" Parental Guidance is suggested when reading this document. The author laid out in bold and brutal detail exactly what happened in a very concise, visually descriptive manner - not for the faint-hearted, not for certain audiences...
- Major Jacobs " ...

{ found: " late August " , stuck behind the cabinet covered in blood, and a claw-hammer on the counter with a chunk of brown hair and broken skull next to a bowl of Corn Pops, and Lurker at the Threshold, by Lovecraft and Derleth...}
[WARNING!!! having read through the writings presented here, i would say to anyone that they should avoid leaving their backs to any open space while reading. There was a feeling of creepiness and forboding, a feeling of anxious expectancy and the chill of cold fingers stroking the hair and cheek...the officers all refused to even touch the notebook it was written in...to any reader, be aware of certain passages, for content and violence, and this is not for the squeamish...]
 - Signed, Capt. Broadrick
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In between my two dreams of not having any dreams...I had a dream that Lilly was the rabbit with the enormous teeth i was so afraid of, in our old attic on Park st., in Rockland...
{ i'm convinced it was the same one who floated through our back door on Church st., although it was over six feet tall...and when it came through the door toward me it leaned over my face and head and body, which put me into a seizure in the back hall. I think i hallucinated it. Or it was really there. You decide...} ...but back to Park st.

At first, we all heard these scraping, scampering sounds through the ceiling just above our kitchen table. Then it came from the ceiling in the livingroom in front of the double-hung Bay window, just above the sofa, and Nana L. joked, " ha!!!...must be Skippy come home..." [ my Uncle Skippy--Harold Jr., who killed himself in 1971--      Monkey's Paw a little??? Please don't let him in.........]
.....it was extra scary as a kid, sleeping on my Grandparent's couch, as i would be kept awake nearly every night by the water pipes banging...surely that was also good Ol' Uncle Skip, down in the basement with an evil, sadistic grin on his bloated, purple-blue face, hitting the pipes with one of the hammers from the workshop bench...and surely he'd soon be coming upstairs to find me hiding on the couch, pissing the covers, with the blanket pulled up to my watering eyes, as i watched him slowly emerge twitching through the kitchen doorframe, hammers one in each hand...to whack my head and face inside-out, then cracking open my ribcage with the claw and hacking my speeding heart from its chest; before gouging out my eyes and removing my penis with it, stepping on what's left of my chin for leverage, as if he were removing a stubborn nail from a 2 x 4.....
                         Later my worst fears were somewhat alleviated when i was told that it was just water in the pipes causing steam to force its way through, breaking the air bubbles like when you crack your knuckles...yet, to this day i can still picture him: eternally mad at my Aunt, staring up two storeys through each floor at me cringing on the couch, and wanting to take it out on me. I used to imagine him when he wasn't angry enough to chew off my nose and stab a screwdriver into each ear, floating up from the cellar until only the top of his head, down to the bottom of his eyes were sticking up from the floor in front of the couch, and he'd just stare at me; his baby sister's baby boy; the first boy that took, as my brother before me miscarried ( that's where i get my good looks 😉 ) ...Honestly, i wish i could remember meeting him, but i was a year and a half old, and was mostly consumed I'm sure with my Aunt Sandy's hair and smile, and my Mom's teat. I always felt bad for my family's loss, but especially for my cousins who lost their Dad at such an early age...

Years later, while I was stripping the 20 year old wallpaper from the front room, i could hear gnawing: as if on the floor of the attic, so i decided to investigate. Upon entering the attic by way of the slender stairway, i heard the padded footsteps of what was surely some poor, trapped, badly frightened critter: like me every night on the operating table/couch.....
                     I went toward the front of the house and saw a little white and brown figure hiding under my old weight-bench. When i put the light on--just to be sure...         i saw two huge brown retinas, circled by black rings, and highlighted by milky-white orbs--sitting scared on the bewildered face of a bunny!!! I couldn't believe my eyes! and thought, " how the heck did a bunny get all the way up here?? " ...
                     When i tried to corral it over into a corner, though i was too scared to grab it, i only frightened her more than she already was...so i went back downstairs for some carrots.         Darn! wouldntcha know it?...fresh out of carrots.....
                                                                         Well, an apple might do the trick....
                     At first, i held out a piece that i'd cut off, but she bared those same teeth i had been deathly afraid of since i had the first in the series of these recurring dreams.....so i just backed off, leaving a healthy slice on the floor a few feet in front of her.....letting her come to it on her own, as i had retreated back into the shadows about 10 feet and waited.....she didn't come, so i leaned back even further into the slight alcove there and watched her some more; peeking my head around the old wall surrounding the exposed brick chimney--like Skippy looking around every corner at my clock ticking out its last seconds...and saw her spring forth one step...then two.....finally, looking left to right, she darted forward and snatched up a piece of the now-slightly-browning apple---I was so happy that i let out what i thought was the faintest little peep, " yes! " ...she jumped about a two-foot mile and hurriedly scattered into the safety of the space between the wood-frame of our old futon, and the torn-up fabric of its mattress pad....." oh great!..." i thought..." what was I thinking?..."
                     I waited, calling her like a kitty, and snapping my fingers, whistling.....nothing seemed to work...so i went back to the attic stairs; from there i had the perfect vantage point, and could view most of the spacious room, all the way to the front wall, just to the left of where she was hiding. 
Eventually she came out around the corner and tentatively hopped in tiny bursts to where her apple treat was; looking around cautiously, then moving closer to it, before leaning her head down to sniff at it, then looking up again before leaning back down and grabbing it between those menacing teeth!.....

