8300+ Mystery Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. No need to go out hunting for clues — you’ve solved the puzzle of where to find the newest mystery short stories just by landing on this page.

🏆 Winning stories

“inspirAItion” by Derrick M Domican

🏆 Winner of Contest #266

08:50:05.000:RequestGeneratedHey Phaedra, can you give me a recipe for vegan lasagne with a rich, creamy bechamel sauce?08:50:05.005: ResponseDispatched++Certainly! For a delicious vegan lasagne, you'll need lasagne noodles, marinara sauce, vegan ricotta, and a homemade bechamel sauce. Here's the recipe and step-by-step instructions, Michael!++08:50:05.012:RequestGeneratedPhaedra, how do I fix a leaky faucet?08:50:05.020: ResponseDispatched ++Here’s a step-by-step guide to get that faucet fixed. Grab a wrench and some plumber’s tap...

141 likes 186 comments 186

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“Seven Hundred and Thirty Days” by Danielle LeBlanc

🏆 Winner of Contest #252

My eyes felt like galaxies—holding the swirling glow of countless memories—as I took in our childhood home. Its siding looked like remnants of driftwood after a bonfire. I swore I smelled the smoky char of pine creep into my nostrils. It’s wild how the past stays with you like that. It can feel more visceral and real than the tangible things right in front of you. “Jesus, it feels like just yesterday.” I placed a trembling hand over my heart, struggling to steady my breath.My brother, Perry, pulled me into a tight embrace, his strength ...

143 likes 139 comments 139

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“The Party” by K.A. Murray

🏆 Winner of Contest #244

My phone buzzed. I rolled over to look at the text my cousin Maya had just sent. Can you send photo you took of all the girls in costume last night? xoxo My head was throbbing. Hanging out with Maya was fun, but she was eight years younger than me and she and her friends loved to do shots. I needed to stick with beer only if I didn’t want the hangover. That’s what I'd do next time. I opened my photos app to find the picture Maya had requested. It was a group shot I had no memory of taking. It wasn’t everyone who’d been at the party - just th...

162 likes 111 comments 111

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⭐️ Recommended stories

“Grave meditations” by Daniel Ward

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #275

Neither dark nor light, blissful nor scary, embracing nor aloof. Here it just is. Cold but not uncomfortable, I rest on the earth, not a cloud above. The smell is of soil, millions of years old. It’s easy to imagine my space shared by spiders, snakes and other things that slither in the dark, but I’m calm and don’t fear them. Inches above, a ceiling of old oak, itself serving an afterlife here. This capsule made by man is comforting, if claustrophobic. To consider spending an eternity here conjures a terror just beyond my consciousness; I ke...

22 likes 10 comments 10

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“The Spook Who Sleuths” by Daniel P. Douglas

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #272

My office was darker than FDR’s fireside chats and twice as smoky. That’s how I like it—keeps the clients on their toes and the spirits at bay. Name’s Roxie Hart, and I’m what you might call a supernatural tomfoolery private dick. Some folks get their knickers in a twist over that last word, but in my line of work, you gotta call a spade a spade and a detective a dick. I kicked back in my chair, feet up on the desk, pondering life’s great mysteries. Like why dames always fall for the wrong guy, or how Spam manages to be both a wartime delica...

25 likes 13 comments 13

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“Ghost Song” by Joseph Ellis

⭐️ Shortlisted for Contest #272

They came to hurt us again. Not just me. They bring a machine specifically for this purpose. They came to hurt The Doctor and little Lulubelle, and the transient ghosts who sometimes occupy the cells. The first time they turned the machine on, I didn’t hear the screams of the others, only my own. The second time I heard them all, but mixed together. The third time I could hear each one, discreetly, distinctly.This is the fourth time they’ve come. The first time it was just one man, carrying the machine like a child carrying a watermelon, set...

31 likes 21 comments 21

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✍️ All stories

“Who's a Good Boy” by Keith Nicholls

Submitted to Contest #276

Daniel Dixon was a young, successful tech engineer. He was also a bachelor who had never had a serious relationship. When he turned 30, Dan came to believe that sufficient wild oats had been sown—he needed to settle down. As corny and clichéd as it might sound, Dan wanted to find a good woman, get married, and start a family. Needless to say, that can be a rather challenging undertaking these days. Fortunately for Dan, fate intervened in a most remarkable fashion. At least it appeared to be fate, aided perhaps by some mystical canine power.&...

