Pre-Approved for Haunting

A collection of weird, dark stories and millennial anxieties.

In this new collection, Patrick Barb explores themes of family found and lost, media consumption and the dangers of runaway nostalgia, the supernatural in our lives, and the impact of violence in both the long and short term.

• A young couple is reunited with their lost son whose favourite fuzzy bear suit connects him to the ghost of a vengeful mama bear while he's alone in the forest.
• A jaded screenwriter can't escape the haunted screenplay that's ruined his career.
• A man returns to his small hometown, where the people are gone and the trees have taken over.
• A Slasher and Final Girl brother-sister duo match wits and blades against a sentient, dimension-hopping apocalypse at a never-ending summer camp.

From rural backwoods to Park Slope brownstones, Barb's characters face impossible, awful situations, testing their inner strength and understanding of reality. Covering quiet horror, weird fiction, supernatural horror, slasher horror, topical dark fiction, and more, these stories spotlight supposedly familiar terrors and fears in new and unexpected ways.

Pre-Approved for Haunting brings a unique blend of unsettling narratives and thought-provoking themes, capturing the tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary.