Psychological Thriller Short Stories

Driven by an uncanny mystery from his youth, Ian Randall became a “spiritual cleanser”, ridding disturbances from homes. But his belief in the beyond was challenged by his wife’s death. Merle House, the root of Ian’s obsession, could change that. The woods are restless again. Maybe here, Ian will find what he needs - if he’s willing to make a deal with the dark.

A scientist suffering from PTSD is faced with the terrible knowledge of the impending destruction of our species. In his desperate attempts to prevent humanity's fate, he commits violent acts and is branded a terrorist. How far would you go to save the planet from annihilation? Where do humans come from and how did we get here? Scientists have theorized about the human race's origins for many years. But no one was prepared for what was found in orbit, seven ancient alien probes that have been monitoring the planet for billions of years. The data and video images recorded inside them show ...

One man tells him his name is Jackson, and he is a CIA agent tasked with stopping an impending terror attack, the other tells him his name is Sa'id, and he is the man duty-bound to carry out the terror act; with his memories lost, he has to find his true identity before it's too late. "A scintillating short novella that leaves you guessing till the end." Author Allen Ashley "Fast-paced, riveting, and an ending that leaves you questioning everything. Perfect for an evening read or a plane/train journey!" Writer Elicia Jane A man wakes up in a hospital bed with no memory of who he is, but ...

That long-ago summer, four friends came face-to-face with strange, dark events they couldn’t explain away. As they grew up and left town, they each tried to forget. Instead, the secrets lingering in the shadowy corners of their minds shaped their lives, haunting each of them in their own way. Now, in this chilling four-part serial by New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger, it’s time to stop running. It’s time to come home. Featuring: All My Darkest Impulses, Fog Descending, Circling the Drain, and Love the Way You Lie.

Is it a hoax, or is it something unspeakably real? In this short story about evil games and spiraling secrets, whatever bargain you strike, there’s a price to be paid. Mason Brandt dropped out of seminary and found a job at a spiritual center offering guidance to troubled teens. Mason was one himself years ago - a suspect in a young girl’s disappearance. When a female student is found murdered, Mason is dogged by suspicion and flees. He hopes Merle House will offer him sanctuary once again.

The award-winning master of psychological suspense is in top form in this collection of diverse and diabolically clever stories. In the never-before-published “Just One More,” a married couple—longing for that old romantic spark—creates a playful diversion that comes with unexpected consequences.

It seems straightforward enough: Get a foot in the door by posing as a potential investor in a lucrative underground business—then bring the place down from the inside. There’s more here than meets the eye. What it triggers in Nameless is uncontrollable rage and brutal retribution. What it reveals is a clue to his forgotten past. Is it a breach on his handler’s part? Or a test? Either way, something’s not right.

"I know where Allison is." Former child star Jason Turner is excited about the direction his life is taking. He is about to open the business of his dreams, and his sister is now a published author. All thoughts of his dark past are at bay. Until he meets Stacy, the new doll in his daughter's life. She looks and sounds just like Allison, his other sister who turned up missing that day in the woods while they were camping so long ago. When Stacy says she has a secret to share with Jason he realizes there is something sinister behind the doll's existence. Let the nightmares begin.

Thirty-four years ago, on October 31, poor Hannah Talbott took part in a scavenger hunt gone violently wrong. The mean girls made sure of it. To this day, for a haunted local mother, the most unsettling Halloween costume of all is an urban legend they call Hannah-Beast. It’s a reminder of the past she can’t forget. Especially tonight when it’s come back, so close to home.

From literary icon Joyce Carol Oates comes a brand-new collection of haunting and, at times, darkly humorous mystery and suspense stories. These are tales of psyches pushed to their limits by the expectations of everyday life - from a woman who gets lost on her drive home to her plush suburban home and ends up breaking into a stranger's house, to a first-person account of a cloned 1940s magazine pinup girl being sold at auction and embodying America's ideals of beauty and womanhood.

Time slips. Doomsday scenarios. Killer butterflies. C. J. Tudor's novels are widely acclaimed for their dark, twisty suspense plots, but with A Sliver of Darkness, she pulls us even further into her dizzying imagination. Riveting, macabre, and explosively original, A Sliver of Darkness is C. J. Tudor at her most wicked and uninhibited.

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.

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

Matthew, Claire, Ian, and Mason haven’t set foot on the Merle family property since the summer they were sixteen. They tried for years to put their history behind them, to forget the mystery of the girl who vanished so long ago. But a powerful force from their past is still at play. This time, there’s no hiding from it.

I Died Yesterday, But I’m Still Here by G.J. Fene What happens when death doesn't stick? In this chilling anthology of near-deaths, glitches, and second chances that shouldn’t exist, people return from the brink—but not all of them come back whole. A photographer finds a stranger in every image he takes—one who was never there before. A transcriber hears her name whispered in captions that haven’t aired. A teen girl breathes underwater—only when no one is looking. And in a quiet tunnel beneath the city, a voice echoes warnings it never spoke aloud. Each story is told in raw, ...

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 ...

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.

The turning point in history came with the exposure of the government's betrayal of basic freedoms. The spy agency BIM cloaked itself behind the computers, cell phones, and postal service communication systems of World Aid organizations. Albert, a simple, honest accountant, exposed the truth behind the illusion of freedom for all the world to see. The day the world stopped being a secure place began like any normal day. Albert Bach enjoyed his job and loved the thought of providing a needed service. He viewed himself as a loyal citizen. He believed in the country's policies until he saw ...

If only I’d ignored that letter, I wouldn’t have had to have done the things I did on this dark night. But I didn’t ignore it; how could I? A hand-written letter dressed in a stamped, plain-white envelope from a stranger requesting a meeting. Her name was Andrea, and she had information that could be crucial to my well-being. So many reasons not to go. But how could I not? I wished I’d thrown that letter away.

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 ...