The Pacific Northwest is known for its near-constant rainy season. But on New Years Day, the sun emerges and one woman, alone with her dog, ventures out to discover that something else has arrived with the new year: vast sinkholes, large enough to swallow entire cities, claim the lives of millions and unearth nightmare creatures that could only mean one thing…the end of humanity.

“Two men have the carcass.” These words, heard over a crackling telephone line, change writer Karen Lewis’s life for the worse. Months earlier, her brother went missing in the small rural town of Fallen Trees, Washington. And now she finds out he willed his half of a bizarre bed and breakfast to her. “Two men have the carcass.” Is this ominous phrase enough to draw her into the mystery of Fallen Trees? Is the answer to her brother’s disappearance located there? Or is it just a trap, something designed to draw her into a nightmare world and break her sanity? What horror awaits Karen in the House of Fallen Trees?

Ante Mortem — pre-death. That space between drawing the first breath, and the last… otherwise known as life. Eleven stories for the eleventh hour. Snuggle in tight, have a glass of wine, light a candle. These stories have been given new life, and a new home; they’ve almost travelled this road before. Something always held them back, but now together, they’ve broken free.You may want to lock your doors, you never know when a starving doll, a wicked college student, a zombie horde or ghostly children will come to visit… Don’t get too comfortable, though, there’s always someone waiting to replace you. And definitely, absolutely, watch out for the pretty fish in the sewer… Relax. The...