2 likes 0 comments 0

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“The day after” by Allikin 75

Submitted to Contest #276

“What the fuck happened?” Her eyes are red and puffy, probably from crying herself to sleep last night. I lean back in the chair, taking my time. The truth is I don’t know and I don’t know if I care, but she deserves at least a half-baked answer. The room is empty, except from the two of us. The seven little round tables we eat lunch at are seemingly in a random and unusual order. There isn’t much on them; a couple of pens, a few coffee rings, a pack of smokes and a lighter. The light blue, comfy dining chairs are pulled out, as if everyone ...

4 likes 0 comments 0

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“Have we met before?” by Kerry Flynn

Submitted to Contest #276

I was in a pub, a few weeks back with a friend. We were having a couple of cheeky glasses of wine after work, when it was my turn to go to the bar. It was extremely busy for a wednesday, but I suppose Wetherspoons is generally busy at any time. I had just got my drinks, when I turned and saw someone who looked awfully familiar to me, but I couldn't think for the life of me where. I didn't just want to turn around and say, do I know you? He'd probably think I was chatting him up, and although I found him undoubtedly attractive, I was nowhere ...

6 likes 1 comment 1

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“A Bed of Roses” by Isabela Matamoros

Submitted to Contest #275

A Bed of RosesBy: Isabela Matamoros I still remember that dark and fateful night, as clear as day… though it’s been years since I’ve seen the light the sun so kindly bestows upon the earth. Here it is dark, black as night. Here it is cold, though the wind doesn’t bite. Here, there is barely enough room for me, as my home is also inhabited by other species. There is no food to eat, no water to drink, no air to breathe. My roof is the ground above, my walls the dirt which surrounds me now. I imagine my stomach would be growling, if it were st...

6 likes 0 comments 0

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“Witch are you, The Walls or the Moon?” by Adrian Baev

Submitted to Contest #275

Saluting the sky with 10 twinkling toes, Lilith lifted long limbs aloft, relaxing after a long hours. In leisure she lay, legs locked like lovers in embrace. Her mind was melody, memories of music, but the men who mined hid from Her melacholic moans and so named her magiks naught but moon-struck madness. If they only knew that all were mad hear, there, every-nigh-where. "Oh I'm so sorry, §ǽşŧɨɾɾɘɽ" the echo of a voice rings through your head, "You peeked into my mind, an easy thing at this time of night, but risky you see, as my thoughts ar...

2 likes 0 comments 0

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“The Sting of a Honeybee” by Sutton Whitmore

Submitted to Contest #275

At first it was gradual, like the slow drip from a leaky faucet, then it swept through the country, then the world, like a hurricane. The most prestigious of doctors were forced to their knees, unable to explain the onslaught of deaths among women between the ages of 22 and 41. Women who were verifiably healthy, with minimal pre-existing conditions, with nothing to explain the climbing death toll. Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Friends, Lovers. Gone.Many scoffed, explaining it away by the lack of medical research involving women's health....

3 likes 1 comment 1

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“That Night” by Martika P

Submitted to Contest #275

This story contains talk of death, mental health and alludes to violence.It was nearing 5pm and the end of his shift, when he would finally be able to go home and take his badge off for the day, he was writing up the last incident report when someone came through the police station doors. The man who came in was dirty looking, he wore old faded blue jeans and a shirt that looked like it had once been white but was now smeared with dirt and he smelled badly. “I've come to report a crime.”“What sort of crime?”“A murder.”At the word of murder h...

3 likes 2 comments 2

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“The Last Cat” by Zack Herman

Submitted to Contest #275

 “Lookit, Delmar,” I hear Aunt Rhodie say, “it’s a cat!” I look up from the chair that I’m sitting in, just inside of the tent that I share with Aunt Rhodie and Uncle Henry. It’s probably been three years since It Happened. I’m 16 years old. If we still marked time the way that we once did, it would be late October or early November. It is a black cat. Too big to be a kitten, but very small. Reminds me of the cat my grandmother used to have. That cat’s name was Miss Bliss. “Mew!” the cat cries, as if to greet us. “I wonder if it’s a b...

