The adults say that there are no monsters in the closet. Or under the bed. Or in the basement. But the children know better. Especially the children in this house, the house at the  end of the lane. Mr. Franklin calls it a “cul-de-sac,” but his children know better. It’s a house  standing on a dead end. The house is old, but that’s to be expected in houses with monsters,  according to Josh. He was very brave the day they moved in. Josh went all the way up to the  basement door and opened it. Sophie actually screamed when he did it. Not quite a blood curdling scream, but just enough to wake the spiders. There wasn’t anything scary behind the  door though, then. It was just a dark room, with a set of wooden stairs leading down into it. 

 Sophie refused to go in the basement, on principle. Mrs. Franklin tried to comfort her by  explaining that the noises she heard were just the washer and dryer, there was a lot of laundry to  do after moving, you know, one must wash all of the sheets and towels again. 

The house was two stories, the outside painted a color that can only be assumed to have been a cheerful yellow at one point, but now was beginning to crack in many places and was  ceasing to look quite so yellow. Mr. Franklin had made a big deal about “original wood” when  they moved in. Sophie wondered if that was actually a good thing when Josh’s foot went through  the “original wood” of the front porch. The houses around it were newer, and stood just far  enough away that they looked almost disgusted with this house still being here—not being  updated, or torn down, just sitting. The inside of the house was much like the outside, like it had  once been cheerful but was beginning to turn in on itself. The wallpaper was creasing and  peeling, the paint was chipped, the lightbulbs flickered. Mrs. Franklin said it had “character.” 

 The noises in the middle of the night didn’t start until the fifth night. A soft thud that  came from Sophie’s closet woke her up. She sat there, staring at the door for hours, and nothing  happened. Until she had settled back in bed and closed her eyes. 

 Thud. This one a little louder than the last. She sat bolt upright and grabbed the flashlight from next to her bed. Josh said monsters were always scared of bright light. But nothing else  happened. She wasn’t sure when she’d fallen asleep again, but Mrs. Franklin found her rather  strangely twisted in her sheets in the morning. When she told her parents about the closet at  breakfast, Mr. Franklin scoffed and looked at Josh. 

“Have you been telling her scary stories again?” Josh sheepishly looked down and played  with the spoon in his cereal bowl. 

Mrs. Franklin agreed to come upstairs and check the closet. Of course, there was nothing there. Except…. 

Sophie’s closet just happened to have an entrance to the attic in it. A small trapdoor in the ceiling that opened up and a ladder could be propped against. But surely nothing could come  down from there without a ladder. Not at that height. Right? 

The next night Sophie sat awake for hours, clutching her flashlight and Josh’s baseball bat that she had taken without him noticing. No noises came for the first few hours, but then she  heard a weird scratching sound. It wasn’t coming from the closet, it seemed to be coming from  the ceiling above her. She dove under her comforter and squeezed her eyes shut, hugging the  baseball bat to her, praying that it would stop. 

 In the morning Mr. Franklin proclaimed it “rats!” with dismay and began mumbling about how maybe the deal he’d gotten on the house hadn’t been good enough. Not if there were  vermin. He came home that evening with seven rat traps and climbed into the attic. He, of  course, didn’t see anything up there. But he set up the rat traps all the same. 

The next morning Sophie told her parents of sounds of things falling in the attic and  hearing a snapping noise. Mr. Franklin assumed he had caught a rat. Sophie knew better.  That night, scared of the sounds in the attic and her closet, Sophie decided to sleep  downstairs on the couch. Mrs. Franklin had took a deep breath, shook her head, and shrugged, so  Sophie dragged her blankets and pillows down to the living room. The couch was comforting, it  smelled like home. They had had this couch longer than she’d been alive. More than seven years!  It was comforting and familiar in all of the newness—new house, new bedroom, new school,  new friends—but this was reliable. She nestled in to the worn fabric and fell asleep.  Sophie didn’t know what woke her. She assumed it was her father in the kitchen,  sneaking a midnight snack, so she rolled over and started to fall back to sleep. A noise woke her  again. Now she was guessing that it was just Josh playing a joke on her, as big brothers do. She  sat up and listened, determined not to give him the satisfaction. There was a strange sound  coming from the kitchen. It wasn’t loud, it sounded almost like a window shaking in a storm. She  crawled off the couch and crept toward the kitchen. 

