Short stories tagged with Downbeat Ending

Listing 414 stories.

In a future where death is volunteered and the population is controlled, a soon-to-be father waits for his triplets to be born—and he must find three volunteers to die in order for them to live.

When a pair of scientists studying the Badlands observe strange behavior in nearby animals, they too begin to fall under an evil influence that turns them against each other.

After a trial injection of an experimental drug into a group of monkeys, an observer watches the various participants’ unusual and often deadly responses.

When a bartender discovers that bug bites give him dreams, he attempts to solve his marital problems by making his wife experience the dreams with him.

A veteran boxer fights the fatigue of age as he faces off with his rival in two career-defining matches.

During a Northeastern winter in their new isolated country home, a woman slowly succumbs to the gaslighting and manipulation of her husband.

Two American friends escape their vacation in Paris to the French countryside, enjoying a day of fresh air until a Russian waiter and an Austrian remind them of the horrors of war.

A man who has given everything to his friend's farm equipment business fends off onslaughts personal, emotional, and professional even as the real threat eludes him completely.

After several divorces and the death of his daughter, a man receives a terminal diagnosis himself, and ends up exploiting his impending death to amuse himself. At his deathbed, however, he is granted a moment of clarity where he can finally be his true self.

A middle-aged man awaiting divorce papers meets up with an old acquaintance from high school and gets into a heated argument with the friend’s wife.