption of man, body horror, eldritch nightmares that we don’t comprehend (And wish we didn’t when we do). There’s even a touch of eroticism blended with horror. The book is an intense read, gripping you from start to finish. I can’t rave enough about how much I love The Failing Flesh. Five out of five stars. Even though The Kill Crew has four out of five, I’m giving this a perfect rating because The Failing Flesh is just that good.

[Scarlett Algee · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE VEIL is a pair of novellas following characters in a world changed by cataclysm. I was previously unfamiliar with the author, but here's what I took away:

The Kill Crew: Sherri Foley used to be a hairdresser, but that was before the civilization-crippling disaster known as the Long Silence. Now she's a Stopper, part of a crew dedicated to killing off the Commuters--the wailing, staring, almost-mindless victims of the Silence who were once human but now something else, something growing in numbers too great to put an end to them all. It's hard work but necessary, and Sherri is a great voice for it: the precautions and risks, the stress, the lingering effects. And when things start going south in the worst and most personal ways, she's there to document every centimeter of the fall.

The Failing Flesh: Rob's story has a different perspective: a captive of the strange plantlike intelligence that Sherri had only hinted at, his memories aren't of fighting the world's new curse but of trying to outrun it, to keep himself and his family safe in an out-of-the-way place. Flashbacks of the journey with his wife and son are interspersed with descriptions of his deeply unsettling, almost phantasmal reality, and the sense of dread just builds after Rob makes an enormous mistake and realizes he was never as safe as he'd thought.

These two stories make for a solid, well-rounded whole; it's a sometimes plainspoken, sometimes lyrical description of a grim, blighted world in which humanity is no longer master. There's a visceral quality to the whole that's disturbing in the best way. Definitely one to read if you're into post-apocalyptic fiction--I'd really like to see what might happen next.

(Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Horrific Tales Publishing in exchange for a review.)

[Zoltán Szabó · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review copy - the original of this review appeared on hungarian horror magazine cinegore.net

From the authors introduced by Horrific Tales Publishing, Joseph D'Lacey is the first whose name could sound familiar for our hungarian readers. His novel, Meat was published in 2008 by Ulpius-ház, and in the time gone by he kept adding more and more short stories and novels to his portfolio. The Veil is an odd one among them, being an anthology of two earlier works, The Kill Crew from 2008 and The Failing Flesh from the Surviving the End anthology.

The Veil's two novels show our world on the brink of complete destruction, after a cataclysmic event rendered every electronic device useless, and not long after that, the biosphere started to mutate, turning humans into disturbing creatures and making survival almost impossible for the small groups of unturned. The Kill Crew, or Testament I takes place long after this event, and follows a group of american survivors, taking shelter in an abandoned station, scavanging for supplies during the day and murdering the infected durint the night. The protagonist, Sherri is a regular of the nightly Kill Crew, who, by murdering the infected and forming a "family"
with her alcoholic boyfriend and a young orphan girl, tries to keep surviving, while the depressing, helpless situation causes more and more of the survivors to choose suicide as their best solution.

Testament II takes place much earlier, with a british real-estate agent taking his family to the countryside, to protect them from the infected in a well-furnished, isolated house. However, despite their relative well-being, the remoteness of the place, and the appearing anomalies keep tempting their love - which slowly becomes too much for the husband (who was contemplating divorce before the catastrophe) prompting him to take longer and longer adventures from their safe haven to the dangerously changing countryside.

The most noteable common elements (beyond the shared world) of the two novels are the depressing atmosphere, the hopelessness soaking from every single page. D'Lacey paints the burned-out survivors, the pointless everyday survival, and the world's cruel, unstoppable transformation in such an effective way, that many times, after putting down the book for a short time, I've felt myself somewhat depressed. The characters themselves end up offering little comfort, since instead of various morals and characteristics, all end up being trumpets of hopelessness and destruction, avatars of a strange philosophy, that maybe, just maybe this or something equally horrible was always humanity's fate, with survival being nothing more than a mad, childish, unreachable dream. The atmosphere is without a doubt the main strength of the novels, so much so, that the actual plotlines and protagonists end up failing at filling out this strange, scary and dreary world in a satisfying way, with the mysterious, frightening unknown slowly half-fading into disinterest in both novels. The time between the two novels can also be felt,
with the world's transformation having a faster, more disturbing feel, and the transformation's visuals being much more striking and aggressive in Testament II. (And strangely, I ended up liking it much more than Testament I, with it's twist ending being one of the most cruel I've encountered in recent years) In contrast with the majority of HTP's books, I've felt The Veil to be a very hard read, taking almost twice as much time to finish, than most of their publications. However, if you've got bored with horror stories ending on a positive note, and desperately need something truly overwhelming, it might just be the perfect choice.

