100+ Short Horror Stories: Read or Listen for Free
Explore our Ultimate Collection of Spine-chilling Tales with Immersive Audio Narrations
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The Web's Best Free Horror Library
Let's be honest: finding good horror online is hard. That's why we built this archive. Whether you have five minutes to kill or want a long-form mystery to solve, we have something that will make you check the locks twice. From classic ghost stories to our new immersive audio narrations, everything here is free and terrifying.
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Midnight Snacks
Most of our tales are short horror stories designed to be read in under 10 minutes. Perfect for a quick thrill before bed.
What kind of horror do you like? If you are into the subtle stuff, check out our psychological thrillers—the kind where the monster is inside your head. If you prefer jump scares and gore, we have plenty of scary stories to read that go straight for the jugular.
We also have a soft spot for true horror stories (the ones that might actually happen to you) and those classic short horror stories with a twist that leave you staring at the ceiling. Whatever your poison, ShortHorrorStories.net is here to ruin your sleep schedule.
Top Free Stories
The Quiet One
Born a twin, raised to disappear, a quiet child learns that silence is the only way to survive his family’s love. When an inherited curse demands a sacrifice, his parents make their choice without hesitation—binding, testing, and preparing him for something they insist he is not. But houses remember, monsters listen, and blood has a way of correcting mistakes. This is a psychological horror story about inheritance, mistaken purity, and the terror of realizing the thing they feared was never the one they chained in the dark.
The Night Mode
The doorbell camera was meant to make the house feel safe. Every night, it sends the same alert. Motion detected. When the narrator checks the feed, something stands just beyond the porch light—too still, too familiar. The night vision blurs the details, but recognition hits harder than clarity ever could. As winter closes in and the alerts keep coming, reassurance turns into dread. The figure never approaches. Never leaves. It only watches, patient and knowing. The Night Mode is a psychological horror about surveillance, isolation, and the terrifying realization that some threats don’t need to break in. They already know you.
Clean the Table
A lifetime of criticism turns the simplest act—being fed—into something transactional, then cruel. When a grown son returns to the home he once ruled with his opinions, his mother offers one final meal, prepared with patience and precision. What follows is an unsettling reckoning about entitlement, control, and the quiet fury that can grow behind domestic devotion. Clean the Table is a dark psychological horror story that explores power dynamics, parental sacrifice, and the terrifying consequences of never learning when to stop demanding more.
After Midnight, Before Belief
Real News only appears when you aren’t looking for it. Hidden behind forgotten links and sleepless scrolling, the site claims to publish events that haven’t happened yet—disasters prevented, lives quietly saved. It asks only one thing in return: that you follow the rules. Read at the right hours. Come back every night. Never read certain names. At first, it feels like a game. Then the site starts responding. Lights turn on. Walls knock back. And when the foreword finally asks for help, leaving proves far more dangerous than staying. Real News is a psychological horror about forbidden knowledge, predatory information, and the terrifying idea that some stories don’t report reality—they create it.
Swipe Right for Delivery
A lonely woman lets her closest friend guide her into dating, trusting the promise that hunger—like love—can be satisfied if you’re honest about it. But some hungers aren’t metaphorical, and some friends aren’t helping you find connection—they’re teaching you what you truly are. As intimacy turns ritual and desire becomes consumption, she discovers that the app was never meant to find love. This is a psychological horror story about manipulation disguised as care, inherited appetites, and the terrifying relief of finally being honest about what feeds you.
After Dark
Some rules aren’t meant to be understood—only obeyed. The warnings were simple. Don’t whistle after dark. Don’t cut your nails at night. Don’t linger in mirrors when the sun goes down. The protagonist laughs them off as village superstition—until the night begins to answer back. At first, it’s subtle: a sound in the dark, a reflection that lingers too long. Then pieces of the body begin to rebel, growing, separating, remembering where they came from. What creeps through the house isn’t just watching—it’s reclaiming. After Dark is a supernatural psychological horror about inherited fear, ancestral knowledge, and the terror of realizing that the body can betray you long before the mind catches up. Because some traditions aren’t myths—they’re boundaries. And crossing them means something else gets to come through.
Sixteen Minutes Past Six
A mother prepares a perfect evening—dinner warming, house quiet, baby asleep—counting the minutes until her husband comes home and normal life resumes. But as routine turns unreliable and memory begins to fray, the comfort of domestic ritual curdles into something unspeakable, revealing how easily love, exhaustion, and certainty can betray each other. This is a psychological horror story about maternal devotion, fractured perception, and the unbearable moment when you realize the danger was never outside the home—it was waiting patiently inside your own mind.
Every Morning, The Same Cup
As his mother’s mind unravels and his marriage begins to fracture, Ethan starts noticing small, unsettling changes—coffee that tastes wrong, nights that don’t stay still, silences that feel deliberate. What begins as caregiving exhaustion curdles into suspicion, and suspicion hardens into something far more dangerous. When love, betrayal, and fear intersect, Ethan prepares for the worst, convinced he knows who the real threat is. This is a psychological horror story about caretaking as corrosion, the lies we accept to protect ourselves, and the quiet moment when certainty tastes metallic—and you realize too late that the poison was never meant for who you thought.
The Perfect Match Never Blinks
You think you’re on a date. She knows it’s an audit. Every smile is calculated, every kindness remembered, every flaw gently cataloged. What begins as effortless connection slowly tightens into something curated, intimate, and inescapable—where attention becomes surveillance and love is just another way to be owned. This is a psychological horror story about control disguised as affection, memory as punishment, and the terror of realizing you were never falling in love—you were being studied.
A Proper Host
A police officer comes to the door expecting answers and finds hospitality instead—gentle conversation, practiced kindness, and a home that seems eager to put him at ease. As the visit stretches on, courtesy begins to feel like confinement, and cooperation slips quietly into consent. A Proper Host is a slow-burn psychological horror about the unsettling power of politeness, the trust placed in familiar rituals, and how fear often begins the moment we stop questioning why we feel so comfortable.