How to Keep the Monsters Out

How to Keep the Monsters Out

Word Count: 1,760 | Author: Dan | Short Fiction Submission

There are three rules in the house.

Ben recites them every night before bed.

Auggie hums them like a song.

Rule One: Knock three times on the wall.

Rule Two: Whisper your name, so the house knows who to protect.

Rule Three: Leave the milk by the door. Always.

I don’t remember when the ritual started. It just… was.

My mother did it. And her father before her brought it over from Romania. Probably the echo of some prehistoric knocking on a cave wall, trying to keep the dark things where they belong.

“Why milk?” Auggie had asked once.

“Because monsters are lactose intolerant,” I said.

She laughed. That was years ago. Now she just nods and pours, serious as a priest at confession.

I don’t believe in the monsters. Not exactly.

I just believe in keeping things quiet.

Kids like rituals. Rituals provide safety, or at least the illusion of it.

The first knock always sounds too loud.

There is always a moment’s hesitation, like we are waking something up instead of warding it off.

Three knocks. Whisper the name. Leave the milk.

Every night, the same sequence.

A small ritual. Harmless. Safe.

Until last Thursday.

It started with the milk.

Auggie’s cup was empty in the morning.

“Why did you drink it?” I asked.

“No, Daddy. You said never drink it.”

She looked at me like a universal truth had just been revealed as a suggestion. Like gravity. Like a law had been broken.

The kind that doesn’t come from a book, but from before books.

I checked the floor. No spill. No mess.

Just a clean, dry saucer, like something had licked it spotless.

I told myself it was Lulu, the dog.

Except Lulu slept in her crate that night.

And Lulu never licked anything that neatly.

And earlier that night, when I’d knocked, she’d whined low in her throat.

The next night, the milk was gone again.

And the door — the one leading to the hall — was open.

I checked every window, every lock.

Everything was fine. Too fine. Like the air had been siphoned out through a garden hose.

When I bent down, I swore I could smell something sweet.

Wet fur and cinnamon.

Lulu growled softly from the crate. That was new.

“Dad?” Ben said the next morning, pale as chalk.

“There’s someone outside my window.”

I almost said, it’s the tree, kid.

But stopped.

Because there was no tree on that side of the house.

Just the fence.

And behind that — the woods.

A patch of woods where sunlight detours around.

That night, when we did the ritual,

Ben’s voice cracked on his own name.

Auggie dropped her cup. The milk splashed across the floor. It looked like the blood of some nocturnal underground creature we have yet to find.

“It’s okay,” I told them.

But my voice came out too calm. Not one of them believed me.

Then — from the hall — came three soft knocks.

Three knocks with the very same rhythm I have been taught and taught my children.

Three knocks, not so much faint or distant as they were polite.

No, not polite. Insidious. Measured.

It was painfully silent for somewhere between two and 12,000 seconds. There was no way to really know.

Finally, a brief sound that reminded me of a rusty door hinge slowly working itself open.

Klennnnn…

“Audrey…”

It almost sounded far away, or more likely it wanted to sound distant.

“bEn…”

The thin veneer of politeness was gone. The only thing obvious was the whisperer had too many teeth.

The kids either didn’t or refused to hear. And before that changed, I rushed them into bed and speed-read the shortest book on the shelf.

“daNIel…” was whispered out of all their earshot.

I didn’t sleep that night.

I lay on the couch, half-watching the hallway. Waiting for a reason to grab the two of them and speed out of here. Anywhere.

I was jolted out of a half-sleep at 2:37 a.m., when the milk tipped over by itself.

Not fell.

Tipped.

I sat up. The hair on my neck stood so straight I had to push it back down with my palm.

I caught sight of a shadow by the door. It wasn’t moving, but it was less still than it should’ve been.

I whispered, throat so dry and tongue three sizes too big, “Who’s there?”

And the dark whispered back, “Who’s there?”

That voice didn’t mimic me right.

I turned on every light in the house. Left them burning like sentries until dawn.

The next morning, Auggie complained her cereal tasted like metal.

Ben stared at his milk, untouched.

Lulu whined and refused to go near the door.

When I checked the locks again, I saw it:

Three small indentations in the wood.

Not scratches. Not nails.

Knocks.

I pressed my ear against the door.

Nothing.

But behind the silence, there was something that wasn’t quite nothing.

Like listening to a seashell full of hunger.

That evening I texted my mother.

“Hey, random question. Did we do that milk thing when I was a kid?”

She took an hour to reply.

“Stop doing it.”

I called immediately. Straight to voicemail.

She never ignores calls. She once answered during a root canal.

I didn’t like that.

When she finally picked up, her voice sounded… doubled.

Like something else was humming with her. A beat behind.

The knocks came again.

Three. Soft. Gentle.

Like they didn’t want to scare me.

Then:

“Ben. Auggie. Daddy.”

Not whispered this time.

Spoken.

Like someone learning to use a mouth that wasn’t theirs.

I ran to the door. Yanked it open.

Nothing. Just the hallway. The air smelled like rain and old pennies.

But the milk was gone again.

I didn’t tell the kids what happened. I tried to keep the day normal.

Breakfast. School drop-off. Dishes. Pretending everything’s fine.

Pretending is 80% of parenting.

That night, though, something changed.

Ben refused to do the ritual.

“It doesn’t help,” he said. “It’s not protecting us. It’s feeding it.”

Auggie started crying.

I didn’t know what to say, so I did what my father did when he didn’t have answers — I lied.

“It’s just superstition.”

But superstition doesn’t leave scratches in the milk glass.

Later, I dreamed of the woods.

Dead trees. All had fallen away from where I stood.

A circle of energy rippled out from the center, bending trees for miles.

Something moved. Not walking — unfolding.

It wore my face. And my father’s. And something older, something that remembered firelight and stone walls.

It took two strides and was nose to nose with me.

I reached out. My hand felt nothing but cold. And the world went soft and wrong.

I woke to the smell of cinnamon and wet fur.

The hallway light was off. I hadn’t turned it off.

I walked toward the door, slow, deliberate.

Every step felt like pushing through syrup.

There were footprints. Small. Bare.

Except they weren’t exactly human. Too many toes. The spacing wrong. Like something trying to remember how feet work.

One set leading to the door.

A second set leading back inside.

And beside the door, a new message scrawled in milk-white letters:

WHO DO I PROTECT NOW?

The smell lingered for hours.

Cinnamon. Wet fur. Burnt sugar.

When I went to check on the kids, Ben’s bed was empty.

So was Auggie’s.

The window was open.

And from the woods came three loud knocks.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The same rhythm I’d taught them every night.