Psychological Thriller Short Stories

Welcome to future-shock. Hold on tight and buckle yourselves in, because the future is on a relentless onslaught, for better or worse. This is a collection of the short speculative fiction of Gabriel Walker Land. Most stories are flash fiction, meaning less than 1000 words. Each contains a story of mystery, action, romance, and suspense.

Tammy Partridge and her boyfriend, Kevin, are on a photo-ready road trip across America in pursuit of influencer fame. Only a couple hundred followers so far, including Roxanne, a superfan of the beautiful young couple. But when Tammy’s body is discovered in the Utah wilderness, and Kevin is nowhere to be found, the picture-perfect adventure suddenly goes wrong—and viral, with three million followers and counting. Motives are questionable. Conspiracy theories cloud the dark corners of the internet. As everyone spins their own version of the truth, reality is getting harder to see.

"Searingly honest, brilliant and disturbing. Brad Phillips peels back the skin and bone and stares right into the human soul." (Anthony Bourdain) Brad Phillips' collection of short stories adeptly walks a very thin line between taboo and propriety, with rigorous self-awareness and generosity. By confusing ideas around fiction and autobiography, Phillips writes with painful sincerity about shame, addiction, trauma, and the more troubling outreaches of sexual desire, with wit that is at odds with the subject matter. Brad Phillips is a well-known Canadian artist.

In the idyllic backdrop of Ballycross, County Cork, Seren once reveled in the bliss of marriage to Frenchman André while managing their quaint wine shop. A perfect world, it seemed, until an unforeseen tragedy shattered everything. Determined not to be a mere pawn in the game of fate, Seren takes charge of her destiny. In this journey, she discovers the stark difference between fate and faith—realizing that control is a powerful force. The revelation of an enigmatic email destined for her husband propels Seren into a harrowing mystery. Abandoning the comforts of Ballycross, she ventures ...

The book opens with a woman, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, seated in front of the window in an apartment she cannot, on her own, afford. In this exquisitely tense narrative reimagining of Edward Hopper's Eleven A.M., 1926, the reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes, amorously, murderously, to her door.

At the Tan Yards, Victor Prizeman bends everyone to his will. Then he surprises them by saying his forefathers worked there as tanners. Next the narrator tells a tale about the Prizeman clan, and how their patriarch met his end. And back in the present, history appears to be repeating itself when Victor demands that he light the annual Halloween bonfire. The Tan Yards is a story that will delight fans of horror, as well as those with a special place in their hearts for Halloween. Now with a Five Star editorial review from Readers' Favorite

In the idyllic yet deceptive beauty of Cannes on the French Riviera, Sophia's world shatters when she is thrown out of a car and left with no memory of who she is or how she got there. Lost and vulnerable, she must navigate a landscape filled with strangers, danger, and fragments of a life she can't remember. As Sophia pieces together her identity, her father embarks on a desperate search to find her. His journey is fraught with obstacles and heartache, each step revealing more about the daughter he thought he knew and the dangerous world she has fallen into. As he follows her trail, the ...

Charlotte had spent her entire life in the historic town of Riverside. Since her childhood, she had been captivated by an old, mysterious house located in the heart of town, right by the banks of the Coosa River. Determined to make her dream a reality, she purchased the creepiest house in town with plans to restore it for herself. However, she was unaware that the home of her dreams would soon transform into the source of her nightmares. She decides to host a costume ball to welcome her friends to her newly renovated home when the past literally comes back to haunt them.

Between life and death lies obsession. Some nurses hold more than just medicine in their hands. Jillian walks the sterile corridors of the ER with a secret in her scrubs pocket—a laminated photograph of Jason, her first love, forever frozen at twenty-two. Perfect. Unchanging. And buried somewhere on the property at 1001 Magnolia. Through three failed marriages and a nursing career where the chaos of trauma medicine helps mask her own internal turmoil, Jillian wields the subtle power that comes with deciding who receives care, and how quickly. Every relationship is measured against the ...

