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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.

6180+ 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 408 of 412

To Say "I Love You" One More Time

Submitted to Contest #13

Cold. Dark. Silence.These were my first senses. Slowly I regained consciousness; my fingers twitching, my legs bending. I could hear my heartbeat in my head. My eyes fluttered open and suddenly all I could see was white. I soon adjusted to the bright sunlight, and, looking up at the blue sky above me, from where this assault was coming from, I began to become aware of my surroundings. The sunlight streaming from above flooded down through the clearing in the trees and washed around me, setting everything alight in one continuous blaze. The d...

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Behind the Pine Door

Submitted to Contest #13

BEHIND THE PINE DOORI’d always liked Virginia – Ginny, as she preferred to be called. We weren’t the sort of neighbours who were constantly in and out of each others’ houses. We needed our own space and respected each others’ privacy. But she was a comfortable and considerate neighbour, and I liked to think she thought the same about me. I knew she thought my garden was messy, and I wasn’t too keen on her excess of decking, but it never turned into an issue. At Christmas she had a beautifully decorated real tree and ...

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Just Paranoia

Submitted to Contest #13

I walked down the abandoned street. The trees stood like skeletal sentries all around, their fallen leaves whispering and ruffling in the winds that seemed to chill me to my bones. The last light was falling away, leaving me alone at the mercy of the silver veiled moon that sneered at me from above, casting shadows of ghosts in the corners of my eyes.I walked on, wrapping my arms tightly around myself, trying to still the tremors that had less to do with the cold, and more to do with my overactive imagination. I saw a shadow in a path of rus...

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Welcome Home

Submitted to Contest #13

Sasha Ayala watched out the window of the taxi as it drove slowly through Hemmings Street, looking for the familiar Sugar Maple that stood in the yard of the duplex she and her best friend Miri owned.  It had been a little over a year since she had last visited. Six years since she had lived there.“I’m finally home.”  She breathed as the taxi stopped in front of her house.Sasha checked the time on her phone as she slung her backpack over her shoulder, and jogged to the door.  “3:27... I wonder if Miri is waiting up for me.”S...

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Spirit Too Alive

Submitted to Contest #13

The smell of fresh cookies wafts around my one story house, making the place seem warm and comforting. The timer on the over goes off and I pull my thick blond hair back into a ponytail, stepping around my sleeping dog as I rush to turn the heat down before the neighbor's Halloween cookies get a little crispier than needed. I slide my hands into oven mitts and open the stainless steel door, heat fogging my glasses up. I set the pan on a rack to cool and rub my lenses clean on the fabric of my Harvard hoodie. Quickly, I ice the fresh cookies ...

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The Encounter

Submitted to Contest #13

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The Mulaney Paradox

Submitted to Contest #13

On a cold, rainy morning there are a few places no one wants to be -- the DMV, an outdoor wedding, and above all else: work. Personally, I’d rather be enduring the festivities of some chick’s, “big day”, or trapped in line behind the counter waiting to pay a ticket I definitely deserve than spend another day wrapping a tie around my neck and faking smiles from behind a desk. But, alas, here I sit. Seconds passing by like hours and coffee table conversations sounding like Freddy Krueger using his chalkboard scratching post. Today, I was ...

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300 Seconds

Submitted to Contest #13

Jared glanced at his watch and smiled to himself. He knew that it was pointless to time the bell hop, but old habits and all that. Considering this quirk was all that was left of his once debilitating OCD, Jared embraced it. Keeping track of those seconds kept him from needing to count stairs, kept him from having to go down to the first step again if he missed one or lost count, kept him from tapping the railing five times if there was an odd number of stairs, kept the compulsion to look at the ceiling every fourth step he took at bay.“Welc...

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'The Stabbing', by Kaleb Bennett (Though of in B/W)

Submitted to Contest #13

“This is…”        K    R    S    S    Pro-duc-tion Radio    ANNOUNCER: From your local broadcast radio, KRRS Radio presents…’The Stabbing!’    Cold spews of trumpet, and the slow burn violins introduce the theme    ANNOUNCER: Directed and written by Harrison Plainview, produced by KRSS Radio. Now, please welcome...Harrison    HARRISON: There is a chill calm outside the homes of many. Still air ...

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Variety

Submitted to Contest #13

Richard Miller was average; middle aged, mediocre shape, slightly balding. He was not married nor had he ever been, and he lived in a modest two bedroom Cape Cod on a street called Oak in a town known as Pleasant Hill. Richard had a good job-one that he could tolerate at least, teaching ninth grade English at the local high school.  His students were mostly attentive and never gave him a great deal of trouble, except for that time that they found out his first name and used it more than once in a sexual context. But ...

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Ally Was Expecting Me

Submitted to Contest #13

On Halloween night I crossed the street to Ally's house at exactly 5 pm. It was tradition. This year, like a dozen before it, we would pass out candy to trick or treaters and wish we could be them. Even the moms that hovered at the end of Ally's driveway made us jealous. We were stuck in that limbo between child and parent, having a blast but nearly ready to move on.I knocked on her door even though I didn't have to. Ally was expecting me to beg for candy, and I was expecting her to shower me in a fistful of it. It was a lame joke that would...

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THE FACTORY

Submitted to Contest #13

A half a cup of sugar, Mason thinks to himself. He's never made a batch of cupcakes before, and his mother insisted he help, despite his concerned words that he wouldn't even know where to begin. "Just follow the instructions exactly, and it will turn out fine," his mother had said.  Mason grabbed two glass drinking cups from his mother's cabinet and dunked one inside the sugar bag, filling it all the way up to the rim. He poured half of its contents into the other glass until they were exactly even, then dumped one into the large ...

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The Tale of Trudy Rutger

Submitted to Contest #13

It’s been five years, but I can still remember exactly where I was when I heard about Logan. Everyone in my town does. I was sitting in my senior year history class. My mom was in line at the grocery store. My best friend Callie was skipping class to eat breakfast with her boyfriend at the diner down the street. She was the one that heard it first. We weren’t allowed to have phones in class, but back then, teachers hadn’t quite caught on to all of the ways that kids would sneak in phones. I’d spent most of second period with my phone tucked...

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Halloween Horrors

Submitted to Contest #13

It’s 6pm on a particularly eerie Halloween night and I walk up to Mr. Jenson’s house wearing a pink floral dress my grandmother lent me. The stark contrast from my usual faded jeans and oversized T-shirt makes me feel like a completely different person. Just before ringing the doorbell, I straighten my skirt, adjust my shoulder length wig and pat a little more powder on my face. The distorted reflection of myself on the floor-to-ceiling windows beside the door show a 80 something year old woman way wiser and beyond my actual 27 years of age....

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One time thing

Submitted to Contest #13

Dead, he said. His words carried the usual weight of someone who is not used to death, someone who maybe fears an unsettling reaction from the receptor of those grim news he had to deliver; after all, the only thing scarier than the absence of emotions is their very display. I wanted to laugh, really, tell him to not be so frail and hesitant, it is nothing but pathetic. Yes, Lucas has been dead for years now! Shout it! Proclaim it! Do not be faltering, looking at me as if I was the poor man who got the news too late. Of course I knew he was ...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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