Menu

More apps built by Reedsy

reedsymarketplace

Assemble a team of professionals

reedsystudio

The writing app for authors

reedsylearning

Writing courses, events and memberships

reedsydiscovery

Get your book reviewed

reedsyprompts

Weekly writing prompts and contests

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Featured stories

Activity feed

Discover weekly, the best short stories

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

Horror Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. From hauntings and murderers to terrifying creatures from the deep, our collection of horror stories will have you breaking out in cold sweats. Take a look… if you dare.

Horror Short Stories – Page 2

Blind Side

Jed Cope

Weekly Contest #373

Being unable to remember was a big problem for me. But then, we’re so selective when the buffet cart of life wheels past. I mean, I don’t remember the vast majority of my life. Who does? We’re so intent on the next big thing. So many of the small things pass unnoticed. And they’re the things that count most. Or at least they adorn those things that matter and should be noted, so when we’re standing at the identity parade of our lives we might actually recognise ourselves. The loss of potential memories at source is a death of sorts. A wilfu...

4 likes

Read story

The Practiced Charlatan

Weekly Contest #373

The group of drunken Americans stumbled out of the crowded pub in a flurry of laughter and playful shoves. The five of them were all in their early to mid-twenties and traveling abroad. Of the five, Sharon and Phil were the most levelheaded, which really only meant they were the least inebriated. “Excuse you,” Sharon exclaimed in mock indignation, “I’m gonna need you all to keep your filthy little paws off me while you boys are roughhousing, thank you.” With her hands on her hips, she looked down her nose at the boys as they trundled across...

4 likes

Read story

The Portrait

Weekly Contest #373

They arrived at his parent’s home late in the evening. Holden opened the wide, tall oaken front door with only a slight push and entered the vacuous entry hall holding the woman’s hand their fingers laced together, as he brought her inside. She was silent, still in awe at the size of the estate house and definitely taken aback by the extent of her new boyfriends’ affluence. When he said he wanted to bring her home, she expected none of this based on his current bohemian lifestyle. As the door closed softly behind her, surprisingly quiet desp...

3 likes

Read story

Hunger

Weekly Contest #373

Cyril jerks his head up from the library’s table. His eyes lock on it. The thing looks at him, its eyes sunken in. Its mouth is frothing and drooling a blackened sludge. “What the fuck!!” Cyril stands up, the chair tipping over, making a loud bang echo through the silent library. All sound dries up. He feels all eyes on him. Burning into his skin. “Shhh!” The librarian puts a finger to her lips, “Please, pick up your chair.” She harshly whispers. Cyril mumbles an apology grabbing his chair. He looks at it again. Only to see a black puddle...

3 likes

Read story

On Second Thought

Keith Grant

Weekly Contest #373

Sunlight came through the cheap plastic blinds in narrow bands, one of which had managed to land across his eyes with enough precision that he suspected the universe of doing it on purpose. Corey rolled away and pulled the blanket over his face, determined to sleep until his alarm went off, but something occurred to him just as he was about to drift away. The sun shouldn’t hit his face in the morning. He sat up and looked around his bedroom. The dresser was where it belonged. Two cardboard boxes he hadn’t gotten around to unpacking sat wher...

33 likes

Read story

THE SALESMAN

BRUCE MARTIN

Weekly Contest #373

By the time Richard Salama pulled into the visitors’ parking lot of Alden Manufacturing, most of the people who worked there were preparing to head out for the weekend. It was 4:37 on a Friday afternoon, and the enormous brick-and-steel complex had already begun its weekly exhalation. Cars streamed through the employee gate. Men and women emerged from side doors carrying lunch boxes and jackets. Beyond the administration building, the factory stretched for nearly a quarter of a mile, a collection of high windowless structures connected by l...

17 likes

Read story

Phoning the Dead

Weekly Contest #373

“You don’t have enough credits,” the message reads. This is bullshit. My HereAfter account used to be able to book a call with the Great Bambino—or even Stan Lee—for the cost of an Uber Eats order. Inflation is a son-of-a-bitch, even in the afterlife. The real problem is the damn agents and all the Screaming Services hosting calls now. There’s SoulLink, SpiriTalk, EtherNal, and BooChirp. With all the exclusive contracts and the growing demand for even a brief chat with a popular Spector, it’s a wonder anyone puts up with it. The entire thing...

