Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. My Monkey Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

MY MONKEY

Boots. He could hardly believe he’d forgotten the damned boots. The solar train had reached the depot and the senior class of Covington High filed out as Mr. Davis, one of six teachers chaperoning the environmental placement trip, shouted that they had fifty-two minutes and that they had to be at the bus station around the corner by noon. Most of the students made for the quarter block of fast food joints.

“Damned boots,” Jacob Wymark hissed as he stormed up the street, hoping for a Walmart or K-Mart or Target, something. “Damned hell ass boots!”

Ten minutes passed and he saw nothing helpful. The train and bus stations were in a rundown part of the city, mostly industrial, but some businesses and office spaces remained like lingering spirits. He needed boots and he needed them cheap. They sold boots at the tree farm, but he’d priced those out already. Timberlands, sure they did right by the environment, but they wouldn’t do right by a seventeen-year-old, two nights a week stock boy. Not financially.

“Goddamned shit ass boots!” he shouted.

An old lady with blue hair wearing a hemp smock and vinyl duckies laughed at him while she squinted at an ancient iPad. “Yeah, fuck them boots!”

Jacob grumbled and broke into a jog. Time was short and there was no option to hit the fields in his shoes—safety rules. And if he didn’t hit the fields with his classmates, he couldn’t graduate. He needed to graduate just as badly as Earth needed more trees planted, garbage collected from the ocean, or recyclables sorted and processed.

There’d been collective relief amongst the student body that his graduating class had pulled tree planting, it was almost exciting by comparison to the other options. But the boots, the damned boots! He’d picked up a pair at Mark’s, on sale even, and they were in his bedroom at home. Useless.

He pulled his phone from his pocket to check the time. It was already twenty to twelve. “Shit. Josephine, find depart—” he hissed into his phone as he broke around a corner and slowed, then whispered, “Thank Christ.”

Value Village. Not his optimum choice, he wasn’t nearly cool enough to pull off shopping for boots second hand, but it would do. He hoped.

The place smelled like dirty socks and toe jam. Old people milled through the aisles like zombies. Mothers dragged toddlers by tether shackles. Hip local girls on spare periods flicked through ratty t-shirts and laughed over hologram videos projected from their phones. Jacob tried not to look at them, hoping it would go both ways, and b-lined for the boots and shoes lining the wall next to the washrooms. He let out a huff and started rolling leather and cotton tongues to read the sizes.

The first six pair were too big, the next three were too small. “Dammit!” he shouted and the girls and the old people and the mothers and an employee pushing a rolling cart all looked at him. He flushed and yanked his phone from his pocket. He had eleven minutes.

The employee parked the cart next to Jacob and peeled open a huge box. Boots. Dirty. Worn. Stinky. Boots.

Jacob didn’t wait, couldn’t. He dug in. The employee gave a half-hearted “Hey,” but said nothing further.

Like a lighthouse in a hurricane, Jacob found a pair of Terra work boots: size nine, yellow leather, brown laces, steel toes poking through at the tips, and a good helping of crusty maroon stains, but good otherwise. The price was $15 and Jacob sprinted to the tills, thumbing open his banking app as he went.

—

“Mr. Wymark, glad that you could join us,” Mr. Davis said, voice carrying in a bellow.

Jacob shuffled onto the bus, scouting for an empty seat, a blush burning hotter and hotter as he passed fifty-seven laughing, grinning, smirking faces. The only open seat was a single over a wheel well and next to the toilet. He flopped down and the bus started away in its near-silent electric hum.

“Nice boots,” Anya Sevigny said from across the aisle and then bit her lip to fight a laugh while her crew cackled around her.

Jacob forced a smile. “Yeah. I forgot my boots and had to buy these.”

“Where from, skid mark, some homeless guy?” Mike Horner said and then swiped a meaty slap across the top of Jacob’s head. Mike was the best wide receiver in the province and Anya was his cheerleader girlfriend.

“You got skid marks,” Jacob whispered, not really moving his lips, pretty much not really saying it at all. Which was wise, he didn’t need anyone rehashing how he got that nickname in the first place when it was really only Mike Horner who ever said it anymore.

As quick as they came, the insults ended and the cool kids got to watching videos and scrolling social feeds on their phones’ holo-displays. Jacob let his eyes draw up to Anya for a moment before jerking them away—nothing like a Band-Aid because this kept hurting.

