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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.

150+ 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 4 of 10

Playing House

Weekly Contest #350

Once. Twice. I blinked back against the warm sunlight spilling from my open bedroom window. Then, in a lazy yawn, stretched my arms against the bubblegum headboard. "You're finally awake..." A low voice mused. Stunned into a strangled scream, I snapped forward instantly. As the comforter dropped to the floor with a cartoonish plop, my satin pink pajamas were left on full display. And, at the foot of the bed, neat and polished, stood the man with the spine-chilling smile. His posture was relaxed, a tall frame adorned in bright clothes and ...

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Spider Lily

Weekly Contest #350

A small smile touched Vivienne’s lips as she thumbed through the knickknacks on the glass counter. Her thoughts drifted to the coming week. Spring break. No lesson plans. No grading. She sighed, a hint of relief in it. No lectures for a week. I finally get to spend time with Leon. This’ll be the first vacation we’ve taken together since he proposed. A soft chuckle slipped out as she shrugged. Bonus, Tim and Carly get to come along. Man… it’s been, what, five years since all four of us hung out like that? She stiffened. The hairs on the back ...

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by any other name

Weekly Contest #350

“SHAPESHIFTER ON BOARD!” I screech, climbing down from the crow’s nest. “MONSTER! MONSTER ON BOARD!” It’s the dead of night aboard the Roger’s Revenge. The crew begins scrambling around, lighting lanterns and revealing women in nightclothes. “What’re you going on about, Penelope?” “Monster?! Where?!” “I need my beauty sleep, dammit.” A murmuring crowd begins to gather on deck after all thirty women fully wake up and muster. First Mate Tillie pushes her way into the front, her short black hair sticking up wildly. She has a hand on the h...

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Jonas

Weekly Contest #350

Jonas had never really thought of himself as a man who believed in the paranormal. Superstition and other such nonsense was for the weak minded and those he deemed inferior. However, what Jonas did not know was that he was on a collision course with a series of events that would have him come face to face with the very foundation of his beliefs, and shake the core of his own "superiority." It all started around 1 AM. Jonas was, of course, sleeping soundly in his bed, which, apart from him, was empty. The same was true for the rest of the h...

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Chocolate and Nietzsche at the end of the world

Shortlisted for Contest #349 ⭐️

The following is the re-telling of history as only the witnesses can tell it. Humans became putrid in these lands and died in droves. Doctors failed to diagnose the peculiar disease and died within days of contact with a sick individual. Some were spared, though without reason. The sick contracted what survivors call “the bleeding disease.”Individuals developed pustules around the body which would burst and bleed without clotting – they died from losing blood. Animals fled and aggregated the farthest from the contaminated creatures. Some ha...

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The Far Wall

Weekly Contest #349

Today is April 31.I know that’s not a real date. I know how calendars work. I probably know more about orbital physics than anyone here, which is four people and a cat, so that’s not saying much. But I know.I’m writing it anyway. The GPS reads 29.76, -95.36. If you’d shown me those coordinates a year ago I’d have told you that’s Houston, Texas. It’s still Houston. Just not the version I remember.My father kept a field journal for thirty-one years. Green canvas cover, spiral bound, the kind you can get at any farm supply store. Weather, soil ...

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Safe Room

Weekly Contest #349

Safe RoomFriday April 13, EveningSomething weird happened this morning. I awoke to my parents' panicked shouts of "Our TV's broken. The stove's not working." Still half-asleep, I stretched my hand towards my nightstand. Feeling for my phone, I pressed the home button, and waited for the familiar female voice to announce the time. "Seven A.M." She said. Next, I turned on my radio, nothing happened.Very confused, and still in my pajamas, I hurried to the living room. "What's going on?" I yawned. I could hear Mom in the kitchen, messing with th...

