Free Short Stories

Quick reads for any moment — 100 to 1000 words

The Man at the Tree Line

Camp Wildwood had operated for thirty consecutive summers without incident, which was exactly the reputation counselor Priya Anand had been counting on when she accepted the last-minute summer position, and it was only on the fourth night, after the youngest Read more…


The Hitchhiker on Route 9

Every driver in Millbrook knew the story of the hitchhiker on Route 9, a local legend Rideshare driver Costa Reyes had heard recited at every gas station and diner since he’d moved to town, and he dismissed it entirely as Read more…


The Melody That Changed Each Night

The music box had played a simple, unremarkable lullaby for the first two weeks after Ines Farrokh inherited it from her late grandmother, until the night it began playing on its own, at exactly 3:17 in the morning, despite sitting Read more…


The Rash That Wasn’t Healing

The rash on Dr. Talia Brahm’s patient started as a small, unremarkable irritation along his forearm, and by the third day of observation, it had grown into something that defied every dermatological framework she’d learned across fifteen years of practice. Read more…


The Attendant’s Warning

The rural gas station attendant had warned them explicitly not to take the old county road after dark, and travel bloggers Priya Anand and Costa Reyes, three days into a road trip documenting forgotten American highways, dismissed the warning as Read more…


Charlie in the Walls

Four-year-old Wren Fenwick’s imaginary friend had a name, a detailed backstory, and an unsettling habit of knowing things about the Fenwick family that no four-year-old should have any way of learning, and it took her mother, Sana, considerably longer than Read more…


The Mirror That Learned to Move

The antique mirror had cost considerably less than its ornate frame should have commanded at the estate sale, and Nadia Okafor congratulated herself on the bargain for exactly one week before she noticed her reflection’s eyes lingering a moment too Read more…


Twenty Years of Service, Thomas

Father Boone Castellanos had performed exactly two exorcisms in his thirty years of priesthood, and both had ended without incident, which was precisely why nothing in his experience prepared him for the moment eleven-year-old Mia Fenwick’s voice dropped three octaves Read more…


Fourteen Confirmed

The first case arrived at Meridian General with a bite wound that shouldn’t have caused the fever it did, and Dr. Wren Castellan, running the third consecutive night shift in the emergency department, dismissed the initial oddity as an unusually Read more…


Three Weeks After the Cascades

The first change happened on the night of the full moon, three weeks after the hiking accident in the Cascades, and Boone Achterberg woke the next morning in his own bed with no memory of the previous night, his sheets Read more…