One day in the eighth grade, Anya Sevigny appeared like an angel. Mr. Burnside, the history and science teacher, sat her next to Jacob and for four periods, they became friends. Every day since, he’d dreamed of becoming more.

It was like all the bad teen movies. She was cool and hot and smart. He was lame and pimply and only knew what an A looked like because of the alphabet. She was popular. He spent Friday nights playing WoW+ like some old head dweeb. She touched anybody she wanted, hands, hips, lips, arms, chests, whatever. He hadn’t had anything resembling a physical relationship since his grandmother’s cat finally died when he was in the ninth grade.

Jacob’s guts rumbled as he sat back, unshouldering his pack and setting the boots on the floor before him. The plan had been to eat at the last stop, but now he’d have to go four more hours until they reached the tree farms. He withdrew his phone and made quick work of scrolling feeds. He had zero notifications across six applications and no emails or text messages. Not that he expected anything, but he couldn’t not look.

His guts rumbled again and he pocketed the phone. What he needed was a distraction.

The bus bumped over something big enough to bounce around the passengers, sending a joyous trill through the students, as well as knocking the boots sideways into Jacob’s ankle. He hadn’t even tried them on. After a quick glance to the cool clique, he turned sideways in his seat and slipped off his sneakers. He had to loosen the laces of the boots, but his right foot slipped in, snug, almost perfect. He repeated with the left, but something blocked the passage. He lifted the boot into the light and tipped it back. A furry ball with red, white, and black wires poking from one end rolled to the heel. He squinted.

At first he thought it was a dead rodent.

But the wires?

He reached in and pulled out the object, let it fall into his palm. It was a little grey hand with three fingers. The fingers were curled in tight…until they weren’t. Jacob’s eyes went wide as the hand—no, paw—unfurled in his grasp. He recognized it then. When he was a kid, many of the girls in his class had robot monkeys in pink tutus. The monkeys responded to their names and could fetch small, pre-programmed objects. They also hugged back and made kissy lips.

My monkey. My monkey. Wherever I goes, she goes. My monkey. My monkey, the jingle popped to mind like brain cancer.

Someone had torn the monkey’s paw off and dropped it into the boot, but why? Before he could come up with any kind of plausible idea, his guts grumbled for a third time, louder than ever, and he thought, wish I had a Whopper.

The bus bumped and jounced again. Jacob squeezed his hand tight so as to not lose the paw, though the left boot fell from his lap. The bus began to slow then and students started groaning. Seconds after that, Mr. Davis stood and said, “We have a flat. Stay put unless it’s an emergency.” He then followed the driver out the door.

As the students began bickering and whining, Jacob looked out the window. A Burger King, not fifty feet away.

—

As he finished the fries from the bottom of the bag, Jacob tried to pry the first finger of the little paw open, but it wouldn’t come. “Must’ve crushed it,” he said and let it be, dropping it into the breast pocket of his t-shirt.

“Didn’t save any for me? That’s rude, skid marks.” Mike loomed over Jacob. He had his phone in his hand. “You’re lucky I have business of my own to attend to or I might’ve had time to teach you a lesson about sharing.”

Once Mike stepped into the toilet, Jacob whispered, “Dick.”

“I heard that,” Anya said without turning toward Jacob.

Jacob flushed pink and cowered into himself, thinking, I’d love to see somebody sharing that medicine Mike dishes out with him. Something scratched at his chest and he put his hand over his pocket, but didn’t pull out the paw, was too distracted to do so.

—

Mike sat in the little john with his pants around his ankles, his genitals tucked down between his thighs. He held his phone and the holo-display was open to the latest issue of Sonic & Tails vs. Cthulhu. He began the routine push.

To his left, a warning light blinked red five times before the words CLEANING MODE lit in blue on the tiny screen. Mike scrunched his face, curious, for about a second before the tremendous suction began from beneath him. He tried to stand, but found his backside sinking and his scrotum stretching instead. He screamed and forced his powerhouse legs upright as the warning light began blinking anew.

“Mike?” someone shouted through the door.

Mike didn’t hear, all his senses had amalgamated at his sense of touch, his sense of flesh torn free in a great, agonizing swatch. “Ug-ug-ug,” he mumbled as he half-turned to see his ass, dick, and sack driven down into the little stainless-steel toilet bowl. “Ug-ug-ug,” was all he could say as blood began pooling on the floor, soaking his pants and sneakers.

“Mike?” The hands attached to the voice began reefing on the locked door.

An automated feminine voice said, “Prepare for antibacterial.” Water began rushing from the wall seams before sputtering and banging in the hidden water-work pipes.

