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

New
Motivational
A Mustard Button Against the Antarctic Flight Deadline
- 5 min read
- Ages 8–12
With twelve days before cargo departure, a struggling inventor’s wife opens his mother’s button tin.
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Horror
The Deaf Dog Bit Through the Radio Cord
- 6 min read
- Audio
Snowbound passengers hear their dead calling, but an old dog recognizes something worse than grief.
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Kids
Oscar Taps a Melon While His Pebble Waits
- 3 min read
- Read aloud
- Ages 6–9
With a pebble in his pocket, Oscar must choose a melon sweet enough for his sister.
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Happy
Twelve Years Gone, He Returned With a Cabbage
- 4 min read
A Yukon swindler returns to his wife with a tarnished ring and something harder than promises.
New
Western
His Father Left a Broken Violin in the Snow
- 7 min read
- Audio
A soldier follows his missing father’s shattered violin toward stolen flour and a snowbound camp’s reckoning.
New
Mystery
Someone Carried Her Red Boots Down to the Sea
- 6 min read
A disgraced doctor and a cobbler question what a missing resident’s pristine boot soles reveal.
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Christian
He Could Not Taste His Father's Stolen Bread
- 5 min read
A celebrated chef loses his taste and carries an overdue apology into his sister’s kitchen.
New
Science Fiction
Three Knocks From His Late Wife’s Plum Jam
- 7 min read
An elderly fisherman’s treasured jam summons alien rescuers who mistake his tenement for a prison.

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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