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
I Met Myself Behind the ATM
A broke bartender’s late-night trip to an ATM turns into a brutal encounter with someone who knows his face, his voice, and every bad choice he’s ever made. What begins as an impossible assault becomes a recurring punishment—one that appears only when lines are crossed and debts are ignored. As fear forces change and time dulls the wounds, the narrator believes he’s finally escaped his reckoning. But some lessons don’t end. They wait. This is a psychological horror story about guilt given a body, justice without mercy, and the terrifying moment when self-improvement gives way to something far worse.
The Subscription of Souls
Money fixes everything. That’s the lie that opens the door. Crushed by debt and desperation, he clicks a joke that shouldn’t work—and it does. Wealth floods in effortlessly, luxuriously, obscenely. Bills vanish. Fear dissolves. Life becomes a celebration. But contracts are patient things, and eternity has a way of arriving late. When the collector comes, he doesn’t take a life—he takes meaning. Pleasure fades. Identity thins. And then the truth emerges: the sale was only the beginning. His soul isn’t owned by one demon, but by many. Watched. Subscribed to. Broken into fragments and resold to strangers who crave suffering like entertainment. SoulMart is a modern psychological horror about capitalism without limits, digital damnation, and the quiet terror of discovering you were never a person—only inventory. In a marketplace that never closes, the most valuable commodity isn’t wealth. It’s you.
Matched, Then Missing
A dating app match offers the kind of attention that feels rare, effortless, and deeply reassuring—until intimacy begins to feel rehearsed and memory itself starts to fracture. Drawn into a relationship that seems to know her better than it should, a woman discovers that some connections don’t lead forward, but loop endlessly back to the same lonely beginning. This is a psychological horror story about repetition disguised as romance, the terror of being remembered too well, and the price of saying yes to someone who refuses to be alone.
The Last Match
Alone and unseen, a man turns to a dating app designed to promise permanence—and matches with someone who should no longer exist. What begins as recognition becomes communion, as messages arrive that know his loneliness too well and refuse to fade. Each reply pulls him closer to a connection that doesn’t fear distance, silence, or death itself. But some bonds aren’t meant to heal the living. They’re meant to keep them. This is a psychological horror story about grief disguised as intimacy, the danger of wanting to be remembered, and the moment loneliness answers back—already inside the room.
The Final Fitting
Fear is an artisan. Arthur thought he was telling a story, warning others of a monstrous tailor who reshapes souls with silver shears. But the lines between fiction and reality blur when the Tailor of Solace exists not in shadowy alleys, but in stark white corridors, under the fluorescent glare of a hospital. His instruments aren’t magical—they’re clinical. His work isn’t fantasy—it’s systematic. The Final Fitting is a psychological horror about the cost of compliance, the fragility of identity, and the terror of being measured, cut, and remade until nothing of you remains but the shape someone else designed.
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.
The Ones Who Lean In
You’re never more vulnerable than when you can’t move. Jonah wakes every night trapped inside his own body, lungs working, eyes open, while something stands just beyond his reach. Faces hover in the dark—familiar, smiling, patient. Doctors call it sleep paralysis. Stress. Hallucination. Jonah tries to believe them. But the faces keep coming back. They lean closer. They linger longer. And they don’t feel imagined—they feel expectant. As exhaustion erodes the boundary between waking and dreaming, Jonah begins to notice the same unease bleeding into daylight. Reflections hesitate. Conversations feel watched. The night doesn’t end when morning comes. The Ones Who Lean In is a quiet psychological horror about helplessness, exposure, and the terror of being observed by something that has no need to hurry. Some horrors don’t chase you. They wait until you’re still enough to notice them.
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.
Before I Wanted Anything
A note on the door feels thoughtful. The day unfolds smoothly. Decisions resolve themselves before becoming problems. As life grows quieter and easier, a troubling realization begins to surface—not that something is wrong, but that nothing ever is. Before I Wanted Anything is a psychological horror story about comfort, compliance, and the fear of losing desire before you notice it’s gone.
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.