16 likes

Read story

THE DEVIL'S POOL

Weekly Contest #373

The air conditioner unit rattled the window that held it in place and whined with the raspy hiss of someone on their deathbed, but still it didn’t drown out the talk show on in the other room. My gran needed the tv blaring. It’s a wonder the neighbors never complained. I shoveled another spoon full of cereal into my mouth and scrolled on my phone. “Elijah, be a dear and bring me that bag of Cheetos on the shelf!” “Gran, you know the doctor said you need to watch your salt intake,” I reminded her. There were times I didn’t know who was baby...

13 likes

Read story

Fighting the Kudzu

Weekly Contest #373

Saturday afternoon in the ER and time for the crazies to come in. Hot, dry miserable day outside, enough to bring them out for sure. Ceil heard the opening static of the radio on the last step up the stairs from the cafeteria. The squad was bringing in an elderly female with possible hyperthermia, profound dehydration, multiple abrasions, and acute agitation. She could hear her newest assignment screaming at the top of her lungs in the back of the ambulance. Unintelligible, agitated, and clearly afraid. “Why me Lord?” No way out of this. It ...

13 likes

Read story

Burning Butterflies

Kathleen Veltkamp

Weekly Contest #373

The sun yawned, rubbing away the night’s concerns with a gentle dawn. The forest glittered in the emerging light – rainwater clung to the greenery. Shelly Langstrom unzipped her tent, scratching at the silence of the morning. If she hadn’t woken up already full of so much noise, maybe she would have realized a morning in the mountains is never this quiet. Embers from last night’s fire released threads of smoke. Shelly slumped into a cheap camping chair; she had forgotten her sturdy, expensive one at home. A checklist formed in her head. Get ...

12 likes

Read story

An eye in the sky

Ishita Singh

Weekly Contest #373

Mr. Banerjee’s first steps of the day are angry. His right palm still burns, and his unruly moustache is damp with the remains of his breakfast. As the door shuts behind him, there is a sound of anklets retreating across the tiles. One thud of a heel, followed by a sharp harmony of bells, and then a wet sliding squeaking step. A thud, a ring, and a squeak. A thud, a ring, and a squeak. He inhales the cold air, waits for silence, and then stabs the elevator button. Winter presses itself against the towers overnight. Fog beads on parked sco...

8 likes

Read story

The Pilgrim of the Closed Door: A tale for the pilgrimage of the living

Sean Gaboya

Weekly Contest #373

We met on the old road north of Rome in late October. The trains were full. So we walked. At supper, each traveler named the burden that had put him on the road. The Keeper of Keys believed every locked room protected someone. The Clerk of Quiet recorded every complaint and answered none. The Choir Widow sang whatever hymn the room required. The Candle Seller carried light but never entered darkness. Then they turned to me. They called me the Disobedient Son. I told them that was not my name. It was the office my village gave me after my fat...

8 likes

Read story

Never-Ending Nightmare

Light Bloom

Weekly Contest #373

I wasn’t supposed to be spending the night at a friend’s house, but certain events had led to this. We were supposed to spend the night at my place, and tomorrow we would go to our second convention together. We had just barely passed into our teens, and had been so excited for this next step into our newest fascination. We laughed, we played games, we watched movies, we ate junk food. We did all of these things, pretending this had always been the plan. We pretended the evening had not taken a turn, and I had not needed a place to stay. We ...

8 likes

Read story

There's Something Wrong with Chef

Juliet Sayre

Weekly Contest #373

The flick of the lighter was the only form of comfort I had at this point. Inhaling the rolled-up nicotine and letting the smoke evaporate around me was a twisted form of peace. If I couldn’t have the needle, at least I had the smoke. It was late and I’d let my break last a couple minutes too long, probably. I knew Chef wouldn’t be happy with me, but it was growing harder and harder to care. I only had this job because Ricky really stuck his neck out for me, and I knew I should’ve been more appreciative. All well, I thought, life goes on. I ...

8 likes

Read story

Contents

Weekly Contest #373

Dr. Tessa Corwin had cut open bodies that had been dead for three days in August. She had examined tumors the size of footballs, infants born without complete organs, bowel resections leaking shit into specimen buckets, gangrenous feet, necrotic breasts, human limbs wrapped in disposable blue towels, and once an entire jaw containing six teeth and part of someone’s tongue. Very little surprised a surgical pathologist. Nothing made her scream. Until Wednesday afternoon. “Jesus Christ!!!” Tessa kicked backward from the stainless-steel grossing...

7 likes

Read story

‹ Prev Next ›