In the house, the door to the basement was situated in the far corner of the blue and white tiled kitchen. It was partly obscured by the refrigerator, so couldn’t be seen from the doorway Sophie now hovered in. It was definitely louder in here. She went further in, inching along the edge of the room opposite from the door. Now she could see it. Now she could see what the noise was. 

The door knob was rattling, like something on the other side of it was trying to get out,  but the door was locked. But why was the door locked? The basement had no outside entrance,  this was the only way in, so there was no reason to lock the door, right? The rattling stopped.  Everything was silent. Sophie went back to the couch. At least the monster was locked in. 

She told the story over breakfast. Mr. Franklin actually put down his paper and looked at  her over the top of his reading glasses. Mrs. Franklin almost burnt the bacon staring at Sophie.  They didn’t say anything at first. Josh had snorted at her, and gotten up to go outside. She sat at  the kitchen table with both of her parents just looking at her. Mr. Franklin finally cleared his  throat. 

 “I don’t want you worrying about that basement,” Mrs. Franklin said, turning back to the  stove. 

“But… why is it locked?” Mr. Franklin barked out a laugh. 

“Why, you could easily break your neck on those steep stairs! I’m just trying to keep you  safe. Don’t want you and your brother getting hurt playing down there.” Sophie looked at the  door a little uneasily. 

“So you’re keeping it locked.” 

“Yes, just to keep you both safe. And that’s the last I want to hear of it,” Mr. Franklin  said finally and picked his paper back up. 

Sophie decided she was going to sleep on the couch again that night. She needed to  know. After dinner, while Mr. and Mrs. Franklin were sitting on the porch, Sophie crept quietly  into the kitchen. She started opening drawers, looking for the key to the basement. No luck. She  ran upstairs to their bedroom and quickly pulled open the wardrobe, then the dresser. She pulled  over a chair to stand on and checked the top shelf in their closet. There was a little box sitting  there. 

“Sophie?” Mrs. Franklin was calling from downstairs. Sophie dashed into the closest  room, Josh’s. He was laying on his bed reading a comic when she came barging through his  door. She shoved the little box at him and told him to hide it, just for a little while. Josh looked at  the box as she started to walk out of the room. Mrs. Franklin was right outside the door. 

“Now where have you been? I thought you were going to come play outside while your  father and I were out there.” Sophie laughed a little nervously. 

“Oh, I was just talking to Josh.” Mrs. Franklin looked doubtful. Josh stood up and came  to the door. 

“Yeah, I was telling her off for taking my baseball bat!” Mrs. Franklin laughed and  ushered Sophie down the hall to the stairs. She looked back at Josh, who was still standing in his  doorway, with a strange look on his face. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Franklin were unusually attentive all evening, they didn’t leave Sophie  alone once, but finally they went to bed. Sophie was sitting on the couch, trying to figure out  how to get the box of keys, when Josh tiptoed down the stairs. 

“Alright, I hid it for you AND I covered for you. Why are you being weird?” He handed  her the box as he sat down next to her. 

“I need to find the key to the basement. There’s something down there and mom and dad  won’t tell.” He stared at her for a minute, trying to decide if she was playing a trick, then nodded.  They went into the kitchen and set the box on the table. They both stared at the door for a  moment. Neither of them wanted to go down there. Neither of them really wanted to meet  whatever was behind that door. But now they had to know. Carefully, they tried each key on the  old lock. It was when the fifth key turned and they heard the lock click that they knew they had done it. Sophie put all of the keys back in the box and they sat down at the table, both of them  facing the door. They sat there for what felt like hours, and then the door rattled terribly and  opened.