Psychological Thriller Short Stories

Two lucid dreamers meet in recurring dreams, fall in love, and conceive a dream baby; but the unreality of the dream world leads them to distrust each other - with nightmarish results. A paranoid exploration of two minds dreaming the same dream, and fighting to control it.

After 10 years of marriage, Mike and Emilia's relationship falls apart after Emilia admits to having an affair - an affair with a man who gave her HIV. Once Mike finds out what she's done, he will go to any length to ensure she dies a slow, painful death, just like the one he's sure his wife has sentenced him to.

Psychiatrist Dr. Renee Conway has taken on a new patient: Kevin Reynolds, the local hero who ran into a burning building to save a young family from certain death. When the rescue goes horrifically wrong, a boy is dead and Kevin suffers excruciating burns. Plagued with nightmares and left with a horribly disfigured face, Kevin finds celebrity its own torture.

When you're only five years old the world is held together by strange and mysterious things like zippers. And the greatest mystery is what ants do when they go down in the ground. Trying to follow the ants, Johnny opened the zipper that turned the world inside out.

A robbery has recently gone awry in the quaint town of Evergreen. Due to Gretchen's sadistic boyfriend, Cliff, they have taken a hostage. However, the events that unfold next will challenge their sanity.

Era otoño cuando se encontró en el interior de su habitación el cadáver de Margherita Romeo, bella joven de modales agraciados y sencillos. Las indagaciones de los investigadores se concentran uno de sus admiradores, Matteo Canali. Este, al tratar de explicar los motivos de su ajenidad al caso, acabara por enfrentarse a los aspectos más evasivos del amor, del universos entre los dos sexos, de las relaciones, de las rivalidades y de las consecuencias que el destino nos puede reservar.

This story explores the constant rivalry between intellect and sexuality. Time, as a relative dimension, is jumbled as a technique to explore this fascinating rivalry in more realistic depth. Frank's writing has been praised by readers as “engrossing,” “gritty and entertaining,” “colorful and authentic,” “fast-paced,” “intriguing,” “fun and complex,” “very hard to put down,” “smart, stylish, and fun,” and “seductive.”

Il professore universitario Tal dei Tali, corre per una strada nel cuore della notte. Sembra sia molto spaventato, ma a suo dire la fuga è dovuta al troppo coraggio, un coraggio così grande da averlo portato a trovarsi faccia a faccia con dei brutti ceffi e finire incastrato tra le maglie della giustizia. Il professore ci spiega perché nella vita non si scappa mai abbastanza. "La paura del coraggio" è un monologo che fa parte della raccolta "Dodici monologhi" di Luigi Arnaldo Vassallo.

A young man's desperate search for his biological mother leaves more questions than answers. After a solid lead takes him halfway across the country, the woman he encounters leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Pat, a Vietnam vet finished with marriage and booze, gets his dose of society sitting alone and dry at the local bar. One afternoon, watching a pre-season Red Sox game, he ends up next to a group of loudmouth writers gathered around a man in a wheelchair. The writers get under Pat's skin, and he says something lousy to the big-shot who, it turns out, is also a big-shot writer.

Thirty years hasn't changed Las Vegas - the desert just got dirtier. The biggest game in town centers on a massive, deadly roller coaster that winds its way through the Strip's most famous attractions. On the first Saturday of every month, twenty-four desperate passengers get strapped into the notorious ride and gamble with their lives in a twisted game of chance, to the thrill of webcast audiences worldwide. One of them will win, and one will die, but the other twenty-two will escape with nothing but their lives.

Gerald is his Mother's precious one, but his father doesn't share her opinion and neither do his school friends. He is both pampered and bullied until he discovers a unique telepathic skill. Aged seven, he wonders, what if everyone were a house, and what type of house would they be? These two moments eventually come together in adulthood, with frightening consequences....

Charlie Kroft’s job at the crisis center means she’s often seen as a hero: she’s helped countless people climb out of the deepest pits of personal despair. But when one phone call thrusts Charlie into the spotlight, she must contend with the hidden pain that drives her…and with the mysterious stranger who knows the truth.

In these two short thrillers, best-selling author L.J. Sellers explores how the dark side of human nature takes over in crucial, fearful moments and leads to irreversible, life-changing repercussions.

This story is told as a series of journal entries from a woman who is on forced rest as a treatment for hysteria following the birth of her child. As was common in the time, she is forbidden from any work or "strenuous" tasks and is left to sit alone most of her days without mental stimulation, trapped in a room and a marriage that are not fulfilling her. The woman's isolation and mental state cause her to believe that there is a woman stuck in the wallpaper of her room.

This is a story about one family's fight with a mentally ill mother and how as she gets further and further away from reality; how the family falls apart.

Meet Catherine and Erin. The relationship is complicated and sometimes toxic. When they invite another friend into their life, they discover that, of the three, only one of them can survive. Who will outlive the dysfunction?

The Black Spot is a short horror story that fits into the vein of classic 1980s supernatural/horror stories. A quick five-minute listen, this short scare plays on an unusual phenomenon and sleep paralysis/parasomnia.

Poison-tongued film critic Reginald Wright is known for his creative insults and intolerance for the garbage culture, insufferable rudeness, and thoughtless racism of predictably common people. Now, against his better judgment, and with a marriage in crisis, he’s attempting a getaway in the Poconos that quickly fulfills his every low expectation. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare. And that’s just what Reginald needs to wake up.

It’s the hottest winter on record, but Raymond’s demanding, bedridden mother doesn’t mind. She likes it warm. Lately, however, control over the thermostat has become a nasty struggle. And each morning that she’s still alive is a suffocating new challenge for Raymond. How high can the mercury climb before he boils over?