[Joshua Hair · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't quite know what to expect, as I've wanted to read Mr. D'Lacey's work for awhile but have never had the chance. Of course, I'm more interested in his horror than his science fiction but I gave it a read anyhow and I'm glad I did. The story is broken into two novellas, one centered around a group of survivors holed up in a city block and the other section detailing the story of a man and his family in the rural hillsides. Mr. D'Lacey's characters are far from good people, which is partly what makes the collection so entertaining. I won't discuss how exactly they are flawed, but flawed they are, in ways that makes you hesitant to root for them. Overall, I enjoyed my first foray into the mind of Mr. D'Lacey, although it did not come without flaws. I felt the stories did not connect well, as if two separate scenarios were being presented rather than a single event. Aside from that, I wish there had been MORE; there simply wasn't enough world-building to do justice to what could clearly be a highly unique apocalypse.

[Kenneth · Rating 5 out of 5]

2 great stories.Really enjoyed this book.

[S.B. (Beauty in Ruins) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the post-apocalyptic survival genre has been done to death (no pun intended), there's always room on my shelves for a well-told tale of mankind's demise. Fortunately, not only does The Veil (Testaments I and II) have atmosphere, tension, and genuine sorrow, but it may very well be my favorite Joseph D'Lacey tale yet. Seriously, it takes everything I loved about Black Feathers, mixes in a vintage Skeleton Crew-era King, and runs it through a pulp filter.

The first story, Testament I, starts out like a traditional post-apocalyptic tale, with a small group of ordinary survivors trapped in a single city block, under siege from nocturnal zombie-like monsters. Rather than focus on the fight for survival and the glory of destruction, however, it looks instead at the sorrow, the loneliness, and the helplessness of impending death. It temporarily becomes a story of flight, of escape, and of the hope of rebirth . . . before a Twilight Zone twist knocks you on your ass.

The second story, Testament II, may very well be the creepiest thing I have read in ages. It opens with our narrator suspended in the darkness, deep underground, and stuck to a tentacle-like vine. He can't move, else the vine will crush and tear him into submission, leaving him helpless to evade the blood, shit, and piss raining down on him from above, while fresh screams surround him. He's just one man among many, stuck somewhere in the middle of an endless tower of vegetation. As awful as that is, though, it's the flashbacks to his family's flight into the countryside, the fungal-infested homes, and the strange woman who seduces him away from his wife and son that give the story true meaning. Again, it ultimately turns into a story of desperation and escape, but if you're looking for happy endings and human redemption . . . look elsewhere.

If you're interested in a well-told tale of humanity's sad demise, one that will get inside your head and mess with your emotions, then you need to give The Veil a read.


Originally reviewed at Beauty in Ruins

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this title from the author in exchange for review consideration. This does not in any way affect the honesty or sincerity of my review.

[steph · Rating 2 out of 5]

ok for a zombie book. why do i so fail to feel anything but boredom when it comes to zombies? but the books read ok enough, at least they have been decently edited and don´t drag on and on, and the story line does not depend on some hero with almost superhuman abilities. still.... what´s the point of it, of zombies? there is not even space enough for some decent reflections on the human condition, since these scenarios seem to always occur under highest stress, no hope, no understanding of anything, and more often than not, endless solitary struggles... i just don´t get the fascination with it.

[Todd Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know people say don't judge a book by it's cover but I did just that. I figure if the author will spend money for good cover art, he'll do the same for a good narrator. I listened to the sample and loved it. Chris Barnes is quite obviously Scottish! To me, it added to the narration. Barnes did an excellent job with the narration. Great with all the characters and emotions. I thought it was a little weird having a male narrator for the first testament since the lead character was female. It was odd hearing a guy talk about being on his period lol. He did such a good job that it really didn't take away from the story at all.

Each testament is it's own story, both set in the same apocalypse. Joseph D'Lacey wrote to excellent tales! The characters were very relatable, which probably isn't good considering the situation lol. Not your typical zombie story either. Although I never found out what made the planet lose power and never found out exactly what the enemy was, it didn't matter. Sometimes the end comes before we can figure it out. Great book! I plan to check out more from this author and narrator!