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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.

150+ 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 8 of 10

A New Appetite

Submitted to Contest #333

“You look like hell!” Clara glared at me like it was my fault. “Go home.”“I’ve got to finish the MacGregor file or Rigel will have my hide.” My voice barely audible. If I looked like hell, I thought, then I looked exactly the way I felt, but these files weren’t going to finish themselves.“Go home. I’ll get Sean to do it. He’s got nothing better to do, I’m sure. You’ll be no good to MacGregor or anyone else, if you croak on us. Besides, none of us want to get whatever it is you’ve got,” and she pulled the cowl neck of her sweater over her mou...

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5:59

Submitted to Contest #333

I awoke before my alarm went off. It was 5:59. Only a minute before my alarm went off. Not even enough time to go back to sleep for a little bit. I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and began to get ready for work. I went to the bathroom, flicking the lights on. Only, they don’t turn on right away. I flipped the switch a couple of times in the hope they would turn on. After the third flip, they stuttered awake. “Weird,” I mutter. As I turned on the water, waiting for it to get to the temp I like, I heard a little buzz, almost like an old gas st...

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Rootbound

Submitted to Contest #333

Day 3 Seneca sat in the dimly lit canteen, her long white hair, now loosely tied back, framed her striking red eyes as she slumped forward in exhaustion. Across from her, Hitori—smaller in frame, younger, with a softness Seneca had long since lost—absently prodded at her plate with a fork, her short purple hair slightly disheveled.The canteen was quiet except for the distant thrum of engines as they cruised back toward Jupiter Station under a constant one ’g’ deceleration. Walking around the deck of the Abysmal felt ‘normal’.Except for the b...

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Dinner Dissections & Mystery Meat

Submitted to Contest #333

CW: Themes of cannibalism Doctor Wong’s culinary skills never failed him when his intentions were to impress the ladies. During his years as a medical student, he learned the standard process for writing orders; diet came first ahead of activities and vital signs. This practice overflowed into his own life list of priorities and food became the forerunner in his social life as well.He marched downstairs, brimming with excitement, eager to get started on the night's menu. He was excited to start preparing the meal he would serve on his date w...

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Who's up for Dinner?

Submitted to Contest #333

CW: violence, implied cannibalism “You should have some,” Old Man Marcus said to me. I barely managed to make it out past his slobbering around the bone. I always hated sitting next to him during these, even when I was a little girl. Whenever he ate he’d make a mess of everything. At his age, shouldn’t he have learned himself some manners by now? Never made much sense to me why he couldn’t behave like the rest of us, and even Mother noticed it too but she kept sitting him at our table anyway. “He’s got no family,” she said to me once, “Have ...

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Imaginary Kitchens

Submitted to Contest #333

THE TOUR“Welcome to Sequoia.”This voice brought Mark and Amelia out of the peaceful trance the waiting room music had lured them into. Standing up and turning around, their eyes were met by an older woman. She had beautifully manicured grey hair and spoke with a soft, confident voice.The woman then led Mark and Amelia out into an open-air hallway lined with trees and a subtle ribbon of running water on either side. “Now most of our clients choose the Canopy package, but since you all showed interest in the Cascadia membership I wanted to thr...

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Dinner Ritual

Submitted to Contest #333

Trigger warning: Mild thematic restraint and gore. The alarm played the most annoying song I had ever heard, and I silenced it with a tap on the mouse pad. The clock on the wall confirmed it, and the grandfather in the living room paused its steady ticking to chime four times. When writing, time evaporated like so many dreams or nightmares, and 4 pm was my afternoon “wake-up.” I grabbed my empty water glass and stood.Standing created a cacophony of creaks, groans, and clicks; I wasn’t sure whether it was all me, as I tended to stiffen up if...

