Red Ruin

by Denver Grenell

Kia Kaha. Stay Strong. Two simple words that together are worth more than the sum of their parts. Forever entwined with the New Zealand city of Christchurch, they meant little to Carla Gallo, until now.

As one chapter of her life closes, Carla reluctantly returns to Christchurch to find a city she doesn’t remember, filled with more strangers than friends. Estranged from her parents, and a brother who is more drinking buddy than sibling, she once again has to make it on her own.

When a sudden and violent outbreak sweeps through the country, she finds herself running for her life, and fighting to survive against a sleepless, merciless threat that turns its victims into savage killers. Taking refuge with a family living on the outskirts of the city, her priorities become tested as they’re forced to trust each other in this cruel new world.

A terrifying, emotional, and at times brutal journey that sends Carla across the vast Canterbury Plains and deep into the New Zealand backcountry, where she must come to understand who she really is, if she is to see the last thing she holds dear ever again.


Stay Strong. Stay Alive.

Unknown Binding

First published July 21, 2022

About the author

Denver Grenell is a writer of horror & dark fiction who lives with his family in a small rural town in New Zealand. A life-long horror hound who got back into writing after a long break, he is now making up for lost time, furiously expelling every idea that has collected inside his skull over the years.

His stories have been featured in various anthologies from Crystal Lake Publishing, Black Hare Press, Bloodrites Horror as well as on Hawk & Cleaver’s The Other Stories podcast. His debut collection of short stories 'The Burning Boy & Other stories' is out now through Beware The Moon Publishing.
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Follow him on Instagram: @beware.the.moon.
Facebook: Denver Grenell
Twitter: @degrineer

Reviews

[John Minster · Rating 5 out of 5]

We follow a strong female protagonist through the city and countryside of beautiful New Zealand as something terrifying consumes its population. Fast-paced survival horror that kicks right in with every big game hunter's worst nightmare come true. You can smell the blood in this story. George Romero meets I Am Legend.

[Daniel Eady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts off with a prologue that sets the scene and never really stops until the end, apart from a brief slowdown as people barricade themselves away from what’s outside.
Once our characters are on the move the pace keeps you engaged and there’s also plenty of thrills and gore to keep the blood heads enthused.
Survival horror is not my usual go-to but this was an enjoyable tense and bloody road trip

[Mark Towse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest and say I thought I'd reached my limit with zombie-based stories, but this little beauty was fresh and wild. Great scenery conjured, and proper three-dimensional characters. What's more, plenty of gore and twists to keep you entertained here! As said, I am not usually a fan of survival stories, but I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this one.

[Samuel (Still Reading Sam) M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kia ora. Welcome."
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Spoilers/review for Red Ruin
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Mike Langley and his friend Elliot are out in the backcountry of New Zealand, on a hunting trip. After shooting a deer, but not killing it, the two men go looking for the wounded creature, which ends in a dire situation... Then we change focus and meet Carla Gallo, who's flying back to her native New Zealand from London, back to Christchurch. But all is not well in New Zealand and unexpected events await Carla. Will she survive?...
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The opening chapter/prologue does work very well. It sets up the story nicely and gets you curious as to where that'll be leading. The main plot with Carla coming back starts off nice and slow and steady, but works. Carla makes for a good lead character and you do get an understanding of her character, this woman who left her homeland to explore the world, only to receive a frosty welcome. Things only get worse when Carla's brother, Antonio aka Ants, falls ill and how that evolves. There is some really good family dynamics with Carla and her family and really does add to her character as the story progresses. There is a good mix of fast-paced, tense scenes and then slower, gentler scenes both of which further the plot. The way the story builds is very well done and feels organic. Nothing feels forced, nothing feels feels like a great leap. It works. It does feel like there are elements of King's "The Mist" and Carpenter's "The Thing" with how the story goes, but Denver and Ian put a good new spin on it and it still feels fresh. It really does build nicely and flow so well. I found myself flying through the story and really enjoying it. The only thing that I will say is sometimes I wish we had more and had the opportunity to explore the world a bit more, but you know, the story is meant to be fast-paced. I think that was a case of me being me again.
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Overall a really fun, fast paced horror/survival thriller. I would strongly recommend checking it out! 4.5/5

