Static on the Baby Monitor
horror◐ TeenThe Brubaker house always smells like other people's dinners. Mara has babysat three-year-old Theo eleven times now. Same rules every time: monitor on, door cracked, bed by eight. It's 9:40 and the living room is dark except for the little green screen. Theo is a small white smudge, asleep on his side. Then the screen hisses with static, and when it clears, the smudge is sitting straight up, facing the camera.
Mara taps the screen, sure it glitched. Just a shadow, a trick of the night-light. She flips the monitor over to check the battery, and when she turns it back, Theo is lying down again, perfectly normal. She lets out a breath. Probably nothing. She sits back on the couch with her phone.
What happens next?
2 ways forwardTwenty minutes later the monitor hisses again. Mara looks up. This time Theo is standing in the crib, both hands flat on the camera, his face pressed so close his eyes fill the whole screen. The speaker crackles with one clear word in his small voice: 'Outside.' Then she hears the back door unlock itself.