John Bartine’s Watch
Ambrose BierceA physician tests a friend’s fear of an inherited watch and sees how serious it is.
10 min · Foreboding
More details
- Settings
- The home
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
The story shelf
Follow your curiosity.
A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
The readership the story was written for.
John Mortonson’s Funeral
Ambrose BierceAt a solemn funeral, the widow looks once more through the coffin glass and screams.
3 min · Unsettling
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- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Darkly comic
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Brisk
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
Moxon’s Master
Ambrose BierceAn inventor claims that machines can think, then a visitor hears a struggle inside his workshop.
17 min · Unsettling
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- Themes
- Personhood · AI ethics · Science & progress
- Settings
- Offices & workplaces
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
One Summer Night
Ambrose BierceThree grave robbers open a coffin on a stormy night and find its occupant sitting up.
3 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Death · Appearance vs reality
- Tone
- Darkly comic
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
One of Twins
Ambrose BierceIdentical twins share more than a face as one brother’s engagement turns dangerous.
12 min · Eerie
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- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
Present at a Hanging
Ambrose BierceA minister meets a silent peddler on a misty bridge, then returns to learn why the man was there.
3 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Death · Law & justice
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
Staley Fleming’s Hallucination
Ambrose BierceStaley Fleming sees a dog beside his bed every night, but it vanishes when he sits up.
4 min · Eerie
That of Granny Magone
Ambrose BierceNeighbors keeping vigil beside a dead woman in her mountain cabin witness something they cannot explain.
3 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Superstition · Death
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Occasion
- Funerals & wakes
- Written for
- For adults
The Damned Thing
Ambrose BierceA hunter dies after an attack by something his companion cannot see.
15 min · Chilling
More details
- Settings
- Wilderness
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story · Epistolary & diary
The Death of Halpin Frayser
Ambrose BierceLost in a California forest, Halpin Frayser dreams of a deadly encounter with someone he knows.
26 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Death · Family · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- Wilderness
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
The Difficulty of Crossing a Field
Ambrose BierceA plantation owner vanishes while walking across an open field in view of several witnesses.
3 min · Unsettling
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- Themes
- Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
The Haunted Valley
Ambrose BierceA rancher claims he killed his Chinese worker over a simple task, but a local witness tells another story.
19 min · Unsettling
More details
- Themes
- Race & prejudice · Jealousy · Guilt
- Settings
- The frontier · The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Dialect-rich · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
The Isle of Pines
Ambrose BierceAn isolated house rumored to hide a fortune draws visitors after its secretive owner dies.
7 min · Eerie
More details
- Settings
- The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Haunted house · Buried treasure
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot
Ambrose BierceTwo men agree to fight with knives in a house said to be haunted.
15 min · Foreboding
More details
- Settings
- The home · The countryside
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Haunted house · Duels
The Moonlit Road
Ambrose BierceA mother is murdered, a father vanishes, and three accounts tell different parts of what happened.
16 min · Eerie
More details
- Settings
- The home · The countryside
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Epistolary & diary
- Motifs
- Séances & spiritualism
The Mystery of Charles Farquharson
Ambrose BierceA corpse appears in a locked third-floor bedroom, and no one can identify it.
3 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Death · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Detached
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
The Night-Doings at “Deadman’s”
Ambrose BierceAlone in a deserted mining camp, Hiram Beeson waits each night for a visitor from beneath his floor.
14 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Guilt · Death · Race & prejudice
- Settings
- The frontier · Wilderness
- Tone
- Darkly comic
- Style
- Ornate · Descriptive
- Pace
- Leisurely
- Written for
- For adults
The Other Lodgers
Ambrose BierceAn exhausted traveler checks into an Atlanta hotel and wakes to find his room occupied.
4 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Death · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The city
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Brisk
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
- Motifs
- Haunted house
The Realm of the Unreal
Ambrose BierceA man meets a hypnotist he distrusts, then sees his fiancée arrive in town without warning.
11 min · Unsettling
More details
- Themes
- Autonomy & control · Appearance vs reality · Jealousy
- Settings
- Villages & small towns · The city
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
The Secret of Macarger’s Gulch
Ambrose BierceA hunter spends the night in an abandoned gulch cabin and hears a struggle he cannot see.
13 min · Eerie
More details
- Settings
- Wilderness
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Haunted house
The Spook House
Ambrose BierceTwo travelers shelter from a storm in a house whose owners disappeared years earlier.
6 min · Chilling
More details
- Themes
- Death · Appearance vs reality
- Settings
- The countryside
- Style
- Descriptive
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
- Motifs
- Haunted house
The Stranger
Ambrose BierceA stranger at a desert campfire tells how four prospectors were trapped in a cave thirty years earlier.
9 min · Eerie
More details
- Themes
- Death · Survival · Courage & cowardice
- Settings
- Wilderness · The frontier
- Tone
- Wry
- Style
- Conversational
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Craft
- Frame story
The Thing at Nolan
Ambrose BierceA missing farmer is seen miles from home just as his son becomes the chief murder suspect.
7 min · Suspenseful
More details
- Themes
- Law & justice · Revenge · Family
- Settings
- The countryside · Villages & small towns
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Plain
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
Three and One Are One
Ambrose BierceA Union soldier returns to the Tennessee home he left after a bitter family split.
5 min · Tragic
More details
- Themes
- Family · War & peace · Duty
- Settings
- The home
- Tone
- Ironic
- Style
- Ornate
- Pace
- Measured
- Written for
- For adults
- Motifs
- Homecomings