An isolated castle. A young girl in a turret room. A ghostly figure that pursues her at night. Anna spends her days, and some nights, wandering the shadowy halls and winding staircases of her mother’s sprawling castle estate, The Manor. Peeking out of the huge windows, peering up at its resplendent ceilings, and looking out across the sprawling natural landscape as the sun sets over the heavily wooded forest outside, Anna feels overwhelmingly intrigued, and undeniably trapped. Sometimes, she hears eerie noises coming from the attic above, and the crypt underground, both of which she has ...

Clea McAllister returns to the Newport haven of her childhood, a gilded mansion by the sea once owned by her beloved grandmother. Now she is a paying guest at her own ancestral home, and Clea’s vacation hides a darker intention: to confront the estate lawyer who stole her rightful inheritance. But wicked games are still being played at Belle Mer, and Clea uncovers more than she ever intended.

Where the Shadows Feed: Volume II Short Tales of Horror Prepare to unravel the terrifying secrets that defy the boundaries between control and chaos. In this spine-chilling second volume, Joe Ippolito masterfully explores the thin line between human ambition and supernatural retribution, where every carefully constructed world can unravel in an instant. Venture into realms where reality bends and primal forces beyond comprehension lurk just beneath the surface. From a landscape architect's meticulously crafted garden that transforms into a living nightmare of ancient, malevolent spirits to ...

Two hitmen in a depressed rust belt town struggle with a job gone wrong. A girl witnesses a horrifying accident and carries it with her for the rest of her life. Medical students bring a severed foot to a college party. Five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates has made a career of exploring the forbidden corners of human experience, and the stories collected here, spanning her first three decades as a writer, are among her most unsettling and unforgettable works to date.

Twisted Tales returns with a second volume of psychological mayhem and disturbing supernatural encounters. If you're into screaming trains, vengeful clowns, the terror of online dating, remorseful ghouls, pandemic-spreading ghosts, murderous mansions, and seriously sick restaurants, then these Twisted Tales are the short stories begging to be read.

In the title story, a young boy becomes obsessed with his cousin's doll after she tragically passes away from leukemia. As he grows older, he begins to collect "found dolls" from the surrounding neighborhoods and stores his treasures in the abandoned carriage house on his family's estate. But just what kind of dolls are they?In The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror, Joyce Carol Oates evokes the “fascination of the abomination” that is at the core of the most profound, the most unsettling, and the most memorable of dark mystery fiction.

Are you ready to get locked away in a maximum security mental hospital? Go inside the mind of a criminal, along with an innocent man. There will be violence, injections, psychosis, and murder.

Otra vez habían llegado las mismas estaciones mortuorias y aburridas de cada año al pueblo de Tulluc (Francia) de 1800. Todos se perdían en sus interminables rutinas mediocres, los mismos días, los mismos rostros, los mismos excesos sodomitas, toda una copia de la copia del pasado. Para el viejo Turett que había vivido en ese pueblo por 55 años, aquello era pan de cada día, pero no para su hermosa hija Minerve de 16 primaveras, que añoraba viajar a todas las ciudades de Francia, para conocer el amor.

A novella with the quirkiness of Japanese mysteries and lingering suspense that grows with every page. They barely know each other, but their lives are about to entangle in unexpected ways. Paul, Krishna, Gloria, and Varsha have nothing in common. Only that they have time on their hands to take Spanish language classes and are free for an hour after it to hang around in a café. Over the course of three months, the four grow close to each other, sharing the joys and tribulations of their lives. Paul is lonely after his wife’s death and wanders about the city, collecting plants. Krishna is...

Blood-churning, mind-bending, and an intense thriller at its core! This collection of suspenseful short stories will satisfy your deepest craving for fear. Trapped in a concrete labyrinth! Stalked by a malevolent book character! A dark, eerie basement, possessing the very essence of malice! An ambitious reporter whose questions lead to an unbelievable fate! Hunted and preyed upon by an unstoppable demonic foe! Waking in an infinite underground tunnel, a nightmare that never ends! This is just a snapshot of the horrors that are about to unfold.

It’s a day like any other for Eloise Montgomery - until tragedy strikes. While she is recovering from a horrible accident that takes the lives of her husband and oldest daughter, and as she works to help her younger daughter move forward, Eloise experiences her first psychic vision. Though she struggles to understand her newfound gifts, Eloise finds a way use them to save lost women and girls - for whom her help may be the only way out...