[Simon Lambert · Rating 4 out of 5]

An action packed survival horror novel that grabbed me in the prologue and then kept the momentum going right to the very end. I definitely grew to care about the characters (in particular, main character Carla - just trying to survive and reconnect with her family) and really appreciated the fact that the authors captured a genuine sense of location and a "lived in" setting. References to the rebuilding of the city of Christchurch, the use of Te Reo etc made the world feel very real to me and unique as well - it's rare to see the country I live in as the setting for an exciting horror story!

The horror sequences are visceral and thrilling and will keep you locked in - I definitely found myself saying "just one more chapter", when I was already reading late into the night!

[Candice Orick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top notch hot infected zombie action.

[looneybooks79 · Rating 5 out of 5]

So to start of I wish to say that this was thé horror novel I needed right now… I’m definitely putting this in my top 5 of the indie horror novels I read these past years.

And what’s not to like: it’s a zombie story, but with non-zombies… yeah, the frenzy is similar but they are actually still alive… but bottom line: it’s a zombie story. And I think there are too few of those on paper… Ever since Romero gave us ‘The Night of the Living Dead’ and five sequels, also a few remakes were made and don’t get me started on the zillion movies and series ever since… at a certain point zombie stuff was all we got to see (The Walking Dead and a thousand spin offs, so not necessary!)

And along come Denver and Ian… two Kiwi’s writing this amazing story of survival! (Ian’s Welsh but lives in New Zealand now so yeah, he’s a kiwi now) See, I love New Zealand ever since I visited it! So I recognised the scenery and that felt a bit like coming home (well home maybe not, but like I was back on that trip)

And this story (with non-zombies) has all the trademarks: infection, biting, blood, craziness, frenzy, hiding, running, untrustworthy characters and a lot of self preservation! The way people react in pandemics have become clear the past years so I wouldn’t be surprised if we ever encountered a zombie outbreak, we’d see the worst in ourselves and others…

The novel is also laced with emotional scenes and family love. So there’s always that little bit of positivity! (Kind of)

The only thing I was surprised by was the ending… Come on guys, you can not, I repeat NOT, leave me hanging like this! At least get that sequel written because I want more… I want much more!

This was the first book I read of both authors… I have read stories in anthologies by them (The Burning Boy by Denver in one of the Bloody Rites Horror anthologies) but this book has shown me I have been wrong not to read more by them. Moving my behind to my nearest bookshelf with indie horror novels right now…

Kia ora, everyone! Kia kaha!

http://looneybooks79.blog/2022/09/21/...

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a tough customer when it comes to "zombie" stories (and vampires too) as I've consumer horror in it's various forms since I was a child, which was a long time ago.

These stories can be quite slippery and slide over my brain and sometimes straight onto the DNF pile. So, they need to have something a bit different about them.

To make them stick more and so my brain doesn't glaze over I need interesting characters to keep my attention. The prologue was great and I was a tad disappointed at first with the shift in chapter one. But I soon became comfortable again with Carla. I found her to be a well written character, likeable and I became invested in her future.

As the story progressed I did start to glaze a little with some of the other characters but Carla kept me present.

For me this book is a 3 star, just because of the subject matter but I've rated it 4 stars as it's a brilliantly written book. It has a great pace and lots of action and interaction between the characters.

For anyone new to this sub genre or those who are zombie fans I'd highly recommend it!

[Sam Platt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant fast paced ride through the city of Christchurch, New Zealand and the hinterland. Action packed with great character development it was one of those reads you can’t put down because you want to know what happens next. As someone who doesn’t usually read these kind of books, I thoroughly enjoyed this ripsnorter of a novel. Can’t wait to see what these guys come up with next.

