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

150+ Mystery Short Stories to read

Submitted by writers on Reedsy Prompts to our weekly writing contest. No need to go out hunting for clues — you’ve solved the puzzle of where to find the newest mystery short stories just by landing on this page.

Mystery Short Stories – Page 2 of 10

Back into the Past Again

Submitted to Contest #329

Digging up the past is a dangerous activity, as it can unveil things you’d prefer never to find out. These thoughts came to my mind while standing in my own garden with a shovel in my hand and looking at a body that had already started decomposing after being buried in the ground where I have been walking every single day.“Who doesn’t have skeletons in their closet?”“Exactly, in the closet, and not in the garden, and not real once. Oh, my God. I am losing my mind…”“Angela, please. You need to believe me. It’s not how it looks.” My husband wa...

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The Hunger of Dreams

Submitted to Contest #329

The Hunger of Dreams Angela woke from her deep sleep with a violent start, the alarm ringing in her ears, demanding her attention. This morning, she felt no desire to do so. She silenced the alarm and dragged the blanket over her head, wanting to shut out the world for just a few more minutes. The moment she closed her eyes, the images flooded back. The dream returned, the same dream that had tormented her for weeks. She opened her eyes again at once, as though light alone could chase away the images filling her mind.For weeks she had ...

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Strange, a beautiful happening in my village.

Submitted to Contest #329

Strange, but beautiful happening in my village The pesky alarm sounded, another day had begun. My arm and hand stretched out to silence the sound. I turned over to embrace my wife with a morning kiss. She was still fast asleep. I lay there for five minutes looking up at the ceiling. My first thought was that I realized I had a full day of work before me.Then images about my life collected in a series of memorable snapshots. I was the only son of the owner of the village's largest dairy farmer. I had lived in the village all my life, apart fr...

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Beyond God's

Submitted to Contest #329

My name is Dragotour, and I am the oldest son of King Dreamcast. I know that you might think I would be happy to be born into such a fulfilling lifestyle, but in reality, it's miserable. Dreamcast appears to be this loving father who loves me and cares for me, but in private, he stabs me in the back with literal spears. Allow me to repeat myself: literal spears, aimed at his own son. All morning and all night, it's just endless pain, but I endure it to protect my little brother, Maximus. I know—I know it sounds cheesy and like every anime, m...

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THE WEED MADE ME PARANOID BUT I WAS RIGHT

Submitted to Contest #329

The clock strikes midnight with the sound of a ledger snapping shut, and Peter clocks in for another shift at the Hopetown Gas & Go, where the fluorescent lights hum a frequency that vibrates at the exact pitch of his guilt and the parking lot stretches into darkness, a ninth circle of suburban hell waiting beyond the glass, and he's been doing this for eight months now, ever since his mother got sick and he made the decision that would define everything that came after, the decision he tells himself was about medical bills but knows, in...

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Night Shift at the Cemetery

Submitted to Contest #329

Jim stood up, brushing the leaves and dirt from his blue twill pants, and wiped a smudge from his cheek. The night smelled like rain and pine, the kind of damp, earthy cold that seeped into the bones. Fog clung low to the ground like some lazy old hound that refused to get up. Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out his silver watch. He didn’t need the glow; he knew the weight of 3:00 a.m. by instinct alone, but old habits die hard, or in his case, didn’t die at all.Another shift had begun.He set off down the gravel path, boots crunching ...

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Fit For War, Not For Peace

Submitted to Contest #329

Artillery shells fly overhead as Quentin Lake and Tress Miller huddle together in their trench. Sergeant Marshon Mane, the longest serving of the trio in the war against the Centerack army, has become so used to being bombarded that he’s fast asleep. The capitalistic Bon Ivar’s have been at war with the agrarian Centeracks for three years and are on the verge of overrunning their resourceful but underarmed enemy. Balancing himself on a board above the trench’s muddy bottom, Quentin puts a small piece of cheese on the end of a bayonet. Separa...

