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.”