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Discover weekly, the best short stories

Looking for a steady supply of suspense short stories? Every week thousands of writers submit stories to our writing contest.

150+ Suspense Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. From bizarre characters to creeping threats, this collection of suspense short stories gives you an exciting array of bone-chilling tales.

Suspense Short Stories – Page 6 of 10

Put In Your Place

Submitted to Contest #303

(Summer 1995)The crowd huddles close together as the priest and undertakers struggle to bring the coffin out of the church. The rain is lashing down, angrily, urged on by a strong wind that has already whipped backwards any umbrella opened to shelter people from the rain. As soon as the coffin is loaded into the hearse, the rain and wind stop. The hearse slowly nears the graveyard gates, there are no words like “DAD” or “DARLING” spelt in flowers in its windows. My mother disliked them and so do I. They seem almost insincere. As the priest b...

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The Sheriff of Nottingham

Submitted to Contest #303

I‘I didn’t have a choice,’ I said in front of the committee investigating the death of an old woman.III had become the Sheriff of Nottingham because heads rolled and mine was bumped up. The guy before me quit under pressure from the public. There were whispers about high incarceration rates amongst minorities, and the occasional pistol that went off in a neighbourhood where the less fortunate lived, but apparently, he was ‘eased out’ because Mr Mayor wanted someone who was pliant, less combative, and a career police officer without blemish. ...

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Geriatric

Submitted to Contest #303

I tipped back the fiasco, and the last bit of wine dribbled on my tongue. I set it on the edge of the kitchen counter. The saliva was drying along the rim of the mouth, and I took it to the bucket in the sink and dunked it in the bleach water. I was very tired and bored, and the wine had been good to drink. As I lifted the bottle back up I saw that the straw basket at the bottom was soaked, and I did not want to wipe the counter after it. I set it below the water again. I peeled the rubber gloves off my hands and threw them in too. I walked ...

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The Turn of the Golden Key

Submitted to Contest #304

My heart thudded as I tapped open the email and checked the address against the numbers on the elegant brownstone building before me. This was it. Knocking on this door was going to be the stupidest or most brilliant thing I’d ever done. Mom would be furious if she knew I’d come to a mysterious address in Chelsea alone, but the email that had popped into my inbox last week was exactly what I had been manifesting. All those full moon rituals and journaling had finally paid off. Graduation was two weeks away, and a place to live had presented ...

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Show Him Hell, Yeong Kim

Submitted to Contest #303

When my hands were coated with blood for the first time since I left, I knew he couldn’t be forgiven. The beautiful girl I made a promise to marry laid lifeless on our living room floor. Her long black hair spread beneath her like ink spilled on paper . Onyx eyes that you could get lost in for hours stared blankly at the ceiling, forever looking at nothing. The ocean blue dress she’d just bought that day for our dinner reservation was soaked in her own blood. The gold necklace holding a charm of her birth flower – a daffodil for March – was ...

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Lamenthorn

Submitted to Contest #304

**Lamenthorn.** It was not a word; it was a curse. A sound carried on war-torn winds and whispered through crumbling cathedrals. Children spoke it as a dare, and elders refused to speak it at all. Lamenthorn. A peak beyond the edge of the known world, where the sky hung low like a shroud and time festered in the rocks. No maps dared name it. No songs celebrated it. For what melody can tame a place where gods go to die? But one did not go to Lamenthorn by accident. No, you were *called*. And Rhiannon Stormbraid had been called. She was not a ...

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A Salty Story

Submitted to Contest #303

I had already turned half the house upside down looking for the damn salt. Where the hell is she hiding it? I searched the kitchen drawers and tore up the living room – I even checked under the couch cushions. This place - God, it stinks. The sour, musty air makes the walls feel like they’re closing in. I ran up and down the hall, desperate, opening every door. Damn this fucking chicken soup; it’s never salty enough.Frustration burned in my chest as I dug through the fridge. But then, my heart skipped. It wasn’t salt – but a beautiful, three...