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The Wereman

Submitted to Contest #329

Working late had become the rule for me lately, more so than the exception. I didn’t want to think about what made poring over files into the wee hours of the morning more appealing than being at home, so instead I poured two more fingers of bourbon into my glass and took another sip. The night felt darker this time of year, and when the streetlight outside of my office flickered off, robbing me of the free illumination I counted on to keep as much cash in my pocket as I could, I grunted a mild huff of discontent. I leaned over to switch on ...

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Grave thoughts

Submitted to Contest #329

Grave ThoughtsA Short Story by Cliff Hope Talk about digging up the past, this is what I am doing. Spade in hand. Graveyard and pile of soil.All my life, I've been wary of graveyards. I suppose it began when they buried my Nana. I'm not sure what age I was, but I was at her funeral. Everyone stood around in black clothes, gazing into the hole where the coffin was being lowered. Rain was dropping on the men's bare heads when the vicar moved too near to the edge of the grave as he said the blessing. His foot slipped, and he and the coffin drop...

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Forbidden

Submitted to Contest #329

Immortality is a gift, but a curse also. I have watched civilizations rise and fall, seen empires rise from sand and return to it, witnessed kings born, dethroned, and forgotten. I have survived wars, both human and supernatural, that carved scars across time itself. Yet after centuries, one law has remained unbreakable.No supernatural shall ever love a human.Not because I am tempted. Not because I am weak. But because the law is absolute. It is the boundary that prevents our world from collapsing into chaos.Aliens, werewolves, vampires, fae...

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East, West, Home’s Best

Submitted to Contest #329

CW: Death/Graphic Injuries/Thanatophobia Paul Prewett was dead. He knew he was destined for a bit of a shake up at least when that car had crept sluggishly out the junction in front of him, but I suppose when all is said and done, he never quite expected this. When he’d slipped out of the other side of the thing, he was shocked to say the least. The fact he’d tipped his hat to the crossmember and emerged without so much as a burn or scratch seemed quite unbelievable. Which it was.Upon standing, Paul could immediately sense a shift in his su...

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Act 2/6 of Chapter 1 - Wings of Justice, The Seraphim's Cracks

Submitted to Contest #329

Rain pounded hard against the windows of Kavendish Enterprises, the weather echoing the feeling of a man inside the building. Julian Kavendish sat at his desk in his office, his head in his hands, tears streaming down his face. Four years, four years, he has been searching for the woman he once loved strongly enough that it scared him, and every time he felt the slightest bit of hope renewed about her whereabouts, it vanished like a ghost. The Pătrunsa Monastery was his last lead before everything went dark in his search, and when he got the...

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The Haunting Of Rose Cottage

Submitted to Contest #329

Lionel paced the hallway, as he had been for the past half hour, muttering and glaring at the walls as though he could shame them into behaving. Where is that blasted knocking coming from? It had started again about midnight , a steady, maddening tap-tap-tap, as if someone were politely but insistently rapping from inside the plaster. He had checked all the doors. All the windows. The cupboards, the airing closet, even the old laundry chute Hazel had always said was “haunted in a charming, historical way.” But nothing. Just the same narrow,...

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She Walks at Night

Submitted to Contest #329

CW: Emotional abuse, sexually suggestive content I can see the stranger watching me from across the pub and I allow a small smile to stretch across my lips which he returns with a much lazier, drunker version. Sitting up a little straighter, I reach out one hand and delicately beckon him over to the corner where I sit. He stands, unsteadily, and begins to push his way through the crowd. I glance at the mirror on the wall next to me to check my lipstick. My reflection, as always, is that of a beautiful woman. Long deep-brown hair with slight ...

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Blindspot

Submitted to Contest #329

CW: Suicide or self harm, Mental health If only someone had told me that my life would change forever on the 14th of August 1989, I would have told my mother what I found in Alan’s car. * * * I woke up to the sound of tires screeching along a brittle, wet road and the distinct screams of a young boy. A familiar sound I had grown accustomed to with my repeated nightmares. I have been seeing them for quite a while now. On the worst of those nights I would see myself being dragged along a stretcher with a dark red stream of blood flowing from t...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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