Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales (33 page)

That accursed thing.

Cole hadn’t been specific enough—he hadn’t said
how
he wanted the money. So the paw provided it, in the worst possible way. That’s
why the old man gave it to Murray. Cole had no idea what Murray had done to the old man, but it had been something, and that “gift” was revenge. That’s why he hadn’t taken the bills.

I killed my brother. I was foolish and I was greedy, and I thought
maybe, just maybe, I could be lucky. I got my money and it cost me the only thing I cared about.

Unless …

Cole rose and made his way to the crate.
He reached in and found it, down in the bottom.

The monkey’s paw.

He could use it to bring Tyler back. He’d learned his lesson. He took the paw’s powers seriously now and he knew to be very, very careful what he asked for. That was the trick. And if it failed? Well, it had already done its worst.

Still, he formulated his request with care.

“I wish my brother—”

Was alive again?
Hell, no. That
wasn’t nearly specific enough. Tyler would probably rise from wherever McClintock dumped him, his broken body crawling back—

Cole shivered. No, he’d read too many horror novels to make that mistake.

“I wish my brother, Tyler, was alive and healed, just as he was before he fell, and I want him to be right outside our building, safely standing on the ground, in two minutes, with no memory of how
he died or how he arrived there, just thinking that he’s come home, tired, after a regular job.”

There. You couldn’t get any more specific than that.

Cole stuffed the monkey’s paw back in the crate. He crawled out into the dark alley, looked one way and then the other. There was no sign of Tyler.

Had he done something wrong? He ran through the wish again. No, it was specific—

“Hey,” said a
voice behind him. “What are you doing out here? Locking up?”

He turned and saw Tyler. His brother managed a faint smile and then rubbed his eyes. He yawned and looked around, blinking as if confused.

Cole’s heart thudded and he wanted to run over and hug Tyler like he hadn’t since he was twelve. But he didn’t dare, as if Tyler might evaporate the minute he threw his arms around him.

“You okay?”
Cole asked finally.

“Yeah. Just a long day.” Another tired smile as Tyler clapped Cole on the back. “Come on, bud. Let’s get inside.”

Tyler had conked out as soon as he lay down. It took hours for Cole to fall asleep. He kept crawling over and listening to make sure his brother was still breathing. He was. He seemed fine. He’d rubbed his right arm a few times, but there was nothing wrong with
it that Cole could see. He must have knocked it before the fall and it still stung.

Finally Cole drifted off. He’d barely gotten to sleep when Tyler bolted awake, Cole jumping up, too.

“Jake,” Tyler said. “Goddamn, Jake. That son of a bitch!”

Cole scrambled over, his heart thudding again. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Jake. That bastard pushed me—” Tyler stopped and blinked. He looked around, as if
getting his bearings. “Okay … ”

“What?”

Tyler shook his head sharply, the anger gone from his voice. “I was dreaming that I was on the job last night. We were in a building, ten floors up. Jake pushed me over the edge.”

“Well, obviously he didn’t.” Cole’s laugh was strained, but Tyler didn’t seem to notice.

“Yeah, obviously not.” Tyler rubbed his arm again.

“Are you okay?” Cole asked, pointing
at the arm.

“Yeah. Must have done something to it.” Tyler clenched and unclenched his fist. “Seems fine, though. Sorry I woke you.”

“No problem.”

Cole lay down again. Jake was the leader of the gang Tyler worked with. Had he actually
pushed
Tyler? Had Tyler found something that Jake wanted? Or could it have been on McClintock’s orders? Was that why he’d been so generous with the payout?

Cole
hadn’t decided yet what to tell Tyler about his death and resurrection. He’d need to say something. Tyler couldn’t just walk back to work tomorrow. If McClintock had ordered Tyler’s death, he
really
couldn’t walk back to work.

He’d have to tell Tyler the truth, as crazy as it was.

“Cole? How much money do we have now?” Tyler asked in the darkness.

Cole stiffened. “Uh, five hundred and thirty-two
dollars. Like I said this afternoon.”

“Right.” A pause. “Can I see it?”

“Now?”

