On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 174, of 240 so far.

Three At Most

Mason looked at the thing for the thousandth time, cursing the day and hour he’d first laid eyes upon it.

And cursing is the relevant word, he thought.

It had been a long few weeks. The longest of his life, and all he wanted to do was erase them from memory and history. He could probably do it, too, but the problem would be the unintentional consequences. That was the hard lesson that he’d learned twice recently. There were always unintentional consequences.

He should have known something was wrong when he had stopped at the garage sale a month ago, and seen the pale, shocked-looking old man sitting on a plastic deckchair on a lawn that hadn’t seen any care in a long time. Stacks of belongings all around; things which spoke of a life he’d lived, and a family he’d had, but apparently he’d lost all of it somehow. Mason had seen the official-looking notice attached to the front door of the house, but he was too far away to make out what it said. The picture was clear enough nonetheless.

It had only taken a few minutes to find the object that had caused the old man to spring up from his chair with an eerie and troubling sort of eagerness, appearing at Mason’s side in an instant. It was as if the whole thing — the selling-off of all his possessions, meagre though they were — was actually just a means to rid himself of this one item.

The object was immediately fascinating, if a little gruesome. Shrunken and emaciated, dry to the touch, and of a colour that was neither entirely grey nor blue, Mason felt drawn to it the moment he saw it.

The monkey’s paw.

The old man had told him that it was from a real primate, embalmed long ago, and that he’d acquired it in a thrift shop on a whim. Mason had been able to tell at the time that everything the old man had said was a lie, but it didn’t matter. He wanted the thing, and so he had just nodded and asked how much it was. The price the old man asked for was ludicrously low, and Mason somehow also knew that it was chosen to guarantee that he’d be able to buy it. He’d done so, and then everything had started to go wrong.

Some people say that it grants wishes, the old man had whispered to him as he handed the thing over. Three at most.

Mason had felt a chill run up his spine, but he had just taken the paw and stepped back from the old man and his bloodshot eyes and stinking breath, then got back into his car and drove away. It was only when he was back at home, and night had fallen, that he really considered the words.

The paw had been sitting on his desk, as an amusement and a talking point and a macabre objet d’art. He heard the phrase in his mind, but he had no idea that he was going to say it out loud until he was hearing his own voice breaking the silence in the room.

“I wish I was a millionaire,” he’d said. Then he’d had a profound lesson in the perils of ambiguity.

The local news article described it as the worst infestation they’d ever seen, necessitating the evacuation of the entire apartment block, with weeks of fumigation and cleaning needed. Mason had booked a cheap hotel room and packed a bag, and had debated taking the paw with him. In the end, it had seemed too dangerous not to. One of its three intact outstretched fingers had curled down, indicating a wish already spent. It hadn’t been that way when he’d bought it.

His second wish had been completely accidental, and the product of too much frustration, too much alcohol, and too much despair at the state of the world as shown on the current affairs show he was watching on TV at the time, which focused on people who abused the welfare system to claim benefits without ever seeking gainful employment.

“I wish those freeloading parasites would just die,” he’d spat at the screen, then his heart seemed to freeze in his chest as he saw the movement in his peripheral vision.

It had been a week ago, and now every news programme was dominated by the rapidly spreading epidemic of bizarre illnesses, all caused by the abrupt and unexplained extinction of multiple species of symbiotic bacteria which naturally existed in the human body, aiding in everything from digestion to immune function. Cautious estimates put the death toll at over half a million people already, and a nationwide lockdown had once again been initiated. The army had been deployed to enforce it, even though no-one yet knew why it had happened.

Except for Mason, sitting in the drab hotel room, with the monkey’s paw on the table in front of him, two of its fingers now curled inwards.

He wanted to be rid of it, forever. He’d tried to throw it away, but it was back in the room when he returned. He’d tried to burn it, but it wouldn’t combust. He’d tried to destroy it with a fire axe, but had only broken the axe and narrowly avoided maiming himself.

It had to be taken willingly by someone else. It was the only explanation. And it even made its own kind of sense, because the thing surely wanted to be owned. But first, he had a final wish to spend. He’d been thinking about it for days now, ultimately deciding that there was no such thing as unambiguous phrasing, or a wish without side-effects — especially if the thing granting the wish was determined to misinterpret. The only option left was to take action.

Mason picked up the paw, feeling its strange heaviness and solidity, despite its fragile appearance. He weighed it in his hands, hating the thing utterly, but knowing it was beyond his power to do anything about that. He closed his eyes.

“I wish no-one would ever take you from me,” he said, and the final finger curled inwards.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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