-The best stories on the web-
Read or link to over 1000 stories listed under Stories to the left.
Submit your short stories for review as a Word document attached to an email to: Read@Short-Story.Me

Latest Stories

July 08, 2025
General Stories Michael Barlett

Dance Of Death

CHAPTER ONE 1940 Chief Inspector Kenneth Langford offered the Commissioner a crisp salute, and then walked back through the labyrinth of passageways to his own small office. Langford was a member of the London Metropolitan Police, commonly referred to as…
July 08, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Winter Blues

the winter blues has a grip on me, all so tight Its icy tentacles wrap around me and squeezes freezing my fingers and toes with its nasty frostbite staving off the cold is a battle, an endless fight it brings forth an assortment of nasty diseases The winter…
July 08, 2025
Horror Stories Sushma R Doshi

Deliverer Of Messages

A loner in my childhood, my scrawny and weak figure prone to being bullied by sturdy and robust boys, I tended to wander around places frequented by few. Those curvy roads which fell into darkness after evening without street lights, the area near the pond…
July 08, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

With A Side-Eye I Cherish

for Brittany ma amour Up to my neck in sadness for something just out of reach and she came along and fired up my life with kisses and the physical. The moment I looked into her eyes I didn't want to share her with anyone else and keep her all to myself. In…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Days Of Future Dreams

the days of future dreams the flames once rose high thinking our lives would end up supreme thinking our future seemed a far of dream but in the end nothing is what it seems many times the winds of changed has blown this way one minute we`re lapping the cream…
July 03, 2025
General Stories L Christopher Hennessy

Bad Girl

Part 1I lost the entire manuscript when I assassinated my laptop with sauvignon blanc as I rubbed the lower back of a woman who dozed drunk on my bed, sweating. She was crazed, somewhere between screaming and lying about the orgasm. Bree was a miracle to me,…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Nelly Shulman

Black Is Our Colour

“I swear she could have been you. Look! This girl is your long-lost twin.” Fi nudged me, and I smiled. “Never had or wanted one.” I stood up. “Let’s go, or the bargain hunters will clear the shelves before us.” We dived into the vintage emporium across the…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

The Transformation

"I need a brake" words that twisted my heart- shattering the dream that we would never part. I asked myself 'what ever did I do wrong? sad, gloominess could`ve easily been my song. I wouldn't let the anger and misery grow or cultivate- uprising feelings I…
July 03, 2025
Flash Fiction Benoit

Jae

It was Jae’s birthday today. She turned eight. What a beautiful sunny girl! Hyo planned a surprise or two; Li, his wife, did too. Birthday cake, a puppy and … Don’t forget, they grinned just before he drove off. Traffic was intense. A long call came from…
July 03, 2025
General Stories Matias Travieso-Diaz

Fear

Leandro stood outside the Kroger, leaning forward as he shivered in the early March dawn. He hated this moment: the cold, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness, the anticipation of another day ahead at his degrading job picking collard leaves under the…
July 03, 2025
Horror Stories Mihko Askiweno

Found You

Panic gripped her as she staggered up the steep, rocky incline, breath coming in jagged, shallow gasps. Sweat streamed down her face in torrents, her hair clinging to her forehead and cheeks in disheveled clumps. Her legs trembled with exhaustion, molten fire…
July 03, 2025
Poetry Markus J

Lost On The Path

But alas; sometimes I think we've lost our way- too many strayed opinions...one too many a survey. Walking on the road ahead, just following the herd of sheep- with a hypnotised mind, wide awake yet very fast asleep. While yelling...join the team of the…

The thick mist cleared, and a small settlement emerged from the darkness.The three men and single woman tried their best to walk quietly, relying on the not-so-visible moon to provide illumination.

A branch crackled, and all of them froze for a minute, then they continued to creep up to what they could evidently see was just three tents.

They were nailed to the ground by large wooden shrapnel, and their green color matched the color of the surrounding brush.

“What are we going to do?” The woman whispered.

The man leading the line, however, motioned with his index finger to his lips, and then he continued creeping forward to the tents, leaving his colleagues to watch.

He slowly leaned over the first tent, pushing back the drapes and repeating the process with the other three tents.

“There’s nobody here,” he said loudly, breathing a sigh of relief and dropping to his knees.

“I’m glad the place is abandoned,” said one of the other men, moving forward towards his colleague.

“Let me take a leak,” said the third man, instantly disappearing into the surrounding brush.

“We can’t just stay here, Harris,” said the woman, approaching the man who was leading the line. “Don’t you think so, Vince?”

