Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Featured stories
Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

6170+ Thriller Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. Looking for a story that will keep you on the edge of your seat and holding your breath? Don’t skip our collection of thriller short stories.

Thriller Short Stories – Page 387 of 412

Woods

Submitted to Contest #51

He opened his eyes slowly and looked around, squinting hard. Treetops were all he could see; treetops and the snowflakes pouring from the sky. As he sat up in the snow, his head felt heavy, his vision blurry, he pressed his hand to the back of his head where a sharp pain stung him. He was bleeding, he looked around and found the wooden branch that smacked him in the head not too long ago, a smack he had no memory of, let alone of the reasons behind it. He got up, cleaned the snow off his clothes and looked around, nothing but the snow and ...

14 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

The Killer Behind the Door

Submitted to Contest #51

The sweet smell of morning dew rushes into my lungs as I gather a deep breath of the cool air surrounding me. Conner’s friends live here, I think to myself. Conner lives here. As I perch on the top step of his front porch, my legs ache from pumping on the pedals of my bike, the sounds of his mother’s cooking filling my head. Behind me, the screen door creaks open, and Conner joins me on the porch. He does nothing for a while, nothing but stare up into the cloudless sky, crouching with his arms resting on his slightly grass-stained knees. His...

138 likes 35 comments 35
Read story

Should Have Kept Sleeping

Submitted to Contest #51

“You have got to be kidding me!” Harry’s wife screamed. There was a patter of feet, then a softer holler up the stairs, “I need you to fix the washing machine again.”Harry moaned, throwing a pillow over his head to drown out the morning needs. It was only six in the morning. Who got up and trumpeted about broken washers at bloody six in the morning?Harry’s phone buzzed from where it slept on the nightstand. He flopped his hand out from beneath the pillow, desperately looking for the handy dandy decline call. It buzzed again.“Come on,” Harry ...

59 likes 10 comments 10
Read story

Come on Daddy, Haunt Me

Submitted to Contest #51

           The Impossible House, he called it. Sampson Quinn sat in the chair opposite me looking like a sixty-year-old college philosophy professor in the body of a 29 year old.           I hold the report he had prepared for me on the incident at this – Impossible House.             Quinn’s’ own griffonage competed with the strange words. His report of what had happen...

16 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Reality

Submitted to Contest #51

Reality! How does one describe ‘Reality’? In the words of Albert Einstein ‘Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one’ And in my own words ‘Reality is subjective’ Just like opinions everyone has their own reality, defining their own life. Just like ‘bitter truths’ and ‘white lies’ everyone’s reality is their own perception and convenience. ‘Did a 16-year-old poison her whole family? Why? What was her motive’ Read the front page of the newspaper on the table. The concept of reality often leaves me so baffled that ...

43 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

For it Begins

Submitted to Contest #51

On the morning of May 13th 2016, Ava Atkins was running late. It was unusual but she had a nightmare and couldn’t find the courage to face the world in a bad state. She waited until she calmed down before she took a shower and prepared for another day at the office. The traffic in London at that hour was infernal and Ava was aware she had to call Charlie and tell her to keep her patient entertained until she gets there. Ava reached for her purse and rapidly texted her secretary, completely absorbed in her business. Once she finished, s...

24 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

“In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray"

Submitted to Contest #51

The house was filled with music. The radiant String Quartet in A minor by Brahms was playing as if life has chosen it as the soundtrack for what was happening in that house. From distance, one would have imagined that whoever lived there had an affinity for classics but as you passed the entrance and walked up the stairs to the first floor; as you passed the corridor and turned to the right, you could see a door cracked open and through that opening, you could see the horrors of reality. “Please! Let me go!” Iwan was a 12 years old boy, a ch...

27 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

The Past Behind

Submitted to Contest #51

I never saw the end coming. It was only a short distance to my house and the cold wind blowing between the rows of houses causing the rubbish to fly in all directions, meant that no one else was out. They were all tucked up safe and warm inside their houses, the curtains drawn so they didn’t have to see out. Probably all watching the television. And it had been late. Maybe some were actually asleep. The thick clouds blocked the moon. The light trickling down to the ground was minimal. Even the street lights seemed to be more dim than normal...

