Nick Danger

Sorry. It was like reading the sort of high-tech military fiction that got common after The Hunt for Red October became a bestseller.

Numanoid

When did 126 pages become a short story?

Jay G.

I guess it's technically a novella, although I've read a few novellas that were tucked away inside "short story" collections.

Gdrlv

My Father's Mask by Joe Hill (King's son). I've read that story several times, and it still gives me chills.

dugan

How about some free ones?

Kelly Link, "The Girl Detective"
http://alexwilson.com/telltale/kelly...irl-detective/
(free text and audio)

Robert R. McCammon, "The Miracle Mile"
http://www.robertmccammon.com/fiction/miracle.html
(free text)

Neil Gaiman, "Snow Glass Apples"
http://www.holycow.com/dreaming/stor...w-glass-apples
(free text)

Jo Walton, "At the Bottom of the Garden"
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/garden.htm
(free text)

lizard

Since Numanoid bumped this thread I might as well suggest a couple:

The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell. Haven't read it in decades but I still remember it. (Same with The Lottery mentioned by others above).

The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, by Mark Twain (1899). A humorous look at human nature, with Twain at his cynical best. A more famous, and very short, story by Twain is The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1867), a good example of his ear for vernacular speech. (Twain later expressed reservations about how famous his throw-away short story had become, but he reprised it in several versions, so he couldn't have been too displeased with it.)

I don't like this story because it is too macabre for me, but fans of the horror genre might like The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe (1846).

movi3mogul

"The Green Door" by O Henry is about a man who lives a predictable life. But "The most interesting thing in life seemed to him to be what might lie just around the next corner." Finally, one night in the middle of his extraordinarily ordinary life, on a routine walk down a nondescript street, Adventure beckons, and he responds with his whole heart and soul.

hope you will read it, its available in online for free

Travis McClain

I hated his stuff when I read it in high school, but I've really come around on Nathaniel Hawthorne. "Young Goodman Brown" is a particular favorite. It's got great atmosphere, and it's very unsettling.

Also, I would recommend Christina Rosetti's poem "The Goblin Market." Yeah, it's a poem and not a short story, but it's rare that I like any work of poetry. It tells a story, rather than just throwing out aborted sentences insisting that flowers represent all that is good in life or whatever kind of crap poets tend to babble about. It's about two sisters who sneak off to the woods, and encounter some goblins selling fruit. It's very sensuous, and a great companion piece to "Young Goodman Brown" if you're willing to take the time to read them in the same night.

writer106

The Yellow Wall Paper
Barn Burning
A Rose for Emily

Travis McClain

I second The Yellow Wallpaper wholeheartedly. I haven't read Barn Burning since high school, and I hated it then. My older, wiser self should really give it another chance. A Rose for Emily doesn't ring any bells offhand; who wrote it?

Vendetta-AKK

I am actually teaching this to my Fresh English class next week. There is so much to admire about Shirley Jackson's technique and how well it all comes together in the end.

bluetoast

A Sound of Thunder
Harrison Bergeron (I think that's how you spell it)
Sucker
The Veldt was another good one

Sure I read these all in around middle school, but I still remember them...good stories.

wewantflair

Another vote for Harrison Bergeron. It's excellent.

Also, "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk.

uteotw

I buy The Best American Short Stories collection every year and inevitably find one or two authors I realy like, and then just go from there. Tobias Wolff is a personal favorite.

digidoh

There was a story with a title like "The Second Shortest Horror Story by XXX words". I can't find it or remember the exact phrasing, but it was something like:

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room with no windows, behind a locked door. And that door was locked from the outside.

danfindlay

For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn attributed to Ernest Hemmingway

johnnysd

Plus it is essentially the Hunger Games in 200,000 less words. Incredibly important short story.

Greg MacGuffin

A few of my favorites:

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
"The Third Expedition" by Ray Bradbury
"A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger
"Flop Sweat" by Harlan Ellison
"The Music Teacher" by John Cheever
"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe
"Lord Randy, My Son" by Joe L. Hensley

Why So Blu?

Damn, so what happened next?!

Nick Danger

I recently read The Best of Saki. Just about all of the stories were brilliant.

I think my favorite was The Schartz-Metterklume Method.