The Walls - Qaye Bee

Welcome to The Walls. A New Zealand women's prison where concrete and steel are the least of your nightmares.

Kayla arrives at The Walls four weeks from giving birth. But this crumbling prison harbours something far more terrifying than bars and brutal guards: a cursed creature that crawls through walls hunting babies, and a system built on blood and complicity that has haunted prisoner and guard alike, for generations.

When the thing in the darkness marks her unborn son, Kayla becomes both prey and key to ending the nightmare.
But Māori elder, Mrs Duprey, the prison's Tohunga mākutu, specialising in magic and the occult, knows a devastating truth:

The Walls aren't just iron bars and stone. They're something older. Something that feeds on guilt and sin.

As riot erupts and reality begins to fracture, Kayla must journey into the spaces between walls, through trauma layered upon trauma, through horrors that shouldn't exist but do. She faces an impossible choice: accept the pattern that's repeated for decades, sacrificing her son to something that can never be satisfied, or do what no one has done before... discover what lies beneath the monster.

When the walls themselves begin to shift, everyone will be forced to confront what they've always known but refused to see. And in the darkest prison imaginable, one woman will discover that the only way out is through. And that freedom begins when you finally open your eyes.

A visceral esoteric horror. A psychological terror that blurs reality and nightmare. The Walls is an unforgettable exploration of mothers and monsters, guilt and redemption, and the strength it takes to face unbearable truth.

Content warning: Contains depictions of institutional violence, pregnancy loss, and psychological trauma. For mature readers.