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One Man and the World

Weekly Contest #349

In a peaceful world known as Farhome, a lone human man sits at his table alone with his thoughts. Named James Rune, he had been sitting in his house for a few hours now. He had wished that things were easier for him, but they weren’t, and he now had to think about a choice that would not only have consequential effects for not only him but the world around him. As a man of almost fifty, he had lived in Farhome is whole life and now had to consider what will happen in the next few hours. James stood up to walk around his garden...

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The Mission

Weekly Contest #349

CW: Violence, religious extremism “I wasn’t sure I would have another chance to write in this journal. The last image I can recall is the outline of what I hoped was an outpost. Before the cold sapped what little was left of my strength, I made my best effort to head toward it. I know I didn’t walk inside because I recall the cold impact of the snow just before blacking out. I must have been close enough to be spotted by a sentry because I woke up in a warm dark room. After thoroughly confirming I was not infected, the people here have been ...

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Letters to Earth

Weekly Contest #349

[TRIGGER WARNINGS: Physical violence, gore, or abuse, suicide or self harm] My father used to write letters. He said they were “to Earth”, though at the time the concept was as abstract to me as death. A thing I was only beginning to learn about. His letters and death were somehow intertwined, yet I never understood their contents, even when he would murmur them under his breath. He never allowed me to read them, not even after I had mastered the alphabet perfectly. Nor to listen in. So I don’t know what he wrote. I’m sorry. I feel like I s...

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He lived

Weekly Contest #349

The world didn’t end loud enough for anyone to understand it was over.No sirens. No final warning. No desperate voice on a radio telling people where to go.Just silence.Deep under the prison, Walker felt it before he understood it. The hum in the walls—the constant electric pulse that meant control, order, surveillance—died.Then the locks opened.One by one.Metal clicking down the corridor like something counting backward.Walker didn’t move right away. He sat on the edge of his bunk, listening.Men shouted in distant tiers. Steel slammed. Foot...

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The Weight of the Wall

Weekly Contest #349

The heavy-lift passenger drone touched down at the old International Airport, its rotors screaming against the humid Jakartan air. Mark looked at the smoking horizon where his towers were tilting into the mud.The landing was a violent reminder of the indifference of natural forces, as if one was needed. “Gravity, my Arch Nemesis,” Mark used to quip when dropping a pen or spilling red wine. Now those words would have carried too much weight.The airport had become a tent village. It exuded safety as much as a rogue space station orbiting a war...

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In The Shadows Deep Within

Weekly Contest #349

Thump Thump, I felt my heart beat quicker and quicker as the pain shot through my whole body. What has this human done to me? Why does my body feel different? Wait, my hands, where are my hands?! These aren't my hands, these are someone else’s hands. (Claws instead of smooth flesh peered on the creatures arms as the life in them was taken away. The creature stood there looking at the mirror placed in the room. Her body was torn apart and built back up again. Scars stretched from her face down to her legs where cuts had once been. Her legs we...

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April 31st?

Weekly Contest #349

"Today is April 31st," the nurse replied."That doesn’t make any sense," I said.The nurse, skimming my chart, looked up. “You’ve been out a while’.""How long," I replied."About Three years," the nurse said. "Do you remember what happened to you?""No, not at all. That still doesn’t explain the April 31st nonsense.""Oh, yea, our overlord," she scowled. "He decided it was easier to remember if every month was 31 days long, so he changed the calendars.""Who is President?""Chandler.""Oh, that hurts," I moaned. The steady beep of electronics in act...

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The Monument

Weekly Contest #349

Today is April 31. The year, according to the data left by the old gods, is 2110. Spring, yes that is what they called it I believe. It is, as described by the Access, that time when the earth’s rotation tilts this northern hemisphere ever closer to the sun’s face, and the days lengthen. Flowers arrive, the tulip and the daffodil, those waxy leaves creeping from the soil like verdant fingers. Above, the budding stems of the maple trees wave in the breeze like wispy dancing tendrils, as they beckon the emergence of life once more. Above, the ...

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RBE | Illustrated Short Stories | 2024-06

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