Free Short Stories to Read Online

Short, complete stories you can finish in one sitting, from gentle bedtime stories to westerns, horror and mysteries. Free to read, no sign-up, new stories every day.

Latest Short Stories

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Science Fiction
The Cat in His Mailbag Refuses a Police Inspection
- 7 min read
A postman shields a talking stray from police, unaware of what sleeps beneath the circus.
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Bedtime
Pip Finds a Rabbit in His Apple Sauce
- 3 min read
- Read aloud
- Ages 5–8
A lonely hedgehog keeps a misplaced rabbit, until one snagged thread makes staying quiet harder.
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Western
A Land Thief Drinks From a Widow’s Horse Trough
- 7 min read
- Audio
A widow must trust her husband's swindler to reclaim her spring before hired guns prevail.
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Western
One Broken Violin String Against the Rio Grande
- 7 min read
- Audio
An aging fisherman must deliver three hundred sheep and honor a dying friend’s impossible promise.
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Kids
Pip Takes a Sunflower Seed on Flying Lessons
- 3 min read
- Read aloud
- Ages 5–8
A young owl’s first flying passenger keeps slipping away before they reach the garden stump.
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Detective Fiction
The Napkin Map Beneath the Kimchi Fridge
- 6 min read
A teacher follows his abducted son into a scandal his wife died exposing.
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Sad
Don Ignacio’s Umbrella Above the River Regulator
- 10 min read
A stolen umbrella shelters rivalry, invention, and dangerous floodwater on the pampas.
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Horror
The Napkin Map Beneath Nico’s Glass
- 9 min read
A vanished brother returns with a debt only Amsterdam’s dead can collect.

More new stories

Bedtime Stories Read Aloud

Press play and listen together: gentle stories for children, read aloud. Also as a podcast: Spotify Apple Podcasts Amazon Music

All bedtime stories

Western Short Stories

Outlaws, lawmen, cattle drives and dusty frontier towns.

All western stories

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