The Monkey's Paw

from W.W. Jacobs:

"...But her husband was on his hands and knees feeling around wildly on the floor in search of the paw. If only he could find it before the thing outside got in. The knocks came very quickly now echoing through the house, and he heard the noise of his wife moving a chair and putting it down against the door.

He heard the movement of the lock as she began to open it, and at the same moment he found the monkeys’s paw, and frantically breathed his third and last wish..."