The Monkey’s Paw

On a cold, wet night in a small, modest home on the edge of a rural village, the White family gathered around the fire. The room glowed with the warm flicker of flames, casting dancing shadows on the walls. Mr. White, a man of middle age with a sharp sense of humor, played a game of chess with his grown son, Herbert. Mrs. White, knitting by the fire, occasionally glanced up, smiling at their playful banter.

The storm outside rattled the windows, making the house feel even cozier. But soon, the night would bring with it a darkness no fire could chase away.

A knock at the door broke their peace. Mr. White opened it to reveal Sergeant-Major Morris, a burly man with weathered skin and the hardened eyes of a soldier. An old family friend, Morris had traveled the world during his years of service in the British army. He carried with him tales of strange places, stranger people, and even stranger objects.

As he sat down with the family and accepted a glass of whiskey, the Whites begged him for stories. Morris hesitated at first but then spoke of an object that made his voice drop to a whisper — the monkey’s paw.

It was nothing remarkable at first glance — a shriveled, dried-up paw of a monkey. But Morris explained it carried a curse. An old fakir, a holy man from India, had enchanted it to prove a point: that fate ruled people’s lives and those who tried to interfere with it would suffer the consequences. The paw granted three wishes to three separate owners, but each wish came with unimaginable sorrow.

Mr. White, intrigued but skeptical, asked why Morris didn’t use it himself. With a haunted look in his eyes, Morris muttered that he had made his wishes already — and the results had brought him nothing but grief. He threw the paw into the fire, but Mr. White, unable to resist temptation, quickly snatched it out, ignoring Morris’s warnings.

The First Wish

Later that night, after Morris left, Herbert jokingly suggested his father wish for something simple, like wealth. Mr. White, amused by the idea, held the paw and wished for two hundred pounds to pay off the house mortgage. The paw writhed in his hand, and he dropped it with a cry.

The family laughed nervously, trying to brush off the unsettling moment. Nothing happened, and they soon went to bed, dismissing it all as nonsense.

But the next morning, the unimaginable happened. A man from Herbert’s workplace arrived at their door, his face pale with grief. There had been a terrible accident at the factory. Herbert had been killed in the machinery.

The company expressed their condolences and handed Mr. White a compensation check for exactly two hundred pounds.

The wish had come true — but at the greatest cost.

The Second Wish

Grief consumed the Whites. Herbert had been their only child, their joy, their future. Mrs. White fell into despair, and even Mr. White, though quiet and stoic, felt the crushing weight of loss.

One night, about a week after the funeral, Mrs. White suddenly turned to her husband with a wild look in her eyes. “The paw!” she cried. “We can wish him back! We can bring Herbert back to us!”

Mr. White recoiled in horror. The very thought chilled him. Herbert had been mangled in the accident; his body was barely recognizable when they buried him. What if he came back not as the son they remembered but as something else? Something unnatural?

But Mrs. White was insistent, her grief driving her beyond reason. She forced her husband to fetch the paw. With trembling hands, Mr. White made the second wish: that Herbert would return to them, alive once more.

The house fell silent. The wind howled outside, but inside, nothing stirred. They waited, their hearts pounding, but no sound came. Slowly, they returned to their room, disappointment and relief mingling uneasily.

Then, in the dead of night, came a knock at the door.

It was slow, heavy, deliberate — the sound of something not quite human, something dragging itself across the world of the dead to reach the living.

Mrs. White screamed with joy and rushed to open the door. “It’s Herbert! It’s our boy!” she cried.

Mr. White’s blood ran cold. The paw had twisted the wish — it had brought Herbert back, yes, but in what form? His body, broken and rotting in the grave, would not return whole.

As Mrs. White struggled with the bolt on the door, the knocking grew louder, more desperate, more monstrous.

The Final Wish

In his terror, Mr. White seized the monkey’s paw. His wife had almost undone the bolt; he could hear the door creaking. The sound of Herbert — or what was left of him — clawing at the wood filled the room.

With all the strength of his trembling soul, Mr. White made the third and final wish.

The knocking stopped. Silence filled the house.

When Mrs. White flung open the door, the street lay empty, lit only by the pale glow of the moon. There was no Herbert, no figure stumbling in the shadows. Only the howling wind and the emptiness of loss.

She collapsed, sobbing. Mr. White dropped the cursed paw, its magic spent, its horror complete.

The Curse of Desire

The Whites never spoke of the paw again. Their grief remained, heavier now with the memory of what they had dared to summon. The house seemed emptier than before, haunted not by Herbert’s ghost, but by the terrible choices they had made.

The monkey’s paw lay quiet on the mantle, shriveled and lifeless — but its lesson was eternal:

Fate does not like to be tempted, and those who seek to alter it will always pay the price.