Psychological Thriller Short Stories

Everyday I watch Johnny walk home from the bus stop, and everyday I watch him be tortured...it stops today.

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.

Meet Jeff Case before his world explodes. Former soldier. Defender of the innocent. Case may have left a war zone, but he soon discovers that the streets of America are just as dangerous. It was kill or be killed in combat, but Case is ready to turn his back on his military career and start a new life with his wife, Becky. During a final interview for his first civilian job, Case steps in to help a woman in danger. It is the catalyst that kick-starts the day from hell. A day that Case and Becky may not survive.

When Ama’s straitlaced boyfriend, Nathan, invites her to his secluded upstate New York cabin for the weekend, she can’t say no. It’s a chance for them to escape the city’s distractions, share intimate secrets, and take their relationship to a deeper level. By day, it feels like the perfect love story. But when Ama is awakened by strange events, she starts to wonder if she really wants to know everything about Nathan.

Susie has a humdrum life working in an airport coffee shop, but it doesn’t stop her from having big dreams. When the planes are grounded, life changes for her after she accepts a new job and a deal that puts her face to face with a serial killer. Who killed Shawn Davis? That’s the question Susie has to answer if she wants a better paycheck.

Scott Snyder’s protagonists inhabit a playfully deranged fictional world in which a Wall Street trader can find himself armed with a speargun, guarding a Dumpster outside a pawnshop in Florida; or an employee at Niagara Falls (his job: watching for jumpers) will take off in a car after a blimp in which his girlfriend has escaped. But in Snyder’s wondrous imagination there’s a thin membrane between the whimsical and the disturbing....

Enter the journalistic narrative of a traumatic childhood, told in the form of short stories. Listen to Memoirs of My Little Girl: A Collection of Short Stories: Part Two and experience the compelling world of part two in the series.

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.

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.

Diverse, dark-humored, and deliciously bite-sized, you'll love this compelling collection of 16 psychological suspense short stories. If you're a fan of Roald Dahl or Gillian Flynn, you'll love these unsettling stories with a twist in the tale. Are you ready to stay up all night with USA Today best-selling author JT Lawrence?

When Captain Kellen Adams receives a job offer that sounds too good to be true, she finds herself balanced between fascination and fear. All she has to do is break a code and find a long-lost fortune...or die trying. New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd kicks off her Cape Charade suspense series with Hard to Kill, a short story of treasure, treachery...and murder.

Edgar Allan Poe proposed that “the boundary line between instinct and reason is of a very shadowy nature” (1840). With its 21 stories of serial killers and sociopaths, fixations and fetishes, breakdowns and bad decisions crafted by authors as diverse as their writing styles, Shadowy Natures leads fans of psychological horror down dark and treacherous roads to destinations they will be too unsettled to leave.

While renovating her Victorian home, Ana Clementine finds an ornate door buried under forty years of earth. Once she restores it to the attic, she starts hearing whispers, her loving husband has become a stranger, and her baby daughter learns a chilling new word. Maybe Ana has unlocked the house’s secrets. Or maybe she’s becoming just a little unhinged herself.

Bad things have been happening since Mia began to mature. Her dad left. Boys at school can’t keep their hands to themselves. A lecherous stepfather has moved in. Her only refuge is an abandoned lot on her suburban cul-de-sac, crawling with feral felines - one of which follows Mia home. Ghostly white and affectionate, she is Mia’s new companion and - as Mia’s tormenters will soon discover - her fierce protector.

After years of traditional treatments and therapies, Derrick still suffers from pain ineluctable enough that it has become his identity. Then he hears of an exclusive, very private New York clinic that promises relief. It comes highly recommended by a friend. The multisession remedy unfolds as a sensorial wonder that’s so illuminating it’s enough to bring tears to Derrick’s eyes. It’s all working so well. So unexpectedly well.

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.

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.

An amphibious aircraft crashes in Maine, a young girl skinny-dips with her elders, a distraught cruise ship dancer boards a water taxi in Grenada, and travelers to Dubai and Abu Dhabi long for familiar oceans; back in New England, small-town artists try to smudge out their tedium with seaside transgressions. Amphibians celebrates home in a cross-cultural way, and the sensation of feeling not quite right in one's own skin, on land and near water, at home and abroad.

Join Rosalind Vale as she uncovers the terrifying truth behind her newfound sight, a journey that will shatter your perception of reality. With every chilling moment, you'll feel the icy grip of dread as shadows twist and whisper, lurking just outside your vision. This isn’t mere fiction; it’s a haunting experience that’ll make you question every flicker in the dark! As the tension escalates, prepare for shocking revelations that will thrill and terrify you, pushing the boundaries of your imagination.

Join James Ward Kirk for a guided tour through a nightmare exhibition of misanthropy, murder, and mayhem. Dreams for some, nightmares for others, these stories explore an impressive variety of thematic territory and make the perfect accompaniment for your next involuntary commitment.