[Julie Hiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fresh take on a post-apocalyptic adventure!

I always love reading Ian J. Middleton's works. I am thrilled to have read this collaboration between a long time favorite, and a newly discovered one!

Red Ruin is a refreshing take on the post-apocalyptic world. The characters are easy to get attached to, interesting, quirky, and pull the reader deep into their world.

The world is well built - imaginative and chilling. The sickness spreading fast, turning humans into flesh seeking monsters, is horrifying.

The story is full of surprise twists and turns, and keeps the reader gripped to the pages.

[Damascus Mincemeyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1968, a minor television commercial director helmed a low-budget black-and-white production in the pastoral American barrens outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and irrevocably altered the course of entertainment history. George A. Romero’s seminal Night of the Living Dead--with its stark survivalist plot, graphic gore and uncompromising ending--was unlike anything seen on the silver screen and became the forbearer of a wave of socially relevant horror untethered from the old-world monsters of previous generations. The undead gut-munchers assailing that backwoods farmhouse weren’t suave vampiric counts from some far-off land or melancholy noblemen afflicted by a loathsome lycanthrope curse--they were us, humanity reduced to its ravenous primordial impulses, a mindless mass, capable of crushing our fragile civilization with the sheer weight of their ghastly numbers. Indeed, the driving idea behind Night’s continued importance--the ‘zombie apocalypse’, has become a creative cottage industry in its own right, begetting innumerable cinematic iterations, television shows, video games, books and graphic novels; the notion of an undead overthrow has permeated contemporary culture even to its uppermost echelons: no less a force than the U.S. Department of Defense has a contingency plan for the spread of an actual zombie contagion. And while some would argue the subgenre has reached its saturation point, like any good revenant, just when you think the creature has perished it rises hungrier than ever.

One of the most successful modern interpretations of an undead end times scenario is Danny Boyle’s 2002 tour de force, 28 Days Later. Romero-esque in essence yet featuring a far more realistic threat in the form of ‘infected’ individuals rather than actual reanimated ghouls, it popularized the concept of a zombie outbreak spreading via viral contamination, a set-up that clearly influenced authors Denver Grenell and Ian J. Middleton with their recent collaborative Beware The Moon literary release, Red Ruin.

Like Boyle's celluloid counterpart, the novel begins with a prologue detailing the animal origin of a curious rapid-onset affliction that causes extreme homicidal aggression in its victims that extends post-mortem. The plot focuses thereafter on twenty-something Carla Gallo, freshly fired from her cushy cruise ship job, as she begrudgingly returns to her hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. Having left prior to the 2011 earthquake that devastated the city, Carla feels adrift amid the rebuilt metropolis, and after a somewhat disappointing reunion with her brother Antonio (‘Ants’ to those near and dear), Carla feels the reawakening doomy pall that initiated her departure years earlier.

Carla’s humdrum anxieties about job stability and reuniting with her parents, however, end once an injured Ants, having been attacked on his way home from work by a crazed homeless man, quickly mutates into a blood-drooling engine of destruction. After he's put down (twice) by law enforcement, Carla’s existence becomes one of pure self-preservation: escaping the city just as the new plague destabilizes civil order, she wanders the countryside until coming upon a farmhouse occupied by a no-nonsense father willing to defend his kin at all costs…

While epic in scope, the world-building in Red Ruin wisely never overshadows the main narrative; throughout the novel, we earn snatches of what's happening around the rest of the country, but unlike Max Brooks' equally impressive undead-Armageddon classic, World War Z, the emphasis here is less on global calamity or the ramifications of societal collapse. At its heart this is a personal tale, spotlighting characters, their motivations, thoughts and inner drives. Until arriving at the farmhouse, the storyline feels purposefully disjointed; reeling from the transformation and subsequent death of Ants leaves Carla with recurring post-traumatic stress; far from being some cookie-cutter action star, she is instead portrayed as a real person with faults and unique disadvantages (unused to navigating without the internet, she struggles to read regular paper maps), and her city-girl attitude sharply contrasts (and conflicts) with the rural clan who eventually grant her shelter.