“Sure. I just want to … ” Tyler trailed off. “No. I don’t … Why … ?” A soft laugh. “Damn, I really am tired. I have no idea what I’m saying.”

“Oh, I know what you’re saying. You want to see where I’m hiding the money so you can slip some out and buy me more books. Uh-uh. That money is hidden for a reason. I do
not
want more books.”

Tyler laughed again. It was true—he had a bad habit of raiding the kitty to buy things that he decided Cole absolutely must have, which was why it was hidden.

“Go back to sleep,” Cole said. “Everything’s fine.”

“Where’s the money?”

Cole jolted awake to see Tyler’s face over his. His brother’s eyes were wild and bloodshot, his face twisted, nearly unrecognizable.

“Wh-what?”
Cole managed.

Tyler grabbed him by the shirtfront and yanked him up. “I want my money, you goddamn little punk. It’s mine. I earned it.”

I’m having a nightmare. I must be. This isn’t Tyler.

“Can you hear me, brat? I said I want my money.”

Something’s wrong. Look at him. Something’s really, really wrong.

“You’re having another bad dream,” Cole babbled. “Like earlier. With Jake. You’re overtired.
You’re just—”

Tyler wrenched him up and threw him across the tiny room. Cole hit the wall and slumped to the floor, staring as Tyler advanced on him.

This is not my brother. Something went wrong. The monkey’s paw. It tricked me. It did something to …

Cole’s gaze dropped to Tyler’s arm. The spot he’d been rubbing earlier was bright red now.

Cole remembered their father coming home one night,
while they were still at home, while they still had a home, before the military began sending people into walled neighborhoods like Garfield Park and bombing the rest, trying to exterminate the infected.

Their father had come home, tired and dazed. In the middle of the night, he’d woken up. And he’d come after them.

You brats. You ungrateful brats. Spending my money. Eating my food.

As Tyler
reached for him, Cole’s gaze shot to his brother’s arm. To that fevered red spot. To the white semicircles around it. The faint scars of a bite mark.

They say that one of the infected got in.

It’s Jake. That bastard pushed me.

Because Tyler had been bitten. He’d gotten ambushed by one of the infected, and Jake saw it happen and pushed him over the edge because he knew what was coming. Because
Jake was a friend and that’s what you did if a friend got bitten. You gave him a quick and merciful death.

Then I brought him back. I asked for Tyler back as he was before the fall, whole and healed. So the bite healed, but his body was still infected.

Cole swung as hard as he could, plowing his brother in the jaw. Tyler stumbled back. Cole leaped up and raced to his dresser crate. He snatched
the monkey’s paw and tore out the door.

Cole didn’t lead Tyler out onto the street. He might attack someone else. More important, though, he could be spotted. Cole had to solve this himself. So he stayed inside their bombed-out building, leapfrogging over small debris piles and hiding behind bigger ones, keeping one step ahead of Tyler as he tried to figure out what to do next.

He remembered
the night their father got infected. Tyler had put Cole in the locked bathroom and told him to stay there, but Cole had snuck out. He’d followed as his brother led their father through the dark streets, steering him straight to a guard station. Tyler had shouted a warning and the guards came out and … And then there was a shot.

For weeks, Cole had hated his brother. He’d run away. He’d fought
when Tyler came after him. He raged and shouted and called his brother every name a ten-year-old knew. He remembered Tyler explaining that this was what their father told him to
do. Once you were bitten, even if you seemed normal for a while, something inside you had changed and no matter how good a person you were, you’d hide the bite, and you wouldn’t warn anyone. So they had to kill you before
you killed them.

Eventually, Cole had understood, and they’d come to a pact. If either of them was bitten, they’d do the same thing. Don’t hope for a cure. Don’t hope it would get better. They knew it wouldn’t. A merciful death. That was the final gift they could give, as Jake had for Tyler.

Except this was different. Cole still had one wish left.

One cursed wish. One wish that would almost
certainly go wrong.

The first time, he’d blamed himself for being careless. Yet he hadn’t been careless with his second wish. He just didn’t know all the facts, and there was no way around that, no way to account for every possibility.

