Fetal Bait Apocalypse contain all three of Joel Arnold’s short story collections in one volume: • Bait and Other Stories • Bedtime Stories for the Apocalypse • Fetal Position and Other Stories This one volume holds over 120,000 words of fiction that will haunt and terrify you for days on end. Contains the award winning stories “Some Things Don’t Wash Off” and “Mississippi Pearl” as well as stories that have seen print in such venues as Weird Tales, Gothic.Net, ChiZine, HorrorFind and Pseudopod. Six of these stories have received honorable mentions in The Years Best Fantasy & Horror. In these three collections, you’ll meet: A father whose intense longing for his dead son lead to disturbing consequences. A group of college students tubing down a river through a burnt forest who encounter terrifying creatures. A man seeking redemption for a sinful past through the skill of a tattoo artist. A Cambodian-American teen who will fit in with the locals at any cost. A woman who finds a bizarre solace in a rare pearl. A self-absorbed husband monitoring the end of his existence over the internet. A teenager digging his way through a deep crust of waste and bone to win his freedom. A man whose work for the Khmer Rouge returns to haunt him. A son who has an intensely strange relationship with his mother. A student with a bizarre homework assignment. A woman who has a macabre way to deal with bill collectors. These stories and more will have you up late into the night, glancing over your shoulder and flinching at the slightest of noises. “Joel Arnold is the real deal. He elicits a subtle element of terror and justice through his writing, delivered without a heavy hand. His exceptional imagery effects readers in a way that leaves them chilled and disturbed; causing the kind of behavior that will leave friends asking ‘what’s bothering you,’ for days afterwards.” “Author Arnold has a deft touch with horror that will leave a chill in your spine, but without the violence and gore of much modern horror. The stories remind me of Ray Bradbury at his darkest with their ability to play on the difference between what we know might happen and what we want to happen. These are complex tales with layers below the surface enjoyment of a story well written.”

…a young man tries to build a better life while trapped in a mall after a plague has killed off most of humanity… …zombies overrun a world gone mad, leaving a boy with no choice but to rely on possibly mystical means of escape… …Halloween night brings out a darkness so threatening that a young couple's only hope of survival may be a procession of strange, ghostly children… …when the world is given a brief glimpse of divinity, a formerly disabled man must come to grips with the fact that not everything is as good as it seems… These tales and many more await in The Gate 2: 13 Tales of Isolation and Despair, the new collection edited by Robert J. Duperre. Thirteen talented authors have been assembled, bringing with them the best they have to offer in a wide range of horror, be it slice-of-life or paranormal in nature. Also included are two bonus stories by the editor