5 likes 1 comment 1

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“Hidden Threads” by Denise Whittaker

Submitted to Contest #275

Cedar Grove was the kind of place where people lingered over morning coffee at Benny’s Diner and gathered on their porches long into the evening, so even though it was midnight, Gord McKenzie wasn’t all that surprised to hear the drawn-out notes of a fiddle drift over the lake. After all, he himself was here by the shore setting up his camera in the hopes of capturing the predicted aurora borealis. There were no homes nearby or on the other side of the lake, so the thin crescent moon was the only light that might interfere with his shot. And...

5 likes 1 comment 1

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“The Mallory's Secret” by Vanessa Vestena

Submitted to Contest #275

I took a deep breath, inhaling the sweet scent from the herbal tea that my sister just brewed. It smelled like roses and butterfly pea flowers, with a zesty undertone of ginger and an almost imperceptible hint of cinnamon. Just breathing through the aroma was enough to soothe my nerves. Like a warm, comforting hug.  However, for as much as I tried to relax, I couldn’t get it out of my head.I couldn’t believe what just happened. A student was killed in my school. A girl barely 15 was horrifyingly murdered in cold blood.  I took...

2 likes 2 comments 2

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“A Whisker In Time” by Syann Atchison

Submitted to Contest #275

 Mrooow. We stare at each other in eerie silence, neither of us blinking as we consider the other. The cats citrine eyes shone in stark contrast to its inky coat, its tail flicking in unison with the flickering street light. “What do you want this time, Whiskers?” at the sound of the nickname I gave him he saunters closer. He eyes the sandwich I hold and paws at my shoe expectantly. This is usually the part where I give in and feed him a few pieces of my lox. He'll take a few bites and then take the rest who knows where. Somet...

2 likes 1 comment 1

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“I Know It Seems Foolish” by Tom Hunter

Submitted to Contest #275

      To whom it may concern,What is the Devil? I mean really, what is he? Or she? Or it? What is God for that matter? Please don’t think this missive is a half-baked religious treatise, for it is not. I’m just putting pen to paper, jotting down thoughts attempting to make some sense of all this one final time.Anywho – The Devil and God. Why pray tell, no pun intended, is it the Devil, and simply just God? Then again one can go with Satan. Why not the Satan? Wait...

7 likes 2 comments 2

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“Restless” by Brian Webb

Submitted to Contest #275

Emily Gray realized she had been staring at the wall calendar for way too long.  She turned away and closed her eyes.  November 8 – eyes open or closed, asleep, awake, alive or dead, it didn’t matter.  She couldn’t have been more perpetually aware of the date if it were tattooed on her brain.  Swiping at a tear, she picked up her phone and dialed her ex-husband, Carl. “Hey Em.  How are you doing this morning?” “Okay, I guess.  It’s been –“ “Two years today,” they said at the same ti...

8 likes 6 comments 6

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“Revelations of the Shadow” by Kira Akina

Submitted to Contest #275

Revelations of the ShadowBy Kira Akina  She gasps and sits upright breathing heavily; head weary, sweat pearls covering her forehead and chest . Something woke her from her sleep. A sound? No it wasn’t that, not a noise. She groggily lifts her head to look around searching for something to ground her. Her eyelids heavy, she is caught between the state of awake and dreaming. She blinks, slowly becoming more alert. Somewhere in the fog she recalls flashes of images, as if on a film projector. Myra never remembered her dreams. Lost to her...

5 likes 3 comments 3

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“The breakup” by Atan Solp

Submitted to Contest #275

“Anita, today I have made a difficult decision. We must break up. I can’t marry you! I will pack my things now and leave this house. Leave now and forever, Anita. And don't ask me to stay!” With these words, my beloved Victor returned from work to our cute and cozy house on the wood edge. “Victor, what happened to you? Please calm down and let's talk. Explain your decision to me, please” I didn’t understand anything because yesterday everything was fine and nothing foretold such a storm in our relationship. We also never talked about marriag...

7 likes 0 comments 0

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