The Verger by Somerset Maugham. Very short, but very good.
I always thought it was by O. Henry, but I was wrong.
More votes for Harrison Bergeron, Nightfall, The Cold Equations.
Thurber, The Figgerin’ of Aunt Wilma
Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher
Ray Bradbury, Usher II
H.G. Wells, The Door in the Wall
Stephen Vincent Benét, By the Waters of Babylon
Conrad Aiken’s Secret Snow, Silent Snow will either fascinate them or freak them out - especially since it’s about a school-age boy.
See if you can find a video of the Night Gallery version, with Orson Welles narrating (although they changed the ending).
As I was scrolling down this thread and reading all the entries, I was wondering if I would get to the end without the mention of this story. Thanks for not disapointing me.
It’s old, classic, and a must read.
I really enjoyed The Painted Door by Sinclair Ross when I was in high school. It was kind of a thinker. I think it’s probably public domain but I’m not sure how to find out (it’s Canadian so I’m not sure what rules apply) - in any case there is a full pdf of it here.
I am tempted to second Brokeback Mountain, as I read that on my own in high school (long before the movie) and it really stayed with me, but I suspect that there might be some upset kids/parents on that one.
Many very, very good ones have already been mentioned.
Good ones that are undoubtedly in the public domain:
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Any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. I’ll nominate my favorite, The Musgrave Ritual. But The Red-Headed League works well for kids.
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What Men Live By by Leo Tolstoy
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Any O. Henry story, but you can’t go wrong with The Ransom of Red Chief.
4)*** The Death of Ivan Ilyich*** by Leo Tolstoy
Stories that probably are NOT in the public domain:
1)*** Answer*** by Frederic Brown (very short and very effective)
- ***A Good Man Is Hard to Find ***by Flannery O’Connor
“The Scarlatti Tilt” by Richard Brautigan. A full story in two sentences and under 30 words.
Lots of great suggestions so far. I’d second The Most Dangerous Game, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and A Good Man Is Hard to Find. I personally like short stories with tension and twist endings. I would add:
Saki - The Open Window
Nathaniel Hawthorne - Rappaccini’s Daughter
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Nosotros, No (if you can find an English translation. I haven’t been able to find one)
Oh, I just referenced another O. Henry story in another post, “The Caballero’s Way.” It’s pretty atypical of his work; it doesn’t really have a mind-bending twist ending, although it may have looked like one when he wrote it in 1907. Plus, the nasty villain of the story took on a new life as a Zorro-like hero at the hands of other writers and media. It was the Cisco Kid.
The Yellow Wallpaper - Charlotte Perkins Gilman
The Hills Like White Elephants - Earnest Hemmingway
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - Ursula LeGuin
Bret Harte has some good stuff as well.
One more Asimov: The Feeling of Power
I don’t remember seeing that story in my high school’s anthology…of course, this particular anthology was handed out rather late in the year; we didn’t get to spend much time with them. I don’t remember the name of the book; it had a plain reddish cover (no jacket) and was rather thick. Also, the print was somewhat small, and there was a sizable poetry section.
This is a great suggestion.
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The upthread mention of Jackson’s “The Lottery” reminds me to mention Anton Chekhov’s “The Lottery Ticket”.
One that I have used for younger students as a lesson on prediction is “Popular Mechanics” by Raymond Carver. Popular Mechanics
Also good for some thought-provoking discussions, writing from a different perspective… various other things. The gory/ non-gory surprise ending appeals to immature minds 
I’m loving these suggestions…and I have a related question, especially to those of you that are teachers. In ‘A Rose for Emily’ and a couple of other older stories, the words ‘Negro’ and even the more offensive ‘n’ word is used. I know these words were accepted at the time the story was written, but what do your schools think about those words now? Are they okay because they are historically contextual, or not?
Hmm…limegreen, I don’t remember it being much of an issue in my class (around 1999 or so). The teacher sort of brushed it off as historical context, and we went on with the lesson. (It is probably worth noting that my AP class was very small, and entirely white.)
High school? I don’t know. I remember in JH reading several stories as part of the Great Books program…
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A Ray Bradbury story about children whose nursery had holographic wallpaper of somewhere in Africa and somehow they ended up being taken away by the holographic lions or something…
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Again Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles, although masquerading as some kind of cohesive novel, is actually a short story collection.
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Something about a space pilot who crash lands on an alien planet and discovers that a laser gun is ineffective against space wolfs because although it kills them, it does so without shock! and awe! of kinetic firearms and so the space-wolves don’t learn to be afraid of it. He eventually uses it as a hammer.
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Something about a boy who faces his fear and swims through some kind of under water tunnel.
There’s also a lot of gold in the Isaac Asimov edited “100 short-short stories”…
Another huge vote for " Flowers for Algernon."
( Shun the kids who don’t cry.)
Good calls, both.
The first Bradbury story you mention is “The Veldt”, which is part of another Bradbury collection – The Illustrated Man.
Anoher Bradbury story was mentioned upthread – “There Will Come Soft Rains” – which came from The Martian Chronicles. Another one from The Martian Chronicles that would work well for high-schooler is “Night Meeting”. I read that one in freshman English at college.