I cut a few more pieces from the yellow-skinned juicy fruit, and left them laid out in a row; spacing them about five-feet apart, and hoping she'd eventually follow me down the attic stairs.....then down the second storey stairs.....finally down to the first floor landing, where i could gently usher her outside and perhaps coerce her to the woods on the side of our house; probably where she'd come from in the first place, i figured....
                      She came almost all the way down the attic stairs, then stopped about three steps from the bottom and sat there perched at the back of the over-sized, rounding-the-corner step, where my Dad once got his sock caught on a nail-head on the way up to his attic home-recording studio, and fell, hanging upside-down out of the doorway-
-still suspended there only by his sock caught on the protruding tip of the nail!! It was pretty funny actually, even he laughed, joking that he " zigged, when he shoulda zagged....." We all cracked up: like the time he came out from his bedroom in quite a huff, looking for his glasses.....gruffly asking us if we'd seen them...each of us unable to hold back from burst out laughter. 
When he got more agitated and demanded to know what was, " so fucking funny!!!..." we pointed at his head...
..where they were perched, like, " oh, you didn't get my note, i left it on the desk...just grabbing a smoke....." 
he immediately burst out with our same enthusiasm...when he realized the magnitude of the sheer comedic value of such an incident, he said, " Ugh! I could just KICK myself in the balls!.....( laughing...) " then he proceeded to try over and over again...we were quite literally falling on the floor in tears.....
                      i miss him.

But, i still couldn't understand why she was hesitating to come the rest of the way down the three steps into the back hallway. She wasn't wearing socks that day, so i knew it wasn't that same nail.....
                      I snapped some more; softly at first, then gradually louder...and whistled again and again, wondering, " what's wrong?..." then as i made eye contact with her, i saw that as much as she was a bunny, she had my daughter Lilly's face!!! I couldn't believe my eyes...rubbing them with the backs of my wrists...i backed up slowly...How could this be?!...i felt a lump underneath my foot and jumped a bit to get it off there...when i turned back i saw 25th president  William McKinley, hopping on one foot and rubbing his big toe, as he'd had quite an infection next to his toenail. I landed right on it! i felt so bad...
...i don't sleep much, so i figured i was loopy or something...
Then, i thought, " well, i haven't really seen her much lately, maybe my mind is feeling guilty and playing cruel tricks on me. 
                      Then she moved forward a little, as if she trusted me, so i backed up a little and led the way, walking with my back to the second storey stairs as we both descended slowly.......
We made it down the stairs to the first floor without issue, then even made it so far as the heavy, weather-insulated back door, which led us to the back porch, and i thought, " cool...poor girl would've been stuck up there in the sweltering, humid, dry attic for god knows how long...sure, i could've made sure she always had water, and even food, but what if she died?.....it's always hard once you've grown attached to something, making it much harder to separate.....and, sure she'd be comfortable,
but, wouldn't she rather be out in the woods with her brothers and sisters?...and her Mom and Dad?.....what about all her friends?.....
                        As we stood there motionless for a few moments, i leaned only my head around her a little and clicked my tongue down from the roof of my mouth a few times and snapped my second finger across my thumb, trying to get her to go through the doorway.....she finally did, going outside a few more steps, but she paused at the top of the porch on the big, square landing, just in front of the door, and looked back at me like she didn't want to go..... 
i thought, " great!...NOW whaddu i do???....." so i tried once more with the whole snapping, whistling routine, and even saying, " come on giiirl..." nothing seemed to work, and she was still looking up at me with those big, sad, questioning eyes, and wrinkled up her nose, like, " ....you don't like me?....."...
...i felt like such a jerk!...and thought..." well, maybe she dOESn't wanna go after all?.....
                         So i took a chance that i might frighten her, and slowly walked around her and down two or three of the steps, until i was directly in front of her, and tried coaxing her that way.....
When i looked...I mean really looked!.....her face was that of Lilly's again! 
i thought, " what the heck is going on here?....." 
She had a tear in her eye and her nose was twitching again.....it made me sad, and i shed a few tears of my own.
                         Then i said, " Lilly?....." and she winked her left eye, and raised up her head a little before letting it drop again, only lower than before. then she started shedding tears that wouldn't stop coming and whimpering in a little girl's voice!!! i too was overcome with sadness and crying tears of my own in an unstoppable river.....
i got down on one knee, on the second step from bottom and reached out my hand, slowly, so she could plainly see it and wouldn't be afraid. Feeling confident, i blinked shut my eyes for a couple seconds to show her that i meant her no harm.....and proceeded to reach my hand forward towards the top of her head. 
                         I was a little scared that she'd bite me, but i took a chance anyway.....soon my hand was right between her one-up...one-down...ears, and she let me keep petting her on the head. Eventually, i moved my first finger down to her cheek; lightly scratching there, rubbing her under the chin.....and we both cried...
In what i perceived as the ultimate show of peace, i moved my hands slowly to the area directly under her nose, as she sat there sniffling and looking up at me sadly...
She allowed me to pick her up, and i gently lifted her, slowly bringing her to my chest; nuzzling her there as she whimpered.
                        I cried, because i miss my girls every single day, and she hardly knows her sister...i just want to play catch, and have her show me how to skate...and just anything.....
She didn't try to get away, so i took her back inside the house; up the first flight...up to the second flight.....into our apartment: where i brought her to the fridge and got another apple, cut it up and put it in a bowl while she sat there on the kitchen counter, in front of the sugar bowl and the percolater. Then, gently picking her up with my right hand, we walked through the now frightless kitchen door-way into the livingroom, where i sat with her in the rocking chair; slowly and gently rocking back and forth with her nestled in my arms, and cradled in my chest as we both happily gnawed on the apple slices...( well, i had mine with Wicked Crunchy honey peanut butter on each slice...) ...
I said, " i missed you soooomuch! i love you..." 
                       She raised herself up with both her feet on my arm and rubbed her nose on my cheek, burying it in my beard.....
and we both laughed and cried and caught-up as the blue-gray sky outside my window started to turn pink, and blue and white..........    

