The Monkey

The Monkey

The toy sat motionless on the shelf.

It was the kind of monkey you’d find in a dusty attic: squat, metal-eyed, with chipped paint, a permanent grin, and tiny cymbals clutched in its grotesque little hands. No one in the family remembered buying it, and yet there it was, nestled between old photo albums in the basement of the Hadley house.

Leo Hadley was the first to see it. He was eight years old and had gone downstairs to sneak some soda from the garage fridge. His flashlight flicked across the monkey’s face, and it grinned back.

The cymbals clanged once.

Leo screamed.

His father, Brian, dismissed it as imagination. “Those things were wind-up toys, kiddo. Maybe you nudged it.” But that night, the neighbor’s dog was found dead — mangled in the backyard, blood on the fence, and cymbal-shaped bruises on its sides.

It was only the beginning.

The Curse

The Hadley family—Brian, his wife Mel, Leo, and teenage daughter Paige—soon began experiencing strange phenomena. Shadows moved behind doors. Static buzzed on every screen. Leo swore the monkey changed positions every night, even though no one touched it.

Then came the dreams. Paige dreamed of a woman screaming behind a wall of iron bars. Mel dreamed of a monkey clapping its cymbals above a crib. Brian dreamed of blood running from a cracked cymbal and pooling at his feet.

And always, the sound.

Clang. Clang.

Soft, distant, metallic. Even when no one was near the basement.

Paige finally did some digging. She found an article from 1952: "Tragedy at Elmsworth Orphanage — Six Children Found Dead in Basement. Toy Monkey Suspected." The photos were black-and-white, blurry, but unmistakable. The same monkey.

Same chipped paint. Same twisted grin.

The History

Legend said the toy was built by a toymaker who went mad after losing his family in a fire. He’d made it as a birthday gift for his youngest son — but it was cursed, they said, a vessel for the toymaker’s anguish and rage.

Wherever the monkey appeared, death followed.

No one knew how it moved from place to place. It simply... showed up. In orphanages. Storage units. Antique stores. Attics.

Always grinning. Always waiting.

And once the cymbals clanged on their own... something nearby died

The Descent

The Hadleys tried to throw it away.

Brian drove twenty miles and tossed it in a river. When he got home, it was waiting on the kitchen table — dry, smiling, and polished clean.

They tried to burn it. It wouldn’t catch. They buried it in concrete. It returned to Leo’s bed the next morning.

Each clang now heralded something worse.

Leo's teacher died of a heart attack in the middle of class — he’d scolded Leo that morning. Paige’s boyfriend crashed his car into a tree after mocking the monkey. And when Brian angrily smashed the toy with a hammer one night, his own father passed away in his sleep — blood leaking from his ears.

The monkey always stayed intact. Untouched. No scratches. No dents.

Just a wider gring

The Breaking Point

Mel was the first to unravel. She locked herself in the bathroom, muttering prayers, refusing to sleep. When they finally broke in, they found her rocking on the floor, gouging cymbal shapes into her arms with a fork.

“Stop it... stop the noise...” she sobbed. “It wants to play...”

Brian called a priest. The priest took one look at the monkey and backed away.

“That is no spirit I can banish,” he whispered. “It is... older. Bound by rage. You brought it into your lives. Now it feeds.”

They tried to leave the house. Paige packed a bag and ran.

She didn’t make it far.

At the edge of town, a truck’s brakes failed. She was struck head-on. When Brian identified the body, her limbs were twisted — as though clapped between two cymbals.

The Finale

Brian snapped.

He locked Leo in a hotel room and returned to the house with a gas can and matches.

He confronted the monkey on the kitchen counter.

“I don’t care what you are,” he whispered, voice cracking. “But you’re done.”

Clang.

He blinked. The cymbals had moved.

Clang. Clang.

The walls bled. Cabinets flew open. Dishes shattered. The lights exploded one by one, plunging the house into flickering darkness.

Clang. Clang. CLANG.

Brian screamed and lit the match.

Flames swallowed the kitchen. The monkey just sat there. Grinning.

He charged it, swinging the gas can—

—and vanished in the blast.

Epilogue

Weeks later, Leo was placed in foster care. He stopped speaking. Stared at walls. Drew pictures of monkeys. Cymbals. Flames.

The caseworker noted the drawings, patted his back, and promised things would get better.

That night, in her own apartment, she unpacked a box of donated toys.

Right on top—grinning, pristine, and still—

was the monkey.