As the other primary protagonists, that family--hard-nosed patriarch Phil, Maori wife Ana, teenaged Tia and younger daughter Manaia--are as tight and self-sufficient a unit as can be. Like with Carla, Grenell and Middleton spend much careful time crafting each relative into fully-realized, three dimensional figures; Phil, for instance, initially portrayed as gruff, authoritarian and unyielding, is revealed later to be loving, friendly and as uncertain about his choices as anyone else. Similarly, Ana, seen early on as little more than a frightened housewife, soon takes her place in the story as Phil's equal, just as outspoken Tia sides with Carla to upset her father's often stubborn outlook regarding their new situation.

While both writers possess considerable individual skill (Grenell’s previous short fiction collection, The Burning Boy and Other Stories, and Middleton’s evocative sci-fi horror novel Ghosts of Gion are equally entertaining reads), Red Ruin thrives mightily on their collaboration. Unlike many co-authored works, a cohesion exists that renders each storyteller’s separate footprints invisible; Grenell and Middleton’s minds are enthusiastically conjoined, and their combined energy propels the narrative with a viciously vivid velocity. Fast, hypnotic prose bolsters furious set pieces--the sequence detailing the family's exodus from their barricaded abode is both riveting and flawlessly thought-out--yet they never trade characterization for gratuitous violence. As the novel progresses and the circumstances becomes bleaker and the stakes of failure higher, it's that strong emotional depth that snares a reader’s attention: we care, and deeply so, about the fate of Carla, Phil and his family, which ratchets up the tension during displays of menace.

If there’s any weakness to Red Ruin, it’s a sense of overfamiliarity. One consequence of the subgenre’s zeitgeist overload is that so many permutations of Romero’s initial premise now exist that innovation has become increasingly difficult, if not impossible. Like the aforementioned 28 Days Later--itself steeped in homage to 1979’s Dawn of the Dead--the structure of Red Ruin will be recognizable to anyone even casually acquainted with zombies: the bewilderment at the first infections, Carla’s flight to the countryside, being trapped with strangers at an isolated locale, finding sanctuary only to have it ultimately overrun. On the whole, however, this isn’t the fatal setback one might assume; many a modern rock band has been inspired by The Beatles, but does that make the efforts of those current musicians any less enjoyable? The same logic applies here: Red Ruin may revel in its influences and hit some expected story beats, but the overall delight remains undiluted. Buttressed by those powerful characterizations and an unstoppable intensity, Grenell and Middleton have created one of the best zombie outings yet written. The setting itself offers a singular strength; wielding the backdrop, customs and slang of New Zealand with rapier precision, the native-born Grenell and longtime Welsh expat Middleton lend a distinct Kiwi flavor to the shenanigans that unabashedly sets this novel apart from both its predecessors and other ghoul-centric fare.

Exciting, thought-provoking, expertly written and dangerously addictive, Red Ruin earns the full 5 stars from me. Highly recommended for those horror fans needing a fix of pure adrenaline. And the best part? A sequel is already in the works. May there be many more!

[R. Moores · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid and engaging zombie read set in the Canterbury region of New Zealand. I really liked main characters, I genuinely cared about all of them and was rooting for them to survive, which is essential in horror. They were just good people, doing their best and I found that a refreshing antidote to the current morass of moral ambiguity fiction writers seem obsessed with right now. It was also nice to follow a loving and stable family.

The horror and gore was well written, the opening scene especially was very memorable. I would've like to have revisited that further down the story. The plot was basic but did the job and the survival grind was raw and realistic.

All in all, a wonderful horror read and I'm keen to check out more from the author.