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Steven No More

Submitted to Contest #303

When Tina heard the rumbling sound of what once had been a soothing voice, now something repulsive, she knew this day was already ruined before it had started. Once a loving husband - man of her dreams and knight in shining armour - now the least pleasant part of her day and, still, her boss.To be fair, it wasn’t entirely his fault that she couldn’t stand the sight or sound of him. And of course, she wasn’t forced by any means to stay at the office. But just as she had then, she felt attached to the place. The setting was part of it; located...

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Dark Storms, Dark Secrets, Dark Love

Submitted to Contest #303

Chicago. Jack’s town. The night swirled around him, a steady drip of rain covering his footsteps as he followed his latest quarry. Distantly a dog barked, a cat yowled, and the sounds of a sailor and his girl in the alleyway greeted his ears after the screeching of the “L” had deposited Jack and his objective both on this street. Jack was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, to be a spy hunter. They needed someone to ferret out Nazi spies in the Windy City, and Jack grew up here, so it was fortunate for him that they sen...

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Humanity Doesn't Rule

Submitted to Contest #303

Her heart exploded with rage, the tightness in her chest squeezing like a vice and her hands ready to murder someone. The chill in the air hit her square in the face when she slammed her car door and entered the warehouse. Rolls of plastic, assorted boxes and pieces of vine coveted the dirty, dusty floor. She sneezed from the stale, musty air. The bastard sat on the rickety chair, his head drooped, and his body secured with rope. His eyes were black and blue. Good. Let the pig suffer. Nadia salivated with desire. How would she ge...

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Catching Up with the Past: Boys Will Be Boys

Submitted to Contest #303

Prompt: Write about someone who chooses revenge-even though forgiveness is an option. Catching Up with the Past: Boys Will Be Boys The air smelled musty and dank as I rummaged through the boxes in the basement of my parents’ house.It was easy to see that a multitude of years had passed before anyone dared to tackle this hording nightmare.Being the only child, I was tasked to forage through this outlandish pile of obsolescence and so-called memorabilia before the house was placed on the realtor’s market. I was doubting myself as to my inten...

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Forgive Me, Heavenly Mother

Submitted to Contest #303

Heavenly Mother, Forgive me for the sins I must commit. Forgive me for the scars I cannot leave behind. Forgive me for the rage that burns in my heart, for I do not have the strength to quell it. The wraith of vengeance begs me, forces my hand. For if I can live only one day longer than her, I can find my last semblance of peace. Forgive me, Great Mother. Forgive me. The whispers of Signý’s prayer drifted up into the early morning rays of light. Dissipating into loose swirls of warm breath in the cool air. Hidden in the crook of the lush...

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a friend's request

Submitted to Contest #303

There was a bitter chill to the air, the creeping winter stretching its long talons through the night, but as nice as the thought would be, it was not the cold itself that sent icy discomfort racing down the man’s spine. What little light the gaslamps in the street below afforded left too much to the imagination, strange shapes flickering and dancing and playing absolute havoc with his imagination. Albert could not say with any sincerity that the world of imagination or that of reality would be kinder than the other, the devil you know and t...

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On the Bank of River Rubicon

Submitted to Contest #303

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What just happened? What did I do... but I didn’t have a choice; it’s all her fucking fault! Whore!”***It was a bright cold day, with temperatures barely above freezing. Olivia pulled up the zipper on her parka and stood next to the car still shivering. Her breath turned into mist in the frigid air as she mouthed “Hello!” to the other parents waiting at the school gates. A group of teenage boys stormed out of the building, laughing and jokingly mocking each other with their uneven voices. Olivia’s gaze followed them as the...

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No Trouble

Submitted to Contest #303

The dirt was gritty between her fingers as she dug, scraping against the wooden handle of the shovel and the soft skin of her palms, coating them both in black earth. Sweat made tiny rivers in the lines of her hands, drawing the mud deeper into her pores, staining the topography of her body.Making her a map.Look, the dirt seemed to say, you are here—but she knew she was lost, even so. The only way her compass pointed was down.She kept digging.All around her, tiny life forms wiggled and crawled their way through existence, balking at her intr...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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