Cole knew what Tyler would want him to wish for. Grant Tyler a merciful passing. Undo the second wish. Protect himself. Don’t take a chance.

For six years, everything
Tyler had done, he’d done for Cole. To give him a better life. Now that dream was within Cole’s grasp. He had the money to get into Garfield Park and plenty of extra to help him lead a good life, a safe life, a hopeful life.

A life without Tyler.

What kind of future was that? His brother had already sacrificed everything for him and now he had to sacrifice his life, too? Tyler didn’t deserve
that. Goddamn it, Tyler
did not
deserve it. If the world was a just place, Cole would be the one infected and Tyler would put him down and get the kind of life he truly deserved.

But that wasn’t happening. Cole had two choices: undo his second wish or pin his hopes on a third cursed one.

Cole rounded a chunk of wall and nearly ran into his brother. Tyler snarled and lunged at him. Cole stumbled,
twisting and getting his footing just as Tyler caught his shirt.

“Give me that money, you ungrateful brat. It’s mine. I worked for it while you sat on your ass and—”

Cole wrenched free. As Cole ran, Tyler continued shouting after him. Shouting insults and curses. Maybe that should help his decision. It didn’t. Cole couldn’t even tell himself that maybe this was what Tyler really felt, deep down,
because he knew this was the infection talking. His brother had given him everything because it gave him a purpose, it made him happy.

And you know what he’d want to give you now. The best chance possible.

Which is exactly what I want to give him.

So once again, they were at an impasse. And Cole had to break it. He had to make a choice.

Cole saw a door ahead. It led into a rubble-filled room.
When they’d first arrived here four years ago, they’d tried to clear that area—a room with four standing walls and a door was rare. But the ceiling was half caved in and the rubble too heavy to move.

Now that’s where Cole ran. He raced through the door, banged it shut, and leaned against it. Then he took out the monkey’s paw and gripped it tight.

Tyler slammed into the door. It jostled Cole
but stayed closed. His brother pounded, as if his mind was too far gone to even try the handle.

Now Cole had to make a choice. Wish for a merciful death? Or wish for his brother back, uninfected and healthy, and pray, just pray, that it worked out this time, because if it didn’t, he was out of wishes.

Was there a choice? Really? Was there? No. Not for him.

“I’m sorry,” Cole whispered. “I know
what you’d want me to do, and I know what I have to do, and if I make the wrong choice, I’m sorry.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and very carefully, he made his wish. The words had barely left his lips before the door went still. Cole stood there, listening and hoping and praying. Then he took a deep breath, reached for the handle … and opened the door.

A
UTHOR’S
N
OTE
…………………………………

My first exposure to “The Monkey’s Paw” was a television adaptation, which I watched when I was certainly too young. While I don’t recall much of the actual show—not even enough to identify the version—I’ve never forgotten the horrifying final moments, when the desperate, grieving parents heard the knock at the door and realized their child had returned just as
he had died, broken and mutilated.

When I finally read W. W. Jacobs’s story years later, I’ll admit to being disappointed. It didn’t have the visceral impact I remembered. But I continued to return to it, coming to appreciate the slow escalation of dread, and the tale has stayed with me as a prime example of true horror. When I was asked to contribute to this anthology, there was little question
of which story I wanted to reinterpret. It had to be “The Monkey’s Paw.”

The Wood Beyond the World
(1894). William Morris was an amazing man. Among his many accomplishments, he was a designer of architecture and home furnishings (the Morris chair is still made today, and his wallpaper designs are still extremely popular), a painter (he was one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood), a pioneer socialist, a designer of type fonts, an illustrator, a translator,
and a writer. It is in this later capacity that he produced the first great fantasy novel employing an invented world, constructed from his own imagination. It was, I think, Morris’s outright rejection of the burgeoning industrial revolution that was so rapidly reshaping the English cities and landscapes around him that led him to develop a “fresh scrubbed world, done up in the bright, timeless
light of Medieval tapestries” amid high castles and lush landscapes, through which his heroes move calmly in adventure after epic adventure. To enjoy any of Morris’s novels, you are forced to put aside the rushing to and fro of modern life and relax into his lyrically described worlds of long ago and far away.