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Tanya's Testimony on The Disappearance of Branderson and Ritchie

Submitted to Contest #333

I repeat to you GENTLEMEN, that your inquisition on this particular matter is fruitless. There is nothing in this world that I could do, however I would like to on the case revolving around Branderson few weeks ago except for the fact that his nail marks were found outside of Tanya's window. Whatever you might want or need to know about this particular gentleman could only be found through his diary which, the record was ended abruptly on the fateful day. Or, if you do desire a more comprehensive yet peculiar testimony of the case at hand, y...

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The widow and the haunted house

Submitted to Contest #333

I sat in my white filthy kitchen, drinking steaming black coffee, laced with brandy. Outside the wind blew, bare tree branches, against the house. Rain drizzled. Wet leaves blanked the earth, a solemn farewell to summer.Tic toc tic toc an ancient cuckoo clock, counted off the seconds, every hour it choked out a poor excuse for a bird song. I drank more brandy, the amber liquid burning my throat. Drop by drop, I poured the foul brown liquid into my mouth. Until months worth of emtry brown bottles littered the floor, silent testimony to a brok...

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He stands on the platform.

Submitted to Contest #332

He stands on the platform. He stands at the end of the train platform staring down the tracks. The rain drives hard against his jacket, soaking pants, and shoes, sending a chill through and through.Lost in thought at the reckoning. Consumed by the sadness in the world. He thinks If I can just make it one more day. One more day without this bag of rocks on my back. The weight of life courses through him, in his blood.He has seen much tragedy in his forty-four years. Enough misery to spread over entire swaths of people, without end...

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Carnation

Submitted to Contest #332

Carnation Content Warning:Contains mentions of abuse and child death, and mental health. ❄ ❄ ❄“Mom! Mom, it’s snowing!”Darla turned to smile at her daughter, whose messy bed-head cut a chaotic silhouette against the blinding white backdrop of the newly-snowy landscape of their new back yard. Her daughter had always been fond of winter - most especially the snow - and that had been one of the many reasons she’d decided to pack their things things and move them to an obscure town in Wisconsin that she doubted even her sister, the geography wi...

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Sunrise at Night

Submitted to Contest #332

*Sensitive Content: historical racism/ slurs SundaySeptember 8th, 1901from the desk of Lydia LeaningGalvez Hotel, rm. 201 Last year I saw the ocean stand up and eat everything.~ As I write this, I can almost smell the great pyres, the mounds of tangled flesh, entire lifetimes twisted together like string and shoved into the surf. I know it is ridiculous to think this way, to dwell. The fires stopped burning many months ago, the horrid smells have been pushed away by the Gulf breeze, the human wreckage paved over in concrete an...

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The Thirteenth Door

Submitted to Contest #332

I touched the frostbitten cheek of the corpse in the alley, ignoring the rain sliding down my neck. She shouldn't be this warm.The sleet had turned the ground into a gray mirror, and the security light above the restaurant's back door flickered with the desperate rhythm of a dying heart. The air reeked of fish sauce and copper, rotting vegetables and blood. My breath fogged in front of me, visible proof that I was still among the living. Hers didn't. Yet her skin held warmth that had no business being there, hours after death in weather cold...

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Seeking Shelter from the Storm

Submitted to Contest #332

He had not crossed the invisible line marking the edge of the pack’s territory, so technically, he had not made the critical decision to disperse and strike out on his own. Not entirely yet. At just under two years old, the adolescent wolf was on the cusp of his full maturity. It was early September, and his natural instincts were telling him that along with summer’s waning, it was time to seek out his own territory and begin the search for a mate. Those same instincts though, were also cautioning him that the going could be hard, the huntin...

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Before the Storm

Submitted to Contest #332

As the lights started to flicker, I just knew it was going to be a bad night. The storm hadn’t even started yet. I haven’t heard any thunder or seen any lightning; it wasn’t even raining yet for goodness sakes. According to the weather forecast, the wind and rain was expected to ramp up tomorrow in the early morning hours. Yet here we are, on a Friday at about 3:00 pm with flickering power when I’m supposed to be working for another two hours. Clearly, I picked the wrong career path in life, it always seems like these meteor-ologists never g...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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