Mike blanked, starting to fathom the world of his body and—

Feces and urine and blue cleaning agent blasted from the pinhole seams. Mike tried to cover his face and then his injuries, but the pressure was too great. He fell onto the toilet, conking his chin off the flush handle. His flesh and manhood disappeared as Mike slipped unconscious as human waste coated him like spackle.

—

The bus company put the students and faculty up in a Best Western for the night until the following morning when a new bus would arrive and they could continue up to the future tree fields. Most students slept two or three to a room. Jacob had to share his room with Mr. Davis.

“What’s that?” Mr. Davis said, after shutting the door on the room service bot that had brought up their supper. He set the trey on the desk in the corner.

“Oh, uh, a paw. It’s from one of those My Monkey pets, remember?” Jacob held the paw out. Two of the three fingers were curled.

“Are you superstitious?”

“Why?” Jacob looked at his palm.

“Thought maybe you kept it for luck. Or does it grant wishes?”

“Huh?”

“The Monkey’s Paw, you know, it’s a scary story.”

“Like on Instagram?”

Mr. Davis simply shook his head. “Grab a plate and then maybe we can find something to watch on TV.”

They ate, and Mr. Davis found a football game—of course. Jacob finished his portion of the Chinese food and said he wanted to take a walk.

“Grab a key in case I’m snoozing by the time you get back,” Mr. Davis said.

“Right,” Jacob said, snatching a key card. He also took his wallet and the pocketed paw. He’d been thinking about wishes, about how he wished for a Whopper and a Burger King appeared—though, strangely, they were out of Whopper buns—about how he thought Mike needed a taste of his own medicine—though he’d gotten much, much worse treatment—and about how two of the fingers curled in, like ticking off points. He was still thinking about wishes when he rounded a corner and there was Anya. She was in a towel, bending over to retrieve a bottle of Coke from a service bot. Jacob slunk back and tried to get a peek up the towel.

Anya straightened and turned, facing him, but not seeing him, her eyes and cheeks smeary with drying tears, her expression disassociated. She’d screamed for Mike when the paramedics carted him out of the bus. Wailed for him when she heard two of the teachers talking about how he might not make it and how if he did, he’d never have kids, even if they crafted new genitals for him.

 Without any real consideration, Jacob thought, I’d love to fuck her, just once. The paw’s final stretched finger curled in his pocket and he gasped. He took the paw out and studied it, wide-eyed, until Anya’s door opened again and she shuffled into the hall, still in only her towel, approaching Jacob and the stairwell. She stepped past him and opened the door, slowly, as if it was a great weight.

Almost certain of his chances, Jacob cleared his throat and said, “Anya, you’re so hot in that towel.”

Like magic, she lowered herself to the cement landing. The lights flickered out in the stairwell. Jacob hurried through the door after her. The shine from the hall revealed a yawning towel and Anya’s knees spread apart where she lay flat.

“I’ve always loved you,” he said and got down to his knees, pressed his lips to hers. She kissed back, not exactly passionately, but definitely kissed him back—good and wet. That was it, his wish come true. Quickly, he got to opening his pants and positioning himself. He sucked her breasts as he ran a hand down to feel the warmth between her thighs. “I’ll love you forever. You don’t need Mike.” He pushed inside and gasped.

He came instantly.

He didn’t want to seem like a loser, so he kept rocking, finding himself hard again almost right away. He pumped and pumped and pumped and sucked her breasts and her tongue. Her mouth was slobbery and tasted acidic. He wondered if the Coke had spoiled or if she’d eaten some weird cheese off the room service menu. He wondered but did not stop.

“Oh god, I’m coming,” he said—almost let an again slip at the end.

The hallway door opened and the light flipped on. “Jacob. Jacob,” Mr. Davis said, too serious, didn’t sound mad at all, more like shocked.

Jacob shuddered as he came, blinking into the light, drinking in the scene. Mr. Davis with his face pale and eyes huge, in his hand was an empty prescription pill bottle. Anya, eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling, lips blue, hair wet and all over the place, vomit trails smearing on her cheeks and neck. The rumpled towel beneath her.

“No, I—no, she—it’s…” Jacob trailed, sliding up off the corpse and covering himself with his hand. The monkey’s paw dropped out of his pocket and landed over Anya’s unbeating heart. Electricity danced between the sprouting wires like the timeless laughter of atoms while the three little fingers stretched open.

XX