48 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Asking for It

Submitted to Contest #50

Trigger warning: depictions of stalking and sexual assault       When they found her overturned cart, its contents burst open and seeping across the asphalt, one wheel was still spinning. It squeaked into the air like a wounded animal until a hand reached over and stilled it. The absence of its cry felt like pressure, a riddle pausing for an answer, the connections right there underneath all this confusion. Someone, later no one would remember who, pointed to the small red hatchback just across the lot. The dome...

6 likes 2 comments 2
Read story

Sympathy

Submitted to Contest #51

When you have your life taken away from you, there isn’t much that will stop you from enacting whatever payback you deem fit. When you have nothing to lose, there isn’t a lot that seems scary. When an enemy is so ruthless, you don’t hold a lot of sympathy. Don’t worry Dmitri. I don’t. “Lyudmila!” A gnarled and cigarette charred voice grumbled to me hastily. “It came from the building on the left, you see?” Her stubby soot and mud ridden fingers pointed to ruins. It was all ruins, the only hints at what once was were piles of rubble and ...

19 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Syrup

Submitted to Contest #50

The metallic, clanging noise coming from the briefcase was drawing more than a little attention the way Frank swung it around. It was the same one he received for twenty-five solid years of dedication to a company he hated. Walking up to the house, the smell of pancakes and maple syrup wafted under the door and reminded him that he hadn’t eaten breakfast again for the third day in a row. Judging by the arc of his swing, it looked like he was aiming the case towards the roof as he strode up to Eleanor’s bright pink house, but the hesitation o...

10 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

Geminus

Submitted to Contest #50

I cannot hear anything save the furious pounding of my heart, perfectly in sync with every footfall upon the muddied path. The trees flash by me in a blur of greens and moss-covered trunks; my lungs struggle to inhale the wet, musty air as I push them far beyond their limit. If I were to think too hard on it, the pain would be overwhelming; the fire in my muscles and chest, the damp seeping into my bones. Yet the blur of my panic is overridden by instinct, and my adrenaline, and I somehow find the strength to press on, to keep moving, becaus...

9 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

In Which Rudolf Chooses to Die

Submitted to Contest #50

The table is long and laden with ornate silver platters of food. There are oysters nestled in beds of gleaming ice, warm loaves of fragrant herb bread, and plates of dainty bacon-wrapped dates. Tall, thin candles flicker between the dishes. A towering croquembouche looms in the center of the table, threads of golden caramel gleaming in the candlelight.  No one is eating.  The guests seated around the table, all dressed in heavy, richly colored velvets, watch the man at the head. He stands on his chair, hands on his hips, chin tip...

20 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Remember me?

Submitted to Contest #50

-Do you know whose car it is?” The old man looked like a walrus with his enormous mustache and his bald head covered in sweat. He tried to understand the situation, but no one really knew what was happening. Well, no one that would be heard. -No sir.” -Was it stolen?” -No sir.” -Was it bought?” -No sir.” The old man’s caterpillar eyebrows arose like two beings, alive on his head.  -Then where does it come from?” -We don’t know sir. It doesn’t look like any model in existence.” The other one, the blond man in the back seat answered mecha...

36 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Free Fall

Submitted to Contest #50

By: Adam Tyler Word Count: 2932     If Cyris hadn’t seen the black flyer it would have knocked him out of the sky on impact. It almost did anyway. He’d been so focused checking his rear cameras, he almost hadn’t seen it until it was too late. The neon lights of the city below parted for an instant, and the black, bullet shaped flyer peeled silently out a side street, heading straight for him. It was the kind of car the grim reaper would drive if he found himself in 2055. Cyris jerked the controls and pulled upward, ju...

4 likes 1 comment 1
Read story
RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in Reedsy Studio. All for free.