Classic Short Horror Stories You Can Read for Free

Margaret Oliphant. A father hears about a cry near a ruined doorway that is frightening his son. The story takes time to let several people hear or explain it in their own ways. Choose it for the care people take with a voice that seems to want something besides revenge. Find it in The Open Door, and The Portrait on Project Gutenberg.

Saki. A sickly boy whose guardian controls his life keeps a ferret hidden and makes it the center of a private religion. Try this very short story for the way a small household act after the main event can tell you more about a child’s anger than an explanation. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

Saki. A woman hears strange music on a country estate where her husband takes old stories more seriously than she does. This quick read is a good place to start for rural horror with an old god in the landscape and a dispute about how much the place owes to its newcomer. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

H. P. Lovecraft. A man whose ship was captured escapes to sea and finds himself on a stretch of ground that should have been underwater. It’s one of the shortest ways into Lovecraft’s deep-water dread. Stay with the strange new surface under the narrator’s feet. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

H. P. Lovecraft. A student hears an old musician playing in a garret and begins to wonder for whom he plays. This is a compact story, and the strange sound is as convincing a boundary as the window above the street. It’s a good choice if you would rather be left with an image than an explanation. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

H. P. Lovecraft. Someone raised in an ancient, dark place begins looking for a way out. In a short run of pages, the wish to be around other people becomes the detail that makes the discovery hurt. Give it a try if you like horror whose narrator needs readers to see slightly more than he does. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

H. P. Lovecraft. A meteorite falls near a farm and changes what grows there. Give the story a longer sitting to feel how the damage works its way through the family’s ordinary life. Here the most worrying thing about an alien presence is how hard it is to perceive it clearly. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

H. P. Lovecraft. An acquaintance describes his visit to a painter whose canvases are disturbing enough to divide the people who see them. It’s a quick story about how much you can learn by noticing where an artist works. Read it on Project Gutenberg.

H. P. Lovecraft. An inherited set of papers sends a man looking for links among a sculptor’s dreams, a police investigation, and a sailor’s account. Give the three parts more time than the shortest stories here. The fear comes from learning how far apart you can stand and still see pieces of the same thing. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

Arthur Machen. A girl’s notebook records games, stories, and outdoor discoveries she understands through a vocabulary of her own. It’s a longer, stranger choice if you want to spend time in a voice whose confidence makes her experiences harder to sort out. Read it in Short Fiction from Standard Ebooks.

Robert W. Chambers. An artist and his model notice a watchman near their building and come into possession of an object connected with a disturbing play. The tale fits one sitting and works especially well if you want ominous details to recur in an ordinary city before they begin to fit together. Read it in The King in Yellow from Project Gutenberg.

H. P. Lovecraft. Wilbur Whateley grows up unusually fast, and a farmhouse has to be altered as the family’s secrets grow. Settle in for one of the longer selections here if you like the dread to move from one household to a whole town. Read it on Project Gutenberg.

Robert W. Chambers. A man who believes himself destined for a throne points to documents, relatives, and the counsel of an odd specialist. This is a longer piece, and useful if you like having to decide whether a narrator’s extraordinary account adds up or exposes him. Find it in The King in Yellow on Project Gutenberg.

Fitz-James O’Brien. A lodger in a New York house starts a fight with a presence he can feel but cannot see. There’s enough room in this short story for the people around him to try to account for the thing before the story ends. Read it in American Short Stories from Project Gutenberg.

Amelia B. Edwards. A man becomes lost in snow and is given directions to a road where a coach might pass. It’s a compact story that makes you want the transport to arrive before it gives you any reason to fear it. Read it in The Phantom Coach and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg of Australia.