Both men shrugged almost simultaneously as though the thought had not crossed their minds.

Then Harris said. “We need to rest, at least.”

“Until we’re out of this territory, I don’t think it’s safe,” said the woman.

“Well Rachel,” chipped in Vince, “we’re really far from the prison and all those guards. It will take them at least twenty-four hours to get here. All we need is a couple of hours rest.”

“I understand your concerns, Rachel,” said Harris, “Let’s just rest for a few hours, put something in our stomachs and then be on our way.”

Rachel raised her hands in the air, exasperated and set off into the darkness, muttering something to herself.

Harris had intended to search for some wood and set up a fire, but he was too exhausted to get up on his feet. The same seemed to be the case for Harris.

Both men had spent very little time thinking about their fortune in finding an abandoned camp, but any notion of relaxation as immediately jarred from their exhausted thoughts when a loud scream brought them to their feet.

“What was that?” Vince asked. His eyes were wider than saucers.

They heard the scream again, coming through the darkness from the shrubs right in front of them. Without hesitation, they set off towards what was inevitably Rachel’s screams.

When they got to her, she was kneeling down on the dusty ground, her face buried in her hands. Despite the poor visibility, both Vince and Harris could see that she was sobbing uncontrollably.

“What’s the matter?” Harris leaned down towards her, clutching her shoulder. “Are you okay, Rachel?”

He turned to look at Vince, but he noticed that he had a frightened look on his face. He as staring dead ahead.

Harris turned his focus to what was in front of them, and he noticed for the first time that their other colleague had been strung up a bush of thorns by his neck and limbs. His head hang twistedly on the side of his head, and thorns had been pierced into his face to give it a strange, ghoulish grin.

Blood was dripping slowly and steadily from his mouth, and the horrifying expression on his face was like a coded message from the underworld.

“I told you we need to get out of here,” Rachel was crying.

When Harris turned to ask Vince what they should do, he was surprised to see nothing but darkness in the spot that Vince once stood only a few seconds ago.

“Vince, Vince?” Harris got to his feet, baffled.

He looked around the shrub, but Vince seemed to have just disappeared.

“We need to get out of here,” Harris said, turning around and grabbing Rachel’s hand. “Let’s go.”

Rachel jerked her hand away from Harris’ grip.

“I’m not leaving Danny here alone,” she said.

“He’s dead,” Harris said slowly, almost a whisper.

Rachel did not seem like she was going to budge, and so Harris decided to make a run for it on his own.

He had been carrying a small pack that he had left by the tents, he ran towards them and stumbled on the rocky terrain. He looked on the spot where he had been lying on the ground moments ago, but he could not see anything.

When he turned around, he was surprised to see his two colleagues right behind him.

“Rachel, Vince.”

Both of them were holding blunt daggers in their hands, and their faces had ghostly expressions.

“What is the meaning of this?” Harris asked.

“Vince told me everything about you when we escaped,” said Rachel, sneering and slowly ambling towards Harris.

“Told you what?” Harris asked, cautiously taking a step backwards. Fear was splashed on his face. His eyes moved frantically between the two.

“Why would you stage all of this?” Rachel asked, taking another menacing step forward. “I should have known?”

Seat was now breaking on Harris’ face. “Can you please tell me what you’re trying to say? Vince?”

Vince seemed to have a dark and satisfied smile on his face. He was just behind Rachel, and she did not get to see the cold expression that he as returning to Harris.

“You’re trying to kill us,” said Rachel, “why didn’t you just kill us off at the camp? Why bring us out here, this far?”

“I-I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about, Rachel,” said Harris.

“You’re a prison warden are you not?” Asked Rachel, “A German?”

“What?” Harris could not contain his surprise.

“You’ve come with us all this way just to kill us?” Rachel asked.

As Harris attempted to answer, there suddenly was a loud bang and Harris face as instantly splattered with lots of blood.

“You Jews thinking that you can escape,” Vince said in a calm voice, “only death awaits you.”

Up in the sky, the full moon finally started to emerge from the dense clouds.

 

 

 

The End

 

 

 

 

Dennis is a passionate writer who has been writing since his school days, his main aim to scare his readers and get them to have a sense of perspective of things they do not know about. Visit Amazon and check out his novel, Antarctica Conspiracy.

0
0
0
s2sdefault

Donate a little?

Use PayPal to support our efforts:

Amount

Genre Poll

Your Favorite Genre?

Sign Up for info from Short-Story.Me!

Stories Tips And Advice