Then i awoke, and rubbed my streaming eyes.....and thought about my now eleven year old, beautiful little girl.....wondering, did she come to me in a dream? 
                       I waited until morning and called her phone to see how she was doing; enjoying school vacation, nursing her broken wrist from when she fell on it while ice-skating, and asked her if she enjoys carrots and apples as much as I do lately.....
The whole time i was talking to her voicemail, i pictured her wrinkling up her nose, and wearing her usual pony-tails; one-up on the top of her head, and one-down, more on the side, like rabbit ears, and wanted to squeeze her into my chest as we sat in my Nana's rocking chair and caught-up...a few moments went by and i heard a whopping thud from the basement.....then, Skippy tapped out three words in Morse code on the old pipes....." mmmmm...rabbit stew!..." ( apparently he was kidding...weird sense of humor )......................
                       Then i heard him in my mind's ear saying, " tell her i love her...introduce me, don't forget now...." over and over and over, building into a deafening crescendo vibrating wax from my ears...i had to shrug my ear against my shoulder to wipe it.....

                        After i talked for a bit, i said, " gotta go " ...said goodbye and i love you. I sat there on the floor missing her even more. 
Maudlin now, deciding to break that spell let's get some laundry done.....

At the washing machine i could feel someone standing behind me.....yet, i knew there was no one home upstairs. Besides i would have heard them or seen them come in through the bulkhead...it had been closed since i got home from work. I looked out of the back of my head, and knew immediately who it was.....his grimaced, death-throe-face leaning to the left with a grave-dirt smile and slamming his hammer down into the palm of his hand, over and over and over again.....waiting for me to turn around.....
                         I quickly ducked to the left as the hammer missed my skull by a hair's breadth and whacked into the furnace...( like i said...black humor runs in my family.....but then so do cowards...get it cowards RUN...in my...fammm...ha-ha....ugh...nevermind.......)
When i turned around to look at him, his dead-fish eyes teared up and his mouth opened wide.....and wider still.....until the skin at either side of his mouth broke open horribly, and his head Pez'd back, while a new flesh-toned face filled in like blowing up a balloon, and then emerged from the center of that terrible purple neck and he shed his skin, letting it fall and pile up at his feet.....and it was my Uncle Skip, come home to my apartment in Taunton.....stepping out over his former straight-jacket and looking back up at me, i could see that his eyes, although they were spinning like there were two drills turning behind each one, had returned to their same old normal color, and that he no longer had that " BOY!!! Here i come to kill you!!! " look in them, all Angus Scrimm...and i thought, " cool! it worked!....." 
( although...i'm really not even sure my fam and cousins would want him to be back...) 
              We went upstairs to my livingroom and he asked,   " what's for dinner? i'm starving!..... 
ooohh......so many books!!!...Lovecraft??! Oh Hell yeah! " ...


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https://americanliterature.com/author/w-w-jacobs/short-story/the-monkeys-paw